International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology

254-258

Authors: Mona Hussein Ibraheim, A.A. Ibrahiem, T. R. Dalloul

Green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from silver nitrate was carried out using aqueous Pomegranate juice extract (PJE) as a reducing agent. The formation of AgNPs was characterized by UV-visible (UV–vis) spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transforms infrared spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Surface Plasmon resonance (SPR) of ∼420-423 nm confirmed the earlier formation of AgNPs. TEM and XRD analysis showed that the AgNPs with an average diameter of 23 nm are crystalline in nature and have face-centered cubic geometry. The antibacterial efficiency of AgNPs against Escherchia coli and Staphylococcus aureus showed high level of inhibition. Further, the zone of inhibition increased with the increase in the concentration of silver nanoparticles. These studies are quite useful as it shows the utility of green nanotechnology for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles without any toxic residuals and byproducts. The efficient antimicrobial activity of biosynthesized AgNPs proves the application potential in the area of nano-medicine.

272-280

Authors: Surya Prasad Tiwari, Maheshwor Sapkota, Dainik Bahadur Nepali, Jagat Lal Yadav, Geeta Jamarkattel Tiwari

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of inclusion of three levels of soybean oil (0%, 2% and 4%) and three sources of commercial bone meals (GBM, PBM and IBM) in the diet of broiler chicken. Body weight, weight gain, feed consumption, feed efficiency, digestibility coefficient, calcium, phosphorus and ash content of blood and bone of broilers were measured. Significantly higher (P<0.01) average weekly feed consumption, average cumulative body weight, average weekly body weight gain was found in broilers fed diets containing soybean oil. The highest (5058.27 g) average total feed consumption was recorded on T9 and the lowest (4117.88 g) on T1. The highest average cumulative body weight was obtained on T6 (2168.33 g) and was the lowest on T1 (1930.00 g). Similarly, the highest average body weight gain was recorded on T6 (301.04 g) and the lowest on T1 (273.77 g). The abdominal fat weight percentage was maximum (2.38%) on the diet containing 4% soybean oil with GBM and minimum (1.04%) on the diet without soybean oil withIBM. However, the overall performance of broilers was found improved on the diet containing soybean oil. The ash, calcium and phosphorus content of blood and bone were better when supplied the diet with 2% to 4% soybean oil containing the sources of bone meal. Considering better bone calcification, phosphorus and minerals utilization in the chicken body, 2% to 4% levels of the soybean oil with the GBM source of bone meal could be incorporated in the diets.

288-293

Authors: Rashmi Parihar, Sumit Kumar Dubey

Phenol and its derivatives are consistently causing harmful effects to an aquatic ecosystem. The present study focused on the isolation and characterization of potential phenol degrading bacterial strains and subsequently optimization of media ingredients for efficient phenol degradation by potential bacterial strains. Bacterial strains were isolated from municipal sewage, Bilaspur (21'47 and 23'8 N 81'14 and 83'15 E). After optimization phenol degradation rate was increased by 1.84 fold for PDB 5 (from 40.37% to 74.67%) and 1.39 fold for PDB 11 (from 58.62% to 81.51%) at 500mg/l initial phenol concentration. PDB 5 and PDB 11 were identified as Streptococcus sp. PDB 5 and Pseudomonas sp. PDB 11 respectively as potential phenol degrading bacterial strains. These strains can further be used in microbially assisted phenol degradation to remove phenol derivatives present in industrial wastewater.

