Detection of rotavirus infection in children with gastroenteritis attending three selected hospitals in Kano metropolis, Nigeria

The study aimed at detecting the incidence of rotavirus infection among children with gastroenteritis in Kano Metropolis. It was a descriptive cross-sectional study and a total of 200 stool samples were randomly collected and assayed for the presence of rotavirus antigens using Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay and confirmed using Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction. The study revealed that 21/200 (10.5%) stool samples were positive for rotavirus antigen and more males 13/21(6.5%) were positive than females 8/21 (4%) (p>0.05). The highest and lowest incidence rates in rotavirus infection of 42.8% (9/21) and 4.8% (1/21) were found among children aged 7–12 month and 31–36; 43–48 month (p>0.05) respectively. Most of the positive samples (95%) were from those who presented with diarrhea, vomiting and fever (p<0.05). The study further revealed that 20/21(95%) of the positive children were from married couples and the incidence rate was found to be independent of the educational level of the parent (p>0.05). Among the risk factors considered, source of drinking water (tap water) and playing with toys appeared to be the most predisposing factors as 16/21 (76%) and 19/21 (90.5%) of the children were found to be infected (p>0.05). Finally, the lowest rate of rotavirus infections was found in only 1/21 (0.5%) among the exclusively breastfed children compared to 14/21 (7%) of those on mixed feeding (p>0.05). The study recommends detection of rotavirus infection to be part of routine laboratory tests in our hospitals and advocates the concept of exclusive breastfeeding to curtail rate of infection among infants.Keywords: Rotavirus, Incidence rate, Risk factors, Children, Hospitals, Kano State

Design of Miniaturized Multiband Patch Antenna Using CSRR for WLAN/WiMAX Applications

A novel miniaturized multiband, single-feed microstrip patch antenna is presented in this paper for WLAN and WiMAX applications. Both size reduction and multiband are obtained by etching the Multiple Complementary Split Ring Resonators (MC-SRR) on the ground plane of the normal patch antenna. At first, the normal patch antenna produces a single band of 5.15 GHz; 200 MHz (5.0500~5.2499). Subsequently, a Single Circular Split Ring Resonator (SC-SRR) is etched on the ground plane and produces a triple band of: 3.25 GHz; 288 MHz (3.1085~3.3964), 4.5 GHz; 101.3 MHz (4.4488~4.5501), and 5.22 GHz; 220 MHz (5.1191~5.3400) and Double Single Circular Split Ring Resonator (DC-MCSRR) with: 2.99 GHz; 60.7 MHz (2.9574~3.0181), 3.57 GHz; 324.7 MHz (3.4065~3.7312), and 5.1413 GHz; 115.4 MHz (5.0817~5.1971). The working bandwidths cover the desired frequency bands of WLAN 5.2 GHz and WiMAX 3.3/3.5 GHz. The proposed (MC-SRR) antenna can be employed to wireless communication systems due to its simplicity in design, compactness and miniaturization

Comparison Study Of Hydrothermally Grown ZnO Nanorods On Untreated Silicon And Black Silicon Substrates

In this paper, the morphological, structural and optical properties of ZnO nanorods grown using the hydrothermal method was studied on two different substrates: untreated silicon and black silicon. Prior to hydrothermal growth, ZnO seed layer was deposited onto the substrates using radio-frequency (RF) sputtering. FESEM imaging was conducted to study the morphology of ZnO nanostructures grown on the substrates. AFM testing was done to determine the surface roughness of both samples. X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and photoluminescence (PL) spectra are obtained to determine the structural and optical properties of ZnO nanostructures. Diffuse reflectance spectra (DRS) was also obtained to determine the ZnO band gap using the Kubelka-Munk theory

Optimization of thermoluminescence response of copper doped zinc lithium borate glass co-doped with Na2O

Establishing the basic procedures that will influence the enhancement of the TL yield of a phosphor is paramount in the issue of dosimetry. Melt quenching method was adopted in synthesizing lithium borate glass modified with ZnO, doped with CuO and codoped with Na2O. The structural and optical properties of zinc lithium borate and some TL properties of copper doped zinc lithium borate were reported in our previous works. The amorphous nature of the prepared glasses was confirmed by x-ray diffraction analysis (XRD). Physical properties of the glass were obtained via Archimedes principle. The copper doped zinc lithium borate was co-doped with different concentration of Na2O (0.025 mol % to 0.1 mol %). The glasses were irradiated with 4 Gy dose of gamma rays using 60Co gamma cell. The highest TL response was recorded against 0.05 mol% concentration of Na2O. The best settings for TLD reading of the proposed TLD were determined. The optimal annealing temperature and time for this composition was found to be 300 oC and 50 min respectively. The best heating rate at which the new TLD can be readout was 3 oC S-1

