THE FACTORS THAT AFFECT THE FREE FLOW SPEED ON AN ARTERIAL IN ILORIN, NIGERIA

 Generic factors (weather, environment, vehicles, fixed roadway characteristics, pedestrian and traffic streams) singly or jointly influence the free flow speed. This paper, therefore, presents the outcome of the quantitative evaluation of the influence of these factors on the free flow speed on an arterial in a medium-sized urban settlement in Nigeria. Instantaneous speeds of forty test vehicles were observed at lull periods on the 7.1km-Offa Garage-Emir’s Road, Ilorin, with simultaneous collection of data on drivers’ and vehicle ages, passenger occupancy, roadside parked vehicles and businesses. The geometric properties of the arterial were earlier established and segmented to four uniform sections. Result of computations using the category and statistical analysis show that the environment, pedestrian and roadway geometry have negative influences on the free flow speed. This can be confirmed by the poor relationship between free flow speed and these factors, with R2 values of 14.9-55%, and lower average free flow speed of commercial saloon cars on wet pavement than on dry pavement, with 12% percentage reduction. Adoption of design and analysis of traffic stream in Ilorin and other urban settlements in Nigeria is, therefore, recommended. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/njt.v35i3.

Studies on Growth, Organs Weight and Haematological Parameters of Broiler Chicken Fed Graded Level of Sun Dried Cassava Root Meal

Ninety (90) day old broiler chicks were used to investigate the response of broilers fed sun-dried cassava root meal (CRM). Five diets at starter and finisher phases in which CRM replaced maize at 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% and designated T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 respectively. Diets were allocated to day old broiler chicks in a completely randomized design (CRD). Birds were raised on dip-litter system and the experiment lasted for eight (8) weeks. Feed intake was taken daily, while body weights were recorded weekly. On days 22 and 44 two millilitres (2ml) of blood were collected using sterile syringe and needle from the wing vein into vacutainer tubes containing 2mg ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid (EDTA) as anticoagulant from two birds in each replicate. At eight weeks of age, two birds per replicate were randomly selected and used for carcass analysis. At the starter phase, final weight, daily weight gain and feed intake were significantly (P<0.05) higher in T1 and T2 compared to other treatments. Feed conversion efficiency tend to increase as the inclusion level of CRM increased at (P<0.05). No significant difference (P>0.05) was observed among the treatments for haematological parameters (PCV, Hb, MCHC and Total Protein). Highest mortality at starter and finisher phases were recorded in T4 and T5. Generally, there was decrease in feed intake as the inclusion level of CRM increased. Inclusion of CRM at finisher phase significantly affects the weight of some internal organs in T2, T3 and T4 (P<0.05). It is concluded that cassava root meal could be used to replace maize up to 25% without any adverse effect on the performance of broiler chicken