298-307

Authors: Manoj Sapkota, Madhav Prasad Pandey, Dhruba Bahadur Thapa

Ten foxtail millet accessions were collected from different parts of Nepal and were characterized for different agro morphological traits at Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science, Rampur, Chitwan. Ten accessions were experimented in Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications. Observations were taken for quantitative traits i.e. days to heading, days to anthesis, days to maturity, peduncle length, plant height, flag leaf length, flag leaf breadth, flag leaf length breadth ratio and stay green period and yield attributing traits i.e. panicle length, panicle exertion, number of panicle per square meter, hundred grain weight, five panicle weight and yield per plant. The mean performance was obtained and correlation analysis was performed between grain yield and other traits. Observations were also taken for qualitative traits i.e. tip of first leaf, anthocyanin at leaf base, lobe compactness, length of bristles, anthocyanin presence, leaf blade altitude, flag leaf color, lobe in panicles, panicle lodging, inflorescence compactness, overall color, panicle anthocyanin, panicle shape and growth habit. Significant differences were observed among the accessions for many characters. Based on quantitative and yield attributing traits, Humla-149 was considered the best performing accession. The UPGMA clustering and PCA analysis revealed three distinct clusters of the studied accessions. Most closely related accessions were Co-1896 and Co-5645 and most distantly related accessions were Co-1896 and Humla-522.

311-317

Authors: Md. Mahbubul Alam, Muhammad Abdus Sobahan, Nasima Akter, Ismail Hossain

Rice crops are susceptible to disease, which causes large yield losses in many Asian countries. The influence of disease incidence and severity on grain yield and quality of the rice (Oryza sativa L., cv. BRRI dhan29) was investigated in three different locations of Chief Farm Superintendent’s (CFS) farm viz. Near Weather Yard (location-1), Near Agronomy Farm (location-2) and Near CFS farm office (location-3), Bangladesh Agricultural University (BAU), mymensingh, Bangladesh during boro season. In location-1, both brown spot and sheath blight were recorded whereas in location-2 and in location-3 only brown spot was recorded. Severity of brown spot was lowest at the location-1 and the highest at the location-3. Combined incidence of brown spot and sheath blight decreased the yield considerably whereas brown spot did not alone. Maximum severity of sheath blight was observed both in flowering and soft dough stage and minimum at maximum tillering stage. The lowest infection index of brown spot was obtained at maximum tillering stage and the highest infection index was obtained at soft dough stage whereas maximum and minimum infection index of sheath blight of rice were recorded at soft dough stage and maximum tillering stage, respectively. Aparently healthy seeds, spotted seeds, discoloured seeds, deformed seeds and chaffy grains were found among the three locations. Germination percentage was highest in healthy seeds compared to other category seeds. Alternaria padwickii, Alternaria tenuis, Bipolaris oryzae, Curvularia lunata and Fusarium semitectum were found to be associated with the seed. The highest and lowest occurrence of A. padwickii, A. tenuis, B. oryzae, C. lunata were recorded from chaffy grains and from healthy seeds, respectively. It is suggest that disease incidence and severity was gradually increased with the age of the plant and reduced yield and quality of BRRI dhan29.

325-329

Authors: J. Gowri, P.Arockia Sahayaraj, M Amaladasan

The present study was carried out with an objective to investigate the antimicrobial potentials of leaves, flowers and stem extracts of Sphenoclea zeylanica. The aim of the study was to evaluate the antimicrobial activity and to determine the zone of inhibition of extracts against medically important bacterial and fungal strains. The antimicrobial activity was determined in the extracts using zone of inhibition method. The antibacterial and antifungal activities of extracts (40, 50, 60 and 70) of Sphenoclea zeylanica were tested against B. subtilis, P. vulgaris, S.aureus, E.coli, C. albicans, A. niger, S. typhi and B. cereus. Zone of inhibition of extracts were compared with that of control for antimicrobial activity. The results showed that the leaf extract showed notable inhibition of the microbial growth against the tested organisms. The microbial activity of the Sphenoclea zeylanic a might be due to the presence of various secondary metabolites. Hence, this plant can be used to identify the specific bioactive natural products which may serve as leads in the development of new antimicrobial agents.

