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Shea butter contributes minimally to edible fat supply due to variations in product quality, low yield and acceptability. Research reports have not related these to processing methods which vary from place to place. Effect of heat treatment methods on yield, sensory quality and some properties of manually extracted shea butters from fried, toasted, boiled and parboiled sheanuts pastes were evaluated using standard methods. Yield, sensory attributes and characteristics of shea butter from same sheanuts varied depending on method of heat treatment. Fried sheanuts had highest % shea butter yield (40.80±0.84) and saponification value (197.14±0.03). Boiled sheanuts butter was organoleptically preferred.

The effect of DOP plasticizer percentage on limiting oxygen index and thermal stability of plasticised PVC was investigated in this paper. DOP was added PVC with various quantities (20, 30, and 50) pphr. LOI and thermal stability instruments used for estimating LOI and thermal stability of plasticised PVC as a function to DOP percentage. The results showed that the thermal stability of plasticised PVC was improved by increasing DOP percentage, but in the same time has a reverse behavior where the LOI decreases as the DOP percentage increases.

A study was carried out at the Toxicology laboratory of the Department of Crop and Environmental protection, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomoso, to determine the effects of powdered castor oil seed (Ricinus communisL.Euphorbiaceae) on kidney, liver, spleen of albino rats. The rats were in five groups, which were replicated three (3) times. The castor oil seed was turned to powdery form using pestle and mortal. Four feed formulations were used;powdered castor oil seed and commercial rat feed mixed in ratio 1:1,1:2,1:5, 1:10and ordinary commercial rat feed, which serves as the control.These formulations were given to four separate groups of rats for a period of three days.Thebehaviour of the rats was monitored over the three day period. The histology of the kidney, liver andspleen which was initially preserved in formalin was later analysed.Compared with the control the hemorrhagic and necrotic tissues in rats administered with ratio 1:10 and ratio 1:5 showed mild disruption. In ratio 1:2 fed group, hemorrhagic and necrotic tissues showed complete disruption while group fed with 1:1 were extensively disrupted. The results also relayed changes in the body weight and the spleen weight where significant highest, spleen weight were recorded for the rats fed with commercial feed (control) than the rats fed with the treated feeds. The rats fed with ratio 1:1 (treated feed) had the least spleen weight compared to the animals fed with treated feed of ratio 1:2 and 1:5 respectively. No significant difference was observed in the kidney fresh weight for all the treatments. Also, there is significant highest liver weight in rats fed with control feed when compared with rat fed with treated feed, followed least concentration ( 1:10 ) of the treated feed. The observation revealed that a powdered castor oil seed to commercial rat feed can be effectively used as rodenticide and it is clearly seen that the function of a powdered castor oil seed affected the internal organ tested.

Missing data are pervasive, and pose problems for many statistical procedures. We all should be using methods that treat missing data properly, rather than deleting data or using single imputation. Importantly, it is not dif?cult to implement these missing data. A relatively few absent observations on some variables can dramatically shrink the sample size. As a result, the precision of confidence intervals is harmed, statistical power weakens and the parameter estimates may be biased. In this paper we used EM method that aims to estimate Missing Values, and summarizes how to apply out EM method to estimation missing data using SPSS.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of employee engagement on commitment in the county government of Kakamega in Kenya. The study adopted a descriptive research design with a target sample of 313 respondents drawn from a sampling comprising top management, middle management, and lower cadre employees in 12 sub counties within the county. The sampling frame was obtained by using stratified and simple random sampling techniques. From each stratum, a proportionate allocation was used to select a representative sample and the data collected by use of questionnaires. Data was analysed using descriptive, correlation and linear and multiple regression analyses. The findings obtained indicated that employee engagement had a positive and significant influence on commitment in Kakamega county government. Furthermore, the findings also revealed that vigour engagement has a higher positive and significant influence on employee commitment, with absorption giving the least influence on the predicted variable. The study recommend that county governments should endeavor to enhance engagements among their employees in order to ensure sustained commitment to the organization.

