Search results for: natural growth

Authors: Hasan Basri Jumin

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Using the slaughterhouse waste combined to suitable dose of nitrogen fertilizer to Apium glaviolen gives the significant effect to mean relative growth rate. The same pattern also showed significantly in net assimilation rate. The net assimilation rate increased significantly during 42 days old plants. Combination of treatment of 100 ml/l animal slaughterhouse waste and 0.1 g/kg nitrogen fertilizer/kg soil increased the vegetative growth of Apium glaviolens. The biomass of plant and mean relative growth rate of Apium glaviolens were rapidly increased in 4 weeks after planting and gradually decreased after 35 days at the harvest time. Combination of 100 ml/l slaughterhouse waste and applied 0.1 g/kg nitrogen fertilizer has increased all parameters. The highest vegetative growth, biomass, mean relative growth rate and net assimilation rate were received from 0.56 mg-l.m-2.days-1.

Keywords: Apium glaviolent, nitrogen, pollutant, slaughterhouse, waste

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Authors: Rishi Saxena

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Cyanobacteria is a photosynthetic prokaryote, and these obtain their energy through photosynthesis. In this paper, we studied the effect of iron on metabolic changes in the diazotrophic cyanobacterium Anabaena PCC 7120. Nowadays, metal contamination due to natural and anthropogenic sources is a global environment concern. Iron induced changes in growth, N2-fixation, CO2 fixation and photosynthetic activity were studied in a diazotrophic cyanobacterium Anabaena PCC 7120. Iron at 50 uM concentration supported the maximum growth, heterocyst frequency, CO2 fixation, photosystem I (PS I), photosystem II (PS II) and nitrogenase activities in the organism. Higher concentration of iron inhibited these processes. Chl a and PS II activities were more sensitive to iron than the protein and PS I activity. Here, it is also mentioned that heavy metal induced altered macromolecules metabolism and changes in the central dogma of life (DNA→ mRNA → Protein). And also recent advances have been made in understanding heavy metal-cyanobacteria interaction and their application for metal detoxification.

Keywords: cyanobacterium anabaena 7120, nitrogen fixation, photosystem I (PS I), photosystem II (PS II)

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Authors: Olawale Johnson

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The cry and agitation for the creation of equal opportunities is one of the major reasons behind the social menace countries of the world experience. As the poor, continue to demand for the dividends of economic growth, countries of the world are in a state of dilemma because, despite impressive growth figures, the poor are still far below the empowerment line. However, evidence from the Asian Tigers has proven that with the adoption and efficient utilization of information technology, a growth miracle is not far-fetched. With the mind-boggling pace of technological innovation, the need to ensure that the innovative products are all connected has become vital. Technologies that did not exist a few years ago have become vital equipment used to underlie every aspect of our economy from medicine to banking to sports. The need to connect things sensors, actuators and smart systems with the aim of ensuring person-to-object, object-to-object communications has promoted the need of internet of things. As developing countries struggle with delivering inclusiveness, the Internet of Everything is perceived to be the miracle that will deliver this in no time. This paper examines how the Asian Tigers have been able to promote inclusive growth through the Internet of Everything.

Keywords: inclusive growth, internet of everything, innovation, embedded systems and smart technologies

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Authors: Anupam Das

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Although financial liberalization has been one of the most important policy prescriptions of international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF, the effect of financial liberalization on economic growth in developing countries is far from unanimous. Since the '80s, South Asian countries made a significant development in liberalization the financial sector. However, due to unavailability of a sufficient number of time series observations, the relationship between economic growth and financial development has not been investigated adequately. We aim to fill this gap by examining time series data of five developing countries from the South Asian region: Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Applying the cointegration tests and Granger causality within the vector error correction model (VECM), we do not find unanimous evidence of financial development on positive economic growth. These results are helpful for developing countries which have been trying to liberalize the financial sector in recent decades.

Keywords: economic growth, financial development, Granger causality, South Asia

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Authors: Muhammad Saeed, Sun Chao

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L-theanine is water soluble non-proteinous amino acid found in green tea leaves. Despite the availability of abundant literature on green tea, studies on the use of L-theanine as an additive in animals especially broilers are scanty. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of different dietary levels of L-theanine on growth performance, meat quality, growth, immune response and blood chemistry in broilers. A total of 400 day-old chicks were randomly divided into four treatment groups (A, B, C, and D) using a complete randomized design. Treatments were as follows: A; control (basal diet), B; basal diet+100 mg L-theanine / kg diet, C; basal diet+ 200 mg L-theanine / kg diet, and D; basal diet+ 300 mg L-theanine / kg diet. Results revealed that intermediate level of L-theanine (200 mg/ kg diet, group C) showed better results in terms of BWG, FC, and FCR compared with control and other L-theanine levels. The live weight eviscerated weight and gizzard weight was higher in all L-theanine levels as compared to that of the control group. The heaviest (P > 0.05) spleen and bursa were found in group C (200 mg L-theanine / kg diet). Analysis of meat colors according to yellowness (b*), redness (a*), and lightness (L*) showed significantly higher values of a* and b* in L-theanine groups. Supplementing broiler diet with L-theanine minimized (P=0.02) total cholesterol contents in serum. Further analysis revealed , lower mRNA expression of TNF-α and IL-6 in thymus and IFN- γ and IL-2 in spleen was observed in L-theanine group It is concluded that supplementation of L-theanine at 200mg/kg diet showed better results in terms of performance and it could be utilized as a natural feed additive alternative to antibiotics to improve overall performance of broilers. Increasing the levels up to 300 mg L-theanine /kg diet may has deleterious effects on performance and other health aspects.

