Histopathologic pattern of neoplastic testicular and paratesticular lesions in university of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital: a 10-year retrospective review

Objective: The present study is undertaken to describe the spectrum of histopathological features and age distribution of neoplastic testicular and paratesticular lesions in the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital.Materials and Methods: A retrospective descriptive study of 14 testicular and paratesticular neoplastic lesions was conducted over a period of 10 years; between January-2005 and December-2014 in the Department of Histopathology, University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital. Histopathological examination was done after routine processing and staining with Haematoxylin & Eosin.Results: There were 14 cases of neoplastic testicular and paratesticular tumours of which 12cases (85.7%) were malignant lesions and 2 (14.3%) were benign. There were 7 cases (50.0%) of testicular germ cell tumours, 4 cases (28.6%) of paratesticular tumoursand 3 cases (21.4%) of metastasis to the testis. The testicular germ cell tumours also accounted for 100% of all primary testicular tumours. These included 3 cases (42.9%) of seminoma and teratoma each and a case (14.3%) of endodermal sinus tumour (yolk sac tumour). The age distribution of the testicular and paratesticular tumours in this study shows that the majority of malignant lesions were present in the third and sixth decades of life (66.6%), while the only two benign lesions have also one case each in the third and sixth decades of life. The study also shows thatonly 2 cases were seen in the second decade of life; a case of seminoma in a 14-year-old boy and rhabdomyosarcoma in 15 years old, while the oldest patient was a 61-year-old male whose diagnosis was yolk sac tumour.Conclusion: This study highlights the rarity of testicular tumours in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria and correlates well with the histopathological spectrum of testicular tumours in other parts of the world. The relative higher percentage of up 21.4% of cases of metastasis to the testis also emphasizes the need for thorough evaluation of testicular specimens especially in cases of advanced carcinoma of the prostate.Keywords: testicular, neoplastic lesions, histopatholog

Evaluation of some Varieties of Okra (Abelmoschusesculentus) Seed Oil for Consumption and Industrial Uses

The demand for seeds oil is rapidly increasing due to the growth of the human population and the resulting increase in its consumption for both domestic and industrial uses. Hence, seed oils from three okra (Abelmoschusesculentus) varieties – Clemson spineless, ex-Samaru and NHAE-74 were extracted and their physicochemical properties were analysed and compared with some conventional seed oils. The percentage oil yield of the seeds determined for NHAE-74 (25.67±0.58 %) is significantly higher (p < 0.05) than Clemson spineless  (24.33±0.29 %) and ex-Samaru (23.05±0.50 %). The acid value (3.65±0.02, 1.96±0.01 and 2.24±0.02 mgKOH/g), Iodine Value (114.59±0.01,110.97±0.02 and 111.67±0.02 mg/100g) and Saponification value (122.02±0.19, 130.43±0.04 and 124.82±0.02 meqKOH/kg) of Clemson  spineless, ex-Samaru and NHAE-74, respectively differ significantly (p < 0.05) among the three varieties, while the peroxide value  (meqKOH/kg) of Clemson spineless (3.92±0.14) is significantly lower (p < 0.05) than the values of NHAE-74 (5.33±0.14) and ex-Samaru (5.00±0.25). The results further showed that the seed oil has a quality comparable to those of conventional oils and has great nutritional and industrial potentials

Wwox deletion leads to reduced GABA-ergic inhibitory interneuron numbers and activation of microglia and astrocytes in mouse hippocampus

The association of WW domain-containing oxidoreductase WWOX gene loss of function with central nervous system (CNS) related pathologies is well documented. These include spinocerebellar ataxia, epilepsy and mental retardation (SCAR12, OMIM: 614322) and early infantile epileptic encephalopathy (EIEE28, OMIM: 616211) syndromes. However, there is complete lack of understanding of the pathophysiological mechanisms at play. In this study, using a Wwox knockout (Wwox KO) mouse model (2 weeks old, both sexes) and stereological studies we observe that Wwox deletion leads to a significant reduction in the number of hippocampal GABA-ergic (γ-aminobutyric acid) interneurons. Wwox KO mice displayed significantly reduced numbers of calcium-binding protein parvalbumin (PV) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) expressing interneurons in different subfields of the hippocampus in comparison to Wwox wild-type (WT) mice. We also detected decreased levels of Glutamic Acid Decarboxylase protein isoforms GAD65/67 expression in Wwox null hippocampi suggesting lower levels of GABA synthesis. In addition, Wwox deficiency was associated with signs of neuroinflammation such as evidence of activated microglia, astrogliosis, and overexpression of inflammatory cytokines Tnf-a and Il6. We also performed comparative transcriptome-wide expression analyses of neural stem cells grown as neurospheres from hippocampi of Wwox KO and WT mice thus identifying 283 genes significantly dysregulated in their expression. Functional annotation of transcriptome profiling differences identified ?neurological disease? and ?CNS development related functions? to be significantly enriched. Several epilepsy-related genes were found differentially expressed in Wwox KO neurospheres. This study provides the first genotype-phenotype observations as well as potential mechanistic clues associated with Wwox loss of function in the brain.Fil: Hussain, Tabish. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados UnidosFil: Kil, Hyunsuk. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados UnidosFil: Hattiangady, Bharathi. Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Lee, Jaeho. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados UnidosFil: Kodali, Maheedhar. Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Shuai, Bing. Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Attaluri, Sahithi. Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Takata, Yoko. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados UnidosFil: Shen, Jianjun. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados UnidosFil: Abba, Martín Carlos. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Centro de Investigaciones Inmunológicas Básicas y Aplicadas; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Shetty, Ashok K.. Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine; Estados UnidosFil: Aldaz, Claudio Marcelo. University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. University of Texas Md Anderson Cancer Center; Estados Unido

