Relationship between serum Malondialdehyde (MDA) levels and cardiovascular risk factors in diabetic patients in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Background: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is associated with hyperglycaemia, dyslipidaemia and oxidative stress. Oxidative damage, indicated by elevated levels of Malondialdehyde (MDA), plays a vital role in development of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) in diabetic patients. Serum Malondialdehyde (MDA) has been used as a biomarker of lipid peroxidation and has served as an indicator of free radical damage. Aim: The purpose of this study was to evaluate serum Malondialdehydelevels and investigate its relationship to Cardiovascular risk factors in diabetic patients in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria. Methods: We assessed serum Malondialdehyde levels and lipid profile in 139 men and women with type 2 diabetes in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, Nigeria, a cross-sectional study. The subjects consisted of 36 males (26 %) of mean aged 53±0.1 SD and 103 females (74 %) of mean aged 52±0,2SEM. Diabetes mellitus status was confirmed biochemically according to World Health Organization diagnostic criteria for classification of diabetes mellitus. Concentrations of serum MDA was measured using the method of Draper and Hardley. Data for selected clinical/demographic variables were obtained from fasting blood samples and an interviewer-assisted questionnaire. Results: The mean serum MDA and TG concentration were higher in diabetic individuals than in control subjects (2.1±0.1vs 0.7±0.0 (p=0.01)); (1.5±0.1vs1.1±0.0 (p=0.01)) respectively. There is no statically significant difference in the mean values of serum TC, HDL, LDL, and TC:HDL in diabetic patients and controls (p>0.05). There were no correlations between serum MDA and lipids (TC, TG, HDL, LDL,TC:HDL), FBG, HBA1c,BMI, BP and Duration of Diabetes in diabetic patients (p>0.05) Conclusion: There are increases in free radical activity and lipid peroxidation in individuals with type 2 diabetic mellitus. In addition, MDA associate independently with cardiovascular disease

A Review of Air Quality and Concentrations of Air Pollutants in Nigeria

This study generally classifies air pollutants on the basis of: primary or secondary, natural or anthropogenic, chemical composition, physical state, and the space scales of their effects. Air pollutants that affect air quality in Nigeria were discussed based on natural and anthropogenic sources. The natural sources include: sand dust, sea spray, volcanic activities, smoke and carbon monoxide from wildfires among others, while the anthropogenic sources include: vehicular emissions, mining activities, industries such as cement companies and quarry factories, agricultural practices and solid waste dumps among others. Some of the atmospheric pollutants that posed greatest threat to human health were equally examined. They include: Sulphur dioxide (SO2) which can react with water vapor (H2O) in the atmosphere to form sulphuric acid (H2SO4) and thus acid rain; particulate matter (PM) with less than 10 μm, particularly fine particles (PM2.5 ) and particles in the fine fraction that are smaller than 0.1 μm (ultrafine particles), can carry toxic chemicals which are linked to cancer; carbon monoxide (CO), even in very small concentrations, can prevent oxygen from being delivered through the body major organs; ozone which is a highly reactive gas causes oxidation of a number of macromolecules within a biological system and produces free radicals that can damage DNA molecules and cause carcinogenesis. Based on the aforementioned, this study recommends that priority should be given to the establishment of air monitoring stations in all urban centers of the country in order to provide accurate and continuous information on air quality. Keywords: anthropogenic pollutants, atmosphere, particulate matter, pollutio

Teaching translation at the undergraduate level in Saudi Arabia : the case of Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University

Translation teaching touches upon many issues that demand investigation and discussion in detail. This thesis examines the teaching of translation at undergraduate level in Saudi Arabia through a study of the programmes in language and translation being offered by some Saudi Universities. Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University is taken as an example. The aim is to identify some of the problems inherent in translation teaching to suggest strategies for improvement of these programmes. The following approach was adopted: (a) a thorough study of the existing programme, (b) two questionnaires personally administered to the teachers and students and ( c) identification of the main translation problems by analysing more than 1500 translations produced by the students from nine source texts. The thesis consists of six chapters, the first of which is an introduction. The second chapter is devoted to reviewing some related literature on aspects of translation teaching, such as university training, the ideal translator, the ideal translation teacher, the curriculum content of a translation teaching programme and an overview of translation teaching models. The third chapter is a study of the existing programme at Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. The opinions of teachers and students on the programme at the University are analysed in Chapter four. Chapter five discusses the main problems revealed by the students' translations of the given texts, including: (I) comprehension problems of words, phrases, idioms and fixed expressions, and sentences, (2) problems of rendering at the lexical, syntactic, discourse and stylistic levels, and (3) problems related to reproducing and re-expressing texts in Arabic. Chapter six deals with suggestions and recommendations and concludes the study