Keywords: blood chemistry, broilers growth, L-theanine, meat quality

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Authors: Aref Aasi, Sadegh Mehdi Aghaei, Balaji Panchapakesan

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This work aims to evaluate the free and forced vibration of a beam with two end joints subjected to a concentrated moving mass and a load using the Euler-Bernoulli method. The natural frequency is calculated for different locations of the concentrated mass and load on the beam. The analytical results are verified by the experimental data. The variations of natural frequency as a function of the location of the mass, the effect of the forced frequency on the vibrational amplitude, and the displacement amplitude versus time are investigated. It is discovered that as the concentrated mass moves toward the center of the beam, the natural frequency of the beam and the relative error between experimental and analytical data decreases. There is a close resemblance between analytical data and experimental observations.

Keywords: Euler-Bernoulli beam, natural frequency, forced vibration, experimental setup

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Authors: Alaa Sarhan, Rania Abd El Gelil, Hana Awad

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Through the last decades, the impact of thermal comfort on the working performance of users and occupants of an indoor space has been a concern. Research papers concluded that natural ventilation quality directly impacts the levels of thermal comfort. Natural ventilation must be put into account during the design process in order to improve the inhabitant's efficiency and productivity. One example of daily long-term occupancy spaces is educational facilities. Many individuals spend long times receiving a considerable amount of knowledge, and it takes additional time to apply this knowledge. Thus, this research is concerned with user's level of thermal comfort in design studios of educational facilities. The natural ventilation quality in spaces is affected by a number of parameters including orientation, opening design, and many other factors. This research aims to investigate the conscious manipulation of the physical parameters of the spaces and its impact on natural ventilation performance which subsequently affects thermal comfort of users. The current research uses inductive and deductive methods to define natural ventilation design considerations, which are used in a field study in a studio in the university building in Alexandria (AAST) to evaluate natural ventilation performance through analyzing and comparing the current case to the developed framework and conducting computational fluid dynamics simulation. Results have proved that natural ventilation performance is successful by only 50% of the natural ventilation design framework; these results are supported by CFD simulation.

Keywords: educational buildings, natural ventilation, , mediterranean climate, thermal comfort

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Authors: T. Maruyama, T. Saida, S. Naritsuka, S. Iijima

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Single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) are generally synthesized by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using Fe, Co, and Ni as catalysts. However, due to the Ostwald ripening of metal catalysts, the diameter distribution of the grown SWCNTs is considerably wide (>2 nm), which is not suitable for electronics applications. In addition, reduction in the growth temperature is desirable for fabricating SWCNT devices compatible with the LSI process. Herein, we performed SWCNT growth by alcohol catalytic CVD using platinum-group metal catalysts (Pt, Rh, and Pd) because these metals have high melting points, and the reduction in the Ostwald ripening of catalyst particles is expected. Our results revealed that web-like SWCNTs were obtained from Pt and Rh catalysts at growth temperature between 500 °C and 600 °C by optimizing the ethanol pressure. The SWCNT yield from Pd catalysts was considerably low. By decreasing the growth temperature, the diameter and chirality distribution of SWCNTs from Pt and Rh catalysts became small and narrow. In particular, the diameters of most SWCNTs grown using Pt catalysts were below 1 nm and their diameter distribution was considerably narrow. On the contrary, SWCNTs can grow from Rh catalysts even at 300 °C by optimizing the growth condition, which is the lowest temperature recorded for SWCNT growth. Our results demonstrated that platinum-group metals are useful for the growth of small-diameter SWCNTs and facilitate low-temperature growth.

