Archives-December 

According to market statistics, the global functional food and nutraceutical market is growing industry, fuelled by consumer demand and advances in science as foods are now being examined intensively for added physiological benefits, which may reduce chronic disease risk or otherwise optimize health. It is these research efforts that have led to the global interest in the growing food category now recognised as functional foods. Nutraceuticals is the most active area of research in nutrition sciences today. There is renewed interest on traditional and indigenous health products and virgin coconut oil is a potent one as a nutraceutical. Focus on the benefits of virgin coconut oil in the present study from different studies will be useful to researchers in the fields of pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and cosmetics.

The advent of ERP Systems, marked a new beginning in the Information Systems arena. It has brought about in reality the much sought after idea of providing competitive edge to organizations with the help of Information Systems. Though worldwide, several companies have extended their ERP systems to cover the entire supply chain, most of the Indian companies are still lagging behind. The research work carried out, was a Case Study based research work where a comparison and analysis of 10 cases was carried out in such organizations where ERP has been implemented. The basic objective of the study was to compare ERP implementation projects of ten successful companies and find critical issues related to various Pre-implementation, Implementation and Post implementation phases. The role of Information Systems in effective management of organizations has been since a long time. From merely crunching numbers, to helping taking strategic decisions, Information Systems have come a long way today. Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, a term coined by Gartner Research firm in the beginning of 1990s, was one such IS application that marked the beginning of a new age of enterprise wide computing.

This paper presents a comparative study on the important parameter of the ionosphere critical frequency of F2 layer (foF2) retrieved by means of ground based ionosonde radars and predicted by International Reference Ionosphere extended till plasma sphere (IRIPLAS-2011) model at two different locations including Northern Sumatra (Geographic Lat. 2.311°N,Geographic Long. 93.063°E) and Fox Island, Alaska (Geographic Lat. 52.008°N, Geographic Long.171.859°W) in the low and mid latitude during the earthquakes occurred in the years 2012 and 2011, respectively. A running median of the fof2 and linked inter quartile range (IQR), upper bound (UB) and lower bound (LB) are utilized as a reference for identifying abnormal signals during the earthquakes. The results show anomalous reductions and enhancements in the fof2 within 7 days before and after the earthquakes. A comparative study between ionosonde retrieved and IRIPLAS-2011 model derived foF2 values reveals that the ionosonde retrieved values exhibit better anomalies during both the events. The analysis during extreme quiet geophysical conditions is shown to be a useful indicator of a forthcoming earthquake.

Expired drug (non-toxic characteristics) was used as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in 1 M HCl medium was studied by weight loss and electrochemical methods. Effect of temperature was investigated at temperature range (303-343 K).The obtained results reveals that, the inhibition efficiency increases with increases of concentration of the inhibitor. Polarization curves indicated that they are mixed – type of inhibitor. The data collected from Thermodynamic studied are in good agreement to confirm the ability of using expired LF drug acts as corrosion inhibitors for mild steel in hydrochloric acid corrosive medium.

Cryptococcus is an encapsulated yeast, ubiquitous in nature. The concept of using differential media for isolating specific fungal pathogens is not new. The present study reveals that all plant based media are found to be supporting the confluent growth of Cryptococcus neoformans, Lowsonia inermis (Henna) leaf based media, Brassica campestris (Mustard) seed based media and Rhus cotinus (Smoke tree) leaf based media exhibits appreciable brown color effect (BCE) which makes them a good option as selective media for Cryptococcus neoformans. Not only plant based agar media, the plant based broths also supported confluent growth of this organism. This is perhaps the first report. Thus, these plant based media are selective, simple to prepare and economical to use and offers a novel alternative for currently available synthetic media.

The use of fossil fuels as energy is now broadly accepted as unsustainable due to depleting resources and also due to the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the environment. To resolve this problem use of renewable energy is now in focus, renewable energy plays a crucial role in dealing with energy security, eco-friendliness and climate change issues at global and national level. Renewable energy continued to grow strongly in 2012 in both OECD and non-OECD countries. This paper reviews the global growth of renewable energy and present renewable energy status in India, with the main focus on algal biofuel and its future prospects in India.

The objective of the present study is to give a review on heat transfer characteristics of fluids in curved and straight tubes for various parameters and under different experimental conditions. The heat transfer can be increased by two techniques mainly like application of external forces or by modification in surface geometry of the fluid passages. Surface geometry modifications like bending of straight tubes into curved coils are effective and efficient method of heat transfer enhancement. In this paper, various correlations proposed based on experimental heat transfer data by earlier investigators are presented to support the enhancement in overall heat transfer coefficient in curved tube and in straight tube heat exchangers. However, comparison of experimental overall heat transfer coefficient in helical coil and straight tube heat exchangers are found to be limited in the present literature.

The current study contended with studying explicitation phenomenon in a Farsi-English corpus. For doing so, five anecdotes selected at random from Sa'di's Golestan and their English translations extorted from "Sadi's Gulistan or Flower Garden" by James Ross (1890) were analyzed. In view of that, the researchers went through the anecdotes and their translations to extort the explicitation cases occurred through the procedure of translation. The result of the study showed explicitation has been used in the translations.

Power electronic devices are non-linear loads that create harmonic distortion and can be susceptible to voltage dips if not adequately protected. The non linear nature of these switching devices causes harmonic current injection into the ac mains; there by polluting the power quality (PQ) at the point of common coupling (PCC).This power quality (PQ) improvement is achieved by using multi-pulse converters in THREE-PHASE ac-dc converters (ADCs).The proposed multi-pulse ac-dc converter is based on autotransformer configurations and passive tuned filters. The proposed ac–dc converter is able to eliminate lower order harmonics in the ac supply current. The resulting supply current is near sinusoidal in shape with low total harmonic distortion and a nearly unity power factor. The proposed multi-pulse ac-dc converter is designed and the simulation model is developed in MATLAB. It improves the power quality at the ac mains and meets IEEE-519 standard requirements at varying loads.

Background: Diabetes mellitus is important risk factors for some disorders such as nephropathy, retinopathy, neuropathy and cardiovascular diseases that its prevalence is increasing in human society. Herbal medicine is the oldest kind of diseases cure has recognized. However, rational prescription of effective medicinal plants for diabetes cure requires precise information of action mechanism of these plants. Purpose of our project is investigation of Cornus mas effects on blood biochemical parameters in alloxan-induced diabetic rats. Methods: In present study, 40 male rats divided in 4 groups. Group 1(normal group) was treated by saline. Group 2(diabetic control) was treated by alloxan monohydrate (120 mg/kg, i.p). Group 3(extract group) diabetic rats that received hydro-alcoholic extract of C.mas(100mg /kg, i.p). Group 4(glibenclamide group) diabetic rats that received glibenclamide(500mcg /kg, i.p). After 72 hours, the animals were anesthetized and the blood was collected into a tube, then, levels of serum glucose, lipoproteins (HDL, LDL, and VLDL), triglycerides, and total cholesterol were evaluated by enzymatic kits. Results: The results showed significant reduction of glucose, triglyceride, VLDL and LDL levels in group 3 in comparison with group 2(P<0.001). Glucose and LDL reduction by C.mas are similar to glibenclamide and TG, VLDL reduction by C.mas are more than glibenclamide. C.mas also could increase HDL levels significantly in comparison with group 2(P<0.001) that this effect is similar to glibenclamide effect on HDL. Conclusion: According to the results, C.mas can be use in diabetics in order to glucose and lipid reduction, nevertheless, requires more researches.