The present research was designed to examine the genetic analysis of egg weight, egg yolk weight and egg albumen weight of BOVAN Neva BLACK laying hens at 25, 51 and 72 weeks. For this purpose, thirty birds were selected from the layer flock in the Babcock University Teaching and Research Farm. They were in-dividually housed in separate labeled battery cage. A total of thirty eggs were collected daily from the birds continuously in five days of egg production, at each age of 25, 51 and 72 weeks. The total number of eggs collected at each age were 150. Data collected for egg weight, egg yolk weight and egg albumen weight were used to evaluate the descriptive statistics, influence of age and Pearson correlation coefficient on dif-ferent age groups. The mean values of the traits revealed a consistent increase in egg weight 55.02-63.29 g, egg yolk weight 13.14-19.39 g and egg albumen weight 35.52-39.21 g by aging. A significant positive ge-netic correlation was obtained among traits with linear regression equations at different age groups. Re-stricted maximum likelihood (REML) of Wombat software was used to obtain the repeatability and herita-bility estimates. From the results, it was revealed that all the traits recorded high estimates of heritability and repeatability while egg weight is more heritable and repeatable than egg yolk weight and egg albumen weight indicating that fewer records would be required to adequately characterize the inherent production ability of each trait as laying age progressed.

Diet of adult pikeperch Sander lucioperca, Eurasian perch Perca fluviatilis, northern pike Esox lucius and European catfish Silurus glanis as top predators in aquatic ecosystems in Serbia was investigated during 2011, in order to understand their relationship to their prey and to investigate their food consumption, feeding and assimilation rate, cannibalism, and habitat segregation. Northern pike, Eurasian perch, pikeperch and European catfish were collected in three reservoirs in Serbia. Prey items that were found in all four species included fish, mollusks, insect larvae and crustaceans. A total of 11 taxonomic groups were found, but they were not all represented as a prey in all four species. Eurasian perch were present in the diet of all four predatory fish species, mollusks were recorder only in that of European catfish. Roach Rutilus rutilus and bleak Alburnus alburnus were prey to all species, except northern pike. Chub Squalius cephalus, bream Brama brama and Gammaridae were found only in stomach of pikeperch. Analysis of similarity showed that difference for diet between predatory fish species was significant for their due to significant differences existing between northern pike and pikeperch and northern pike and Eurasian perch.

A study was carried out to evaluate the secondary sexual characteristics of four strains of cocks, comprising of two (2) exotics; BOVAN NERA BLACK (BNB) and Isa Brown (ISB), one (1) improved local strain, Shika Brown (SB) and one (1) unimproved local strain, normal feathered cock (NFC). A total of 64 birds (16 for each strain) at 36, 38, 40 and 42 weeks were used for the study. The result indicated that shank length, comb length, comb width, wattle length and wattle width were all significantly (P<0.001) affected by strains, with the exotic strains being superior to the local cocks. Age × strain interactions were also found to be significant. Phenotypic correlations between the secondary sexual characters were found to be signifi-cantly high and positive. The correlation between the secondary sexual characters and semen characteristics showed that shank length, wattle length and width, comb length and width had a positive correlation with semen volume (r=0.123, 0.335, 0.195 and 0.408 and 0.348 P<0.01), total sperm count (r=0.202, 0.300, 0.188, 0.403 and 0.320 P<0.05) and normal sperm (r=0.175, 0.143, 0.026, 0.155 and 0.065 P<0.05) respectively. Shank length has a positive correlation with sperm motility (0.010) and dead sperm (0.026), but a negative correlation with live spermatozoa. The result of this study shows a considerable similarity among the strains of cocks with respect to secondary sexual traits. Therefore, it may be inferred from this study that length of shank, comb and wattle are good predictors of semen attributes in male chickens. Selecting cocks with larger shank length, comb and wattle size can improve the semen quality and subsequently, results to higher fertility.

In this paper two different methods are presented to approximate the solution of the fractional BLACK-Scholes equation for valuation of barrier option. Also, the two schemes need less computational work in comparison with the traditional methods. In this work, we propose a new geNERAlization of the two-dimensional differential transform method and decomposition method that will extend the application of this methods for pricing barrier options of fractional version of the BLACK-Scholes model. Undoubtedly this model is the most well known model for pricing financial derivatives. This methods finds the analytical solution without any discretization or additive assumption. the approximate analytic solution is calculated in the form of convergent series with easily computable components, to solve the fractional BLACK-Scholes ‎equation.