Keywords: carbon nanotube, chemical vapor deposition, catalyst, platinum, rhodium, palladium

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Authors: Haiming Wen

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Grain growth is an important and consequential phenomenon that generally occurs in the presence of thermal and/or stress/strain fields. Thermally activated grain growth has been extensively studied and similarly, there are numerous experimental and theoretical studies published describing stress-induced grain growth in single-phase materials. However, studies on grain growth during the simultaneous presence of an elevated temperature and an external stress are very limited, and moreover, grain growth phenomena in materials containing second-phase particles and solute segregation at GBs have received limited attention. This lecture reports on a study of grain growth in the presence of second-phase particles and solute/impurity segregation at grain boundaries (GBs) during high-temperature deformation of an ultra-fine grained (UFG) Al alloy synthesized via consolidation of mechanically milled powders. The mechanisms underlying the grain growth were identified as GB migration and grain rotation, which were accompanied by dynamic recovery and geometric dynamic recrystallization, while discontinuous dynamic recrystallization was not operative. A theoretical framework that incorporates the influence of second-phase particles and solute/impurity segregation at GBs on grain growth in presence of both elevated temperature and external stress is formulated and discussed. The effect of second-phase particles and solute/impurity segregation at GBs on GB migration and grain rotation was quantified using the proposed theoretical framework, indicating that both second-phase particles and solutes/impurities segregated GBs reduce the velocities of GB migration and grain rotation as compared to those in commercially pure Al. Our results suggest that grain growth predicted by the proposed theoretical framework is in agreement with experimental results. Hence, the developed theoretical framework can be applied to quantify grain growth in simultaneous presence of external stress, elevated temperature, GB segregation and second-phase particles, or in presence of one or more of the aforementioned factors.

Keywords: nanocrystalline materials, ultra-fine grained materials, grain growth, grain boundary migration, grain rotation

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Authors: Adferotimi Banso

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A laboratory investigation was conducted to determine the effect of Justica flava and Aframonium melegueta on the growth of Aspergillus niger, Rhizopus stolonifer and Fusarium species in sweet orange and mango juices. Aqueous extract (3%v/v) of Justica flava and Aframonium melegueta reduced the growth of the fungi, a combination of 2% (v/v) each of Justica flava and Aframonium melegueta extracts reduced the growth better. Partial purification of aqueous extracts of Justica flava and Aframonium melegueta showed that ethyl acetate fraction of the extracts exhibited the highest level of inhibition of growth of the test fungi compared with diethyl ether and n-hexane fractions. The results suggest that extracts of Justica flava and Aframonium melegueta may be important substitutes for conventional chemical preservatives in the processing of fruit juices.

Keywords: aqueous, fraction, mango, orange, purification, sweet

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Authors: Ontima Yamchuti, Waruntorn Kanitpanyacharoen, Chakkaphan Sutthirat, Wantana Klysuban, Penphitcha Amonpattarakit

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Natural corundum occurs in various colors due to impurities or trace elements in its structure. Sapphire and ruby are essentially the same mineral, corundum, but valued differently due to their red and blue varieties, respectively. Color is one of the critical factors used to determine the value of natural and synthetic corundum. Despite the abundance of research on impurities in natural corundum, little is known about trace elements in synthetic corundum. This project thus aims to quantify trace elements and identify their oxidation states in synthetic corundum. A total of 15 corundum samples in red, blue, and yellow, synthesized by melt growth process, were first investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis to determine the composition. Electron probe micro-analyzer (EPMA) was used to identify the types of trace elements. Results confirm that all synthetic corundums contain crystalline Al₂O₃ and a wide variety type of trace element, particularly Cr, Fe, and Ti. In red, yellow, and blue corundums respectively. To further determine their oxidation states, synchrotron X-ray absorption near edge structure spectrometry (XANES) was used to observe absorbing energy of each element. XANES results show that red synthetic corundum has Cr³⁺ as a major trace element (62%). The pre-edge absorption energy of Cr³⁺ is at 6001 eV. In addition, Fe²⁺ and Fe³⁺ are dominant oxidation states of yellow synthetic corundum while Ti³⁺and Ti⁴⁺ are dominant oxidation states of blue synthetic corundum. the average absorption energy of Fe and Ti is 4980 eV and 7113 eV respectively. The presence of Fe²⁺, Fe³⁺, Cr³⁺, Ti³⁺, and Ti⁴⁺ in synthetic corundums in this study is governed by comparison absorption energy edge with standard transition. The results of oxidation states in this study conform with natural corundum. However yellow synthetic corundums show difference oxidation state of trace element compared with synthetic in electron spin resonance spectrometer method which found that Ni³⁺ is a dominant oxidation state.

Keywords: corundum, trace element, oxidation state, XANES technique

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Authors: Luis Marquez, Ge Zhu, Vikas Srivastava

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High-density polyethylene (HDPE) is one of the most commonly used thermoplastic polymer materials for water and gas pipelines. Slow crack growth failure is a well-known phenomenon in high-density polyethylene material and causes brittle failure well below the yield point with no obvious sign. The failure of transportation pipelines can cause catastrophic environmental and economic consequences. Using the non-destructive testing method to predict slow crack growth failure behavior is the primary preventative measurement employed by the pipeline industry but is often costly and time-consuming. Phenomenological slow crack growth models are useful to predict the slow crack growth behavior in the polymer material due to their ability to evaluate slow crack growth under different temperature and loading conditions. We developed a quantitative method to assess the slow crack growth behavior in the high-density polyethylene pipeline material under different thermal conditions based on existing physics-based phenomenological models. We are also working on developing an experimental protocol and quantitative model that can address slow crack growth behavior under different chemical exposure conditions to improve the safety, reliability, and resilience of HDPE-based pipeline infrastructure.

