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This study investigated the toxicity profile of methanol extract of Hura crepitans leaf on albino rats. The up-and-down method at a dose limit of 2000 mg/kg was used in the oral acute toxicity test. Twenty-four (24) albino Wistar rats were randomly assigned to 4 groups (A –D, n = 6). Group A (control) received distilled water, while groups B-D received 100, 200 and 400 mg/kg of the extract, respectively. The rats were dosed once daily for 21 consecutive days and weighed weekly. Twenty-four hours after the last treatment on day 21, the rats were fasted overnight and blood was collected into EDTA and plain bottles for hematological evaluation and serum preparation respectively. A manual method was used to determine the full blood cell count, while Randox kit was used to estimate the serum markers of liver and kidney functions. The extract was tolerated by the rat; the LD50 was greater than 2000 mg/kg. At 21 days of treatment, the extract (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) treated groups had 27.53, 25.98 and 25.33% weight gain respectively, while the distilled water treated group had 8.38% weight gain. The extract (200 and 400 mg/kg) reduced (p < 0.05) the packed cell volume, hemoglobin concentration and red cell count, serum aspartate aminotransferase, alanine aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase activities, but increased the total white blood cell in the treated groups when compared with the control group. This study suggests that methanol extract of Hura crepitans has hepatoprotective activity, promotes weight gain and could precipitate anemia when taken for a long period.

Background of study: Plants used for traditional medicine contain a wide range of substances which can be used to treat various infectious diseases. Aim: The study evaluated the in vitro antioxidant, antinociceptive, and anti-inflammatory activities of the methanolic extract of Justicia secunda Vahl leaf. Methods: The acute toxicity was performed with up and down method and the highest dose used was 2 g/kg. The anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated using the carrageenan and formalin-induced paw edema models, and antinociceptive activity was evaluated using acetic acid-induced writhing reflex and tail flick test models while the antioxidant activity was evaluated using 2,2-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazyl (DPPH) and ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) photometric assay. Results: The extract was well tolerated as no signs of toxicity or death were noticed during the period of observation. The extract produced a concentration dependent increase in antioxidant activities in both DPPH and FRAP models. The extract produced its optimum activity at 400 μg/ml in both DPPH (54.07%) assay and FRAP (1.58 μM) assay. The extract produced significant (P

This study was conducted on Siirt Pistachio variety (Pistacia vera L.) grown in five different locations (Kahramanmaraş, Pazarcık, Gaziantep, Ceylanpınar and Siirt) for two years (2017 and 2018). Phenological (bud burst, beginning of flowering, full-bloom, and beginning of leafing end of flowering), pomological (fruit size, fruit weight, and color parameters), physical (split, unsplit fruit ratios, empty and full fruit ratio) and biochemical (total phenolics, flavonoids, antioxidant activity, and fatty acids) analyses were conducted. Total protein contents varied between 18.55% (Ceylanpınar) and 19.45% (Gaziantep); fatty acid contents between 52.80% (Siirt) and 54.25% (Gaziantep); saturated fatty acid ratios between 10.44% (Gaziantep) and 11.58% (Pazarcık); unsaturated fatty acid ratios between 88.42% (Pazarcık) and 89.56% (Gaziantep); saturated fatty acid/unsaturated fatty acid ratios between 7.64% (Pazarcık) and 8.58% (Gaziantep); total phenolics between 18.91 (Ceylanpınar) and 23.04 mg GAE/g; total flavonoids between 7.34 (Ceylanpınar) and 10.23 mg QE/g; antioxidant activity values between between 1.65 (Siirt) and 3.25 IC50 µg/ml (Kahramanmaraş). Principal component analysis revealed that four components had eigenvalues greater than 1. The first two components explained 64.6% of total variation. Oleic (−0.98) and linoleic (0.91) acids were the most effective parameters on the first component and kernel weight, a*, protein, arachidic, gonolic acids, Mg, P and Zn were the most effective parameters on the second component. Present findings can guide new studies to be done with this species.

