Archives-December 

Ions concentration of seventeen wheat cultivars (Triticum aestivum L.) in NaCl salinity (16 dS m-1 and two weeks exposure) was assessed to evaluate the ability of these traits in salt screening. There was an increase in Na+ concentration and decrease in K+ concentration in salinity stress compared to control condition in shoot parts. Even thought, there was a clear relation between salt tolerance or salt sensitivity and Na+ concentration in shoot plant. It seems that the increase in concentration of Na+ concentration can be criteria to distinct salt tolerance in the shoot of early wheat plant. Therefore Na exclusion measurement can be applied with other trait such as yield and yield components to screen wheat cultivars in salinity condition.

The reaction between 5-(4-phenyl carbonyl methyl amino) 8-hydroxyquinoline(PHQ) and melic anhydride afforded heteronuclear bisligand namely 4-(4-(2-(8-hydroxyquinolin-5-ylamino)acetyl)phenylamino)-4-oxobut-2-enoic acid(CMHQ). The bisligand was designated as CMHQ and its co-ordination polymers with Cu+2, Zn+2, Co+2, Mn+2and Ni+2 metal ions were prepared. The co-ordination polymers and parent ligand were characterized by elemental analysis, IR, NMR spectral studies, thermogravimetry, number-average molecular weights ( ), diffuse reflectance spectral studies and magnetic susceptibilities. All co-ordination polymers and parent ligand were also monitored for microbicidal activity.

Double-diffusive natural convection in a square cavity is numerically analyzed using velocity-vorticity form of Navier-Stokes equations. The governing equations consist of vorticity transport equation, velocity Poisson equations, energy and solutal concentration equations. Galerkin’s weighted residual finite element method is employed to solve the coupled governing equations through isoparametric formulation. Numerical predictions of vorticity, velocities, temperature and solutal concentration are computed using an iterative algorithm in order to resolve the coupling between the governing equations. The capability of the velocity-vorticity formulation is demonstrated by a detailed study on the variation of Nusselt and Sherwood numbers for a wide range of the characteristic parameters.  Our simulation results show that at high Lewis number, the average Nusselt number decreases and the average Sherwood number increases with increase in buoyancy ratio. 

The numerical studies are performed to examine the Micropolar fluid flow past an infinite vertical plate. Finite difference technique is used as a tool for the numerical approach. The micropolar fluid behaviour on two- dimensional unsteady flow have been considered and its nonsimilar solution have been obtained. Nonsimilar equations of the corresponding momentum, angular momentum and continuity equations are derived by employing the usual transformation. The dimensionless nonsimilar equations for momentum, angular momentum and continuity equations are solved numerically by finite difference technique. The effects on the velocity, micro rotation and the spin gradient viscosity of the various important parameters entering into the problem separately are discussed with the help of graphs.

Consumers are deeply concerned about how their health care is managed, administered and priced. They are frustrated with the expensive, high-tech disease treatment approach predominantly in modern medicine. Positioned at the interface between food and drugs, a growing body of products is assuming importance; the consumer is now looking for complementary or alternative beneficial products and that’s why nowadays they are using nutraceuticals. Increasingly, they are using natural dietary supplements and other forms of nutraceuticals as part of a tremendous surge to have physiological benefits or to provide protection against diseases. Functional foods and nutraceutical products represent a value added growth opportunity both domestically and internationally. Development of better characterized and research proven products will help enhance consumer confidence in nutraceutical and functional food products in the world. This article briefly discusses about the basic information about the nutraceuticals and its importance.

The challenge to feed the increasing world’s population with nutritionally balanced food is enormous hence determining the nutritional value of food is highly valuable in order to ensure the status of food. In our study, we determined the carbohydrate, protein, lipid, ash, fibre, energy and moisture content of Colocynthis citrullus and Sesanum indicum consumed in Nigeria, particularly in Nasarawa State. The Na, K, Ca, Mg, P, Zn, Fe, Cr, Cd, Pb and Cu contents of the two samples were also determined. High contents of carbohydrate, proteins and fat of 11.89, 27.67, and 52.48%; and 12.58, 24.92 and 49.44% were found in Colocynthis citrullus and Sesanum indicum respectively. The mineral contents of the two seeds showed a relatively high content of some of the minerals.

In this study, a comparison of performance among four different methods (Probability Weighted Moments (PWM), Maximum Likelihood Methods (MLM), the Methods of Moments (MOM), and the least Square Method (LSM)) of estimating the parameters of the Weibull distribution was done, using different values of ? and ?. This study contains two different experiments; experiment I and experiment II. Values of ? > ?, ? < ?, ? = ? were used in experiment I, and another varied values of ? < ?, ? < ?, ? = ? in line with some modeled distribution of the Weibull distribution, were used in experiment II. These values were generated by simulation. The aim is to find the best methods of estimating the two-parameter Weibull distribution. Based on the sample sizes and parameters considered, the method which gave the best estimate for the two-parameter Weibull distribution, is the method of Moments (MOM), taking into consideration the total deviation as a measurement for comparison. This study will help to estimate parameters associated with various models of a component or system such as reliability problems, maintainability and predictions such as MTTF, MTTFF, MTTR, MTBF, Hazard Rate etc.

Practical transceivers have hardware impairments, which may affect the data rate of a system. In this paper, two way relaying with hardware losses is considered and is different from previous methods, which considers only ideal hardware case. Here both hops are subjected to independent and non-identical distributed nakagami-m fading variants with Amplify-and-Forward (AF) protocol and Decode-and-forward (DF) protocol. Hardware impairments are calculated at source, relay and destination. The outage probability is calculated with a function effective end-to-end signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR). In a similar way ergodic capacity also achieved. For low SNR values losses will be less but substantial. And for high SNR values losses will increase without bounds. But for SNDR case, increasing SNR makes some constant value of threshold, which is inversely proportional to the SNDR, called SNDR ceiling. Finally, this paper suggests the design guidelines for selecting hardware equipment to overcome hardware impairments with maximum extent.

The phenotypic correlations among egg weight, external and internal egg quality traits of two commercial egg type chickens, Isa brown and Harco black chickens were determined. A total number of 200 point of lay hens of 100 each of Isa brown and Harco black were used for the study. Data were collected on egg weight, egg length, egg content, shell weight, shell thickness, yolk weight, albumen height, albumen weight, yolk height, yolk length and yolk colour, from 960 eggs consisting 40 each of the strain analyzed on weekly bases for 12 weeks. Results shows a significant (P<0.05) effect between the measured parameters and the two strain of hens. Isa brown eggs had higher values of egg length (54.12mm), egg content (45.48g), shell weight (4.68g) and albumen length (5.75mm) than its counterpart Harco black eggs. The association between egg weight and other egg biometrical traits were found to be positive and very highly significant (r = 0.31- 0.80; p<0.0001) while other egg parameters were either positively or inversely correlated with each other for Isa brown strain. The relationship between egg weight and other egg biometrical traits were found to be very highly significant (p<0.0001; r = 0.73) while other egg variables were also either positively or inversely correlated with each other for Harco black strain .It can be concluded that Isa brown hens eggs was better than Harco black hens in respect to egg length, egg content, shell weight and albumen length while the phenotypic correlation coefficient results can be used in selection criteria. 

We are very happy to announce that from 31st October 2017, Prof. Massoud Kaykhaii has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He/She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Analytical Chemistry. Prof. Massoud Kaykhaii working as professor of analytical chemistry, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran. The appointment of Prof. Massoud Kaykhaii as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal. Please send any expressions of interest to elixirpublishers@gmail.com.