Keywords: mechanics of materials, physics-based modeling, civil engineering, fracture mechanics

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Authors: Davinder Singh, Jaimal Singh Khamba, Tarun Nanda

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Growth of the Indian economy has accelerated to 8% and efforts are on to further propel it to 10%. Undoubtedly, all the segments of the economy, viz. agriculture, industry and services have to improve their contribution to the economy. Growth of Micro-small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) is a sine qua non for the growth of industry, exports and other segments of the economy. Furthermore, promotion of entrepreneurship is also vital for sustenance and upward movement of the current growth trajectory of the economy. The MSME sector acts as a catalyst in upholding and encouraging the creation of the innovative spirit and entrepreneurship in the economy, thereby helping in laying the foundation for rapid industrial development. In this competitive world, they need to be able to confront the increasing competition from developed and emerging economies and to plug into the new market opportunities.

Keywords: characteristics, management, MSMEs, technology infrastructure

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Authors: Goksen Capar, Levent Dogankaya

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According to the circular economy model, resource productivity should be maximized and wastes should be reduced. Since earth’s natural resources are continuously depleted, resource recovery has gained great interest in recent years. As part of our research study on the recovery and reuse of silk wastes, this paper focuses on the utilization of silkworm pupae as fishmeal replacement, which would replace the original fishmeal raw material, namely the fish itself. This, in turn, would contribute to sustainable management of wild fish resources. Silk fibre is secreted by the silkworm Bombyx mori in order to construct a 'room' for itself during its transformation process from pupae to an adult moth. When the cocoons are boiled in hot water, silk fibre becomes loose and the silk yarn is produced by combining thin silk fibres. The remaining wastes are 1) sericin protein, which is dissolved in water, 2) remaining part of cocoon, including the dead body of B. mori pupae. In this study, an eight weeks trial was carried out to determine the growth performance of common carp juveniles fed with waste silkworm pupae meal (SWPM) as a replacement for fishmeal (FM). Four isonitrogenous diets (40% CP) were prepared replacing 0%, 33%, 50%, and 100% of the dietary FM with non-defatted silkworm pupae meal as a dietary protein source for experiments in C. carpio. Triplicate groups comprising of 20 fish (0.92±0.29 g) were fed twice/day with one of the four diets. Over a period of 8 weeks, results showed that the diet containing 50% of its protein from SWPM had significantly higher (p ≤ 0.05) growth rates in all groups. The increasing levels of SWPM were resulted in a decrease in growth performance and significantly lower growth (p ≤ 0.05) was observed with diets having 100% SWPM. The study demonstrates that it is practical to replace 50% of the FM protein with SWPM with a significantly better utilization of the diet but higher SWPM levels are not recommended for juvenile carp. Further experiments are under study to have more detailed results on the possible effects of this alternative diet on the growth performance of juvenile carp.

Keywords: Bombyx mori, Cyprinus carpio, fish meal, silk, waste pupae

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Authors: Anahita Aris

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Geometry always plays a key role in natural structures, which can be a source of inspiration for architects and urban designers to create spaces. By understanding formative principles in nature, a variety of options can be provided that lead to freedom of formation. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the geometrical order found in pomegranate to find formative principles explaining its complex structure. The point is how spherical arils of pomegranate pressed together inside the fruit and filled the space as they expand in the growing process, which made a self-organized system leads to the formation of each of the arils are unique in size, topology and shape. The main challenge of this paper would be using advanced architectural modeling techniques to discover these principles.

Keywords: advanced modeling techniques, architectural modeling, computational design, the geometry of natural formation, geometrical analysis, the natural order of pomegranate, voronoi diagrams

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Authors: Kirsten Techmer, Jan-Erik Rybak, Simon Rudolph