Pleural effusion is an abnormal collection of fluid in the pleural cavity. This study was designed to evaluate the clinical and etiological profile of patients with pleural effusion. A total of 138 cases (January 2016 to April 2019), the average age was 52 years, men predominated as women. The majority of the effusions are exudative and right-sided. About the etiologies are dominated by malignancy causes (32%) secondly the tuberculosis (31%) and cardiac etiologies (13%) with no apparent cause (9%). Despite the predominance of neoplastic etiologies in our series, tuberculosis remains the common etiology of pleural effusion whose evolution is favourable

The level of maternal mortality is an indicator of disparity in access to appropriate health care and nutrition services throughout their life particularly during pregnancy and childbirth. National Population Policy 2000 and National Health Policy 2002 aim to reduce the Maternal Mortality Rate (MM Rate) to 100 per 100,000 live births from the current level of 400-500. Though India has made an appreciable progress in improving the overall health status of its population but it is far from satisfaction. The pace of decline of maternal mortality on has been quite low. The death of a woman during pregnancy and childbirth is not only a health issue but also a matter of social injustice and discrimination. The complications of pregnancies and the births are found to be the foremost causes of maternal deaths. This measure reflects not only the risk of maternal death per pregnancy, but also the level of fertility in a population. The fertility beyond age 35 years is risky for both women and child and it leads to miscarriage, maternal & child mortality thus the study of the fertility beyond 35 years of age is an important issue for the researchers to study the status of maternal and child health. In this paper a simple technique has been proposed to estimate the MM Rate and MM Ratio using the age specific fertility rate (ASFR) and percentage of safe delivery beyond 35 years of age respectively, keeping in view of the above fact.

This research estimated the Well and Formation parameters of a Niger Delta Oil Well using pressure draw- down data. The well is located at longitude 050 53’ 19” and latitude 040 20’ 24”. The time to end strong wellbore storage effect (t*) was obtained to be 0.0025hrs and the time for the wellbore effect to end completely (50t*) was also determined as 0.125hrs. The wellbore storage constant (CS) value was obtained as 9.3x10-3 rb/psi, while the skin factor (S) was also obtained to be 23.4. The permeability to oil value (K) was obtained to be 954.4md and the Reservoir Pore Volume (Vp) value of 8.45 x 106 res bbl was also obtained.

The aim of the current study was to evaluate antimutagenic activity of ethanolic extract of Annona squamosa leaf which is belonging to the family Annonaceae. Its in vitro and in vivo antioxidant activity of the extracts has already been reported. On the basis of that we have decided to evaluate its antimutagenic activity in vivo in mice using bone marrow chromosomal aberration assay, micronucleus test and sperm abnormality assay. In chromosomal aberration assay, ethanolic extract of Annona squamosa (500mg/kg) had shown significant reduction in percentage of cells with aberration. In Micronucleus test, ethanolic extract of Annona squamosa (500mg/kg) showed significant reduction in total no. of micronucleus in polychromatic erythrocytes. In sperm abnormality assay, ethanolic extract of Annona squamosa (250 and 500mg/kg) had shown significant reduction in total no. of sperm shape abnormality. In conclusion, these results suggest that ethanolic extract of Annona squamosa leaves possessing significant antimutagenic property.

Malaysian SMEs are an important component of national economic development. According SMIDEC 2010, SMEs accounted for 93.8 percent in the manufacturing sector. Value added products from SMEs is expected to RM120 billion or 50 percent of total production in the manufacturing sector by 2020. The aim of this study to determine the performance of the employees of SME companies in the East Coast Economic Region (ECER). The study involved four determinants of system performance namely training and development, communication, work environment and reward. A total of 108 respondents were used to answer a questionnaire of selected companies that have been distributed to the respondents to obtain information related to the research carried out. The results of this study show that communication skills, reward, work environment and training & development are the success factors to improving their employee performance. In order to achieve national development goals of the management of SMEs companies need to take into account factors related to improving workers performance. This study show that all the determinants studied had a significant relationship at the significance level of p < 0.05.