Modeling The Nigerian Stock Exchange Data Characterized with Heteroscedasticity Disturbances Using Bayesian Approach

The stock exchange plays a crucial role in influencing the development of a country’s economy and growth.. This paper examines the Nigerian Stock Exchange data in the presence of heteroscedasticity disturbances parameters of Nigerian Stock Exchange using a wide range of variables. The results indicate that Bayesian estimation is reliable since the parameter estimates are consistent. Finally, Bayesian estimation when heteroscedasticity structure is present performs better than the homoscedasticity counterpart. Keywords: Bayesian estimation, heteroscedasticity, homoscedasticity, prior, posterior distribution

Doe productivity indices and sire effects of a heterogeneous rabbit population in South-western Nigeria

Doe productivity indices are important in evaluating rabbit population since it influences the efficiency and profitability of rabbit production for small-holders and commercial rabbit production. Rabbits for this study were obtained from heterogeneous populations reared in south-western Nigeria, and a total of fifty-six adult rabbits (6 months old) comprising of 49 does and 7 sires were randomly allocated into sire families. Reproductive data were taken from each breeding doe and recorded for each sire family. The reproductive data obtained include annual productivity indices for each doe and sire family at birth, weaning and at week 12 post-partum. The total number of kits delivered at each kindling were recorded as the litter size at birth , the numbers weaned/doe/year were derived by multiplying the average litter size at weaning by number of litters/doe/year. The numbers of fryers/doe/year were obtained by multiplying average number weaned/doe by number of litters/doe/year multiplied by post weaning survival. Annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year were obtained by multiplying total number of fryers/doe/year with live market weight (kg). Kilogram meat/doe/year were derived from the product of annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year and the dressing percentage (0.55). Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed using SAS® 2004. Results showed that, the long kindling interval (93 to 115 days ) between two consecutive litters affected overall numerical doe productivity with a range of 6 to 27, 3 to 21 and 3 to 18 kits per doe/year at kindling, weaning and 12th week of age respectively. Annual fryer yield/doe/year was 20.24 Kg and the projected Kg meat/doe/year was 11.13 Kg. Mortality was highest in the first two weeks of life and continued to occur throughout the period of the study though at varying degrees across sire families. There was significant sire effect (P<0.05) in litter size at weaning and kindling- interval in the sire families. It was concluded that, the major factors affecting doe productivity indices in this population were low litter size at birth, long kindling interval and pre-weaning mortality. Thus, future genetic improvement programmes targeted towards productivity for this rabbit population must consider selection for traits which include increased litter size at birth, short kindling interval and low pre-weaning mortality in the maternal lines while litter size at weaning and kindling interval must be considered for the paternal lines

Exercise-induced bronchospasm and its associated factors among secondary school students in an urban community

Introduction: Exercise-induced bronchospasm (EIB) is a transient narrowing of the airway that usually occurs shortly after exercise. It occurs commonly in people with asthma; however EIB has also been reported in individuals without clinical asthma. The study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with EIB among secondary school students. Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional school- based study involving secondary school students aged between 10 and 17 years without previous history of asthma. Subjects undertook a six-minute running test, spirometry was done and the best of three FEV1 readings were obtained pre-exercise, at 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes post exercise. The diagnosis of EIB was made when there was a decrease in FEV1 of ≥10% from baseline after exercise. Results: Of the 265participants studied, 34 (12.8%) had EIB at 5 minutes post exercise. EIB was significantly more in the 10–13 years age group (χ2 = 18.416, p = <0.001), there was no significant gender difference. The presence of allergic (vernal) conjunctivitis and rhinitis were both significantly associated with the development of EIB (χ2 = 13.574, p < 0.001 and 0.011 respectively). There was no significant association with previous history of wheeze and exposure to indoor air pollution such as cooking with biomass fuel and parental cigarette smoking. Conclusion: EIB exist among non-asthmatic school children, and it is more frequent in the early adolescent age-group. Students with allergic conjunctivitis and rhinitis are more likely to manifest exercise induced bronchospasm