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Natural formed pyrites (FeS2) are frequent sulfides in sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Growth textures of idiomorphic pyrite assemblages reflect the conditions during their formation in the geologic sequence, furtheron the local texture analyses of the growth patterns of pyrite assemblages by EBSD reveal the possibility to resolve the growth conditions during the formation of pyrite at the micron scale. The spatial resolution of local texture measurements in the Scanning Electron Microscope used can be in the nanomete scale. Orientation contrasts resulting from domains of smaller misorientations within larger pyrite crystals can be resolved as well. The electron optical studies have been carried out in a Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FEI Quanta 200) equipped with a CCD camera to study the orientation contrasts along the surfaces of pyrite. Idiomorphic cubic single crystals of pyrite, polycrystalline assemblages of pyrite, spherically grown spheres of pyrite as well as pyrite-bearing ammonites have been studied by EBSD in the Scanning Electron Microscope. Samples were chosen to show no or minor secondary deformation and an idiomorphic 3D crystal habit, so the local textures of pyrite result mainly from growth and minor from deformation. The samples studied derived from Navajun (Spain), Chalchidiki (Greece), Thüringen (Germany) and Unterkliem (Austria). Chemical analyses by EDAX show pyrite with minor inhomogeneities e.g., single crystals of galena and chalcopyrite along the grain boundaries of larger pyrite crystals. Intergrowth between marcasite and pyrite can be detected in one sample. Pyrite may form intense growth twinning lamellae on {011}. Twinning, e.g., contact twinning is abundant within the crystals studied and the individual twinning lamellaes can be resolved by EBSD. The ammonites studied show a replacement of the shale by newly formed pyrite resulting in an intense intergrowth of calcite and pyrite. EBSD measurements indicate a polycrystalline microfabric of both minerals, still reflecting primary surface structures of the ammonites e.g, the Septen. Discs of pyrite (“pyrite dollar”) as well as pyrite framboids show growth patterns comprising a typical microfabric. EBSD studies reveal an equigranular matrix in the inner part of the discs of pyrite and a fiber growth with larger misorientations in the outer regions between the individual segments. This typical microfabric derived from a formation of pyrite crystals starting at a higher nucleation rate and followed by directional crystal growth. EBSD studies show, that the growth texture of pyrite in the samples studied reveals a correlation between nucleation rate and following growth rate of the pyrites, thus leading to the characteristic crystal habits. Preferential directional growth at lower nucleation rates may lead to the formation of 3D framboids of pyrite. Crystallographic misorientations between the individual fibers are similar. In ammonites studied, primary anisotropies of the substrates like e.g., ammonitic sutures, influence the nucleation, crystal growth and habit of the newly formed pyrites along the surfaces.

Keywords: Electron Back Scatter Diffraction (EBSD), growth pattern, Fe-sulfides (pyrite), texture analyses

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Authors: Sheetal Sharma

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Urban planning is associated with land transformation from natural areas to modified and developed ones which leads to modification of natural environment. The basic knowledge of relationship between both should be ascertained before proceeding for the development of natural areas. Changes on land surface due to build up pavements, roads and similar land cover, affect surface water flow. There is a gap between urban planning and basic knowledge of hydrological processes which should be known to the planners. The paper aims to identify these variations in surface flow due to urbanization for a temporal scale of 40 years using Storm Water Management Mode (SWMM) and again correlating these findings with the urban planning guidelines in study area along with geological background to find out the suitable combinations of land cover, soil and guidelines. For the purpose of identifying the changes in surface flows, 19 catchments were identified with different geology and growth in 40 years facing different ground water levels fluctuations. The increasing built up, varying surface runoff are studied using Arc GIS and SWMM modeling, regression analysis for runoff. Resulting runoff for various land covers and soil groups with varying built up conditions were observed. The modeling procedures also included observations for varying precipitation and constant built up in all catchments. All these observations were combined for individual catchment and single regression curve was obtained for runoff. Thus, it was observed that alluvial with suitable land cover was better for infiltration and least generation of runoff but excess built up could not be sustained on alluvial soil. Similarly, basalt had least recharge and most runoff demanding maximum vegetation over it. Sandstone resulted in good recharging if planned with more open spaces and natural soils with intermittent vegetation. Hence, these observations made a keystone base for planners while planning various land uses on different soils. This paper contributes and provides a solution to basic knowledge gap, which urban planners face during development of natural surfaces.

Keywords: runoff, built up, roughness, recharge, temporal changes

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Authors: Yeliz Sarı Nayim, B. N. Nayim

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Vertical natural gardens encountered in urban ecosystems are important elements contributing to urban ecology by raising the quality of urban life. This research covers the investigation of the semi-natural plant walls of Bartın city which is located on the western Black Sea coast of Turkey. Landscape analysis and evaluation as a result of land and office work have resulted in vertical garden ecosystems that have been processed in the urban habitat map, mostly in natural stone walls, wooden garden fences, garden entrance doors, historical buildings and building walls. Structural surfaces on old building facades, especially with abandoned or still in use with natural stone walls, have been found to have many natural vertical gardens over time. Parietaria judaica, Cymbalaria longipes and Hedera helix species were dominant, and other types of content were recorded, providing information on the current biotope potential, human activities and effects on them. It has been emphasized that the described vertical gardens together with the species they contain should be protected in terms of Bartin urban ecology and biodiversity. It has been stated that sustainable urban planning, design and management should be considered as a compensation for open and green area losses.