Characterization and Classification of Brain Tissue and Stroke Lesions in Non-Contrast Computed Tomography Images of Stroke Patients Using Statistical Texture Descriptors and Artificial Neural Network

  Aim: To characterize and classify stroke lesions and normal brain tissue in computed tomography (CT) images using statistical texture descriptors. Patients and methods: Two experienced radiologists blinded to each other inspected CT images of 164 stroke patients to identify and categorize stroke lesions into ischaemic and haemorrhagic subtypes. Four regions of interest (ROIs) in each CT slice that demonstrated the lesion; two each representing the lesion and normal tissue were selected. Statistical texture descriptors namely, co-occurrence matrix, run-length matrix, absolute gradient and histogram were calculated for them.  Raw data analysis was performed to identify the parameters that best discriminate between normal brain tissue and stroke lesions. Artificial neural network (ANN) was used to classify the ROIs into normal tissue, ischaemic and haemorrhagic lesions using the radiologists’ identification and categorization as the gold standard, and further analyzed using the receiver operating characteristic curve. Results: Three parameters in each texture class discriminated between normal tissue, ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke lesions. The discriminating co-occurrence matrix parameters were sum average parameters namely S1-1 SumAverg, S1-0 SumAverg and S0-1 SumAverg.  For the run-length matrix, short run emphasis in horizontal, 1350 and 450 directions were the discriminating features. The discriminating absolute gradient parameters were gradient non-zeros, gradient variance and gradient mean. For the histogram class, the mean, 90th and 99th percentiles were the discriminating parameters. The ANN achieved a sensitivity of 0.637, specificity 0.753, false positive rate (FPR) 0.247, and false negative rate (FNR) 0.363 with co-occurrence matrix. With run-length matrix the sensitivity was 0.544, specificity 0.607, FPR 0.393, and FNR 0.456 while with absolute gradient the sensitivity was 0.546, specificity 0.586, FPR 0.414, FNR 0.454. With histogram, the sensitivity was 0.947, specificity 0.962, FPR 0.038, and FNR 0.053. Conclusion: The histogram texture features showed the highest sensitivity and specificity in the classification of brain tissue and stroke lesions using the artificial neural network.    &nbsp

Quality assessment of groundwater in the region of Laayoune-Dakhla (southern Sahara Morocco) for drinking and irrigation purposes

The study aimed to understand the quality of groundwater in the Laayoune-Dakhla region, in southern Sahara Morocco. Groundwater samples from 30 wells were collected and analyzed for their physical and chemical properties were collected and carefully studied for their physical and chemical properties (T, pH, EC, NO3-, Cl-, HCO3-, SO42-, Ca2+, Mg2+, K+ and Na+). Based on the data analyzed, we classified the water and calculated some parameters such as sodium adsorption (SAR), the sodium percentage (%Na), the residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and the Magnesium adsorption (%Mg) for each water sample in order to know the suitability for drinking and irrigation. The results showed high levels of salts for most of the water samples studied, where the EC values ranged from 1290 to 6895 µS/cm. According to the water classification based on TDS, 80% of the samples showed very high mineralization. 96.66% of the samples studied were very hard and unfit for human consumption. Also, estimated parameters such as Na% and SAR were within appropriate levels for irrigation, while EC and Cl- values for most samples were within limits inappropriate for irrigation. According to the Piper diagram 86.66% of the waters are characterized by a sodium chloride facies and 13.33% sulphated calcium. Principal component analysis (PCA) shows that the mineralization of the waters of Laâyoune-Dakhla is of natural origin

Ct findings in patients with head injury at a teaching hospital in Nigeria

There is paucity of data on computed tomography findings in head injury patients from this part of Africa inspite of the high number of trauma cases seen. Objectives: The objective of this study was to determine the pattern of findings on Computed Tomography (CT) scan of the head in patients with head injury in our locality, with the aim of detecting the pitfalls to help make improvements. Material: Seventy-eight patients with head injury, who had CT scan of the head conducted in the Radiology department, University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital between September 2011 to December 2013 were retrospectively reviewed by two Radiology residents and a Consultant Radiologist. Data was retrieved from the CT record book in that unit. Results: Head injury sustained as a result of road traffic accident (RTA) is the most frequent indication for CT head imaging in our study, with the lowest coming from request in bomb blast patients. Linear skull fractures were the most frequent finding, while rupture of the globe and frontal sinomucoceole, amongst others were the least. Gender variation showed that males were four times more affected than females and the age range of patients was 9 -70 years. Conclusion: RTA was the most common cause of head injury for which request for CT scan was made, and linear skull fractures were the most frequent finding. Males between 20-40 years were the most affected. CT is the most efficient imaging tool for detection of injuries in acute cases

