An Overview of Data Storage in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is a functional paradigm that is evolving and making IT utilization easier by the day for consumers. Cloud computing offers standardized applications to users online and in a manner that can be accessed regularly. Such applications can be accessed by as many persons as permitted within an organisation without bothering about the maintenance of such application. The Cloud also provides a channel to design and deploy user applications including its storage space and database without bothering about the underlying operating system. The application can run without consideration for on-premise infrastructure. Also, the Cloud makes massive storage available both for data and databases. Storage of data on the Cloud is one of the core activities in Cloud computing. Storage utilizes infrastructure spread across several geographical locations. Storage on the Cloud makes use of the internet, virtualization, encryption and others technologies to ensure security of data. This paper presents the state of the art from some literature available on Cloud storage. The study was executed by means of review of literature available on Cloud storage. It examines present trends in the area of Cloud storage and provides a guide for future research. The objective of this paper is to answer the question of what the current trend and development in Cloud storage is? The expected result at the end of this review is the identification of trends in Cloud storage, which can beneficial to prospective Cloud researches, users and even providers

Divorced women in Nigeria: empowered or disempowered?

This paper is a report of a study that investigates the outcomes of divorce among divorced women in semi-urban and rural communities in Ekiti State, Nigeria to determine whether they were empowered or disempowered being divorced. A total of 52 divorced woman purposively selected were interviewed. The findings revealed that almost half of the divorced women reported that they were empowered in some areas depending on their socio-economic status, educational qualifications and age but overall, the outcome(s) of divorce was more disempowering than empowering for the vast majority of the divorced women. Within this context, understanding reasons for disempowerment of divorced women is a key theme for understanding marriage, divorce and empowerment in Nigeria

CONSEQUENCES OF THE ACTIVITIES OF A NIGERIAN CEMENT INDUSTRY ON THE ENVIRONMENT

The cement industry and its products are resources that have an impact on the landscape with dust and noise and disruption to biodiversity, sterilization of lakes and forests. There is also the reduction in populations of small invertebrates and decomposers, of agricultural yields, and extensive structural damage by corrosion from the factory. The industry may create employment and business opportunities in the area they are situated. The aim of the study is to identify the key issues of the environmental pollution and contaminants, the composition of the pollutants andcontaminants and hence their effect on living caused by this resource. This study was undertaken at the Lafarge Cement Factory at Ewekoro in South West Nigeria. Samples used in this study were collected at strategic points around the factory. The results from this study showed that the water samples of Ewekoro contained Pb, Zn, and Ni with values higher than the WHO standard values and as such we suggest that the water is not portable for drinking. It is suggested that trees must be planted around the factory to reduce the pollutants. Experimental values of Fe are below the WHO standard (0.300 mg/L) in plants and water samples (0.005 mg/L and 0.030 mg/L respectively) while the values are high in the rock(2.270 mg/L) and in soils (2.720 mg/L) samples. It has been suggested that Montmorillonite ore might be present in the study areas, so we believe that. Montmorillonite could probably be a contributor to the high iron content

Correction to: Thermal decomposition of rice husk: a comprehensive artificial intelligence predictive model

Unfortunately, in the original publication of the article the third author name was misspelled as Faisal Abnisal. The corrected author name should read as “Faisal Abnisa”. The affiliation of third author was incorrectly published. The corrected affiliation is given below

Metformin to reduce metabolic complications and inflammation in patients on systemic glucocorticoid therapy: a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept, phase 2 trial