Keywords: semi-natural vertical gardens, urban ecology, sustainable urban planning and design, Bartın

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Authors: M. B. Sokoto, I. U. Abubakar

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The study was carried out on effect of water stress and variety on growth of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), during 2009/10 and 2010/11 dry seasons. The treatments consisted of factorial combination of water stress at three critical growth stage which was imposed by withholding water at (Tillering, Flowering, Grain filling) and Control (No stress) and two varieties (Star 11 TR 77173/SLM and Kauze/Weaver) laid out in a split-plot design with three replications. Water stress was assigned to the main-plot while variety was assigned to the sub-plots. Result revealed significant (P<0.05) effect of water stress, water stress at tillering significantly (P<0.05) reduced plant height, LAI, CGR, and NAR. Variety had a significant effect on plant height, LAI, CGR and NAR. In conclusion water stress at tillering was observed to be most critical growth stage in wheat, and water stress at this period should be avoided because it results to decrease in growth components in wheat. Wheat should be sown in November or at least first week of December in this area and other area with similar climate. Star II TR 77173/LM is recommended variety for the area.

Keywords: wheat, growth, water stress, variety, Sudan savannah

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Authors: Assaad Ghazouani, Ati Abdessatar

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In the world, agriculture maintains a social and economic importance in the national economy. Its importance is distinguished by its ripple effects not only downstream but also upstream vis-à-vis the non-agricultural sector. However, the situation is relatively fragile because of weather conditions. In this work, we propose a model to highlight the impacts of climate change (CC) on economic growth in the world where agriculture is considered as a strategic sector. The CC is supposed to directly and indirectly affect economic growth by reducing the performance of the agricultural sector. The model is tested for Tunisia. The results validate the hypothesis that the potential economic damage of the CC is important. Indeed, an increase in CO2 concentration (temperatures and disruption of rainfall patterns) will have an impact on global economic growth particularly by reducing the performance of the agricultural sector. Analysis from a vector error correction model also highlights the magnitude of climate impact on the performance of the agricultural sector and its repercussions on economic growth

Keywords: Climate Change, Agriculture, Economic Growth, World, VECM, Cointegration.

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Authors: Muhammad Waseem Akram

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The current study attempts to analyze the impact of business constraints on the growth potential and performance of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in the electrical industry of Pakistan. Primary data have been utilized for the study collected from the electrical industry cluster in Sargodha, Pakistan. OLS regression is used to assess the impact of business constraints on the performance of SMEs by controlling the effect of Technology Level, Innovations, and Firm Size. To associate business constraints with the growth potential of SMEs, the study utilized Tetrachoric Correlation and Logistic Regression. Findings reveal that all the business constraints negatively affect the performance of SMEs in the electrical industry except Political Instability. Results of Tetrachoric Correlation show that all the business constraints are negatively correlated with the growth potential of SMEs. Logistic Regression results show that Energy Constraint, Inflation and Price Instability, and Bad Business Practices, all three business constraints cause to reduce the probability of income growth in sample SMEs.

Keywords: SMEs, business constraints, performance, growth potential

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Authors: Siddique Ullah Baig, Alisha Manzoor

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The remotest, mountainous, and icy Broghil Valley is a high-profile protected area as a national park, which hosts one of the highest altitude permanent human settlements on the earth. This park hosts a distributed but diverse range of habitats. Due to a lack of infrastructures, higher altitudes, and harsh environmental conditions, poverty-stricken inhabitants mostly rely on its resources, causing ecological dis-balance. This study aims to investigate the environmental degradation of natural resources of the park based on empirical evidence from stakeholders and geoinformatics. The result shows that one-fourth of the park is a gently undulating basin dotted with water bodies / grass, and agricultural land and three fourth is entirely rugged with steep mountains and glaciers. There are virtually no forests as the arid cold tundra climate and high altitude prevent tree growth. Rapid three-decadal land cover changes have led to ecological disequilibrium of the park, narrowing the traditional diverse food base, decreasing the resilience of biodiversity and local livelihoods as crop-land has shifted towards fallow, alpine-grass to peat-land and snow/glacial ice area to bare-soil/rocks. The local community believes in exploiting whatever vegetation or organic material is available for use as food, fodder, and fuel. The permanent presence of the community and limited cost-effective options in the park will be a challenge forever to maintain undisturbed natural processes as the objective of a national park.

Keywords: Broghil National Park, natural resources, environmental degradation, land cover

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Authors: Kehinde Damilola Ilesanmi, Dev Datt Tewari

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South Africa is in its post-industrial era moving from the primary and secondary sector to the tertiary sector. The study investigated the impact of the disaggregated energy consumption (coal, oil, and electricity) on the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy between 1980 and 2012 in South Africa. Using vector error correction model, it was established that South Africa is an energy dependent economy, and that energy (especially electricity and oil) is a limiting factor of growth. This implies that implementation of energy conservation policies may hamper economic growth. Output growth is significantly outpacing energy supply, which has necessitated load shedding. To meet up the excess energy demand, there is a need to increase the generating capacity which will necessitate increased investment in the electricity sector as well as strategic steps to increase oil production. There is also need to explore more renewable energy sources, in order to meet the growing energy demand without compromising growth and environmental sustainability. Policy makers should also pursue energy efficiency policies especially at sectoral level of the economy.