Aflatoxin Total and Microbial Contamination of Grains, Oil Seeds, Yam Chips and Fish Sold in Maiduguri Market

Aflatoxins are secondary metabolites of fungus Aspergillus flavus and closely related species that infects severalagricultural commodities. The consumption of contaminated commodities adversely affects the health of humansand animals and also a cause of significant economic losses to producers. This study surveyed the aflatoxincontamination level of cowpea, maize, melon, groundnut, yam chips and fish sold in Maiduguri metropolis.Samples from each product (250 g) were bulked and thoroughly mixed using coning and quartering method to geta representative sample for analysis. Laboratory observations were carried out regarding microbial analysis,proximate composition and aflatoxin content. Samples for aflatoxin detection were classified into three; unsortedsamples, sorted samples and sorted/washed dried samples. Fish had the highest bacterial load 2.48 x 106 cfu/ml andAspergillus species were found to be the predominant fungi identified. Maize and groundnut with moisture contentof 5.63 and 5.62 had the highest total aflatoxin contamination (320.51 μg/kg and 236.3 μg/kg respectively) both inthe unsorted group. Total aflatoxin reduction of (58.82 - 99.99%) was observed in all the sorted samples andsorted/washed dried samples. It can be concluded that commonly sold food in Maiduguri had fungal and Aflatoxincontamination. Food should undergo several rounds of sorting to remove discoloured grains and grains that showsevidence(s) of deterioration to reduce the ingestion of food contaminated with aflatoxin

Climate, Environmental and Socio-Economic Change: Weighing Up the Balance in Vector-Borne Disease Transmission

Arguably one of the most important effects of climate change is the potential impact on human health. While this is likely to take many forms, the implications for future transmission of vector-borne diseases (VBDs), given their ongoing contribution to global disease burden, are both extremely important and highly uncertain. In part, this is owing not only to data limitations and methodological challenges when integrating climate-driven VBD models and climate change projections, but also, perhaps most crucially, to the multitude of epidemiological, ecological and socio-economic factors that drive VBD transmission, and this complexity has generated considerable debate over the past 10-15 years. In this review, we seek to elucidate current knowledge around this topic, identify key themes and uncertainties, evaluate ongoing challenges and open research questions and, crucially, offer some solutions for the field. Although many of these challenges are ubiquitous across multiple VBDs, more specific issues also arise in different vector-pathogen systems

Cost-effectiveness analysis of introducing RDTs for malaria diagnosis as compared to microscopy and presumptive diagnosis in central and peripheral public health facilities in Ghana.

Cost-effectiveness information on where malaria rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) should be introduced is limited. We developed incremental cost-effectiveness analyses with data from rural health facilities in Ghana with and without microscopy. In the latter, where diagnosis had been presumptive, the introduction of RDTs increased the proportion of patients who were correctly treated in relation to treatment with antimalarials, from 42% to 65% at an incremental societal cost of Ghana cedis (GHS)12.2 (US$8.3) per additional correctly treated patients. In the "microscopy setting" there was no advantage to replacing microscopy by RDT as the cost and proportion of correctly treated patients were similar. Results were sensitive to a decrease in the cost of RDTs, which cost GHS1.72 (US$1.17) per test at the time of the study and to improvements in adherence to negative tests that was just above 50% for both RDTs and microscopy

Optimization of power quality monitors in transmission system network

Due to an increase in population growth, more sensitive equipment and the significant usage of electricity. Power quality issues are of paramount importance, in order to get reliable and of high efficient power supply. Among all power disturbances, voltage sags are considered as the most frequent and severe type of disturbances that lead to loss of operation of equipment’s. The power quality monitoring system is the first to consider in power quality assessment and mitigation so as to get a reliable and efficient power supply. Installing power quality monitors in every component of the power system network is not feasible due to economic reasons and its need to be minimized. And then how to get the optimal number and locations of power quality monitors while maintaining system observability becomes an important problem. The aim of this paper is to find the optimal number and location of power quality monitors in the transmission system network. The IEEE 14 bus test system was modelled and simulated using POWERWORLD software, to obtain fault voltage and monitor reach area considering both balanced and unbalanced faults in the system. The optimization formulation problem is also formed and solved using an Integer Programming (IP) algorithm MATLAB toolbox to find the minimum number of Power Quality Monitors (PQMs) in the transmission system that lead to voltage sags, the Sag Occurrence Value (SOV) is used to find the best position of the PQMs. Finally, to prove the proposed Integer Programming (IP) algorithm, this paper end with optimizing the PQMs using Genetic Algorithm (GA) techniques