Surgery for idiopathic epiretinal membrane

BACKGROUND: Epiretinal membrane is an abnormal sheet of avascular fibrocellular tissue that develops on the inner surface of the retina. Epiretinal membrane can cause impairment of sight as a consequence of progressive distortion of retinal architecture. OBJECTIVES: To determine the effects of surgery compared to no intervention for epiretinal membrane. SEARCH METHODS: We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE Ovid, Embase Ovid, ISRCTN registry, US National Institutes of Health Ongoing Trials Register ClinicalTrials.gov, and the World Health Organization (WHO) International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP). There were no restrictions to language or year of publication. The databases were last searched on 20 May 2020. SELECTION CRITERIA: We included randomised controlled trials (RCTs) assessing surgical removal of idiopathic epiretinal membrane compared to placebo, no treatment or sham treatment. Paired or within-person studies were included, as well as those where both eyes of a single participant were treated. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: We used standard methods expected by Cochrane, and assessed certainty using the GRADE system. We considered the following five outcome measures: mean change in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in the study eye between baseline (before randomisation), 6 months and 12 months later; proportion of people with a gain of 0.3 logMAR or more of visual acuity in the study eye as measured by a logMAR chart at a starting distance of 4 m at 6 months and 12 months after randomisation; proportion of people with a loss of 0.3 logMAR or more of visual acuity in the study eye as measured by a logMAR chart at a starting distance of 4 m at 6 months and 12 months after randomisation; mean quality of life score at 6 months and 12 months following surgery, measured using a validated questionnaire; and any harm identified during follow-up. MAIN RESULTS: We included one study in the review. This was a RCT including 53 eyes of 53 participants with mild symptomatic epiretinal membrane and BCVA of 65 or more Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) letters. Participants were randomly allocated to immediate surgery or to watchful waiting with deferred surgery if indicated by evidence of disease progression. The study was limited by imprecision owing to the small number of participants and was at some risk of bias owing to inconsistencies in the time points for outcome assessment and in the management of lens opacity. At 12 months, the visual acuity in the immediate surgery group was higher by a mean of 2.1 (95% confidence interval (CI) -2.0 to 6.2 ETDRS letters; 53 participants; low-certainty evidence) than the watchful waiting/deferred surgery group. The evidence of the effect of immediate surgery on gains of 0.3 logMAR or more of visual acuity is very uncertain (risk ratio (RR) 0.55, 95% CI 0.06 to 4.93; 53 participants; very low-certainty evidence). At 12 months, no participant in either group sustained a loss of 0.3 logMAR or more of visual acuity (53 participants; low-certainty evidence). The included study did not measure quality of life. At 12 months, no serious adverse event was identified in any participant. One participant developed chronic minimal cystoid macular oedema following immediate surgery (53 participants; low-certainty evidence). AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS: We found no RCT that directly investigated the effect of surgery compared to no intervention. For severe disabling epiretinal membrane, the lack of a RCT comparing surgery to no intervention may reflect evidence from non-randomised studies in favour of surgery; a RCT may be considered unnecessary and ethically unacceptable because a superior effect of surgery is widely accepted. For mild symptomatic epiretinal membrane, however, the value of surgery is uncertain. Low-certainty evidence from this review suggests that watchful waiting or deferred surgery may offer outcomes as favourable as immediate surgery. However, this finding needs to be confirmed in further RCTs with appropriate statistical power, masking of treatment allocation, consistent management of cataract, and measurement of outcomes including patient-reported quality of life over a more extended time frame

Fortification of Plain Cracker With Fish Flour

Fortification of plain crackers with Java tilapiaflour to increase protein was conducted. Completely Randomized Design with five treatments was applied. The treatments were dough without fish flour addition as control, addition with 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%, they were replicated four times The crackers were measured for crude protein content, relative volumetric expansion and sensory properties. Results indicated that protein content in the crackers was increased proportionally with fish flour addition, but relative volumetric expansion, crispiness and consumer acceptance decreased. Addition of 5% fish flour is acceptable to consumers. Preparation to improve fish flour color and the use of agent to improve the sensory properties of the crackers are necessary. Keywords.- fortification, fish flour, crackers, crispiness. volumetric expansio

An application of ANFIS for Lung Diseases Early Detection System

Indonesian Basic Health Research in 2018 showed the prevalence of pneumonia, pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and lung cancer in Indonesia 4.0% 0.4% and 0.18%, respectively. However, the number of lung specialists is small. According to the Indonesian Lung Specialist Association webpage, the number of doctors joined in the association up to 2008 were 452. This amount is very less when compared with existing lung disease cases. Thus, the handling of lung disease will be too late. The use of ANFIS for early detection of lung disease is growing. However, the systems designed are need preprocessing data to be executed and still applied for one type of disease. This paper will design a desktop application based on ANFIS expert system to detect lung disease early, i.e. for pneumonia, pulmonary TB and lung cancer. The system will work based on simple symptoms expressed by the patient. Subtractive clustering is used for clustering process. The results of the training showed that the models were able to give better performance compared to the model built using conventional clustering methods. The test results show that those three models have comparable performance compared to their counterpart. Software validation shows that the it gives 94.00% succeed for training data and up to 100% for testing data. This application is not intended to replace the role of a doctor, but to help diagnose the patient's condition earlier