Superficial cryotherapy versus intralesional corticosteroid injection in alopecia areata: A comparative clinical and dermoscopic study

Background: Alopecia areata (AA) is a common, non-scarring type of hair loss, affecting approximately 2.1% of the population. Many modalities of treatment are recommended like steroid injection, topical Immunotherapy, and several systemic therapies, but none of them can prevent or alter the course of the disease with variable degrees of improvement.Objective: To evaluate efficacy and safety of superficial cryotherapy versus intralesional corticosteroid injection in the treatment of alopecia areata. Patients and Methods: Thirty patients aged 14-58 years, with localized multiple patchy alopecia areata (at least two patches), were enrolled in this study. In each patient, one patch was treated by superficial cryotherapy via liquid nitrogen spray. This involved two treatment cycles/sessions, each lasting 3-5 seconds. The other patch was treated with intralesional steroid injection (triamcinolone acetonide 5 mg/ml, 0.1ml /cm2. Sessions were repeated every three weeks up to three months. The target lesions were evaluated clinically using SALT score and by 2 blinded dermatologists and dermoscopically at baseline, every session, and the end of the study (one month after the last session). Results: At the end of the study, the clinical response (number of the patients with hair growth > 20%) to superficial cryotherapy was about 83.3% (25 patients out of 30 patients). While in the steroid group the clinical response was about 80% (24 patients out of 30 patients). There was a statistically significant reduction in SALT score and dermoscopic parameters at the end of the study in both groups with no significant difference between them. There was a significant clinico-dermoscopic relation between hair regrowth and dermoscopic findings.Conclusion: Superficial cryotherapy is an effective and safe therapeutic modality for AA with advantages of simplicity and noninvasiveness

Serum homocysteine levels and lipid profile in Type 2 diabetic patients in Zaria, northern Nigeria

Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is one of the most frequently occurring non-communicable disorders characterized by hyperglycemia. Diabetic individuals are highly prone to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and hence it is necessary to search for advanced markers to assess the CVD risk. AIM: The aim of this study was to evaluate serum homocysteine concentrations and lipids in Type 2 diabetic patients in Zaria, Kaduna State, Northern Nigeria. Materials and Methods: The study was a cross-sectional type. A consecutive sampling method was employed to select the subjects who satisfy the study inclusion criteria. Informed consent for inclusion into the study was obtained from the subjects. Anthropometric measures, blood pressures were recorded for each of the subjects. This was followed the collection of blood specimens. Diabetes mellitus status was confirmed biochemically according to World Health Organization diagnostic criteria for classification of diabetes mellitus. We assessed 140 men and women with type 2 diabetes in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), Zaria, Nigeria. Serum total homocysteine concentration was measured using ELISA method. Serum lipids concentrations were measured using a commercial enzymatic kit method. Results: The mean values of homocysteine levels and lipids (TC, TG, HDL, LDL, TC: HDL), were higher among diabetic patients than those of control group (p=0.000). Similarly the mean values of other biochemical analytes (FBG and HbA1c) were also higher among diabetic patients when compared to control group (p=0.000). Conclusion: High levels of homocysteine and dyslipidaemia are implicated in the development of cardiovascular complications in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Design and analysis of evolutionary and swarm intelligence techniques for topology design of distributed local area networks

Topology design of distributed local area networks (DLANs) can be classified as an NP-hard problem. Intelligent algorithms, such as evolutionary and swarm intelligence techniques, are candidate approaches to address this problem and to produce desirable solutions. DLAN topology design consists of several conflicting objectives such as minimization of cost, minimization of network delay, minimization of the number of hops between two nodes, and maximization of reliability. It is possible to combine these objectives in a single-objective function, provided that the trade-offs among these objectives are adhered to. This thesis proposes a strategy and a new aggregation operator based on fuzzy logic to combine the four objectives in a single-objective function. The thesis also investigates the use of a number of evolutionary algorithms such as stochastic evolution, simulated evolution, and simulated annealing. A number of hybrid variants of the above algorithms are also proposed. Furthermore, the applicability of swarm intelligence techniques such as ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization to topology design has been investigated. All proposed techniques have been evaluated empirically with respect to their algorithm parameters. Results suggest that simulated annealing produced the best results among all proposed algorithms. In addition, the hybrid variants of simulated annealing, simulated evolution, and stochastic evolution generated better results than their respective basic algorithms. Moreover, a comparison of ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization shows that the latter generated better results than the former.Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Computer Scienceunrestricte

