Influence of Bamboo Leaf Ash Blended Cement on the Engineering Properties of Lateritic Bricks

Bamboo leaf ash (BLA), which is obtained by the calcinations of bamboo leaves, is highly pozzolanic. This study investigates properties of lateritic soil bricks stabilized with BLA blended cement. The bricks were prepared from a mix ratio of 1: 6 (cement: lateritic soil) as control. The cement constituent in the reference mix was replaced with varying percentages of BLA at 5% interval up to 25% by mass of the cement. Properties of the bricks evaluated were compressive strength, abrasive resistance, and water absorption. The values of the compressive strength range between 4.0 N/mm2 and 5.3 N/mm2 for 25% BLA content and 5% BLA content, respectively. The results also indicated that the compressive strength decreases with increase in the content of BLA but increases with curing age up to the 56 days tested. The abrasive resistance was noted to improve with increase in the BLA content, while the water absorption values range between 2.39% and 3.95%. The study concluded that lateritic soil brick when stabilized with BLA blended cement, with up to 25% BLA replacing cement, can be used for the construction of load bearing walls

Conflict Management Mechanism in Contemporary Nigeria; Problems and Prospects

The focus of this paper is to examine the conflicts management mechanisms in the present-day Nigeria, their impacts for resolving conflicts and good governance in the country. The paper adopts content analysis methods using secondary source of information from newspapers, books, journals and internet materials to discuss the major conflict issues in Nigeria. Literature on the subject matter were reviewed to analyze the issues on conflict management mechanisms in the country. This work was anchored by structural conflict theory as the theoretical framework due to its importance on conflict management. Findings revealed that the conflict management mechanism in contemporary Nigeria is at a low ebb in resolving the conflicts in the country. The paper observed that the conflicts management mechanisms in contemporary Nigeria are ineffective due to the bad leadership, corruption; ethno-religious factors, undemocratic practices, poor security system, and non-adherence to the tenets of the rule of law. As a consequence, peace, development and stability have been negatively affected resulting in backwardness in growth and development in Nigeria. The study recommends that good governance must be put in place to repair the entire systems and/or institutions in the country to ensure effective management of the conflicts in the country.        KEYWORDS: Conflict, Conflict Management, Development, Good Governance, Good security &nbsp

Compaction Characteristics of Oil Contaminated Residual Soil

Oil spillage during transportation, leakages of underground tanks in fuel stations as well as indiscriminate spill of spent oil in motor mechanic workshops have increasingly become very prevalent in Nigeria. This study examined the effect of oil contamination on the strength properties of lateritic soil. Crude oil was simulated by rigorously mixing engine oil, diesel, kerosene and gasoline (petrol) together in ratio 1:1:1:1. Lateritic soil samples were artificially contaminated with the simulated crude oil in the range 0 to 8% of the dry weight of soils in a step concentration of 2% and subjected to basic geotechnical laboratory tests using british standard light (BSL) and west African standard (WAS) compactive efforts. The results show a gradual increase in the proportion of gravelly formed particles while sand and silt contents decreases with increase in oil content. The plastic and liquid limits of the soils decreased as the crude oil content increased. The maximum dry densities (MDD) decreased from 1.06 - 1.03 mg/m3 and 1.12 - 1.04 mg/m3, while optimum moisture content (OMC) increased from 13.12 – 14.8% and 11.8 – 13.3% for both BS and WAS compactive efforts respectively as oil content increased. The unconfined compressive strength (UCS) of samples for both BS and WAS compactive efforts were 239.6 kN/m2 and 253.8 kN/m2 respectively and increased with oil content up to 2% and thereafter decreased with further contamination. A significant influence of oil contamination on the engineering properties of soils is evident, and remediation and reuse of contaminated soil is imperative

Global incidence, prevalence, years lived with disability (YLDs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

