Trace metals in selected fish species from lakes Awassa and Ziway, Ethiopia

Samples of two fish species (Tilapia Oreochromis niloticus and Catfish Clarias gariepinus) were collected from six sampling stations in Lakes Awassa and Ziway, Ethiopia. The edible portion was separated and placed in a freeze-drying unit until constant mass was obtained. The calculated moisture content of the two fish species obtained from six sites in the two lakes varied from 79.3%–82.5%. An optimal procedure for mineralizing 2.0 g dried and powdered fish muscle required 7.0 hours and consumed 8.0 mL of 70% HNO3, 2.0 mL of 98% H2SO4 and 10 mL of 35% H2O2 under reflux. The accuracy of the optimal procedure was checked by digesting a mixture of standard solutions or spiked fish samples and subsequently determining percent recovery. Recoveries varied from 98.5%–123% in a mixture of standard solutions and from 92.5%–120% in spiked fish samples. Trace metal concentrations in the two fish species were measured by flame atomic absorption spectrometer employing an external calibration graph. Concentrations of trace elements in the fishes ranged (µg element/g dry mass): Zn 23.04–30.92; Fe 19.25–59.75; Cu 1.03–2.78; Mn 1.54–4.46; Cd < 0.24; Pb < 1.66; Ni < 0.99; and Co < 0.71. The maximum levels of trace metals found in edible portion of fishes were far below the thresholds. Hence, without regard to bioavailability, O. niloticus and C. gariepinus may be considered safe for human consumption relative to the analyzed elements. Key words/phrases: Bioindicators of lake pollution, Clarias gariepinus, Oreochromis niloticus, trace metals SINET: Ethiopian Journal of Science Vol.26(2) 2003: 103-11

Experience and Challenges of Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE): Perspective of Students and Examiners in a Clinical Department of Ethiopian University

BACKGROUND: Invented nearly half a century ago, Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is overwhelmingly accepted clinical skills assessment tool and has been used worldwide for evaluating and teaching learners’ competences in health care disciplines. Regardless of factors affecting the attributes, OSCE is considered as reliable and powerful tool with certain validity evidences. In spite of its advantages and various promotion efforts, the progress of OSCE implementation in Ethiopian public universities has not been satisfactory. Therefore, the objective of this study was to explore the experience and challenges of OSCE implementation from the perspective of clinical year-II medical students and their examiners in Ob-Gyn Department of Jimma University.METHODS: Forty-nine students and seven examiners voluntarily participated in Ob-Gyn Department where OSCE has been used as one of summative assessment methods. Qualitative study design using structured open-ended questionnaire as a tool and descriptive phenomenology as underpinning method were employed. Collaizzi’s descriptive analysis was used as phenomenological analysis approach.RESULT: Poor organization, inadequate student preparation time, and inadequate number and duration of stations were thematically emerged as umbrellas of factors negatively affecting OSCE implementation. Satisfaction with OSCE was the only theme with findings that encourage OSCE implementation.CONCLUSION: There should be team approach, shared responsibility and proper planning among faculty to minimize hindering factors of OSCE implementation. Besides faculty development on OSCE, the department should improve skill lab utilization arranging schedule for both students and faculty members to increase guided students’ exposure to simulation-based learning and ultimately enhance OSCE implementation

Bovine brucellosis: Seroprevalence and its potential risk factors in smallholder dairy farms in Hawassa Town, Southern Ethiopia

Bovine brucellosis is an infectious zoonotic disease causing significant economical loses in dairy industry. A cross-sectional study was carried out between October 2017 and July 2018 to estimate the seroprevalence and its associated risk factors in smallholder dairy farms in Hawassa town, Southern Ethiopia. A total of 370 blood samples were collected from cross-bred and local indigenous dairy cattle of above six months of age. One stage cluster sampling technique was used to get the sample of interest. Rose Bengal Plate Test (RBPT) was used as a screening, while serum samples testing positive to RBPT were subjected for complement fixation test (CFT) to confirm. Consequently, RBPT detected 18 of the 370 samples positive for brucellosis exposure. The positive sera when further retested using CFT, 10 out of the 18 RBPT positive sera were confirmed to be positive. The individual animal level prevalence of bovine brucellosis in the study area was 2.7% and the herd-level prevalence was 25.8%. Higher prevalence was observed in larger herd sizes than the small and medium herds (p&lt;0.05). Likewise, parity number greater than six had more positive animals (p&lt;0.05) than the corresponding group with lower parity number. Multivariable logistic regression anlysis revealed that herd sizes (OR: 9.13, 95% CI: 1.87-28.65, p&lt;0.05), number of parity (OR: 11.6: 95% CI: 1.54-36.08, p&lt;0.05), absence of separate parturition pen (OR: 7.9, 95% CI: 1.63- 38.4, p&lt;0.05) and stages of abortion (OR: 7.6, 95% CI: 1.89-31.36, P&lt;0.05) were identified as the potential risk factors of bovine brucellosis. The results of this study showed that bovine brucellosis is not highly spread in dairy herds of Hawassa town. Therefore, in order to control spread of bovine brucellosis practicing better management is recommended.Keywords: Bovine brucellosis; Dairy farms; Hawassa town; intensive; Risk facto

