Treated plantain peels in diet of broiler chickens

Three hundred (300) one day old Arbor Acre broiler chicks were used in an 8-week study to determine the growth response and nutrient utilization of birds fed varied inclusion of differently treated plantain peel meals (PPM). The birds were randomly assigned to the 10 dietary treatments with three replicates of 10 birds each and arranged in 3x3 factorial layout plus a control. Treatment 1 is the control, diet without inclusion of PPM, Treatment 2, 3, 4 were sundried PPM at 25, 50 and 75% (replacement for maize) respectively; while treatments 5,6,7 and 8,9,10 were sun dried-lye treated and sundried plus phytase supplementation (1g/kg diet). Data were collected on some chemical profile of treated PPM, performance characteristics of broilers and nutrient digestibility of the diet. The results showed that nutrient composition of plantain peel appeared adequate to serve as a feed ingredient in poultry. Increased level of PPM in the diets however, lowered (P<0.05) all the performance traits and digestibility coefficients. Lye treatment and phytase supplementation had most profound effect on repressing the toxic component in PPM. Lye treatment also influenced fibre digestibility positively but depressed (P<0.05) ether extract digestibility. It was concluded that the use of treated PPM in broiler diet did not represent a perfect replacement for maize. However, 25% of lye and enzyme supplemented PPM replacement for maize proved adequate in broilers’ diet.Keywords: plantain peels, anti-metabolic compounds, digestibility, performanc

Operations and roles of patent and proprietary medicine vendors in selected rural communities in Edu Local Government Area, Kwara State, north-central Nigeria

Background: Patent and Proprietary Medicine Vendors (PPMVs) are a ubiquitous feature of the informal health sector in many African countries including Nigeria. Little has been reported about the services they render. This study assessed the operations and role of PPMVs in selected rural communities of Edu LGA, Kwara State, NigeriaMethods: This explorative study used a mixed method approach of data collection. In-depth interviews were conducted among 25 purposively selected PPMVs in three out of the five operational zones in the LGA. Enumeration and mapping of PPMVs shops was done to determine the number and location of the PPMVs in all the five operational zones in the LGA.Results: PPMVs sell drugs with or without prescription and offer services like weight, blood pressure measurements. Products stocked align with the approved list of drugs, though some stock drugs outside the list. Their collaboration with the pharmacists is limited to drug purchasing. Collaboration with the formal health sector consists of training and patients’ referrals. Membership of National Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers (NAPPMED) is a ‘sine qua non’ for business. Enumeration of PPMVs shops in the five zones revealed 136 shops with Lafiagi having the highest and the GPS coordinates mapped on Google Earth Map showed the location and spread of the PPMVsConclusion: PPMVs can potentially bridge the gap in healthcare delivery in the study area and by extension to the State. Organizing capacity building workshops for the PPMVs can help strengthen their quality of health service and collaboration with other stakeholders.Keywords: Patent medicine, Pharmacies, Proprietary medicine vendors, Rura

Prevalence of ticks on indigenous breed of hunting dogs in Ogun State, Nigeria

Ticks are haematophagous arthropods that are important vectors of diseases of animals and humans, many of which are zoonotic, thus predisposing humans, including hunters to risk. The present study was conducted to assess the prevalence of tick infestation among hunting dogs with the aim of determining the danger which the presence of ticks portends, bearing in mind that hunting dogs are kept by the duo of rural and urban dwellers. A total of one hundred and nine (109) hunting dogs were sampled from nineteen (19) different locations in the State. The age, weight and sex of the dogs were noted and recorded as variables. The dogs were thoroughly examined for ticks and other ectoparasites which were collected into properly labelled plastic containers and were transported to the laboratory for identification. Chi-square test was used to compare the prevalence of tick infestation between recorded variables. Significance level was set at p = 0.05 or less. The overall prevalence of tick infestation in the 109 hunting dogs was 56%. The tick prevalence in the male dogs (66.7%) and that in the female dogs (51.9%) was not significantly (p> 0.05) different. Also, tick prevalence in young dogs (53.8%) and adult dogs (62.1%) was not significantly (p>0.05) different. There was a significant difference in the prevalence of tick infestation from urban and rural locations (p<0.05). Of the 352 ticks harvested from the hunting dogs, Rhipicepalus sanguineus constituted 68.2%, Haemaphysalis leachi leachi, 30.6%; and Ambylomma variegatum, 1.21%. The education of the hunters and other persons in close contact with dogs is required for the control of ectoparasites.Keywords: Hunting dogs, Indigenous, Nigeria, Prevalence, Tick

