Archives-December 

Honey has been used as a bio monitor to determine environmental quality in the environments which are polluted by heavy metals, radioactivity and pesticides. The study sought to determine the levels of some heavy metals (Cd, Cr, Ni, Zn, Cu, Pb, As, and Mn) in honey and assess their potential health risk to consumers. Samples of honey were harvested from within 5km of the Tamale Metropolis of Ghana. A known weight (5g) of honey samples were digested using an oxi-acidic mixture of HNO3/H2O2 and filtered into a 50ml volumetric flask. The contents of the minerals in the digests were analyzed using atomic absorption spectrometer (AAS). The analysis revealed that the concentrations of lead (79.815 ± 16.796 mg/Kg), nickel (15.785 ± 10.968 mg/Kg), copper (13.855 ± 10.213 mg/Kg) and manganese (8.215 ± 4.452 mg/Kg) in the samples exceeded the FAO/WHO maximum permissible limits. The elevated levels of these metals may be evidence of possible pollution agents (vehicular and industrial emissions, pollution of farm soils and pockets of water) in the study area. The Health Risk assessment (THQ< 1) showed no significant public health risk to consumers. However, we recommend regular monitoring of heavy metals from the natural environment of Tamale to mitigate possible future threats to public health.

Education is one of very important component of development. Progress of any country principally reflects with literacy level of the population. The Government of India has assigned high priority to the education sector not only to achieve the Univerlisation of Elementary Education by 2010 but also to improve the quality of education at all levels. Some of the initiatives such as District Primary Education Programme (1994), the Mid Day Meal Scheme (1995) and the Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (2001) have led some positive impact in elementary education, specifically in rural areas. But most of the work or research carried out for primary school education and educationist or researchers concentrated on primary education only. Therefore it is an attempt a look out to the development of upper primary school education in India.

Magnesium oxide (MgO) nanoparticles were synthesized through chemical coprecipitation followed by thermal treatment. Structural, optical and luminescence properties along with dielectric properties were studied and relaxation mechanisms were explored. The structural characterization studies confirmed the formation of nano sized MgO particles with hierarchical structures and high purity. The dielectric properties were studied in different frequency range at different temperatures. In addition, the Cole –Cole plot are used to explore the relaxation mechanism prevalent in nanostructured MgO. In dielectric materials there are multiple dipole relaxation mechanisms which give rises to spreading of relaxation time on the average relaxation time.

Current scenario in healthcare sector in Uttarakhand is disappointing. Public health service run by Government is overburdened and collapsing. Hilly geographical size, increase population density, lack of transport, inaccessibility, illiteracy, poverty, poor nutritional status, diversity in food habit and life style are various impediments. Government priorities for providing health service to rural areas is yet to be fulfilled. At this stage low budget from state for health, lack of funds and coordination have triggered down trend in health services in rural and hilly areas. As medical science is fast developing and information resource is pouring in, there is urgent need for dissemination knowledge by interlinking primary, secondary and tertiary level health centers using the ICT and e-Governance applications. This will help health personal to deliver high quality services. IT giants are experimenting for e-Governance application in health sector both in Government and private hospitals, This paper reviews use of e-Governance through ICT applications at National Level and also in Uttarakhand province. It presents facts on tele-medicine, tele-referal services and health information dissemination by Video conferencing, Some suggested services using ICT in healthcare are explained in this paper also. Use of Mobile phone to communicate health related alerts using SMS services in rural areas suggested here in this paper.

For any graph , the lict graph of a graph is the graph whose vertex set is the union of the set of edges and set of cut vertices of in which two vertices are adjacent if and only if corresponding members are adjacent or incident .A set of edges in a graph is called edge dominating set of if every edge in is adjacent to atleast one edge in ,denoted as and is the minimum cardinality of edge dominating set in . In this paper, many bounds on were obtained in terms of vertices , edges and other different parameters of but not in terms of elements of . Further we develop its relation with other different domination parameters.

