Applied Research Journal
Volume:1 Issue: 2, Apr 2015

The fruits of canarium schweinfurthii are good source of oil, which can be extracted for various purposes. Extraction and characterization of oil from canarium schweinfurthii (Black date) fruits was achieved using solvent extraction method. The use of soxhlet extraction (Solvent extraction) gave a reasonable percentage of oil (51.2%) by weight in grams. Black date fruits contain high quality of oil. It contains fatty acid composed of oleic acid, linoleic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and others. The extracted and characterized oil has: density of 0.87g/cm3, specific gravity of 0.87g/cm3, flash point of 111⁰C, viscosity of 36cp at 29⁰C, saponification value of 125.4 mg/KOH/gram of oil, iodine value of 88.I2/100g of oil, peroxide value of 0.72ml/g of oil and free fatty acid content of 1.26%. These values are very close to those of the recommended codex standard for vegetable oil. Furthermore, the studied characteristics of the oil extracted shows that it may be used for many domestic and industrial purposes.

Energy is the power drive of economic growth and industrial development of any society, there is a clear correlation between energy consumption and living standards. The availability and consumption of energy is an index of prosperity on any nation. Nigerian’s energy need is on the increase, and her increasing population is not balanced by adequate energy development. Nigeria needs more energy to meet the rising in demand of energy, due to population increase, inevitable industrialization, more agriculture production and improving the standards. However, there are challenges due to economic, social, technical and political barriers. The challenges have to be overcome if energy development technologies are to be deployed to make a meaningful impact on the energy mix in the nation. This paper discussed the challenges confronting the energy sector and suggests solutions on how they can be managed.

Simple sequence repeats (SSRs), also known as microsatellites, are found in DNA sequences and consist of short repeating motifs of 1-6 nucleotides. These repeats are ubiquitous and play an important role in the development of molecular markers. Therefore, the present analysis was conducted to mine SSRs in chloroplast genome of Cocos nucifera. A total of 44 SSRs were identified in 154.731 kb sequence mined with an average length of 18.57 bp. Depending upon the repeat unit SSRs varied in length from 12 to 132 bp. The identified SSRs showed a density of 1SSR/3.52 kb. Mononucleotides (16, 36.36%) were found to be the most abundant repeat, followed by di and tetra nucleotide repeats with same frequency (9, 20.45%), tri and penta nucleotide repeats (4, 9.09%) and hexa nucleotide repeats (2, 4.55%). Compound SSRs were completely absent in the chloroplast genome of Cocos nucifera. Most of the perfect SSRs were confined in the non-coding region of the chloroplast genome.

This study examined the effect of 25.0 and 50.0 μM arsenic (As) on nitrate uptake in Chlorella vulgaris when grown under different nitrogen regime. The changes in nitrate uptake of test alga exposed to As under different N regimes show that the control cultures of test alga showed maximum nitrate uptake in N enriched cells. The nitrate uptake under normal N level was decreased by 18.05% (25.0 μM As) and 26.24% (50.0 μM As). Likewise, under N deficient condition, both concentrations (25.0 and 50.0 µM) of As reduced the nitrate uptake of the test organism by 78.14% and 88.46%, respectively. The effect of As was same during excess N condition, where nitrate uptake of the test organism was reduced by 8.75% and 20.52% at 25.0 and 50.0 µM As, respectively. More experimental and molecular evidences will further enhance our understanding about the relation of nitrogen regimes with metal tolerance in algae.

Millets are grown expansively in different areas of India as a staple crop to feed a huge section of the inhabitants. In India, its production holds the sixth position after wheat, rice, maize, sorghum and bajra. The most important cultivated species of millets in India are foxtail millet (Setaria italic), finger millet (Eleusine coracana), pearl or cattail millet (Pennisetum glaucum), proso millet (Panicum miliaceum), Japanese / barnyard millet (Echinochola crusgalli), brown top millet (Panicum ramosum) and kodo or ditch millet (Paspalum scrobiculatum). Among these, finger millet (Eleusine coracana L.) and pearl or cattail millet (Pennisetum glaucum) offers high nutritional, anti-diabetic and antioxidant properties. India is a socioeconomic meager country needs a large amount food grain to fulfill the requirement of its ever increasing population with good nutrients value. To facilitate an improved and healthy food supply, these easy growing vigorous crops would be a good option for the farmers in semiarid regions of India. The planned cultivation of these millets will provide a very nutritious and economical food for a large proportion of poor people.

Design of Vehicle anti theft system based on face recognition using microcontroller is proposed. For face recognition, camera will capture the image of the person who entered in to the vehicle. The captured image is processed to identify whether the person is authorized or not. The output obtained from this is given to the PIC microcontroller. Controller starts the engine for the corresponding input. Sensors are activated once the engine is on; these are used to provide safety to the driver. Distances of the obstacles and vehicle crash are identified using these sensors. LCD is used to display the sensor output. GSM module is used to alert the vehicle owner about the unauthorized access.

Due to huge number of power transformers yearly consumed and installed in the utility networks, it is always required and targeted to build transformers with the most reasonable cost. Achieving the guaranteed characteristics of transformers is an important factor that should be considered knowing that transformer design task is time consuming. In this work, a successful attempt for designing large size power transformer using non-linear programming (NLP) technique was presented. The mathematical transformer design formulation is explained in a systematic way for a typical power transformer. Optimization methodologies and implementation of results were also presented. The results showed the effectiveness of the proposed mathematical formulation of transformer design problem and the reduction of total cost when compared to conventional designs.

One of the major components of power system which reliability depends on is the transformer which plays major role in power generation, transmission and distribution system. The voltage transformation of any transformer is dependent on the complexity of the design. However, with the fast-paced changing technologies in the power industry, new references addressing new technologies that satisfy constraints imposed on international standards, low weight, small size and good performances for economic viability are coming to the market. Current research of transformer design reveals the continued interest in the use of intelligent techniques for transformer design optimization. This paper gives a bibliographical study and general backgrounds of research and developments in the field of transformer design and optimization using intelligent based techniques for the past 42 years, based on over 80 published articles. The benefit of this work is to provide reference point for educational development on recent published research in this field and stimulate further research interests.

Polycrystalline Cu1-xMgxFe2O4 (x=0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0) ferrites have been synthesized using solid-state reaction technique. Phase identification, morphology and magnetization measurements have been done by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), VSM and SQUID magnetometer. Formation of the cubic spinel structure was observed by XRD studies. Grain size is found to decrease with increasing Mg content and increase with increasing sintering temperature. Field dependence of magnetization was measured at 300 K and 5 K using VSM and SQUID magnetometer. Saturation magnetization (Ms) decreases with Mg content. The observed variation in Ms can be explained in terms of the cation redistribution between A and B sublattices. The substitution of Mg ions and effect of sintering temperature plays decisive role in changing structural and magnetic properties of Cu-Mg ferrites.