The increasing population growth resulting in the tremendous increase in consumption of fuels, energy, and petrochemical products and coupled with the depletion in conventional crude oil reserves and production make it imperative for Nigeria to explore her bitumen reserves so as to meet her energy and petrochemicals needs. Samples of Agbabu bitumen were subjected to thermal cracking in a tubular steel reactor operated at 10 bar pressure to investigate the effect of temperature on the cracking reaction. The gas produced was analyzed in a Gas Chromatograph while the liquid products were subjected to Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis. Heptane was the dominant gas produced in bitumen cracking at all temperatures and the r

Farmers keep trying to avoid using chemical fertilizer without losing high yield. A field experiment was conducted in the fields of Agriculture College, University of Baghdad during winter seasons of 2015 and 2016 to investigate the response of three bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars (Ibaa99, Abu-Ghraib3 and Buhooth22) to the frequency of spraying with biofertilizer (EM-1) (one time at tillering stage, twice at tillering and stem elongation stages and three times at tillering, stem elongation and booting stages) in addition to the control (without spraying), to the increase of grain yield. Randomized complete block design (RCBD), in split plots arrangement and four replications, was used. Spraying treatments were placed as main p

Ground-based active optical sensors (GBAOS) have been successfully used in agriculture to predict crop yield potential (YP) early in the season and to improvise N rates for optimal crop yield. However, the models were found weak or inconsistent due to environmental variation especially rainfall. The objectives of the study were to evaluate if GBAOS could predict YP across multiple locations, soil types, cultivation systems, and rainfall differences. This study was carried from 2011 to 2013 on corn (Zea mays L.) in North Dakota, and in 2017 in potatoes in Maine. Six N rates were used on 50 sites in North Dakota and 12 N rates on two sites, one dryland and one irrigated, in Maine. Two active GBAOS used for this study were GreenSeeker and Holl

Background: Osteoporosis is denoted by low bone mass and microarchitectural breakdown of bone tissue, directing to increased fracture risk and bone fragility. Fractures may lead to a decreased quality of life and increased medical costs. Thus, osteoporosis is widely considered a significant health concern.

Objective. This study aimed to compare quantitative computed tomography (QCT) and dual-energy X-Ray absorptiometry (DXA) to detect osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.

Subjects and Methods. We measured spinal volumetric bone mineral density (BMD) with QCT and areal spinal and hip BMD with DXA in 164 postmenopausal women. We calculated the osteo

Watermelon is known to be infested by multiple insect pests both simultaneously and in sequence. Interactions by pests have been shown to have positive or negative, additive or non additive, compensatory or over compensatory effects on yields. Hardly has this sort of relationship been defined for watermelon vis-à-vis insect herbivores. A 2-year, 2-season (4 trials) field experiments were laid in the Research Farm of Federal University Wukari, to investigate the interactive effects of key insect pests of watermelon on fruit yield of Watermelon in 2016 and 2017 using natural infestations. The relationship between the dominant insect pests and fruit yield were determined by correlation (r) and linear regression (simple and multiple) analys

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the effects of solvents of various polarities on the electronic absorption and fluorescence spectra of RhB and Rh6G. The singlet‐state excited dipole moments (me) and ground state dipole moments (mg) were estimated from the equations of Bakshiev -Kawski and Chamma‐ Viallet using the variation of Stokes shift along with the solvent’s dielectric constant (e) and refractive indexes (n). The observed singlet‐state excited dipole moments were found to be larger than the ground‐state ones. Moreover, the obtained fluorescence quantum yield values were influenced by the environment of the fluorescing molecule. Consequently, the concentration of the dye solution, excited singlet state absorption and