An experiment was conducted to determine the differences in body weight (BW), feed intake (FI) and some egg production traits of two strains of layer chickens (Isa Brown and NERA BLACK) and correlate the relationships between the tested traits. The study commenced when the layers were 26 weeks old and a total of 200 (100 of each strain) were used. Sixty fresh eggs (30 from each strain) were collected at 26th, 32nd and 38th weeks of lay. The results of analysis of variance for main effect of strain revealed significant (P<0.05) differences in BW with Isa Brown (IB) weighing heavier (1978 g) than NERA BLACK (NB) (1887 g). There was however no strain effect on FI. The values for the external egg quality traits for egg weight, shell weight and shell thickness were found, respectively as 58.06 g vs. 54.26 g, 5.4 g vs. 5.00 g and 0.44 mm vs. 0.31 mm in favour of IB. While the values for internal egg quality traits for albumen weight, yolk weight and yolk height were found, respectively as 36.46 g vs. 33.60 g, 15.60 g vs. 12.26 g and 1.86 cm vs. 1.62 cm in favour of IB. Other traits tested (egg lenght, egg width, albumin height and haugh unit) were unaffected by strain. Main effect of age showed that most of the internal and external egg traits decreased with increase in age of the layers. Yolk weight increased with increasing age of the layers, which implies that eggs from younger birds would be expected to have lower amount of cholesterol. The correlation analysis for most of the tested traits were positive. BW positively and significantly (P<0.05) correlated with FI (0.73) and egg weight (0.54). It was concluded that age numerically decreased most of the tested qualities of egg while srain had significant (P<0.05) effect on BW and some egg quality traits with Isa Brown performing better than NERA BLACK in northern guinea savannah of Nigeria.

Chemical and biological treatment of dye-containing effluents is difficult due to the low adsorption level and chemical stability of dyes. Activated carbon is usually used for adsorption of these materials, but because of high prices and recovery problems, researchers are investigating to find available low-cost materials with high adsorption. In this study, bagasse was used for adsorption of Remzol BLACK B dye and its capability was examined. Variables were concentration, temperature, pH and contact time, and the degree of adsorption was examined in different situations. Then, adsorption isotherm according to Langmuir and Freundlich models were developed. The results showed that the adsorption efficiency depends on pH of solution and to a lower degree on temperature of the solution. Maximum adsorption of Remzol BLACK B dye by bagasse occurred in the first 15 minutes of contact. The study of adsorption isotherm showed that both models are suitable for description of adsorption of Remzol BLACK B dye by bagasse. Maximum adsorption of Remzol BLACK B dye by bagasse was calculated as 7. 51 mg/g. Results of this study showed that bagasse could be used as a low-cost bio adsorbent for the adsorption of Remzol BLACK B from aqueous solution.

BLACKleg disease of rapeseed, which is caused by Leptosphaeria maculans (Phoma lingam), is considered as one of the destructive diseases of crucifera family and has resulted in total yield loss in some locations. It appears as an endemic disease in many areas of the world, especially in rapeseed fields. In this study, the response of six winter cultivars of rapeseed to the two isolates of the fungus (Aliabad and Bandar Torkman) was evaluated. Plants were inoculated in different growth stages: cotyledon, and stages, 2.3-2.4, 2.1, and 3.2, using spore suspension under 23±1°C on the basis of established procedures for a successful infection. Inoculated plants were kept under plastic covers for 48 hours in order to provide a 100% relative humidity. After inoculation period, disease severity was assessed in cotyledon stage by the method of William and Delwich, in stage 3.2 by McNabb and Rimmer, and in stage 5 on the basis of Newman and Bailey, and also Mc Nabb and Rimmer. It was revealed that responses of Okapi and SLM046 to disease were homogenous in all stages. Okapi was recognized more susceptible and SLM046 more resistant than other cultivars under study. Talaych, Regent × Cobra, Fomax and Ceres which showed different reaction during different stages of inoculation, indicated the heterogenicity of response to BLACKleg disease in these cultivars.