Evaluation of Aluminium, Copper and Aluminium-30% Copper Alloy Rivets

This work studied the failure of rivets made from different material compositions; Aluminium, copper, and aluminium-copper alloy under the same working condition. The strength to weight ratio and other properties of these materials make them ideal materials for rivet design. Six different rivets were produced each using pure aluminium ingot, pure copper ingot and aluminium copper alloy and each of the rivet was used to join mild steel together using the same pressing force of 50 kN. Each of the joint was subjected to impact test to measure the amount of impact energy they can absorb before failure. The impact test analysis showed that copper rivets had the highest impact resistance as only partial failure occurred. Impact test analysis of aluminium rivet resulted in fracture, thereby making it a weak material for riveting when it comes to components that requires high loading force. Also, Al-30%Cu alloy has high impact resistance, but less than that pure copper. Thus, it is concluded that for application with expected impact energy ˂ 12J, rivet made from pure copper is recommended. For application with expected impact energy ˂ 10J, rivet made from Al-30% Cu alloy is recommended, while for application with very low impact energy ˂ 5J, rivet made from pure aluminium is recommended. Keywords: Rivet joint, aluminium-copper alloy, pressing force, failure test, Impact energ

Influence of Sprouting on Proximate and Anti-nutritional Factors of Jacbean (Canavalia ensiformis) Flour

The influence of sprouting on proximate and anti-nutritional factors of Jackbean flour was investigated. Jackbean was procured from the Genetic Resources Unit of International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Oyo State Nigeria. The seeds were carefully sorted and sprouted for 10 days. The sprouted and unprocessed (control) bean were then milled into flour and thereafter assessed for proximate and antinutritional factors. The data generated were subjected to statistical analyses using SAS 2.0 and SPSS 20.0 packages. The results of influence of sprouting on proximate constituents and anti-nutritional factors revealed that sprouting for nine days (S5) resulted in flour sample with highest protein content and significant reduction in anti-nutritional factors most especially trypsin inhibitor from 32.08 + 0.13; 29.18 + 0.46 in control to 39.50 + 0.06; 18.33 + 0.03 in the sprouted samples respectively. Sprouting thus had positive effect on proximate and anti-nutritional factors of Jackbean flour. Keywords: Proximate, jackbean, anti-nutritional, sproutin

Performance Evaluation of a Hybrid Fractional Carrier Frequency Offset Estimator in OFDM

The major drawback of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system is high sensitivity to synchronization errors caused by carrier frequency offsets (CFOs), which result in degradation in the bit error rate (BER) performance. This paper investigates the performance of a hybrid fractional carrier frequency offset estimator (FCFOE) for frequency synchronization in the OFDM system. The hybrid FCFOE exploits the pilots inserted within the OFDM symbol for channel estimation together with the information inherent in the cyclic prefix (CP), with a view to improving the estimation of the CP-based FCFOE. The performance of the developed hybrid FCFOE was evaluated in terms of the mean squared error (MSE) and bit error rate (BER) using OFDM-QPSK and OFDM-16QAM schemes it turn. The simulation results show that the hybrid FCFOE only gives slightly better performance over the CP-based FCFOE; but the performance enhancement of the hybrid FCFOE is noticeable in OFDM-16QAM. Keywords: Carrier frequency offset estimation, Hybrid, Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, Synchronization, Maximum likelihood, Cross-correlation

Haematological and Serum Characteristics of Broiler Birds Fed Diets Supplemented with Varying Levels of Selenium Powder

