The IUPHAR sub-committee on clinical pharmacology in developing countries and the medicines utilization research in Africa (MURIA) group co-organized the third training workshop on drug utilization research in Africa

The IUPHAR Sub-Committee on Clinical Pharmacology in developing countries continues to partner with The Medicines Utilization Research In Africa (MURIA) Group to advance Drug Utilization research (DUR) in Africa and promote sustainable rational uses of medicines (RUM) through training, workshops, networking and cross national research.1-6 The Third Annual MURIA Training Workshop and Symposium took place between 26 and 28 June, 2017 at The University of Windhoek, Namibia, with the theme ‘Medicines Utilization Research in Africa influencing patient care and policy.

Medical Data Analytics and Wearable Devices

Clinical decision-making may be directly impacted by wearable application. Some people think that wearable technologies, such as patient rehabilitation outside of hospitals, could boost patient care quality while lowering costs. The big data produced by wearable technology presents researchers with both a challenge and an opportunity to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques on these data. By establishing new healthcare service systems, it is possible to organise diverse information and communications technologies into service linkages. This includes emerging smart systems, cloud computing, social networks, and enhanced sensing and data analysis techniques. The characteristics and features of big data, the significance of big data analytics in the healthcare industry, and a discussion of the effectiveness of several machine learning algorithms employed in big data analytics served as our conclusion

Challenges and innovations brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic regarding medical and pharmacy education especially in Africa and implications for the future

Background: Multiple measures introduced early to restrict COVID-19 have dramatically impacted the teaching of medical and pharmacy students, exacerbated by the lack of infrastructure and experience with e-learning at the start of the pandemic. In addition, the costs and reliability of the Internet across Africa pose challenges alongside undertaking clinical teaching and practical programmes. Consequently, there is a need to understand the many challenges and how these were addressed, given increasingly complex patients, to provide future direction. Method: An exploratory study was conducted among senior-level medical and pharmacy educators across Africa, addressing four key questions, including the challenges resulting from the pandemic and how these were dealt with. Results: Staff and student members faced multiple challenges initially, including adapting to online learning. In addition, concerns with the lack of equipment (especially among disadvantaged students), the costs of Internet bundles, and how to conduct practicals and clinical teaching. Multiple activities were undertaken to address these challenges. These included training sessions, developing innovative approaches to teaching, and seeking ways to reduce Internet costs. Robust approaches to practicals, clinical teaching, and assessments have been developed. Conclusions: Appreciable difficulties to teaching arising from the pandemic are being addressed across Africa. Research is ongoing to improve education and assessments

Children abuse and the Nigerian child rights act, 2003 : recent challenges and strategies

This article examines Child Abuse and Child Rights Act, 2003 in Nigeria with a view to appraising the current intolerable degree of child abuse and the jurisprudential basis for the inefficacy of the Child Rights Act in the light of the existing challenges and constraints. It also goes on to suggest appropriate remedies for various challenges against all efforts at preventing child abuse and proper enforcement of the Act. Republic of Malta is a vibrant member of the Commonwealth of a nations to which Nigeria also belongs while the two nations stand to benefit from each other in terms of development of their laws and promotion of human rights. It is believed that the publication of this articles in the renowned Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights will enhance further awareness in the Mediterranean community of the situation of the rights of the child in Nigeria. The article relies on analytical and descriptive methods based on sociological and realist model theories. The findings show that child abuse in all its ramifications is getting worse in Nigeria while the various existing laws and law enforcement agents appear very helpless in the current situation. The article concludes that since most of the legal and institutional devices against child abuse in Nigeria appear grossly inadequate and if the future of every nation lies in the hands of children who will turn adults; other realistic and practical mechanisms must be sought to tackle this unfortunate social phenomenon.peer-reviewe

Density Functional Theory and Molecular Modeling of the Compound 2-[2-(4-Methylphenylamino)-4-phenylthiazol-5-yl]benzofuran

The compound 2-[2-(4-methylphenylamino)-4-phenylthiazol-5-yl]benzofuran was prepared from 1-(4-methylphenyl)-3-(N-phenylbenzimidoyl)thiourea and 2-(2-bromoacetyl) benzofuran in the presence of triethylamine and characterized by FTIR, NMR, and mass spectra. Density functional theory (DFT) computations were adopted for the geometry optimization of this compound, to evaluate their Mulliken atomic charge distribution, HOMO-LUMO energy gap, and vibrational analysis. The titled compound induced G1 cell cycle arrest, which is regulated by CDK2 in cancer cells. Therefore, we used molecular modeling to study in-silico for the possible inhibitory effect as a mechanism of this compound as anticancer agents (PDB code: 2KW6, 6DL7, 6VJO, 6WMW, and 7LAE). The molecular docking study revealed that the compound was the most effective in inhibiting CDk2 cancer cells

Speech signal analysis and pattern recognition in diagnosis of dysarthria

Background: Dysarthria refers to a group of disorders resulting from disturbances in muscular control over the speech mechanism due to damage of central or peripheral nervous system. There is wide subjective variability in assessment of dysarthria between different clinicians. In our study, we tried to identify a pattern among types of dysarthria by acoustic analysis and to prevent intersubject variability. Objectives: (1) Pattern recognition among types of dysarthria with software tool and to compare with normal subjects. (2) To assess the severity of dysarthria with software tool. Materials and Methods: Speech of seventy subjects were recorded, both normal subjects and the dysarthric patients who attended the outpatient department/admitted in AIMS. Speech waveforms were analyzed using Praat and MATHLAB toolkit. The pitch contour, formant variation, and speech duration of the extracted graphs were analyzed. Results: Study population included 25 normal subjects and 45 dysarthric patients. Dysarthric subjects included 24 patients with extrapyramidal dysarthria, 14 cases of spastic dysarthria, and 7 cases of ataxic dysarthria. Analysis of pitch of the study population showed a specific pattern in each type. F0 jitter was found in spastic dysarthria, pitch break with ataxic dysarthria, and pitch monotonicity with extrapyramidal dysarthria. By pattern recognition, we identified 19 cases in which one or more recognized patterns coexisted. There was a significant correlation between the severity of dysarthria and formant range. Conclusions: Specific patterns were identified for types of dysarthria so that this software tool will help clinicians to identify the types of dysarthria in a better way and could prevent intersubject variability. We also assessed the severity of dysarthria by formant range. Mixed dysarthria can be more common than clinically expected

Modelling and performance analysis of improved incremental conductance MPPT technique for water pumping system

Utilization of Solar Photo Voltaic Cell (SPVC) has significantly increased in residential, commercial, and industrial due to freely available. From the power-voltage (P–V) curve, fluctuation has been revealed over an hour because of varying irradiance, and temperature of sun rays. Maximum power point tracking (MPPT) has been essential to track power and maximize the output from SPVC constantly. In this study, a novel Improved Incremental Conductance (IIC) MPPT technique is proposed, and integrated with a boost converter to take out the maximum power from SPVC. The output power has been provided to a brushless DC motor (BLDC). Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) commutation system has been employed to control the BLDC motor through the 3-level bridge converter. The proposed study has been implemented in MATLAB/Simulink. The complete analysis has been examined at different irradiation conditions. Power consumption, loss, and efficiency have been estimated. Simulation results have been compared with conventional incremental conductance (IC). The proposed IIC MPPT has an improved 5% of tracking efficiency than conventional MPPT techniques. The results show that the effectiveness of the proposed IIC technique has attained a steady state in varying irradiation levels. In spite of the low irradiation level of 250 W/m2, the system remains effective