Isolation and Characterization of Stigmasterol and Bis-(5, 7-diacetyl-catechin-4’-α- rhamnopyranoside) from the Stem bark of Neocarya macrophylla (Sabine) Prance (Chrysobalanaceae)

Neocarya macrophylla belongs to the Chrysobalanaceae family and is extensively used in folk medicine as an antibacterial, antivenin, antiasthmatic, anticancer, analgesic and anti-inflammatory agent. This study was aimed at isolation and characterization of compounds from the stem bark of Neocarya macrophylla.  Pulverized plant material was exhaustively extracted with methanol using maceration method and concentrated invacuo with the aid of rotary evaporator at 40oC to afford a reddish brown crude methanol extract (ME). The methanol extract was successively partitioned into hexane, dichloromethane, ethylacetate, n-butanol and aqueous fractions. Stigmasterol was isolated from the hexane fraction and a catechin glycoside, Bis-(5,7-diacetyl-catechin-4’-α- rhamnopyranoside) was  isolated from the ethylacetate soluble fraction using a combination of silica gel column, gel filtration (sephadex LH-20) and preparative thin layer chromatography. The structures of the compounds were established on the basis of chemical tests, spectroscopic analysis and by comparison with reference spectral data.Keywords: Neocarya macrophylla, phytochemical, stigmasterol, Bis-(5, 7-diacetyl-catechin-4’-α-rhamnopyranoside)

Kesiapan Implementasi PP No.50 Tahun 2012 di Perusahaan Jasa Layanan Konstruksi Dengan Metode Gap Analysis

Kemajuan industri di Indonesia yang semakin pesat, penerapan SMK3 wajib diterapkan di seluruh perusahaan untuk meningkatkan efektifitas dalam perlindungan K3 yang terencana, terukur, terstruktur, dan terintegrasi. Berdasarkan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012 pasal 5 ayat 2 bahwa setiap perusahaan dalam penerapan SMK3 wajib berpedoman pada Peraturan Pemerintah ini dan ketentuan peraturan Perundang – undangan serta memperhatikan konversi atau standar internasional. Perusahaan ini belum menerapkan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012, yang mana perusahaan wajib menerapkan peraturan ini dengan syarat memiliki paling sedikit terdapat 100 pekerja dan memiliki pekerjaan berisiko tinggi. Untuk mengetahui kesiapan perusahaan dalam pengimplemntasian peraturan maka perlu dilakukan analisis kesiapan kebutuhan SMK3 sesuai peraturan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012. Metode yang digunakan untuk analisis kesiapan implementasi PP No.50 Tahun 2012 di perusahaan jasa layanan konstruksi yaitu metode gap analysis. Berdasarkan hasil analisis dan pengolahan data yang dilakukan perusahaan jasa layanan konstruksi ini kesiapan implementasi 77,78% persyaratan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012, hal tersebut berarti bahwa perusahaan siap untuk menyelesaikan persyaratan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012. Selanjutnya dilakukan penyusunan strategi kesiapan penerapan PP No.50 Tahun 2012 dengan menggunakan metode SWOT yang menghasilkan 9 langkah strategi. Upaya yang dapat dilakukan untuk kesiapan implementasi PP No. 50 Tahun 2012 yaitu dengan memberikan rekomendasi dan melakukan pemenuhan dokumen untuk elemen 1 hingga elemen 12 yang masih terdapat ketidaksempurnaan pada persyaratan PP No. 50 Tahun 2012

Desain dan Analisis Elemen Hingga Model Wrist Hand Orthosis Berbasis Metode Pemodelan Reverse Engineering