Keywords: causality, economic growth, energy consumption, hypothesis, sectoral output

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Authors: Kyung Hwa Hong

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The objective of this study was to evaluate the ability of spent coffee extract to enhance the antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of cotton fabrics. The emergence and spread of infectious diseases has raised a global interest in the antimicrobial substances. The safety of chemical agents, such as antimicrobials and dyes, which may irritate the skin, cause cellular and organ damage, and have adverse environmental impacts during their manufacturing, in relation to the human body has not been established. Nevertheless, there is a growing interest in natural antimicrobials that kill microorganisms or stop their growth without dangerous effects on human health. Spent coffee is the by-product of coffee brewing and amounted to 96,000 tons worldwide in 2015. Coffee components such as caffeine, melanoidins, and chlorogenic acid have been reported to possess multifunctional properties, including antimicrobial, antioxidant, and anti-inflammatory activities. Therefore, the current study examined the possibility of applying spent coffee in functional textile finishing. Spent coffee was extracted with 60% methanol solution, and the major components of the extract were quantified. In addition, cotton fabrics treated with spent coffee extract through a pad-dry-cure process were investigated for antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. The cotton fabrics finished with the spent coffee extract showed an increase in yellowness, which is an unfavorable outcome from the fabric finishing process. However, the cotton fabrics finished with the spent coffee extract exhibited considerable antioxidant activity. In particular, the antioxidant ability significantly increased with increasing concentrations of the spent coffee extract. The finished cotton fabrics showed antimicrobial ability against S. aureus but relatively low antimicrobial ability against K. pneumoniae. Therefore, further investigations are needed to determine the appropriate concentration of spent coffee extract to inhibit the growth of various pathogenic bacteria.

Keywords: spent coffee grounds, cotton, natural finishing agent, antioxidant activity, antimicrobial activity

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Authors: P. K. Rahul Krishna, S. Sandeep Kumar, Jayanthi Sunder Raj

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The article explores one of the important relations between numbers-the Pythagorean triples (triplets) which finds its application in distance measurement, construction of roads, towers, buildings and wherever Pythagoras theorem finds its application. The Pythagorean triples are numbers, that satisfy the condition “In a given set of three natural numbers, the sum of squares of two natural numbers is equal to the square of the other natural number”. There are numerous methods and equations to obtain the triplets, which have their own merits and demerits. Here, quadratic approach for generating triples uses the hypotenuse leg difference method. The advantage is that variables are few and finally only three independent variables are present.

Keywords: arithmetic progression, hypotenuse leg difference method, natural numbers, Pythagorean triplets, quadratic equation

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Authors: Rotondwa P. Gunununu, Mustapha Mohammed, Felix D. Dakora

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Common bean is the most importantly high protein grain legume grown in Southern Africa for human consumption and income generation. Although common bean can associate with rhizobia to fix N₂ for bacterial use and plant growth, it is reported to be a poor nitrogen fixer when compared to other legumes. N₂ fixation can vary with legume species, genotype and rhizobial strain. Therefore, screening legume germplasm can reveal rhizobia/genotype combinations with high N₂-fixing efficiency for use by farmers. This study assessed symbiotic performance and N₂ fixation in 63 common bean genotypes under field conditions at Malkerns Station in Eswatini, using the ¹⁵N natural abundance technique. The shoots of common bean genotypes were sampled at a pod-filling stage, oven-dried (65oC for 72h), weighed, ground into a fine powder (0.50 mm sieve), and subjected to ¹⁵N/¹⁴N isotopic analysis using mass spectrometry. At maturity, plants from the inner rows were harvested for the determination of grain yield. The results revealed significantly higher modulation (p≤0.05) in genotypes MCA98 and CIM-RM01-97-8 relative to the other genotypes. Shoot N concentration was highest in genotype MCA 98, followed by KAB 10 F2.8-84, with most genotypes showing shoot N concentrations below 2%. Percent N derived from atmospheric N₂ fixation (%Ndfa) differed markedly among genotypes, with CIM-RM01-92-3 and DAB 174, respectively, recording the highest values of 66.65% and 66.22 % N derived from fixation. There were also significant differences in grain yield, with CIM-RM02-79-1 producing the highest yield (3618.75 kg/ha). These results represent an important contribution in the profiling of symbiotic functioning of common bean germplasm for improved N₂ fixation.