Background: Detailed, comprehensive, and timely reporting on population health by underlying causes of disability and premature death is crucial to understanding and responding to complex patterns of disease and injury burden over time and across age groups, sexes, and locations. The availability of disease burden estimates can promote evidence-based interventions that enable public health researchers, policy makers, and other professionals to implement strategies that can mitigate diseases. It can also facilitate more rigorous monitoring of progress towards national and international health targets, such as the Sustainable Development Goals. For three decades, the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) has filled that need. A global network of collaborators contributed to the production of GBD 2021 by providing, reviewing, and analysing all available data. GBD estimates are updated routinely with additional data and refined analytical methods. GBD 2021 presents, for the first time, estimates of health loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The GBD 2021 disease and injury burden analysis estimated years lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs), and healthy life expectancy (HALE) for 371 diseases and injuries using 100 983 data sources. Data were extracted from vital registration systems, verbal autopsies, censuses, household surveys, disease-specific registries, health service contact data, and other sources. YLDs were calculated by multiplying cause-age-sex-location-year-specific prevalence of sequelae by their respective disability weights, for each disease and injury. YLLs were calculated by multiplying cause-age-sex-location-year-specific deaths by the standard life expectancy at the age that death occurred. DALYs were calculated by summing YLDs and YLLs. HALE estimates were produced using YLDs per capita and age-specific mortality rates by location, age, sex, year, and cause. 95% uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated for all final estimates as the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles values of 500 draws. Uncertainty was propagated at each step of the estimation process. Counts and age-standardised rates were calculated globally, for seven super-regions, 21 regions, 204 countries and territories (including 21 countries with subnational locations), and 811 subnational locations, from 1990 to 2021. Here we report data for 2010 to 2021 to highlight trends in disease burden over the past decade and through the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings: Global DALYs increased from 2·63 billion (95% UI 2·44–2·85) in 2010 to 2·88 billion (2·64–3·15) in 2021 for all causes combined. Much of this increase in the number of DALYs was due to population growth and ageing, as indicated by a decrease in global age-standardised all-cause DALY rates of 14·2% (95% UI 10·7–17·3) between 2010 and 2019. Notably, however, this decrease in rates reversed during the first 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, with increases in global age-standardised all-cause DALY rates since 2019 of 4·1% (1·8–6·3) in 2020 and 7·2% (4·7–10·0) in 2021. In 2021, COVID-19 was the leading cause of DALYs globally (212·0 million [198·0–234·5] DALYs), followed by ischaemic heart disease (188·3 million [176·7–198·3]), neonatal disorders (186·3 million [162·3–214·9]), and stroke (160·4 million [148·0–171·7]). However, notable health gains were seen among other leading communicable, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional (CMNN) diseases. Globally between 2010 and 2021, the age-standardised DALY rates for HIV/AIDS decreased by 47·8% (43·3–51·7) and for diarrhoeal diseases decreased by 47·0% (39·9–52·9). Non-communicable diseases contributed 1·73 billion (95% UI 1·54–1·94) DALYs in 2021, with a decrease in age-standardised DALY rates since 2010 of 6·4% (95% UI 3·5–9·5). Between 2010 and 2021, among the 25 leading Level 3 causes, age-standardised DALY rates increased most substantially for anxiety disorders (16·7% [14·0–19·8]), depressive disorders (16·4% [11·9–21·3]), and diabetes (14·0% [10·0–17·4]). Age-standardised DALY rates due to injuries decreased globally by 24·0% (20·7–27·2) between 2010 and 2021, although improvements were not uniform across locations, ages, and sexes. Globally, HALE at birth improved slightly, from 61·3 years (58·6–63·6) in 2010 to 62·2 years (59·4–64·7) in 2021. However, despite this overall increase, HALE decreased by 2·2% (1·6–2·9) between 2019 and 2021. Interpretation: Putting the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of causes of health loss is crucial to understanding its impact and ensuring that health funding and policy address needs at both local and global levels through cost-effective and evidence-based interventions. A global epidemiological transition remains underway. Our findings suggest that prioritising non-communicable disease prevention and treatment policies, as well as strengthening health systems, continues to be crucially important. The progress on reducing the burden of CMNN diseases must not stall; although global trends are improving, the burden of CMNN diseases remains unacceptably high. Evidence-based interventions will help save the lives of young children and mothers and improve the overall health and economic conditions of societies across the world. Governments and multilateral organisations should prioritise pandemic preparedness planning alongside efforts to reduce the burden of diseases and injuries that will strain resources in the coming decades. Funding: Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Patient symptoms elicitation process for breast cancer medical expert systems: A semantic web and natural language parsing approach

Information gathering from patient by clinicians during diagnostic procedures may sometimes require some skills to adequately collect required information that will be sufficient for the procedure. A situation where this information gathering may proof difficult in when a diagnostic decision making support system (DDSS) will have to gather such information from patient before carrying out the diagnostic procedure. Research has proven that it is more challenging to ensure user or patient inputs, in their raw form, maps into the list of acceptable medical terms for diagnostic tasks. This paper therefore proposes a formalized input generating model that addresses this shortcoming through the creation of an inference process, breast cancer lexicon, rule set and natural language processing (NLP). We developed an input generation algorithm which uses the python natural language processing capability in first filtering and generation the first pre-input collection. Furthermore, this algorithm then feeds in the pre-input word collection as input into the inference engine which has in its memory the rule set and ontology based lexicon developed. Finally, this generates a list of acceptable tokens that will be sent into the medical expert system or DDSS for the diagnosing breast cancer. This proposed model was tested on a breast cancer based DDSS earlier designed by this authors, and result shows that the inference support of this model generates additional input of about 64% compared to when the patient\u27s input where sent in as input in is state

The Culture of Male Supremacy and Emergency Obstetric Care: The Nigerian Experience

