IOSR-JESTFT   Volume-9 ~ Issue-2 ~ February 2015

Summary: The study was carried out to determine the effect of storage period of paddy rice on grain fissures and breakages of milled rice. Two locations - Minna, Niger State and Gombe, Gombe State were selected for the experiment. Samples were collected from storage silos using sample probes with inbuilt vacuum pressure to suck grain samples from the consignment. The samples were taken to laboratory for analysis. Data obtained were subject to analysis of variance using the General Linear Model Procedure of the function of statistical analysis system (SAS version 9.0). Means were separated using the Duncan Multiple Range Test (DMRT) at 5% level of probability. The result of analysis revealed that the superior fissured and broken grains obtained from milled rice stored between 1-2 years in this study was an indication of better quality. The result of analysis revealed that even though the design of the milling machine was good, good quality paddy rice (with uniformly matured kernels, uniform size and shape) a minimum of empty or half filled grains, a minimum of stones and weed seeds contributes to good quality of all milled rice. High temperature and relative humidity have a lot of impacts on the quality of milled rice, they accounts for an expansion and contraction of paddy rice in storage which also contributed to fissuring and breakages in milled rice. The major determinant of grain fissures and breakages was long storage periods of paddy rice. Hence, short storage periods of paddy rice was recommended to minimize fissures and breakages of milled rice.

Keyword: Fissures, Humidimeter, Physico-chemical, Consumer preferences

[1]. African Rice Center (WARDA) (2004) Rice trends in sub- Saharan Africa, 3rd Edition, WARDA, Cotonou, 2005.
[2]. African Rice Centre (WARDA) (2005-2006) Annual Report, WARDA, Cotonou.
[3]. Awotide, B., Awoyemi, T. & Diagne, A. (2012) Impact of access to subsidized certified improved rice seed on income: Evidence from rice farming households in Nigeria. http://www.inter-reseaux.org/IMG/pdf/SSRN-id1982848.pdf
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[7]. Food and Agriculture Organization (2002) FAO Rice International. FAO, Rome.

Summary: The effects of postharvest handlings on the bacterial quality of some selected fruits and leafy vegetables sold in two markets in Abuja, Nigeria, were investigated. Carrot, guava, oranges, cucumber, garden egg, banana, plantain, cabbage, spinach, and Oha leaves were obtained from Karu and Nyanyan in markets in the Federal Capital Territorial Abuja, Nigeria. The study was carried out in 2012. Seven different types of fruits and three types of leafy vegetables were used in this study. The samples were all collected from fruit vendors in two different markets. The study was carried out in the rainy season and dry season. The fruits and vegetables were stored on three (3) different days (Day 1, Day 4 and Day 7). Significant (p< 0.05) differences were recorded between the two seasons. Banana had the highest bacteria load of 8.2 in the dry season; while Cabbage and Oha vegetable had 7.1 and 7.1 each in the raining season, Guava and cucumber showed the lowest bacteria load of 6.5 and 5.5 respectively in the both seasons. The results obtained from the investigations showed that bacteria load was higher on the fruits and vegetables during the dry season than in the raining season. The results shows that fruits and vegetables when eaten without proper washing can transmit some pathogens to consumers, hence more caution should be taken by consumers during the dry season.

Key Words: Bacteria quality, Escherichia coli, Pterocarpus soyauxii,

[1]. Adebolu, T. T, And Ifesan B O (2001). Bacteriological quality of vegetables used in salads Nigerian Journal of Microbiology, 15(1): 81-85.
[2]. Amoah P, Drechsel P, Abaidoo RC, Abraham EM (2009). Improving food hygiene in Africa where vegetables are irrigated with Polluted water. Regional Sanitation and Hygiene Symposium, 2009, Accra, Ghana.
[3]. Babic, I.,S. Roy, A.E.Watada, andW.P.Wergin. (1996). Changes in microbialpopulations on fresh cut spinach. International of Journal of Food Microbiology. 31:107–119.
[4]. Bachoon, Dave S., and Wendy A. Dustman (2008). Microbiology Laboratory Manual. Ed. Michael Stranz. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning, 2008. Exercise 8, "Selective and Differential Media for Isolation''
[5]. Beuchat L R (1996). Pathogenic microorganisms associated with fresh Produce. Journal of Food Protection, 59:204-216.