Prevalence and Trends of Major Transfusion Transmissible Infections among Blood Donors in Dire Dawa Blood bank, Eastern Ethiopia: Retrospective Study

BACKGROUND: Acquisition of transfusion transmissible infections in the process of therapeutic blood transfusion is a major global health challenge in transfusion medicine. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and trends of major transfusion transmissible infections among blood donors.METHOD: A retrospective analysis of consecutive blood donors’ records covering the period between July 2010 and June 2013 was conducted at Dire Dawa Blood Bank, Eastern Ethiopia.RESULT: A total of 6376 blood donors were tested, out of which 5647(88.57%) were replacement donors and 729(11.43%) were voluntary donors. The majority of them were male, 5430(85.16%), and aged between 18–32 years, 4492(70.45%). A total of 450(7.06%) donors had serological evidence of infection with at least one pathogen. The overall positivity rates of HBV, HIV, HCV and syphilis were 4.67%, 1.24%, 0.96%, and 0.44% respectively. Trends for transfusion-transmissible infections showed a significant decrease from 9.51% in 2010 to 6.95% in 2013 with the least prevalence in 2012 (5.90% (P = 0.004). The prevalence of transfusion transmissible infections was significantly higher among male blood donors compared to female donors, among the age group of 25-32 years and 33-40 years compared to the age group of 18-24 years old, and among unemployed and private workers compared to students.CONCLUSION: A significant percentage of the blood donors harbor transfusion-transmissible infections. Stringent donor selection using standard methods is highly recommended to ensure the safety of blood for the recipient. Furthermore, efforts on motivating and creating awareness in the community are required to increase voluntary blood donors.

Design of a Simple Cell-Phone Radio-Frequency Detector

Recently, we have witnessed, locally and globally, a dramatic-boom in the wireless-communications industry, hence increasing the number of mobile-devices-users. This magnified the need for developing more-efficient and reliable-means of mobile-phone-signal-detection. The following-study aimed at developing a circuit that would be able to detect any mobile-phone activities such as: sending or receiving calls and text-messages, unauthorized-audio or video-transmission or any other type of data-transmission, yet the phone is kept in the silent-mode. Overall, the results of this brief-study are potentially-useful, as the mobile-phone-transmission-detector can sense the presence of an activated-mobile-cell-phone from a distance of about 4 meters. It can therefore be potentially used to prevent use of mobile-phones in restricted and unauthorized-places, such as examination-halls, confidential and private-government meetings-venues, and business-companies-seminar-halls among others. It is also useful for detecting the use of mobile-phone for spying and unauthorized-video-transmissions. Another potential application is in hospitals and airplanes where mobile-signals might interfere with the electronic-equipment, possibly resulting in fatal- consequences and most-importantly, the circuit would also help to reduce the use of mobile-phones for terrorist-activities, thereby improving national and personal-security. The prototype, however, has a limited-range of detection, of only about 4 meters, therefore future and more-deeper-research on improvements should be conducted, so as to make the device more-efficient. Keywords: cell-phone, radio-frequency, detector.

Design and Testing of Mobile-Phone-Detectors

Students use mobile-phones to store lecture-materials, e-books, tutorials, videos, communicate with their classmates and browse the internet for exceedingly-different-intentions. These projected-advantages, however, would have potential-undesirable-effects if mobile-phones are utilized in restricted-premises, such as exam-venues. Noncompliant- students (to general University exam-regulations) do use mobile-phones to cheat in exams. The rapid-explosion of cell-phones at the beginning of the 21st Century eventually raised problems, such as their potential-use to invade privacy or contribute to widespread academic-cheating. In this paper, two  systems, that will be used, independently, to detect mobile-phones in the exam-venues, were proposed: a mobile-detector with a range of 1.0m, using resistor-capacitor-circuit, which can detect both the incoming and outgoing-calls, as well as video-transmission and text messages, even if a mobile-phone is kept at the silent mode; and a Reed-switch-circuit-scanner, which, responds to an applied-magnetic-field and, can be used to detect mobile-phones that are switched-off or put on flight-mode, and thus, it can be used to scan students (without physical-inspection) on their entering examination-rooms. Overall, the results of this-concise-study are rather-positive, providing a good-starting-point for advanced investigations and improvements of the same. Several future-research-areas were also proposed by the study. Keywords: mobile, phone, students, detector, cheating

