September 2008
Sustainable agricultural for a community in a nature reserve on the Maputaland coast of South Africa
This paper reports on strategies for sustainable agriculture that improve socio-economic conditions of a community whilst also promoting nature conservation in a World Heritage site. Local communities can play a key role in developing such strategies, particularly if their immediate needs are met in ways that do not compromise the ecological carrying capacity. This paper discusses agriculture as a sustainable...
September 2008
On the interval hull of solution sets of parametrised nonlinear equations
The paper considers bounding sets of solutions to parametrised nonlinear equations with coefficients subject to uncertainties. Of particular interest is the set theoretic co-multiplication of two intervals expressed in the form mid point-radius intervals. An improvement of formulae of higher order for disk inversion as afforded by Carstensen and Petkovic (1994) is employed to facilitate our computation using...
September 2008
Bioassay of five trichoderma strains against Phytophthora megakarya (Cacao pod-rot) in Nigeria
Bioassay of five Trichoderma strains isolated from Cocoa ecological zones of Nigeria was carried out at Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria. In the in vitroassessment the pathogen and antagonists were paired on potato dextrose agar (PDA) contained in 90 mm Petri dishes, while the effect of antagonists on the mycelial growth of the pathogen was determined for 120 h. The percentage disease...
September 2008
Harnessing farmer associations as channels for enhanced management of cocoa holdings in Ghana
Cocoa remains the mainstay of the Ghanaian economy accounting for 40% of agricultural exports and 12% of gross domestic product (GDP) and is the main source of livelihood of over 400,000 farm-families. Whilst productivity has picked up in 2000, it remains low compared to Ghana’s competitors such as Cote d’Ivoire and Brazil. The low productivity is attributed to a myriad of constraints...
September 2008
Effect of some organic wastes on the biogas yield from carbonated soft drink sludge
Biogas, a relatively cheap energy source, was produced from carbonated soft drink sludge (CS) and its blends. The carbonated soft drink sludge was blended with organic wastes such as palm oil sludge (POS), soybean cake waste (SW), powdered rice husk (RH) and pig dung (PD). The wastes were combined in the ratios of CS:POS (1.2:1), CS:SW (2.6:1), CS:RH (1.2:3) and CS:PD (1: 1.8). They were subjected to...
September 2008
Toxicological assessment on extracts of Phyllanthus amarus Schum and Thonn
Phyllanthus amarus is used in traditional medicine to treat diabetes. The purpose of this study is to evaluate its toxicity. The cytotoxicity of its aqueous extracts (AE) and hydroalcoholic extracts (HAE) on Caco-2 cells was evaluated using neutral red uptake and MTT test. Aqueous extract was more cytotoxic than hydroalcoholic extract (IC50 being 89.6 µg/ml versus 277 µg/ml). Acute and sub...
September 2008
Screening rice (Oryza sativa L.) varieties for resistance to rice yellow mottle virus
Rice yellow mottle virus (RYMV) is the most important virus disease of rice in Africa. It is spread all over Côte d’Ivoire and is responsible of large production losses. Until now, control measures of the disease are based on the exploitation of natural resistance sources. Thirty nine (39) rice varieties (14 irrigated and 25 rain fed) from NCAR (National Center of...
September 2008
Baseline Salmonella agglutinin titres in apparently healthy freshmen in Awka, South Eastern, Nigeria
This study reports the prevalence of typhoid fever caused by Salmonella typhibetween genders. It further establishes the Salmonella titres that are not diagnostically significant but normal in the study population and the titre that could be used as presumptively diagnostic of typhoid fever. Blood samples were collected from 200 subjects; 82 males and 118 females; and examined for the presence...
September 2008
Parametric study of pressure increase across a compressor in ethanol-water vapour recompression distillation column
Heat pumping has been used in reducing energy consumption in distillation columns. However, the effects of some parameters have not been taken into consideration in the determination of energy consumption in such systems. The consideration of these parameters may give more insight into the performance of such systems. The purpose of this study was to develop a thermodynamic simulation model for comparing two...
September 2008
Soil resources distribution, woody plant properties and land use in a lunette dune-pan system in Kalahari, Botswana
The distribution of selected soil properties, selected woody vegetation properties, and land use in a lunette dune-pan system were investigated in the Sekoma area, which is located within the IGBP Kalahari Transect (KT) in Botswana. KT was established by the IGBP for studies focusing on both regional and global environmental changes. The study showed that the lunette dune-pan system exhibited substantial...
September 2008
Age prevalence of uterine fibroids in South-Southern Nigeria: A retrospective study
Analysis of clinical records of eight hundred and ninety-six (896) patients within 2000 – 2007 presenting with uterine fibroid tumours was carried out. The records were obtained from the Gynaecology Clinics of the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) and The Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH) both in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. A frequency distribution (Table 1)...
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