Summary: Currently, about a billion people around the world are facing major water problems from drought and flood. The rainfall in the country is irregularly distributed in space and time causes drought and flood. An approach for effective management of droughts and floods at the national level; the Central Water Commission formulated National Perspective Plan (NPP) in the year, 1980 and developed a plan called "Interlinking of Rivers in India". The special feature of the National Perspective Plan is to provide proper distribution of water by transferring water from surplus basin to deficit basin. About 30 interlinking of rivers are proposed on 37 Indian rivers under NPP plan. Sharda to Yamuna Link is one of the proposed river inter links. The main concern of the paper is to study the proposed inter-basin water transfer Sharda – Yamuna Link including its size, area and location of the project. The enrouted and command areas of the link canal covers in the States of Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh in India. The purpose of this S-Y link canal is to transfer water from surplus Sharda River to deficit Yamuna River for use of water in drought prone western areas like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Gujarat of the country. It could be one of the effective plans of water management and other water based activities for future.

Key words: Drought, Flood, River Interlinking, Interlinking of Rivers, Sharda – Yamuna Link, Water Management

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Summary: A bacteriological study of three ponds in Uegwere Bo-ue community, Khana Local Government Area, of Rivers State, Nigeria were investigated to evaluate the water quality of the ponds. Surface water samples were collected monthly for eight months covering both seasons and evaluated. Bacteriological analyses carried out includes: total heterotrophic bacteria counts(THBC), Total coliform counts(TCC), feacal coliform counts(FCC) and other water borne pathogens. The results of this study reveal high THBC, high TCC and FCC( Escherichia coli). The THBC which ranged from 1.7 x 105 to 6.5 X 107 CFU/ml for pond A, Pond B 1.3 X 105 to 2.5 X 107 CFU/ml while pond C had 2.2 X 104 to 4.0 X 106CFU/ml. Total coliform bacteria for pond A ranged between 120 and 1560MPN per 100ml of sample , 87 and 900MPN per100ml for pond B and pond C ranged 702 to 1200MPN per100ml. Faecal coliform ranged between 350 to 662MPN, 124 to 420MPN 120 to 280MPN per 100ml. Bacteria of public health importance like E. coli, Salmonella sp and Shigella sp were also detected, which suggests possible faecal contamination. Higher bacterial loads were observed in the rainy than the dry seasons.

[1]. Wemedo, S. A., Ekpemandu, J. C. and Ekweozor, I. K. E(2004). Bacteriological Quality of Oriobojo Stream in Isiokpo, Ikwerre Local Government Area of Rivers State, Nigeria.Journal of Nigerian Environmental Society.2(2): 192 – 195.
[2]. Gogoi, P and Sharma, D.(2013)Microbial Contamination of Community Pond water in Dibrugah District of Assaam. Curr. World Environ, 8(1)
[3]. Paul, A. K. (2010). Wetland ecology; Principles and Conservation Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. UK p.497
[4]. Rajiv, P., Hasna, A. S., Kamaraj, M. Rajeshwam, S and Balgi, R.(2012) Comparative Physicochemical and Microbial Analysis of Various Pond Waters in Coimbatore District, Tamil Nadu, India. Annals of Biological Research, 3 (7):3533-3540.

Summary: Mangrove ecosystems' muddy or sandy sediments are known to be home to a variety of epibenthic, infauna and meiofauna invertebrates, but natural and human disturbances along tropical coastlines often affect this peaceful coexistence with little known on factors influencing recovery. This study focused on if facilitation by early colonizing vegetation of mangrove ecosystem might improve faunal recolonisation in a degraded area. Using stratified systematic sampling, transects of naturally growing sea blight, natural mangrove stands, adjacent bare control and open canopy control sites in Mwache Creek in Kenya were compared for environmental variables and faunal abundance and diversity. The findings indicated that interstitial water temperature and salinity (at low tide) were lower, while sediment organic matter was higher in the vegetated compared to bare sites. The bare areas were sandier than the vegetated sites. Faunal (crabs, mollusks and sediment infauna) composition in both control sites differed significantly (p<0.05) from the vegetated sites, whereas macroinvertebrate assemblages in sites of naturally growing sea blight resembled natural mangrove stand sites. Fauna species and densities were abundant in the two vegetated sites than in their respective controls. The results suggest that sea blight sites are supporting faunal recolonisation and therefore becoming more akin to the natural mangrove sites, thus supporting use of artificial methods (in areas where natural regeneration has been impeded) as a tool for management in conservation and restoration of the functional integrity of degraded mangrove habitats.

Keywords: epifauna, facilitation, recolonisation, sediment fauna, Suaeda monoica/sea blight.

