Current Approaches in Science and Technology Research Vol. 11

This study aimed at establishing the effects of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on the distribution of zinc in the body of HIV seropositive women in their reproductive ages in both follicular and luteal phases of their menstrual cycle. Age ranges of 18-40 years (mean 29years) were considered. HIV is a retrovirus which slowly but steadily attacks and destroys vital organs of the immune system and also depletes essential elements including iron and zinc. The study was prospective, cross sectional and targeted for a particular group in a tertiary institution in Midwestern Nigeria. A targeted population of 100 HIV seropositive women of reproductive age group and 50 seronegative women of same age group as control were recruited into the study. They were recruited before the commencement of HAART and monitored for nine months at three months interval after initiation. The parameter that was measured was zinc distribution in both follicular and luteal phases of their menstrual cycles. Mean values and their standard errors of means (SEM) were computed on Microcal Origin 5.0 statistical software. Comparism of means was done using ANOVA and Student t-test. HAART significantly (P<0.05) elevated zinc levels in the first three months of therapy in both phases and later decreased gradually till the ninth month, with higher reductions recorded in the luteal phases at all times. Conclusion: In this group of young reproductive women, HAART led to elevated values of zinc in the first three months (repletion) of therapy with subsequent decrease thereafter and at all stages, lower in the luteal phase than follicular phase showing a tie with the type of sex hormones.

In some parts of the world, supply of safe water is intermittent. In Malawi, some water supply interruptions are so long that they force consumers to fetch water from other sources. Majority of the alternative sources, however, provide unsafe water which puts people at risk of contracting waterborne diseases. This leads to high percentages of waterborne diseases. While this is the case, the period beyond which safe water supply interruptions force consumers in Malawi to fetch water from other sources was not known. As such, the purpose of this research was to establish this timespan. According to the study, people in Malawi are forced to fetch water from other sources whenever safe water supply interruptions last for 1.4 days or longer. We, therefore, encourage Malawi's water utilities to ensure that water supply interruptions do not last for this long. Strategies for ensuring that safe water supply interruptions are not too long have been discussed in this chapter.

The construction industry consumes large quantity of steel and emits carbon leading to global warming, which is a dampener for sustainable growth all over the world. As an alternative to steel, bamboo has been tried as reinforcement in different countries (e. g., Indonesia, China, Malaysia, India) on a limited scale only. Presently, fence walls erected with precast steel reinforced concrete (SRC) panels are widely in demand due to saving in time and simple craftsmanship when compared to conventional fence walls erected with materials such as stone, brick or barbed wire. Preparation of SRC panels has become a cottage industry due to a higher demand. However, these panels are prepared without adhering to any specification or standards. This work aims at exploring the methods of adopting bamboo as an alternative to steel for erecting fence walls. As many as thirty (30) bamboo reinforced concrete (BRC) slabs of dimension 1000 mm x 300 mm x 50 mm (length: height: thickness) were cast in the laboratory adopting M20 mix. Fifteen (15) slabs each were cast with (i) bambusa balcooa and (ii) bambusa polymorpha species as reinforcement with a pretreatment using coal tar creosote. The slabs were tested using (a) ultrasonic instrument to assess the quality of concrete used and (b) universal testing machine to establish the load versus deflection characteristics. As a comparative study these tests were repeated on precast, SRC panels, procured from a locally manufacturing unit. The test results reveal that the quality of concrete in BRC slabs was better than that of the SRC slabs. The BRC slabs with either type of species failed at approximately 50% of the magnitude of load taken by SRC slabs at failure. The deflection and the associated crack width also followed the same trend. The cost analysis performed indicates that BRC slabs are cheaper by 30 to 35% in comparison to SRC panels. Therefore, it is recommended to adopt BRC slabs for erecting fence walls and barns leading to benefits such as, sustainable growth of the environment, wider cultivation of bamboo species and more rural employment.

The two-station positioning system based on time difference and azimuth measurement has measurement redundancy. Therefore, not only can a positioning solution which is completely independent of the baseline length between two stations be derived, but also the baseline length can be solved as an unknown quantity. The analytical solutions of ranging are derived in polar coordinate system and rectangular coordinate system respectively, and the characteristics of the solutions are briefly described. On this basis, the ranging error is given further. The results of this paper can not only enhance the performance of the two-station positioning system, but also provide a design basis for the construction of the dynamic intelligent positioning system with self-organizing ability.

The First Innovation to Record Sound is an investigation to find the first invention to record sound. A lot of innovations emerged with various titles and purposes of sound recording but lack the ability to contend their presence. The phonograph, phonautograph, and quipu are inventions that claim to be the first device to record sound. It is obvious all three innovations are not the first to record sound, which ignited this historical research study. A thorough examination was conducted upon the phonograph, phonautograph, and quipu to find factual results regarding the First Innovation to Record Sound.

Different interferometer techniques and their applications are surveyed. The principle of optical heterodyne detection and its applications to in situ measurement of crystal growth rate, surface roughness measurement of coated mirrors and temperature changes due to laser heating are described in detail. Application of fluorescence ratio method, fluorescence lifetime measurement, Michelson interferometer and Mach-Zehnder interferometer techniques, for the measurement of temperature changes, are described in detail. The use of Mach-Zehnder interferometer to monitor changes in solution refractive index or concentration is described. A detailed error analysis is given for some of the measurements.