Modern Communication Satellite Antenna Technology

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Determining Best Window Size for an Improved Gabor Transform in EMG Signal Analysis

Electromyography EMG is a standout amongst the most regularly utilized tools to study human muscle condition. But due to the intricate attributes of the EMG itself, time-frequency distributions such as Gabor transform and spectrogram are more preferred than the simpler time distribution and frequency distribution. These techniques have been broadly utilized as it can provide both time and frequency information. However, both techniques have a fix window size for all frequency values, thus there exist a problem of determination of the window size, where excessively limit window and too wide window, will result in poor frequency resolution and time resolution, respectively. Along these lines, the point of this study is to choose the best window size so as to be utilized with Gabor transform to screen human muscle activity during core-lifting task. Four electrodes were placed on the right and left biceps brachii, and left and right erector spinae. In this study, the results of five acceptable window sizes (300, 400, 430, 450 and 520) were shown, despite the fact that other window sizes were also tested. Three criteria have been considered during the determination of the best window size, which are good time resolution, good frequency resolution, and high accuracy. Results demonstrate that window size of 450 is the best compared to others. As an additional analysis, the result is compared to a spectrogram and it can be seen that Gabor transform is better, as it has the flexibility in choosing the window size, thus affects the resolution and accuracy

Kerangka kemahiran employability senibina graduan politeknik

Sehingga tahun 2014, hampir seratus peratus graduan diploma politeknik Malaysia diterima bekerja di pasaran pekerjaan Malaysia. Namun begitu, terdapat peningkatan tren pengangguran dalam kalangan graduan diploma senibina politeknik sejak tahun 2012. Salah satu punca kepada peningkatan jumlah pengangguran ini disebabkan oleh ketidak selarian antara kemahiran employability yang diperlukan oleh graduan senibina dan pihak firma binaan. Penekanan terhadap kemahiran employability yang bertepatan mengikut bidang penting dalam membantu graduan memahami dan mengaplikasikan kemahiran tersebut di alam pekerjaan. Kajian ini dijalankan bertujuan untuk menghasilkan kerangka kemahiran Employability Senibina (Ar–ES) bagi graduan diploma senibina politeknik yang memenuhi keperluan pihak firma binaan. Kajian ini turut bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti konstruk dan dimensi Ar–ES yang dominan diperlukan responden kajian. Kaedah gabungan penerokaan digunakan melibatkan sampel seramai 285 orang graduan diploma senibina politeknik dan 226 orang responden mewakili majikan firma binaan yang terdapat di Malaysia. Analisis data mendapati lima konstruk dan tujuh belas dimensi Ar–ES telah dikenal pasti. Konstruk etika profesional merupakan konstruk paling dominan diperlukan oleh graduan (logit= -0.19) dan pihak majikan (logit= -0.17). Hasil analisis Differential Group Functioning (DGF) mendapati tidak terdapat perbezaan yang signifikan antara graduan senibina dan pihak majikan bagi kesemua konstruk dan dimensi kerangka Ar–ES yang dominan diperlukan. Pengkaji turut mendapati bahawa kerangka Ar–ES yang diuji bersifat unidimensi dan disahkan secara empirikal dengan memenuhi kriteria analisis Principle Component Analysis (PCA). Di akhir kajian, pengkaji telah menghasilkan kerangka Ar–ES untuk graduan politeknik bagi memenuhi kehendak firma binaan Malaysia. Penghasilan kerangka ini diharap dapat membantu meningkatkan kebolehpasaran graduan diploma senibina di Malaysia dan menangani isu pengangguran dalam kalangan mereka

Simple and computationally efficient movement classification approach for EMG-controlled prosthetic hand: ANFIS vs. artificial neural network

The aim of this paper is to propose an exploratory study on simple, accurate and computationally efficient movement classification technique for prosthetic hand application. The surface myoelectric signals were acquired from 2 muscles—Flexor Carpi Ulnaris and Extensor Carpi Radialis of 4 normal-limb subjects. These signals were segmented and the features extracted using a new combined time-domain method of feature extraction. The fuzzy C-mean clustering method and scatter plots were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed multi-feature versus other accurate multi-features. Finally, the movements were classified using the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and the artificial neural network. Comparison results indicate that ANFIS not only displays higher classification accuracy (88.90%) than the artificial neural network, but it also improves computation time significantl