[1]. S.Y. Lee, Mangrove macrobenthos: Assemblages, services and linkages, Journal of Sea Research, 59, 2008, 16-29.
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[3]. E. Kristensen, S. Bouillon, T. Dittmar and C. Marchand, Organic carbon dynamics in mangrove ecosystems: A review, Aquatic Botany, 89, 2008, 201-219.
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Summary: Automated features extraction techniques have gone a long way to ameliorate pains on image processing and information extraction from remotely sensed image; this has opened many doors for many applications. However, pixel based image classification and feature extraction of Nigerian urban areas are still very difficult due to the spectral similarity of many of the urban features such as roads, bare ground, rock outcrop, built-up areas and many more. This is as a result of the nature of the roads (untarred) and other features like built-up areas with large area coverage of bare ground rather than well landscaped with grass gardens. This makes high classification accuracy of urban feature extraction very difficult to achieve. The performance of urban feature extraction from LANDSAT imagery of Abuja, Nigeria with eCognition is overwhelming. This research compared the result of object oriented image classification (i.e. eCognition) and other traditional (i.e. Erdas Imagine) methods of image classification vis-à-vis urban feature extraction from medium resolution remotely sensed image of Abuja Nigeria which has a very highly similar spectral reflectance value. The result shows overall accuracy of 94.9% as against the overall accuracy of 89% in using the traditional method in Erdas Imagine. While the ever difficult and very confused class differentiation in image classification in Nigerian urban areas between built-up and bare ground was clearly separated with high level of accuracy

Keyword: Pixel Based Classification, Object-Oriented Classification, Automatic Feature Extraction, e Cognition.

[1]. Bokhary, Marwa A. M. (2012).Comparison between Pixel Based Classification and Object Base Feature Extraction Approaches for a Very High Resolution Remote Sensed Image.
[2]. Sadidy J., Firouzabadi P.Z., Entezari A. (2009) 'The Use of Radarsat and Landsat Image Fusion Algorithms and Different Supervised Classification Methods to improve Land use Map Accuracy- Case Study: Sari Plain-Iran'
[3]. Congalton, R. G. and Green, K. (1999).Assessing the accuracy of remotely sensed data: principle and practices. New York: Lewis Publishers
[4]. Lillesand, T.M., Kiefer, R.W. and Chipman, J. W. (2008) Remote Sensing and Image Interpretation. Six Edition ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons
[5]. Lu &Weng, (2006) 'Use of impervious surface in urban land use classification', Remote Sensing of Environment, 102(2006), pp. 140-160
[6]. Sun, H., Forsythe, W. and Waters, N. (2007).Modeling Urban Land Use Change and Urban Sprawl: Calgary, Alberta, Canada. V 7:353–376
[7]. Pham, V. C., Nguyen, T. T. H. and Nguyen, P. D. (2009) Comparison of Pixel Based and Object Oriented Classifications in LandCover Mapping in the Red River Delta – Example of DuyTien District, HaNam Province, Vietnam.

Summary: The present work was aimed to optimize different bio-physico-chemical parameters such as temperature, pH, additional carbon source, Nacl and biomass concentration for enhancing decolourisation of Congo Red, an Azo Dye by Aspergillus species isolated from the textile effluent amended soils. Our primary investigations revealed that the process of decolourisation was concomitant with the exponential growth phase of the fungi. The maximum extent of Congo Red decolourisation was recorded at 40oC temperature, pH-6, and at 0-0.5% Nacl concentration. The addition of 2% glucose as a co-substrate to the culture medium increased the rate of decolourisation by fungi than the addition of starch and mannitol, which may be attributed to the generation of redox equivalents (electron donors) as a result of glucose metabolism. Further, the raised mycelial biomass concentration on incubation exhibited much rapid decolourisation of culture media, thus confirming biosorption, as a promising way of decolourising textile effluents.

Keywords: Aspergillus, Biosorption, Congo Red , Decolourisation, Textile effluent.