Salah satu treatment untuk spasticity efek pasca stroke, fracture karena kecelakaan, injury karena cedera olahraga, dan musculoskeletal disorders karena pekerjaan kantoran pada pergelangan tangan selain dengan operasi yaitu dengan penggunaan wrist hand orthosis. Umumnya pembuatan medical device tersebut menggunakan metode konvensional yang mempunyai kekurangan. Hadirnya teknologi reverse engineering (RE) dapat diaplikasikan dalam bidang medis seperti pembuatan alat prosthetic atau orthosis. Pada penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengembangkan desain wrist hand orthosis berbasis reverse engineering dan menganalisisnya menggunakan metode elemen hingga. Metode penelitian meliputi 3D scanning, CAD modelling, model analysis, dan post processing. Material model yang digunakan adalah ABS dengan variasi ketebalan 5 mm, 6 mm, dan 7 mm, serta besar nilai pembebanan mulai dari 5 N sampai 25 N. Hasil analisis equivalent stress menunjukkan model ketebalan 5 mm mampu menahan load 25 N dengan maximum equivalent stress sebesar 13.52 MPa yang masih tergolong aman dengan nilai safety factor 2.11 dengan area kritis di ujung punggung telapak tangan model antara ibu jari dan jari telunjuk. Hasil equivalent elastic strain dan deformation juga mempunyai tren grafik yang sama dengan nilai maximum pada model ketebalan 5 mm yaitu masing-masing sebesar 0.0057 mm dan 0.616 mm. Dari hasil analisis tersebut dapat disimpulkan bahwa model wrist hand orthosis berlubang voronoi yang memiliki bentuk seperti surface tangan manusia dengan ketebalan minimalis 5 mm mampu bekerja dengan baik memfiksasi tangan pasien untuk proses rehabilitasi

Studi Konsumsi Baterai Pada Penggunaan Filter Sinar Biru Tablet Komputer Untuk Aktivitas Daring

Pengguna perangkat seluler di Indonesia semakin meningkat dari tahun ke tahun. Pada tahun 2022, tercatat lebih dari 370 juta pengguna seluler, melebihi total populasi negara. Penggunaan gawai yang semakin intens dapat meningkatkan risiko gangguan kesehatan, khususnya terhadap organ penglihatan. Salah satu potensi bahaya dari perangkat seluler portabel yang dapat menyebabkan risiko kesehatan mata adalah paparan radiasi sinar biru dari layar gawai. Filter sinar biru, yang sudah disematkan oleh pabrikan gawai pada produk seluler terkini, dapat menjadi salah satu solusi yang bisa dimanfaatkan oleh pengguna untuk meminimalkan risiko tersebut. Namun, masih banyak pemilik perangkat yang belum menyadari keberadaan fitur ini. Selain itu, penggunaan sejumlah fitur pada gawai diprediksi akan meningkatkan konsumsi daya baterai. Artikel ini akan menyajikan hasil survei pengguna terkait pengetahuan mereka tentang fitur filter sinar biru. Lebih lanjut, pengukuran konsumsi baterai menggunakan aplikasi Accubattery juga dilakukan terhadap penggunaan filter sinar biru untuk beberapa aktivitas daring. Hasil survei menunjukkan bahwa lebih banyak pengguna yang belum mengetahui tentang filter sinar biru pada gawai yang mereka miliki. Hasil pengukuran daya baterai menunjukkan bahwa penggunaan filter dapat meningkatkan konsumsi baterai perangkat dengan peningkatan terbesar didapatkan untuk aktivitas menonton video secara daring, yaitu hampir dua kali lipat. Berdasar hasil perhitungan selisih konsumsi daya ketika filter diaktifkan dan tidak, pengguna direkomendasikan untuk mengaktifkan filter saat aktivitas rapat daring dan belajar daring, karena konsumsi daya dari kedua kegiatan tersebut tidak mengalami kenaikan yang signifikan