The Proposed research deals with the implementation of standalone dynamic solar array fed permanent magnet synchronous motor drive using zero voltage resonant switch converter for the reduction of switching losses and oscillations. The closed loop control voltage strategy has been proposed for power flow management between solar PV, battery, motor load and to maintain constant load voltage to perform continuous MPPT operation of solar PV. For improving the efficiency and to reduce vibration across the load solar photovoltaic (SPV) array fed Zero Voltage Switching (DISOZVS), Resonant Converter with permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive is proposed. The DISOZVS resonant converter with suitable switching operation accomplishes for the purpose of reducing the Switching losses. The various dynamics and oscillations of standalone solar pv array is analysed in the proposed research. The performance of the proposed system is simulated in MATLAB/Simulink atmosphere and various parameters outputs are carried. A hardware prototype of the proposed system has been fabricated for the proposed converter and various analysis were incorporated. The working of the proposed scheme for the different levels of input solar insolation and Load power demand has been satisfactorily demonstrated for both simulation and experimental results compared to conventional system. It results in more efficient with reduced losses and oscillations.

The microstructures of selected tropical bamboo species were investigated. Harvested three-year-old Gigantochloa scortechinii segregated into different locations and positions. Bamboo samples were treated using copper-chrome-arsenic (CCA), ammonia-copper-quaternary (ACQ), and a borax-boric-acid (BBA) through the vacuum pressure, sap displacement, and soaking technique. The samples then undergo using Electron Microscopy (EM), especially Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM) as an efficient tools for microstructure viewing. The coating process and spurr resin techniques followed for SEM and TEM, respectively. The study focused on the changes of vascular bundles, fibers, and parenchyma cells located at the internodes and nodes; also at the outer, middle, and inner sections of natural and preservatives treated bamboos. Found that the bamboo species exhibit similarity in their characteristics but the anatomical features and microstructure were different. This paper also describes the effects of treated and untreated samples through the ground contact test using SEM and TEM micrographs.

Solar cells lose high percent of their capacity as a result of insufficient solar radiation, due to changing of the solar angle of projection during the day. Solar energy coming from sunlight is converted by a cell panel into electrical energy called Photo Voltage (PV). These cells are made by trade of various semiconductor materials using P-N dipole technology. Thus this research aims to increase the cell efficiency by a novel method which is based on collecting rays in the convex focus and dispersed in the concave lens, to make the rays always perpendicular on cells. To achieve this purpose, glass balls with a diameter of 10 mm were used and arranged on the cell area. This work found an obvious increasing in the cell efficiency, where it is possible to have an increasing in generating voltage by an estimated 7.53%, and the current 1.086% by this novel method.

To derive invariant forms of conservation equations, a scale invariant statistical mechanics model is used. A modified form of the Cauchy stress tensor for fluid is presented, which leads to a modified Stokes assumption and thus a finite bulk viscosity coefficient.  Brownian motion is defined as the state of equilibrium between suspended particles and molecular clusters that also have Brownian motion. Physical space, also known as the Casimir vacuum, is a tachyonic fluid that is Dirac's "stochastic ether" or de Broglie's "hidden thermostat," and it is compressible according to Planck's compressible ether. The stochastic definitions of the Planck h and Boltzmann k constants are shown to be related to the spatial and temporal aspects of vacuum fluctuations, respectively. As a result, a modified definition of thermodynamic temperature is introduced, resulting in predicted sound velocity that agrees with observations. Boltzmann combinatoric method was employed to derive invariant forms of Planck energy and Maxwell-Boltzmann speed distribution functions.  In addition, the universal gas constant is identified as a modified value of the Joule-Mayer mechanical equivalent of heat known as De Pretto number 8338, which appeared in his mass-energy equivalence equation. Invariant versions of Boltzmann, Planck, and Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution functions for equilibrium statistical fields, including those of isotropic stationary turbulence, are determined using Boltzmann's combinatoric methods. The latter leads to the definitions of (electron, photon, neutrino) as the most likely equilibrium sizes of (photon, neutrino, tachyon) clusters, respectively. The physical basis for the coincidence of the Riemann zeta function's normalized spacing between zeros and the normalized Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution, as well as its connections to the Riemann hypothesis are investigated. Through Euler's golden key, the zeros of the Riemann zeta function are related to the zeros of particle velocities or "stationary states," providing a physical explanation for the location of the critical line. It is proposed that, because the energy spectrum of the Casimir vacuum will be determined by the Schrödinger equation of quantum mechanics, physical space should be characterised by noncommutative spectral geometry of Connes in light of Heisenberg matrix mechanics.  Invariant forms of transport coefficients implying finite values of gravitational viscosity, as well as hierarchies of vacua and absolute zero temperatures, are described. Some of the implications of the results for the problem of thermodynamic irreversibility and the Poincaré recurrence theorem are discussed. An invariant modified form of the first law of thermodynamics is obtained, as well as a modified definition of entropy, which closes the gap between radiation and gas theory. Finally, in quantum mechanics, new paradigms for the hydrodynamic foundations of both Schrödinger and Dirac wave equations, as well as transitions between Bohr stationary states, are examined.   

This paper presents a model of a game between a soccer kicker and a goalkeeper, in which each player is trying to score a goal or to avoid such goal. In this version of the penalty-kick game, there are two possible strategies for each player (related to the place that they choose to kick or to move themselves) and there is also uncertainty about the kicker’s type (with two possible types of kicker). To find a solution for this game we use the concept of Bayesian equilibrium, and we find that, typically, one the kicker’s types will play a mixed strategy while the other type will choose a pure strategy. Comparing this equilibrium with the corresponding Nash equilibria under complete information, we find that the expected scoring probability increases (so that, on average, the goalkeeper is worse off).