[1]. H. Zollinger. Colur chemistry, syntheses, properties and applications of organic dyes and pigments, VCH Publishers, New York, 1987, 92-102.
[2]. N. Puvaneswari, J. Muthukrishnan and P. Gunasekaran, Toxicity assessment and microbial degradation of azo dyes, Indian Journal of Experimental Biology, 44, 2006, 618-626.
[3]. Z. Aksu, Application of biosorption for the removal of organic pollutants: a review, Process Biochemistry, 40, 2005, 997-1026.
[4]. Archana, K. N. Lokesh, R. R. Siva Kiran, Biological mehods of dye removal from textile effluents- A Review, Journal of Biochemical technology, 3,(5), 2012,117-180.
[5]. F. Zhang., J.S. Knapp and K.N. Tapley, Decolourisation of cotton bleaching effluent with wood rotting fungus. Water Resources, 33(4), 919-928, (1999).
[6]. I. M. Banat, P. Nigam, D. Singh and R. Marchant, Microbial decolourisation of textile dyecontaining effluents: A Review, Bioresource Technology 58 (3), 1996, 217-227.
[7]. Ravuri jaya madhuri. And Gangavarapu vijaya lakshmi. Biodegradation of Congo Red Azo dye by Aspergillus spp. isolated from dye contaminated sites. Journal of Agricultural Science and Technology A4, 2014, 422-434.

Summary: Eighteen maize varieties were evaluated in this study of the role of physical characteristics of the grain on the stability of resistance of maize varieties to maize weevil Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky. Fifteen hybrids (TZLCOMP3C3F2, AflatoxinSynW4, Obatanpa/TZL COMP4C3, Syn/Clfo/Obatanpa TZL COMP3*2, Obatanpa/IWDC2 SYN, Obatanpa/TZLCOMP3C3, Aflatoxin Syn W3, TZB-SR, TZL COMP4C4 F2, ACR 06 TZL COMP4 C4 F2, TZL COMP3 C3 DT, ACR O6TZL COMP3 C4 F2, TZL COMP4 C3 F2, TZL COMP4 C3 DT, Aflatoxin Syn3-W) obtained from the Maize Programme Unit, International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Ibadan, Nigeria and three local cultivars (Akparike, Bende and Ogbia muno) of maize were screened over four successive generations under laboratory conditions ( 25-320C and 55-85% r.h).

[1]. Abebe F., Tefera T., Mugo S., Beyene Y., and Vidal S. (2009). Resistance of maize varieties to the maize weevil Sitophilus zeamais (Motsch.) (Coleoptera:Curculionidae).African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 8 (21), 5937-5943.
[2]. Adedire, C.O., Akinkurolere, R.O., and Ajayi, O.O. (2011). Susceptibility of some maizecultivars in Nigeria to infestation and damage by maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais (Motsch.) (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Nigerian Journal of Entomology 28:55-63.
[3]. Ashamo, M.O.(2001). Varietal resistance of maize weevil, Sitophilus zeamais Motsch. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae). Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection 108:314-319
[4]. Frankenfeld J.C. (1948). Staining methods for detecting weevil infestation in grain. USDA Bulletin of Entomology R Q. E-T. Series 256:1-4
[5]. Giles, P.H.(1969). Observations in Kenya on flight activity of stored products insects particularly Sitophilus zeamais Motsch. Journal of Stored Products Research 4:317-329.
[6]. Gwinner, J., Harnisch, R., Muck, O. (1996). Manual on the prevention ofpost-harvest seed losses, post-harvest project, GTZ, D-2000, Hamburg, FRG. 294pp.
[7]. Haines, C.P.(1991). Insects and arachnids of tropical stored products: their biology andidentification. Chatham, Kent: Natural Resources Institute.

Summary: The present research work attempted to investigate the bacterial flora of Jaju Sagar Dam, a potential and sole municipal drinking water resource in Neemuch, M.P. The dam was sampled within an interval of 15 days and the analysis included isolation of Standard Plate Count bacteria on plate count agar at 20-220C (normal flora) and 370C (human pathogens), enumeration by Serial Dilution Agar Plate Technique and identification by conventional methods. The complete study was designed for a period of 12 months from January 2012 to December 2012 to study fluctuations in the counts monthly as well as seasonally. Elevated SPC levels than the standard (P<0.05), throughout the year indicated deteriorated quality of dam water. The SPC flora constantly and abundantly showed their presence (100%) in each and every sample analyzed, with a tendency of maximum counts during Rainy season followed by Summer and minimum counts in Winter season (P<0.05). On identification, repeated occurrence of Arthrobacter, Micrococcus, S.epidermidis, P.fluorescens, P.aeruginosa, Psuedomonas spp., Acinetobacter, Alcaligenes, Aeromonas, Moraxella, Klebsiella, Citrobacter freundii, Enterobacter aerogenes, E.coli, Flavobacterium, S.aureus, Streptococcus, V.cholerae, Salmonella spp., Shigella spp., Bacillus cereus, B.subtilis, Proteus mirabilis, P.vulgaris and Lactobacillus fermentum was observed.

Keywords: Bacteria, Dam, Enumeration, Identification, Standard plate count,

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