338-345

Authors: Dinesh Thapa, Ram Bharosh Sahu, Prakash Parajuli, Buddha Ram Shah

Background: In this present world, human beings are being exposed directly or indirectly to some kind of ionizing and non-ionizing radiations with the development of recent scientific technologies or by natural phenomena. The study of the measurement of power density (PD) or Radio Frequency (RF) radiated from cellular Base Station Towers (BSTs) is seemed to be important in Nepal like other countries because of its various health effects. In this study, the authors measured the PD radiated from mobile base station towers in Biratnagar sub-metropolitan city, Morang. Methods and Methodology: All together 18 BSTs were selected within Biratnagar for the study purpose. Tenmars TM-196 which is a non-ionizing radiation detector was used to measure the power density. The Global Positioning System (GPS), a space-based satellite navigation system was used to locate the Maximum Peak Point (MPP) from the BSTs. Result: The maximum power density (PD) was observed near Jogbani boarder i.e. 3781.0 µW/m2 which was 0.63% of the NTA guidelines. Similarly, the minimum power density was observed near Rani BRT i.e 1549.3 µW/m2which was 0.26% of the NTA guidelines. Conclusion: From the survey it can be concluded that there is no significant health hazard to the general people due to non-ionizing radiation radiated from Base Station Towers in Biratnagar.

352-358

Authors: Mohamed E. Rashed, Amer M.M., Mostafa Elnakeeb, Waleed Saeed Omer

Helicobacter pylori infection is tremendous medical burden especially in developing countries. Various immunological tests are available for diagnosis of H. pylori infection. Western blot method is proven to be promising for Precise, easy reading, sensitive and specific detection of H. pylori infections, besides it also permits the detection for the different virulence factors of CagA / VacA positive strains (type I). The objective of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic value of commercial Western Blot (WB) method in the serological diagnosis of H. pylori infections against the H. pylori Ag in stool (HpSAg) using commercial enzyme-linked immunoassay (ELISA) in adult dyspeptic Egyptian patients. Also we investigated the prevalence of virulence factors, cytotoxin-associated gene A (CagA) and vacuolating cytotoxin A (VacA) in the infected patients. Samples from 46 adult dyspeptic Egyptian patients were tested by the two methods. WB test gave accurate confirmed result with (82.6% accuracy and 89.5% sensitivity) compared to HpSAg test. Also the results indicated a high seroprevalence of cagA- and vacA-positive virulent H. pylori type I strains in adult infected population indicate that such strains may be common in this population and responsible for the majority of H. pylori infection among adult Egyptians. We concluded that WB method could be useful for the confirmatory detection of antibody profiles to H. pylori antigens and virulence factors in adult Egyptian patients.

365-371

Authors: Sabita Subedi, Meera Prajapati, Bhojan Dhakal

A cross sectional study was conducted in Eastern and Western parts of Chitwan district from November 2015 to April, 2016 in two parts, the social study followed by biological to determine and compare the prevalence, distribution of antibodies, and level of awareness of farmers against Brucella abortus in cattle of the two regions of same district. Altogether blood samples of 92 cattle were taken for detection of Brucella antibodies by using RBPT test and the positive samples were further retested by Indirect ELISA test through ID Vet iELISA kit 2016. The samples which showed positive on both tests were confirmed as seropositive. Chi -square test and Fisher Exact test was used to find out the association between various variables. The result showed that 14.13% (13/92) and 10.86% (10/92) sample were positive by RBPT and iELISA test respectively. There was no significant prevalence differences (p>0.05) on location, age group, breed type, and method of service (artificial and natural) used in cattle. Comparing abortion with prevalence of Brucellosis, there was significant differences (p<0.05) in the result of both RBPT and iELISA test. Inferring from this result, there is association between the abortion and occurrence of Brucellosis. The higher significant prevalence differences (p<0.01) was according to the time of abortion where higher seropositivity was obtained in the cattle aborted on 5-7th month of pregnancy and cattle of 3rd parity. The study showed the existence of Brucellosis in Chitwan district with no adoption of any preventive measures against this disease, so here is current need of the strategies for its prevention and control in order to mitigate such overwhelming situation.