The haematology and serum components of broiler chickens fed diets supplemented with selenium powder was investigated. A total of one hundred and fifty day old broilers were randomly allotted to three dietary treatments with ten birds per replicate in a completely randomized design. Treatment 1 was control with no Selenium supplementation, Treatments 2 and 3 had 0.3mg/kg 0.5mg/kg Selenium supplementation respectively.  Birds were vaccinated as schedule and acclimatized to rearing and feeding regime before data collection commenced. Result indicated differences (P<0.05) in the final bodyweight and total weight gain of the experimental birds. Feed  conversion ratio of birds on high selenium (0.5mg) was superior that its counterparts in control and 0.3mg supplementation. The heamatological and serum characteristics were not significantly affected (P<0.05) across the treatments except the differential count of the blood. The activity of the blood enzymes measured increase with selenium supplementation whereas the cholesterol level fall significantly in birds fed selenium supplemented diets. The study showed that all the dietary inclusion satisfactory as feed for broiler chicken without any deleterious effect on performance and blood profile.  Inclusion level of 0.5mm/kg of selenium appeared to have better overall performance when fed to broiler chicken. Keywords: selenium, broilers, haematology, seru

Quality Attributes of Heat Treated Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) Flour

Cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta), a staple food and a food thickner has a small starch grains and improved digestibility. In view of adding value to cocoyam, this study investigated the effect of different processing methods on the quality of cocoyam flour. In this study, cocoyam samples were given different heat treatments and milled into flour. The moisture content of the flour samples ranged between 7.85% - 18.75%. Protein content was between 3.48% - 12.60%. Loose bulk density ranged between 0.77g/cm3 – 0.83g/cm3 initially and 0.45g/cm3 – 0.56g/cm3 finally. Starch content ranged from 16.06% - 52.84%. The control sample that has no heat treatment has the highest value of overall acceptability. Keywords : Cocoyam, digestibility, heat treatment and value additio

In vivo antitrypanosomal evaluation of some medicinal plant extracts from Ogun state, Nigeria

Aqueous extracts of 5 medicinal plants comprising of the root bark of Morinda morindiodes and leaves of Tithonia diversifolia, Lippia multiflora, Ocimum gratissimum and Acalypha wilkesiana were investigated for antitrypanosomal activities in albino rats infected with Trypanosoma brucei brucei. The plant extracts at 400mg/kg body weight (of rats) were administered once daily for 7 days in an established infection of 5 x 106 parasitaemia before starting treatment. There was significant reduction in parasitaemia (P< 0.05) on the 3rd day of treatment in rats treated with Morinda morindiodes, Tithonia diversifolia and Acalypha wilkesiana but parasitaemia later increased till survival time. Morinda morindiodes, a plant well known for its potents antimalarial effect, has it root bark extracts exhibiting the highest value of mean survival time (12.6+0.7) days this study. The result may probably suggest reduction in parasite virulence by Morinda morindiodes root bark extract. Keywords: Antitrypanosomal, evaluation, medicinal plants, in vivo, Ogun State, Nigeria

Traditional eye medication: A rural-urban comparison of use and association with glaucoma among adults in Ilorin-west Local Government Area, North-Central Nigeria

Background: Globally, the last two decades witnessed increase in the use of  Traditional Eye Medication (TEM); and its use worsens the prognosis of visual outcome. This study assessed and compared the use of TEM and its association with glaucoma among adults in selected rural and urban communities of Ilorin-west Local Government Area, North-Central Nigeria.Methodology: This was a comparative cross-sectional study. Respondents were selected using multi-stage sampling technique. Interviewer-administered structured questionnaire, and clinical report form were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 15. Level of statistical significance was set at p&lt;0.05.Results: A higher proportion of the rural, 174 (38.7%) than the urban, 111 (24.7%) respondents knew about TEM (p&lt;0.001). More of the rural, 83 (18.4%) than the urban, 78 (17.3%) respondents had ever used TEM (p=0.664). TEM known to the respondents in rural versus urban areas included camphor (47.1% vs 28.8%), personal urine (3.5% vs 2.7%) and salt-sugar solution (1.7% vs 14.4%) among others. There exists an association between the use of traditional eye medication and presence of glaucoma within rural (p=0.011) and urban (p&lt;0.001) areas.Conclusion: The use of TEM among the respondents was associated with glaucoma. While the association between glaucoma and uptake of TEM may not be causal, it provides a window of thought for further researches. There is need to strengthen awareness on the dangers of using TEM in the communities. Regular  community-based eye screening involving measurement of intraocular pressure will be useful in early detection of glaucoma.Keywords: Traditional eye medication; Glaucoma; Rural-Urban; Nigeri