A computational study on performance and emission characteristics of single cylinder, four stroke SI engine operating on ethanol-gasoline blends was carried out on AVL BOOST at different compression ratios. In this paper Vibe two zone model was selected for the study of combustion analysis and simulation were carried out for different blends of ethanol and gasoline i.e. from 0% to 30% of ethanol by volume with the increment of 10. The computational results show that gasoline fuel produces more power and torque than E10, E20 and E30. Whereas there is a considerable decrease in the emission of HC and CO but NOX increases with increase in ethanol content.

This study investigated the effectiveness of Free Primary Education (FPE) as one of the integrated education management strategies (IEMS) on enrolment aspect of pupils’ participation in public primary schools of Kakamega County, Kenya. The study conformed to the 8-4-4 system of education in 3 phases: pre-FPE Phase( 1995 – 2002), First-FPE Phase(2003-2010) and Second-FPE Phase (2011- 2018). A sample size of 82 schools representing 30% of Public Primary Schools was purposively sampled from 273 schools in four selected sub-counties: Lurambi(20), Shinyalu(24), Mumias East(18) and Navakholo (20). The research found that FPE policy had positive impact on retention of pupils in school.

The Study of heavy metal was carried out at mechanic village along Abeokuta-Ibadan Expressway for the presence of heavy metal and uptake efficiency of plant species as a means of phytoremediation. The concentrations of heavy metals determined from the soil of the mechanic village and compared to a control farmland located as Federal University of Agriculture. The soil sample collected at the base of different species of tree showed that the heavy metals were below permissible levels (FAO/WHO standard) and show no significant difference in the range of mean. Absorption of heavy metals by the bark of the trees in the mechanic village was evident when compared relatively to the presence and uptake of the heavy metals from the soil by tree in the average farmland. The mean concentrations of the heavy metals in the soil of the farmland are in this order of magnitude Cd>Cu>Pb, while the mean concentration of the heavy metals in the soil of the mechanic village are in the order of magnitude Pb>Cu>Cd. Lead has the least concentration in the farmland, while in the mechanic village, it is the predominant heavy metal detected which also shows greater significant different at p<0.05 with a value of 24.34 mg/kg which indicates area of high mechanic activity. While the concentration values of heavy metals in the barks in comparison to the FAO/WHO and EC/CODEX standard for these heavy metals shows that the concentration of the heavy metals in those vicinities is within the normal range for cadmium and copper, but the lead present is above the WHO/FAO standard at 0.299 mg/kg and close to the EC/CODEX standard. It can also be concluded that the uptake efficiency of heavy metal under study of the three species are in the order magnitude Mango>Cashew>Neem. We can also recommend that for better efficient cleanup especially where an area is polluted with copper, mango is best bet for the uptake of such metal while if an equal proportion all many heavy metals are evident then it will be better to use Neem as a phytoremediating plant.

This work aims to evaluate the effects of current density and plating time on the corrosion resistance of ZnNiSiO2 electroplated coating. For the plating time, the results showed that coating thickness increased with increasing the plating time. The average thickness was 6, 15 and 25 µm, when used plating time of 10, 30 and 50 minutes, respectively.Whereas, when the current density values varied from 1 A/dm2 to 5 A/dm2, the coating thickness was in range of 14.7 - 15.3 µm, with the same plating times. After 900 hours of exposure to salt spray, the surface appearance of coatings indicated that the plating time of 30 minutes provided the highest corrosion resistance. These data were coherent with the findings from polarization curve measurement.

The biological effectiveness of jute bags impregnated with Eucalyptus camaldulensis essential oils, Cymbopogon citratus, and vegetable oil of Azadirachta indica was evaluated on the adults of Callosobruchus maculatus of cowpea and the molds of the genus Aspergilus and Penicillium, in post-harvest conservation conditions. The results reveal that the jute bags tested have significant insecticidal and antimicrobial activity on Callosobruchus maculatus adults, when the dose and exposure time increase from 0 to 2% for 26 weeks.