The maternal mortality ratio in Nigeria remains one of the highest in the world (WHO, 1990). Many intervention programs in this area have failed to achieve the desired purpose because efforts have been mainly in the area of hospital care or service delivery, without due cognisance being given to the androcentric behaviour which affects maternal roles, especially the dynamics of decision-making when emergency obstetric care service becomes necessary, Using findings from a recently concluded study, the paper looks at the impact of the culture of male gender supremacy on women's reproductive rights and their total well-being. It explores the gender myths about pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes, and the central role played by men in emergency obstetric conditions. The study. which is an action-oriented study, was carried out in South-western Nigeria, by a multi-disciplinary research group, using a variety of data collection techniques – questionnaire survey, in-depth interview, Focus Group Discussions, direct observation, and exposure to educative materials – posters, talks/discussions, films, drama etc, Study findings showed that androcentric behaviour is a major determinant of pregnancy outcome, since men have almost absolute control over the choice of health care facilities used during pregnancy, the condition under which delivery takes place, diet during pregnancy, and the types of action taken in emergency obstetric conditions. Yet, the study found that most men lacked knowledge of what constitutes emergency obstetric conditions, appropriate actions to be taken, and a shallow knowledge of pregnancy, fertility and family planning. The study instituted an intervention program which was aimed at improving the knowledge of men in what constitutes emergency obstetric care. and also counselling on androcentric behaviours which may be detrimental to pregnancy outcomes, and the social dynamics of what constitutes a healthy family. (The African Anthropologist: 2002 9 (2): 157-182

Effects of oxytocin on fertility of red sokoto goats treated with prostaglandin f2á

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of oxytocin (OX)  administration on conception rates in does. Red Sokoto (RS) does (n = 38) were equally allocated into 2 groups; I: does treated with prostaglandin plus normal saline (PGNS) and II: does treated with prostaglandin plus oxytocin (PGOX). Does were observed for standing oestrus behaviour and bred naturally using sexually active bucks. Results showed that oestrus response, conception and kidding rates were higher in the PGOX (73.7 %, 85.7 % and 58.3 %) than PGNS (63.2 %, 75.0 % and 55.6 %). Interval to onset of oestrus, duration of oestrus did not differ significantly (P < 0.05) between groups. We conclude that administration of oxytocin concurrent with prostaglandin F2á enhanced oestrus response, conception and kidding rates of Red Sokoto does.Keywords: Red Sokoto does, oestrus, conception, kidding, oxytocin, prostaglandin F2áL’objectif de cette étude était d’évaluer les effets de l’ocytocine (OX) l’administration sur les taux de conception en fait. Red Sokoto (RS) (n = 38) ont été également alloués en 2 groupes; I: ne traite avec prostaglandine ainsi une solution saline normale (PGNS) et II: ne traite avec la prostaglandine ainsi que l’ocytocine (PGOX). Est-ce que ont été observés pour s’être comportement de l’oestrus et élevés naturellement en utilisant mâles sexuellement actifs. Oestrus réponse, conception et kidding les taux étaient plus élevés dans le PGOX (73,7%, 85,7% et 58,3%) que PGNS (63,2%, 75,0% et 55,6%). Intervalle de début de l’oestrus, la durée de l’oestrus ne différait pas significativement (P <0,05) entre les groupes. Nous concluons que l’administration d’ocytocine en même temps que la prostaglandine F2a améliorée réponse, conception et kidding taux oestrus de Red Sokoto fait.Mots-clés: Red Sokoto fait, oestrus, conception, plaisante, l’ocytocine, la  prostaglandine F2

Evaluation of simplified Folltropin-V® (FSH) protocol on follicular turnover in Yankasa ewes

The study was conducted to evaluate the effects of simplifying pFSH (Folltropin-V®) protocol on ovarian follicular turnover in Yankasa ewes. Fifteen Ewes were synchronized for estrus with double injections of 10 mg Dinoprost tromethamine (Lutalyse®) on day 0 and day 10 and randomly allocated to 3 groups. {Cn; control (n= 5, No FSH treatment), F1 (n=5 received FSH once daily) and F2 (n=5, received FSH twice daily at 12 hr. interval)}. Folltropin-V® treatments commenced on Day 8 (equivalent to 80 mg, in decreasing doses over 3 days). Blood samples were collected an hour before and after 1st injection of FSH, then every 12 h over the course of treatment, and then every day till end of estrus. Serum was extracted and assayed for estradiol-17β. Ultrasonic scanning of the ovaries was conducted on day 11. Follicles were counted, measured and classified. Onset of estrus was earlier in F2 than F1 being 16.8 ± 5.0 h and 27.6 ± 4.0 h, respectively. Duration of estrus was shortest for F1 (39.2 ± 11.8 h) and F2 (47.6 ±10.6 h). Estradiol-17β concentrations were elevated in the F1 than F2 1 h after 1st FSH administration, but it was not significant (P > 0.05). Estradiol-17β in F2 (2.7 ± 0.52 pg/ml) was higher than F1 (1.64 ± 0.48 pg/ml) and this was not significant (P > 0.05). A significantly higher number (P < 0.05) of small follicles < 2 mm were observed in F2 (3.6 ± 3.4) than F1 (0.6 ± 0.9). Medium sized follicles 3 mm - 4.5 mm was higher (P > 0.05) in F2 (2.4 ± 2.6) than F1 (0.6 ± 0.9). Number of large follicles >4.5 mm were similar (P > 0.05) being 2.4 ± 2.3 and 1.4 ± 1.2 in F2 and F1 respectively. Both single and double daily FSH protocols were equally efficient in inducing multiple follicular developments.Keywords: Estradiol-17β, Simplified FSH protocol, Superovulation, Ultrasonography, Yankasa ewe