Design and Testing of a Mobile-Phone-Jammer

Dissimilar cellular-systems process signals differently, and yet, all cell-phone-networks use radio-signals that can be interrupted or, even, blocked, completely. This project highlights the design of a simple, low-cost mobile-phone-jammer and aims to present a solution for the problem of inappropriate-use of the cell-phones in restricted and prohibited-areas. The main concept of jamming is the releasing of signal (noise) of the same-frequency which is using by mobile-service-provider to overpower and destruct the user-signal. The fabrication of the jammer involved uncomplicated discrete components, resistors, capacitors, inductors and transistors to generate the required frequency (noise) and then amplifies the frequency generated to range of 800 MHZ to 1.4 GHZ in order to match the frequency of the mobile-phone being transmitted by the base-station. Relatively-satisfactory-jamming of a mobile-signal was confirmed by the blocking of the signals of the mobile-phones in 2G and 3G-networks (UMTS / WCDMA) operated via Safaricom, Airtell, Orange, and YU service-providers, when the phone indicated “no network”, thereby allowing no call to go through, with no-interference to other communication-means observed. Overall recommendation is that further and more deeper-research is needed to produce more-sophisticated and better jamming devices, as not to affect the other base-station-transmission-systems. Keywords: mobile, phone, jammer, design, signal

Pengukuran Faktor E-learning Readiness di Perguruan Tinggi

E-learning merupakan sistem pembelajaran yang memanfaatkan fasilitas teknologi informasi dan komunikasi yang dilakukan melalui website atau aplikasi. Objek yang digunakan adalah universitas Indonesia (UI) yang merupakan perguruan tinggi negeri yang menduduki peringkat 296 dalam top universities in the world serta universitas bina nusantara (Binus) merupakan universitas swasta yang masuk ke dalam kategori top universities in the world Pada penelitian ini dilakukan literatur study yang berfungsi untuk mengkaji jurnal. Exploratory Study yang dignakan sebagai penetapan faktor: (Course Content, Course Evaluation, Assessment and Feedback, Course planning, E- Learning Policies, E-Learning Culture, E-learning Infrastructure, E-learning Sustainability Costs, E- Learning Support, E-learning Management System) dan di uji menggunakan uji t dan uji f dan uji reabilitas. Kemudian pada Confirmation Study faktor yang digunakan pada Exploratory Study dikembangkan dan diukur dengan ui deskriptif static dan ui regresi Hasil dari penelitian ini adalah uji reabilitas terhadap 10 faktor tersebut mendapatkan nilai diatas 0,7 yang berarti universitas sudah baik dalam mengimplementasi E-learning. Dan pada uji regresi diketahui bahwa variabel Course Content dan Course Evaluation berpengaruh terhadap variabel Quality Course Design, variabel E-learning Support dan E-larning Culture berpengaruh dterhadap variabel Quality E-learning System, variabel E-learning Readiness, Quality Course Design, dan E-learning Benefit Awareness terhadap variabel Quality E-learning Syste

Implementasi Service Desk di Siskohat Direktorat Jendral Penyelengaraan Haji dan Umroh

Service desk merupakan Meja layanan TI adalah satu titik kontak untuk pelanggan internal (karyawan) untuk mendapatkan layanan dari departemen TI. Pada meja layanan permintaan ditulis sebagai tiket.. Sistem service desk menganut kerangka kerja ITIL (Information Technology Information Library). PHU (Direktorat Jendral Penyelenggaraan Haji dan Umroh) memiliki Sistem yang bernama Sistem Komputerisasi Haji terpadu (SISKOHAT) sistem ini dibagun oleh Subdirektorat Data dan Sistem Haji terpadu yang di gunakaan Kementrian agama sebagai alat pendukung kinerjanya Hasil dari praktek kerja magang berupa rekomendasi sistem service desk yang dapat menjadi gambaran SISKOHAT dalam mengelola suatu incident atau gangguan layanan IT