380-385

Authors: L.N. Aryal, R.B. Thapa, S. Tiwari, N.K. Chaudhary

This paper presents the finding of the field experiment conducted on monitoring of flower visiting insects on buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum Moench.) at farmers’ field during winter, 2012/13 at Meghauli, Chitwan, Nepal. The abundance and distribution of flower visiting insects were studied by monitoring with insect net and pan traps at 500 m, 1500 m and 2800 m from the natural habitat (forest). The wild insects (wasps and Apis dorsata F.) were found higher near to natural habitat and domesticated insects (Apis mellifera L. and Apis cerana F.) found more away from the natural habitat or close to housing and apiaries. Besides, Apis florea F., Andrena sp., Synoeca sp., Chalcid sp., Formica sp., Syrphus sp. and various Dipteran, Coleopteran, and Lepidopteran were also the flower visitors of buckwheat close to natural habitat. So, the diversity index varied with distance from the natural habitat, i.e. increase on proximity to natural habitat, i.e. 1.11, 1.25 and 1.62 at 2800 m, 1500 m and 500 m, respectively on sweeping with insect net and 0.65, 1.04 and 1.30 at 2800 m, 1500 m and 500 m, respectively on setting pan traps. Thus, the number and diversity of flower visiting insects get increased on proximity to natural habitat suggesting either conservation of natural habitat (forest) near farming communities or shifting of buckwheat cultivation near to natural habitat for adequate pollination and production.

391-396

Authors: Shailesh Gurung, Vishwa C. Pokharel, Chandra Kanta Devkota

Quality fish seeds production and dissemination is found quite lacking part in boosting up the production of aquaculture in Nepal since long decades. Commercialization in fish farming cannot jumped ahead in absence of available inputs and fish seeds are realized a great factor for subsistence to commercialization of fish farming activities. Participatory Market Chain Approach is found to be a key tool for the social and economic upliftment of farmers and different market actors in a common platform with a dynamic solution in a jointly supply chain modality. Limited and monopoly market of inputs supplier hinders the resilience of fishery sector both qualitatively and quantitatively in Nepal. It is extremely realized that the pocket level fish thematic group concept would be very fruitful in ensuring a milestone by representating village and cluster level problem solving arena among different actors, stakeholders and lead farmers for accession of quality inputs by mutual trust building environment covering wider area in a participatory way which will ensure supply chain of quality products, livelihood and income as well.

402-407

Authors: Rakeshkumar Ramanlal Panchal, Piyushbhai Vishnubhai Desai

Gibberellic acid production using Fusarium moniliforme, isolated from wilted sugarcane plant has been investigated by solid state fermentation (SSF). The gibberellic acid production of 154mgm/gm was obtained on commercial wheat bran (CWB) mineral salt acid bed in 500 ml flasks after 168 h incubation. The gibberellic acid production rate was about 0.6 to 0.9 mgm/gm/hr during 96 to 168 h. Different carbon sources namely sucrose, lactose, maltose, soluble starch, glycerol, wheat flour and maize flour were tested as an additional substrate along with CWB at the concentration of 25% w/w or v/w base to observe its effects on gibberellic acid production. Soluble starch has been proved the best additional carbon source for gibberellic acid production, which yielded 1160mgm/gm of gibberellic acid after 168 h. Similarly, various nitrogen sources namely NH4Cl, NH4NO3, (NH4)2SO4, (NH4)MoO4 and urea were tested as an additional substrate at the concentration of 0.07% w/w of CWB. Urea was proved as the best nitrogen source which yielded 532 mgm/gm of gibberellic acid after 168 h incubation. We have observed about 7.5-fold and 3.5-fold increase in gibberellic acid production upon addition of soluble starch and urea respectively, in CWB using Fusarium moniliforme.

417-424

Authors: Abu Bakr El-Bediwi, N.A. El-Shishtawi, Manal Mawloud Abdullah

Effect of adding titanium dioxide nanoparticles on microstructure, Vickers hardness, internal friction, thermal parameters and electrochemical corrosion behavior of Sn76Al10Bi10Cu2Zn2alloy has been studied using different experimental techniques. Crystallinity (peak intensity), crystal size (peak broadness) and orientations (peak position, 2θ) of Sn76Al10Bi10Cu2Zn2alloy changed after adding titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Corrosion resistance and internal friction of Sn76Al10Bi10Cu2Zn2 alloy improved after adding titanium dioxide nanoparticles. Vickers hardness value of Sn76Al10Bi10Cu2Zn2 alloy varied decreased after adding titanium dioxide nanoparticles.