Due to political, religious, and cultural issues, Iraqi society witnessed turmoil, destruction, and social unrest in the 1960s. Therefore, in his debut literary work, the novel “The Sky Was Blue, Ismail Fahd Ismail tried to reflect these depressing societal realities. Using generative structural theory, the study explained the causes of social alienation that led to the protagonist’s disloyalty and rage and feelings of hatred, aversion, and refusal to comply with society’s cultural, political, social, and religious norms. The study aimed to reveal the significant structure by deconstructing and analyzing the text’s constituent elements and demonstrating their connection to Iraq’s cultural and social realities, and also to show how the novelist embodied the Iraqi societal reality in the novel “The Sky Was Blue” using a descriptive analytical approach. The study concluded that, through narrative techniques, especially description and discourse, the author adopted the method of self-interrogation, questioning others and Istedraji interrogation, and to employ symbolic language and simile at some points, to reveal the Iraqi societal reality in the sixties; The significant structure of the text was the lack of stability, harmony, unity and stability in Iraqi society due to disintegration, decadence and class deterioration at that period. Key words: The Sky was blue, Ismail Fahd Ismail, Social Alienation, Generative Structuralism. Extended summaryIntroductionSocial alienation is one of the sociological phenomena that causes a person to feel repulsed and alienated from his own society. This phenomenon was emerged in the Iraqi society in the sixties due to the social-political tensions among the people of this country; and Ismail Fahad Ismail depicted it in his debut literary work "The sky was blue".This study employed Goldmann's generative structuralism method to examine this novel from a sociological perspective. According to the aforementioned analytical method, the structure of the literary work is the result of the social conditions of the society in which the work was emerged. Similarly, Lucien Goldmann believed that of all the literary forms, the novel is the one better suited for sociological investigation because, in his opinion, novel has little imagery compared to the poem, and most of its constituent elements can be seen in the real world.This theory consists of two stages, reception and interpretation. In the reception stage, the internal structure of the text is thoroughly examined to reach a meaningful structure, and this meaningful structure is then incorporated into the structure of the society in the interpretation stage,Materials and MethodsTwo types of materials are needed for the sociological analysis of the novel "The sky was blue" in the light of the theory of generative structuralism. The first category is the data that the author receives from the novel itself, which includes story elements such as characters, events, and descriptions, as well as the methods of expression that the author uses to convey his meaning in internal and external dialogues, which are often interrogative and coded sentences. The second category consists of political-social information about the Iraqi society in the sixties, which was obtained through the study of historical books and articles, and the internal structure of the novel should be adapted to the social context of Iraq in that period and found similarities.This review, used a descriptive-analytical method. In the first part of this method, the definition of the theory of generative structuralism and its fundamental concepts and how to apply them in the literary work were explained, and the second part, discussed how these concepts are applied to the texts in the novel.Research findingsThe conducted research showed that certain social, political and religious factors in the Iraqi society had caused a break among its social classes, and it was the educated and cultured class that suffered from disturbances/ chaos and sought to bring the society out of chaos by informing other social classes. The problematic protagonist is a representative of the educated class, and the author prefers to keep him anonymous to show that due to the spread of ignorance among the masses and turning to superstition, and surrendering to oppressive laws, no one would listen to the words of the cultured and educated class. Therefore, the problematic protagonist of the story decides to escape from his country to Iran to escape this situation. Throughout story, the problematic protagonist, by using questions, tries to call other fictional characters to think about the disordered situation of the society, so that they become a little more aware. He believes that the political system ruling the country suppresses any force that opposes its goals for the sake of financial interests and to maintain the presidency and obtain higher government positions, and this caused the spread of corruption, cruelty and ignorance among the people.The oppressive government deprived the people of freedom of speech and turned them into slaves and one of the methods of creating sedition among the social classes, especially the unlearned or illiterate social classes, was the use of religious discrimination that was happened between different religions. In fact, our wise protagonist in one of his descriptions describing the external reconstruction of the old cinema building, whose name was also changed, cryptically points out to the political revolutions that took place during that period had nothing new to improve the situation of people. and the slogans they chanted were all nonsense and the purpose behind these lies was to deceive the simple and gullible people into joining them in order to achieve their personal and not national goals.Discussion of Results and ConclusionThe obtained results demonstrate the extent to which the author used storytelling techniques to reveal the deplorable social reality of Iraq in such a way that he attempted to demonstrate the social alienation that the protagonist suffered, through internal dialogues and external dialogues, based on questions and descriptions, and he shows the level of ignorance and simplicity of the Iraqi people, and through the random switching of the pronoun from third person to first person, proves the real existence of the hero to him in the society.The temporal and spatial structure of the novel, which indicates the absolute darkness and confinement of space, is similar to the suffocating and oppressive atmosphere of Iraqi society, and this similarity originates from a worldview that the author is inclined towards. This worldview, which has created a harmony between the structure of the world of the novel and the social structure of Iraq, is based on the creation of equality between social classes.By this review, it can be concluded that the generative structuralism method in the literary analysis of a work is important in two aspects; Firstly, it preserves the literary value of a work, and secondly, in terms of its sociological characteristics, it is possible to reveal issues in literature that may have been concealed from critics or historians.

Dielectric resonator oscillators (DRO) have been recognized as the basic energy source in microwave telecommunication, radar, and navigation systems. This paper reports fabrication and characterization of structure, microstructure and dielectric properties of (Mg0.8Zn0.2)(Ti0.99Sn0.01)3 ceramics (MZTS hereafter) as a DR, a well as characterization of key parameters of a DRO module, i.e. resonant frequency, output power, bandwidth and phase noise, when the ceramics were used as a resonator in the module. Five-mm diameter solid cylindrical MZTS ceramics were fabricated and sintered at 1100 °C for 4, 6, 8, and 10 h. XRD, SEM–EDS and Network Analyzer were used to characterize the structure, surface morphology, εr and Q factor at 3.3 GHz, and τf of the ceramics. The εr of 17.34–17.48, Q factor of 6464–6510 at 3.3 GHz, and τf of 38–59 ppm/°C measured over 25–70 °C. The DRO key parameters were measured using a Spectrum Analyzer at a transverse electric (TE)01δ resonant mode with 12 Volt dc biasing. The ceramics recorded the resonant frequency at 4.0 GHz which are stable for 1 h with large output power, narrow bandwidth, and low phase noise at 300, 500, 700 kHz, and 3 MHz offset frequencies. The best DRO characteristics was shown by the 8 h ceramic, i.e. the resonant frequency at 4.05 GHz with -6.55 dBm output power, 58.50 kHz bandwidth, and -114.56 dBc/Hz phase noise at 700 kHz offset frequency. With such performance, MZTS ceramics are promising to be used as a silent oscillator in C-band radar systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Nigeria, the rapid population increase and the overreliance on fossil fuel have created significant environmental, health, political, and economic consequences leading to severe socio-economic drawbacks. These factors have developed a wide gap between energy demand and supply due to insufficient local production, necessitating a clean energy supply for all. The photovoltaic device's economic and environmental merits have made it the most suitable clean energy alternative to help developing countries such as Nigeria achieve the SDG-7. However, apart from the device's low efficiency, which is undergoing intensive study globally, other factors affect the penetration of the technology in developing countries, particularly Nigeria. This report systematically reviews the literature on the country's energy crisis and renewable energy potential, leading to an overview of solar energy potential and penetration. The potential of the technology and its penetration in the country were provided. A list highlighting challenges hindering technology penetration was also provided, and a solution for each was recommended. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]