Keywords: nitrogen fixation, %Ndfa, ¹⁵N natural abundance, grain yield

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Authors: Pervin Basaran Akocak

Abstract:

Food antimicrobials are compounds that are incorporated into food matrixes in order to cause death or delay the growth of spoilage or pathogenic microorganisms. As a result, microbiological deterioration is prevented throughout storage and food distribution. In this study, the effect of natural antimycotic natamycin (C33H47NO13, with a molecular mass of 665.725), a GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) commercial compound produced by different strains of Streptomyces sp., was tested against various fermented food contamination fungi and yeast species. At the concentration of 100 µg/ml, natamycin exhibited stronger antifungal activity against fungi than yeast species tested. The exposure time of natamycin for complete inhibition of the species tested were found to be between 100-180 min at 300-750 µg/ml concentration. SEM observations of fungal species demonstrated that natamycin distorted and damaged the conidia and hyphae by inhibiting spore germination and mycelial growth. Natamycin can be considered as a potential candidate in hurdle food treatments for preventing fungal and yeast invasion and resulting deterioration of fermented products.

Keywords: natamycin, antifungal, fermented food, food spoilage fungi

Procedia PDF Downloads 487

Authors: Chigbo Ikechukwu Emmanuel

Abstract:

Microalgae can be used for tertiary treatment of wastewater due to their capacity to assimilate nutrients. The pH increase which is mediated by the growing algae also induces phosphorus precipitation and ammonia stripping to the air, and may in addition act disinfecting on the wastewater. Domestic wastewater is ideal for algal growth since it contains high concentrations of all necessary nutrients. The growth limiting factor is rather light, especially at higher latitudes. The most important operational factors for successful wastewater treatment with microalgae are depth, turbulence and hydraulic retention time.

Keywords: microalgae, wastewater treatment, phosphorus, nitrogen, light, operation, ponds, growth

Procedia PDF Downloads 444

Authors: Olatunde Sunday Eludoyin, Charles Obiechina Olisa

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The study examined the spatial interactions between earthworm abundance (EA) and tree growth characteristics in ecological belts of Western Niger Delta, Nigeria. Eight 20m x 20m quadrat were delimited in the natural vegetation in each of the rainforest (RF), mangrove (M), fresh water swamp (FWS), and guinea savanna (GS) ecological belts to gather data about the tree species (TS) characteristics which included individual number of tree species (IN), diversity (Di), density (De) and richness (Ri). Three quadrats of 1m x 1m were delineated in each of the 20m x 20m quadrats to collect earthworm species the topsoil (0-15cm), and subsoil (15-30cm) and were taken to laboratory for further analysis. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Findings showed that a total of 19 earthworm species was found, with 58.5% individual species recorded in the topsoil and 41.5% recorded in the subsoil. The total population ofEudriliuseugeniae was predominantly highest in both topsoil (38.4%) and subsoil (27.1%). The total population of individual species of earthworm was least in GS in the topsoil (11.9%) and subsoil (8.4%). A total of 40 different species of TS was recorded, of which 55.5% were recorded in FWS, while RF was significantly highest in the species diversity(0.5971). Regression analysis revealed that Ri, IN, DBH, Di, and De of trees explained 65.9% of the variability of EA in the topsoil, while 46.9 % of the variability of earthworm abundance was explained by the floristic parameters in the subsoil.Similarly, correlation statistics revealed that in the topsoil, EA is positively and significantly correlated with Ri (r=0.35; p<0.05), IN (r=0.523; p<0.05) and De (r=0.469; p<0.05) while DBH was negatively and significantly correlated with earthworm abundance (r=-0.437; p<0.05). In the subsoil, only Ri and DBH correlated significantly with EA. The study concluded that EA in the study locations was highly influenced by tree growth species especially Ri, IN, DBH, Di, and De. The study recommended that the TSabundance should be improved in the study locations to ensure the survival of earthworms for ecosystem functions.

Keywords: interactions, earthworm abundance, tree growth, ecological zones, western niger delta

Procedia PDF Downloads 68

Authors: Mentor Sulollari

Abstract:

Albania, according to (UNU-EHS) United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security studies for 2015, is listed as the number one country in Europe for the possibility to be caught by natural catastrophes. This is conditioned by unstudied human activity, which has seriously damaged the environment. Albanian part of Ohrid graben that lies in Southeast of Albania, is endangered by landslides and floods, as a result of uncontrolled urban development and low level of investment in infrastructure, rugged terrain in its western part and capricious climate caused by global warming. To be dealt with natural disasters, which cause casualties and material damage, it is important to study them in order to anticipate and reduce damages in future. As part of this study is the construction of natural hazards map, which show us where they are distributed, and which are the vulnerable areas. This article will also be dealing with socio-economic and environmental costs of those events and what are the measures to be taken to reduce them.

Keywords: flooding, landslides, natural catastrophes mapping, Pogradec, lake Ohrid, Albanian part of Ohrid graben

Procedia PDF Downloads 267