Background: An urgent need to reduce the metabolic side-effects of glucocorticoid overexposure has been recognised, as glucocorticoid excess can lead to Cushing's syndrome, which is associated with high morbidity. We aimed to evaluate the potential of metformin to reverse such effects while sparing the anti-inflammatory benefits of glucocorticoids.  Methods: We did a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, proof-of-concept, phase 2 trial involving four hospitals in the UK. Patients without diabetes were eligible if they were between the ages of 18 and 75 years with an inflammatory disease treated with continuous prednisolone (≥20 mg/day for ≥4 weeks and remaining on ≥10 mg/day for the subsequent 12 weeks, or its cumulative dose-equivalent). Eligible patients were randomly allocated (1:1) to either the metformin or placebo groups, using a computer-generated randomisation table stratified according to age and BMI. Metformin and placebo were administered orally for 12 weeks in escalating doses: 850 mg/day for the first 5 days, 850 mg twice a day for the next 5 days, and 850 mg three times a day subsequently. The primary outcome was the between-group difference in visceral-to-subcutaneous fat area ratio over 12 weeks, assessed by CT. Secondary outcomes included changes in metabolic, bone, cardiovascular, and inflammatory parameters over 12 weeks. Our analysis followed a modified intention-to-treat principle for the primary outcome. This study is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01319994.  Findings: Between July 17, 2012, and Jan 14, 2014, 849 patients were assessed for study eligibility, of which 53 were randomly assigned to receive either metformin (n=26) or placebo (n=27) for 12 weeks. 19 patients in the metformin group and 21 in the placebo group were eligible for the primary outcome analysis. Both groups received an equivalent cumulative dose of glucocorticoids (1860 mg prednisolone-equivalent [IQR 1060–2810] in the metformin group vs 1770 mg [1020–2356] in the placebo group); p=0·76). No change in the visceral-to-subcutaneous fat area ratio between the treatment groups was observed (0·11, 95% CI −0·02 to 0·24; p=0·09), but patients in the metformin group lost truncal subcutaneous fat compared with the placebo group (−3835 mm 2, 95% CI −6781 to −888; p=0·01). Improvements in markers of carbohydrate, lipid, liver, and bone metabolism were observed in the metformin group compared with the placebo group. Additionally, those in the metformin group had improved fibrinolysis, carotid intima–media thickness, inflammatory parameters, and clinical markers of disease activity. The frequency of pneumonia (one event in the metformin group vs seven in the placebo group; p=0·01), overall rate of moderate-to-severe infections (two vs 11; p=0·001), and all-cause hospital admissions due to adverse events (one vs nine; p=0·001) were lower in the metformin group than in the placebo group. Patients in the metformin group had more events of diarrhoea than the placebo group (18 events vs eight; p=0·01).  Interpretation: No significant changes in the visceral-to-subcutaneous fat area ratio between the treatment groups were observed; however, metformin administration did improve some of the metabolic profile and clinical outcomes for glucocorticoid-treated patients with inflammatory disease, which warrants further investigation.  Funding: Barts Charity and Merck Serono

Development of Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Genomics Research in H3Africa

Background: Although pockets of bioinformatics excellence have developed in Africa, generally, large-scale genomic data analysis has been limited by the availability of expertise and infrastructure. H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network, was established to build capacity specifically to enable H3Africa (Human Heredity and Health in Africa) researchers to analyze their data in Africa. Since the inception of the H3Africa initiative, H3ABioNet’s role has evolved in response to changing needs from the consortium and the African bioinformatics community. Objectives: H3ABioNet set out to develop core bioinformatics infrastructure and capacity for genomics research in various aspects of data collection, transfer, storage, and analysis. Methods and Results: Various resources have been developed to address genomic data management and analysis needs of H3Africa researchers and other scientific communities on the continent. NetMap was developed and used to build an accurate picture of network performance within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world, and Globus Online has been rolled out to facilitate data transfer. A participant recruitment database was developed to monitor participant enrollment, and data is being harmonized through the use of ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The standardized metadata will be integrated to provide a search facility for H3Africa data and biospecimens. Because H3Africa projects are generating large-scale genomic data, facilities for analysis and interpretation are critical. H3ABioNet is implementing several data analysis platforms that provide a large range of bioinformatics tools or workflows, such as Galaxy, the Job Management System, and eBiokits. A set of reproducible, portable, and cloud-scalable pipelines to support the multiple H3Africa data types are also being developed and dockerized to enable execution on multiple computing infrastructures. In addition, new tools have been developed for analysis of the uniquely divergent African data and for downstream interpretation of prioritized variants. To provide support for these and other bioinformatics queries, an online bioinformatics helpdesk backed by broad consortium expertise has been established. Further support is provided by means of various modes of bioinformatics training. Conclusions: For the past 4 years, the development of infrastructure support and human capacity through H3ABioNet, have significantly contributed to the establishment of African scientific networks, data analysis facilities, and training programs. Here, we describe the infrastructure and how it has affected genomics and bioinformatics research in Africa

SysBiolPGWAS: simplifying post-GWAS analysis through the use of computational technologies and integration of diverse omics datasets

Motivation: Post-genome-wide association studies (pGWAS) analysis is designed to decipher the functional consequences of significant single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the era of GWAS. This can be translated into research insights and clinical benefits such as the effectiveness of strategies for disease screening, treatment and prevention. However, the setup of pGWAS (pGWAS) tools can be quite complicated, and it mostly requires big data. The challenge however is, scientists are required to have sufficient experience with several of these technically complex and complicated tools in order to complete the pGWAS analysis. Results: We present SysBiolPGWAS, a pGWAS web application that provides a comprehensive functionality for biologists and non-bioinformaticians to conduct several pGWAS analyses to overcome the above challenges. It provides unique functionalities for analysis involving multi-omics datasets and visualization using various bioinformatics tools. SysBiolPGWAS provides access to individual pGWAS tools and a novel custom pGWAS pipeline that integrates several individual pGWAS tools and data. The SysBiolPGWAS app was developed to be a one-stop shop for pGWAS analysis. It targets researchers in the area of the human genome and performs its analysis mainly in the autosomal chromosomes