Archives-December 

We are very happy to announce that from 30th November 2016, Mr. Muthu Manokar has joined the team of Elixir Editorial Advisory Board. He/She will carry a special responsibility for dealing with manuscripts based on Mechanical Engineering. Mr. Muthu Manokar working as Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dhaanish Ahmed College of Engineering, Chennai, India. The appointment of Mr. Muthu Manokar as member Editorial Advisory Board strengthens the links and will make it easier for prospective authors to establish contact with the journal.

Handwritten signatures are considered as the most natural method of authenticating a person’s identity. Human signatures can be handled as an image and used in a scanned document is a promising facility for many banking and insurance related business activities. The signatures of the same person vary with time, age of the person and also because of the emotional state of a person. This paper present an off-line human signature recognition system based on histogram analysis. The main steps of constructing a signature recognition system are discussed and experiments on the values of cumulative distribution function (CDF). The off-line signature recognition and verification is implemented using MATLAB.

In service based systems, QoS are the basic construct that aims to facilitate the quality and usability of service based system. Service based systems takes a very long time to get the result under workload, of quality evaluation when dealing with a workflow with several thousand services and multiple parameters. To address this need, we introduce a tool-supported framework for the development and to improve the evaluation performance of QoS by optimizing the QoS requirements. OQoSE approach develops adaptable service based systems which increases the evaluation result of QoS efficiently. OQoSE method which used to review every service and parameter time then it is used to discover the probabilities that are adaptable under various services with multiple parameters.

Twenty five ditch cutting samples from southwest Niger Delta basin were analysed to determine the palynostratigraphic studies. The samples contained very rich and diverse palynomorphs dominated by pollen grains which consist of 12 species distributed among ten genera. Pollen preservation is good with concentration ranging from 1,640 to 34,900 grains/g. The stratigraphic ranges of Circulina parva, Monoporites annulatus, Psilatricolporites operculatus, Multiareolites formosus, Zonocostites ramonae, Podocarpus milanjianus, Echitricolporites spinosus, Retibrevitricolporites obodoensis, R. protrudens and Retitricolpites bendensis and some other marker species were used to demarcate nine palynozones in the study area. These palynomorphs are mainly made up of mangrove swamp floras which suggest the predominance of a high sea level and wet climatic condition in Miocene-Pliocene during the deposition of the studied sediments.

This study assessed Farmers’ Perception and Attitudes towards Organic Agricultural Practices in Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. The study employed purposive and multistage random sampling procedures in the selection of one hundred and twenty (120) respondents. Primary data were collected through field survey with the aid of a well-structured questionnaire and interview schedule. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed in data analysis; which was done according to the specific objectives of the study. Results showed that the major vegetable crops grown in the study area were pumpkin (100%), eggplant (75%) and plantain (50%) among others. Further analysis revealed fellow farmers (82%), radio (74%) and Farmers’ Associations (67%) as major sources of information on organic vegetable farming to the rural farmers. The result further revealed that the respondents have good knowledge about organic farming as shown by their positive perceptions about it. Multiple regression analysis was used to establish the relationship between the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers and the number of sources of information on organic farming. A high R2 of (76%) was obtained. Most of the independent variables were statistically significant and met a priori expectations. The result of factor analysis identified: financial, institutional and environmental factors as constraints to organic vegetable farming in the area. It was concluded that farmers in the study area had favorable perception towards organic farming with moderate knowledge of its benefits. Recommendations such as encouraging youths to get involved in organic vegetable farming, better enlightenments and sensitization of the entire area on the beneficial effects of organic farming were made, among others.

The search for more effective hypoglycaemic agents continues to be an area of research interest. World Health Organization recommended the use of alternative therapy especially in countries including, Nigeria, where access to conventional treatments of diabetes is inadequate. Majority of people in Abeokuta were majorly peasant farmers and petty traders who could not afford high cost of pharmaceutical remedies of diabetes which is very rampant as a result of poor feeding pattern. However, naturally endowed plants such as Hibiscus sabdariffa are found everywhere, parts of which are taken as vegetables without putting into consideration its hypoglycemic advantages. However, this study could assist in providing some information needed for the health improvement of the rural populace (Abeokuta) as regards diabetes. Combination of 300g M. lucida + 100g A.sativum+l00g Z. officinale produced the best hypoglycaemic effect (69.85%) in alloxan-induced diabetic rats.

In this research toward optimizing resource allocation, an innovative learning algorithm will used to select and optimize portfolio in Tehran Stock Exchange. A new method was proposed based on the combination of ICA (Imperial Competitive Algorithm) and GA (Genetic Algorithm) which improves the convergence speed and accuracy of the optimization results.. The obtained results show that compared with the previous method, the proposed algorithms are at least 32% faster in optimization processes; also the variance convergence speed is smaller than the ICA and GA.

Co_0.5Mn_0.25Zn_0.25Fe₂O₄ nanoparticles of average size of 61 nm were prepared by chemical co-precipitation method which could be used for ferrofluid preparation. The composition is characterized by X-ray diffraction technique (XRD). XRD study shows formation of single phase homogeneous compound with cubic structure. The crystal size was calculated from XRD data by using Scherrer equation and is confirmed by SEM, which reveals the formation of nanocrystalline ferrite. The dielectric constant and dielectric loss dependence on doping level and frequency at room temperature were described in detail. The leakage current properties of Co_0.5Mn_0.25Zn_0.25Fe₂O₄ nanoparticles were also discussed.

In this research, immunoaffinity chromatography was used to purify factor VII from prothrombin complex (PPSB), which contains coagulation factors II, VII, IX and X. For this purpose DEAE-Sephadex and CNBr-activated Sepharose 4B gels were used. Specific activity of factor VII concentrate increased from 0.16 to 55.6 with purification-fold of 347.5 and the amount of activated factor VII (FVIIa) was found higher than PPSB (4.4-fold). Results of electrophoresis on agarose gel indicated higher purity of FVII compared to PPSB and these finding revealed that factor VII migrated as alpha-2 proteins. In order to improve viral safety, solvent-detergent treatment was applied prior to further purification and elimination of tween 80 was nearly complete (2 ?g/ml). Factor VII concentrate is used for patients with factor VII deficiency and also for hemophilia patients with inhibitors.

This study was conducted to investigate the relationship between job challenge and the experience of burnout among four groups of health workers in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria. One hundred and forty health workers were selected through purposive sampling from the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital. The sample consists of 16 pharmacists, 30 health assistants, 36 doctors and 58 nurses. Perceived Job challenge Measure and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) were the instruments used for the study. Four hypotheses were tested using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. Results from this study revealed that there was a significant relationship between job challenge and burnout among health workers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Also, positive stimulation, a component of job challenge had a positive relationship with burnout. Competence testing, another component of job challenge was found to be significantly related to dehumanisation and global burnout. While there was no relationship found between the uncertainty, the last component of job challenge and burnout. Findings were discussed in the light of previous literature on job challenge and burnout and appropriate recommendations were made.