Vol 16, No 2 , 2015-1, African Scientist

Methanolic extracts of leaf, stem and root of Acalypha wilkesiana were investigated with the goal of establishing its acclaimed potency as an anthelmintic and antimicrobial agent. Antimicrobial assay was carried out using the agar cup plate diffusion method. The extracts were tested against 8 human pathogenic microorganisms (5 bacteria and 3 fungi). The leaf and stem methanol extracts exhibited antibacterial and antifungal activities.

Methanolic extracts of the leaves of Phyllanthus amarus and stem of Phyllanthus muellerianus were studied for antileishmaniasis activity, phytotoxicity and cytotoxicity. The antileishmanial activity was evaluated in vitro using promastigote culture of Pakistani leishmanial strain (L. major) in 96 well micro titer plate bioassay, while phytotoxicity was assessed using the Lemna bioassay and cytotoxicity using brine shrimp lethality assay. Methanolic extract of stem of P.

Oil extracted from ripe peel of Musa paradisiaca (plantain) was analyzed for physicochemical properties and fatty acid constituents using standard methods. The results revealed that the acid value, peroxide value and specific gravity were significantly (p<0.05) higher than those of soybean oil whereas saponification value, iodine value, ester value, boiling, smoke, flash and fire points were significantly lower than in soybean oil. The percentage yield of the oil from the peel of M. parasidiaca fruit was 6%.

A new way of introducing a parameter to expand a family of exponential and Weibull distributions is introduced and studied. It is applied to yield a new two-parameter extension of the bivariate exponential distribution which may serve as a competitor to such commonly used two-parameter family of the life distribution as the Weibull, gamma and lognormal distributions. The general method is applied to give a new three-parameter Weibull distribution.

As the current global environmental concerns have prompted regulations to reduce the level of aromatic compounds, particularly benzene and its derivatives in gasoline, hydroisomerisation of n-alkanes is becoming a major alternative for enhancing octane number. Series of solid acid catalysts comprising of Freidel crafts, zirconias, MoO3-based (MOB), chlorinated Al2O3, heteropoly acids and bifunctional zeolite based catalysts have been tested in this respect.

This paper designed a Mathematical Model which provides a good description of blood flow regimes via constricted and unconstricted vessels that induces high blood pressure. It also presents a solution which will predict the rates of blood flow and the pressure profiles across the domain.

Utilization of sawmill wood wastes as household energy source in Benin City was investigated. A multistage random sampling technique was used to select 10 wards within the study area. Thirty households were then selected in each ward thus making a total of 300 respondents. The result showed that 67.2 and 14.5% of the respondents use sawmill wood wastes for cooking and for processing of farm produce respectively.

ATM services provided by banks and non financial institution have appeared as the most E - Banking instruments that had become so popular in Nigeria. The belief that ATM is dependably provided by a bank, the transactions and the data being transmitted must be secured. This belief might hold in the past, but at the moment ATMs are now able to use operating systems, such as Microsoft windows and Linux. These operating systems do expose ATM to vulnerability akin to the same kind of problems displayed by conventional computers.

Three african oil seeds of soyabean (Glycine max L. Merill) Beniseed (Sesamu indicum L. ) and melon (Cucumis melo L. ) were evaluated as potential oil seeds in a southern guinea savannah agro-eosystems, using soyabean as a standard reference crop. Experimental techniques included approved Association of Official Analytical Chemist (AOAC1984) for proximate analysis, kjedahl for protein estimate and soxlet extraction using petroleum spirit as a solvent for l content.

Potentiometric Studies on the dissociation constants of amino acids were carried out. The dissociation constants of amino acids were determined using ‘ORIGIN 50’ Program, as an attempt to find an alternative way for determination of the dissociation constants of amino acids, pKa, instead of the conventional calculation methods.