Deep Sequence Models for Text Classification Tasks

The exponential growth of data generated on the Internet in the current information age is a driving force for the digital economy. Extraction of information is the major value in an accumulated big data. Big data dependency on statistical analysis and hand-engineered rules machine learning algorithms are overwhelmed with vast complexities inherent in human languages. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is equipping machines to understand these human diverse and complicated languages. Text Classification is an NLP task which automatically identifies patterns based on predefined or undefined labeled sets. Common text classification application includes information retrieval, modeling news topic, theme extraction, sentiment analysis, and spam detection. In texts, some sequences of words depend on the previous or next word sequences to make full meaning; this is a challenging dependency task that requires the machine to be able to store some previous important information to impact future meaning. Sequence models such as RNN, GRU, and LSTM is a breakthrough for tasks with long-range dependencies. As such, we applied these models to Binary and Multi-class classification. Results generated were excellent with most of the models performing within the range of 80% and 94%. However, this result is not exhaustive as we believe there is room for improvement if machines are to compete with humans

Compact patch MIMO antenna with low mutual coupling for WLAN applications

A compact triband microstrip patch MIMO antenna is proposed for WLAN applications. The antenna consists of two patches antenna elements, which are orthogonally placed to each other for high isolation at 2.4, 2.8 and 5.8 GHz frequency bands. On its ground plane, a Complementary Split Ring Resonators (CSRRs) is etched for size reduction and multiband generation. The proposed compact MIMO antenna covers an entire size of 58 x 45 x 1.6 mm3, with the patch size of 13.3 x 17.1 mm2. A 79% size reduction at 2.45 GHz was achieved for miniaturization, with a very low mutual coupling (S21 and S12) of -32 dB at all bands

Encapsulation Of Ag Nanoparticle-Carbon Composite And Enhancement Of Visible Light ZnO Nanorods Photodiode

In this paper, the effect of encapsulating silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs)- carbon composite onto zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods (NRs) hydrothermally grown on silicon substrate is characterized and its photodiode performance studied. The composite was dissolved in acetone and drop casted onto ZnO NRs and the samples are baked on a hot plate. FESEM imaging was done and shows the top part of ZnO NRs coated with the composite and EDX testing shows the component are made of carbon as the majority and Ag the minority component. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) shows the Ag-NPs embedded into the carbon coating. Photoluminescence (PL) spectra shows slight peak broadening of the ZnO main peak at 378 nm. Photodiode measurements shows the encapsulated nanorods has reduced photoresponse to UV light (395 nm) but more responsive to visible light (460 nm) due to creation of new energy states inside the band gap of ZnO

Influence of maturity stage on nutritive value of typha for ruminants

The study evaluated the influence of maturity on the nutritive value and fermentation parameters of Typha. Typha samples were collected at two different stages of growth, as indicated by the height of the plants: either 0.5 m (Low Typha; LT, age 3-6months) or 1.5 m (High Typha; HT, age 9-12 months). Samples were analyzed for chemical composition, and incubated in vitro with ruminal fluid from sheep to determine the main fermentation parameters. As maturity advanced, the dry matter, fiber and lignin content (25.30%, 70.40%, 47.30% and 10.58%) in the Typha increased, whereas the content of ashes and protein (12.18% and 12.24%) decreases. The changes in chemical composition caused a significant reduction in both the in vitro ruminal degradability after 96 h of incubation (38.6 and 22.9% for LT and HT, respectively) and the production of volatile fatty acids after 24 h of incubation (6.08 and 5.87 mmol/g dry matter incubated), indicating that the nutritive value of the Typha declines with advancing maturity. The results indicate that Typha plants for ruminant feeding should be preferably harvested at early growth stages

Empirical Validation of Daylight Simulation Tool for a Test Office with Anidolic Daylighting System

ABSTRACT The use of simulation tools to evaluate the daylighting performances of building design attracts enormous interest for architects, engineers and researchers. Integrated Environmental Solution <Virtual Environment> (IES<VE>) is a software tool to daylighting design and analysis. It intends to simulate daylight in buildings and to predict illuminance. The aim of this research is to validate the IES software simulated results and results measured of scale physical model with installed Anidolic Daylighting System (ADS) in a building under real condition in a tropical area. Scaled model was constructed to be tested under real sky measurement. In additional, the same model was designed in the IES<VE> for measuring illuminance. Using this software to study in the ADS, it can be found that absolute work plane illuminance in the intermediate and overcast sky recorded mean difference from the measured results, with 4.6% and 3.8% respectively also DF results illustrated promising results with 4.5% in the overcast sky. However in sunny sky is illustrated high mean difference with relative error 57%, while the trend of these results is approximately similar but the luminance ratio results shown acceptable mean measurement in sunny sky with 2.8%. The simulation results prove that inside illuminance can be modeled with comparable accuracy for ADS under real sky conditions in the intermediate and overcast sky. For future study, validation of other parameters can be carried out such as the size of the ADS, window sizes, environment setting