Novel <i>GREM1 </i>Variations in Sub-Saharan African Patients With Cleft Lip and/or Cleft Palate

Objective: Cleft lip and/or cleft palate (CL/P) are congenital anomalies of the face and have multifactorial etiology, with both environmental and genetic risk factors playing crucial roles. Though at least 40 loci have attained genomewide significant association with nonsyndromic CL/P, these loci largely reside in noncoding regions of the human genome, and subsequent resequencing studies of neighboring candidate genes have revealed only a limited number of etiologic coding variants. The present study was conducted to identify etiologic coding variants in GREM1, a locus that has been shown to be largely associated with cleft of both lip and soft palate. Patients and Method: We resequenced DNA from 397 sub-Saharan Africans with CL/P and 192 controls using Sanger sequencing. Following analyses of the sequence data, we observed 2 novel coding variants in GREM1. These variants were not found in the 192 African controls and have never been previously reported in any public genetic variant database that includes more than 5000 combined African and African American controls or from the CL/P literature. Results: The novel variants include p.Pro164Ser in an individual with soft palate cleft only and p.Gly61Asp in an individual with bilateral cleft lip and palate. The proband with the p.Gly61Asp GREM1 variant is a van der Woude (VWS) case who also has an etiologic variant in IRF6 gene. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that there is low number of etiologic coding variants in GREM1, confirming earlier suggestions that variants in regulatory elements may largely account for the association between this locus and CL/P. </jats:sec

Trends in Prevalence of Advanced HIV Disease at Antiretroviral Therapy Enrollment - 10 Countries, 2004-2015.

Monitoring prevalence of advanced human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) disease (i.e., CD4+ T-cell count <200 cells/μL) among persons starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) is important to understand ART program outcomes, inform HIV prevention strategy, and forecast need for adjunctive therapies.*,†,§ To assess trends in prevalence of advanced disease at ART initiation in 10 high-burden countries during 2004-2015, records of 694,138 ART enrollees aged ≥15 years from 797 ART facilities were analyzed. Availability of national electronic medical record systems allowed up-to-date evaluation of trends in Haiti (2004-2015), Mozambique (2004-2014), and Namibia (2004-2012), where prevalence of advanced disease at ART initiation declined from 75% to 34% (p<0.001), 73% to 37% (p<0.001), and 80% to 41% (p<0.001), respectively. Significant declines in prevalence of advanced disease during 2004-2011 were observed in Nigeria, Swaziland, Uganda, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe. The encouraging declines in prevalence of advanced disease at ART enrollment are likely due to scale-up of testing and treatment services and ART-eligibility guidelines encouraging earlier ART initiation. However, in 2015, approximately a third of new ART patients still initiated ART with advanced HIV disease. To reduce prevalence of advanced disease at ART initiation, adoption of World Health Organization (WHO)-recommended "treat-all" guidelines and strategies to facilitate earlier HIV testing and treatment are needed to reduce HIV-related mortality and HIV incidence

Quantitative dietary requirements of postlarval tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon, for histidine, isoleucine, leucine, phenylalanine and tryptophan

The quantitative requirements of postlarvae Penaeus monodon for essential amino acids were determined through a series of feeding experiments. Test diets contained casein–gelatin as natural proteins supplemented with crystalline L-amino acids (CAAs) at levels based upon the tissue amino acid profile of postlarvae tiger shrimp. Each set of experimental diets contained graded levels of the test amino acid in a range below and above those found in shrimp muscle protein. The dietary CAA mixture was pre-coated with carboxymethylcellulose (CMC), and the diets were additionally bound with CMC, corn starch, and K-carrageenan to prevent leaching of amino acids and other nutrients. P. monodon postlarvae, PL20, mean body weight of 20 mg, were randomly distributed to 30-l fiberglass tanks at a density of 10/tank and each group was fed a particular diet for 56 days. A one-way analysis of variance was used to determine if there were any significant differences in weight gain, survival, and feed conversion among the dietary treatments for each experiments. Regression analysis of the weight gain responses against dietary amino acid levels was used to estimate the amino acid requirements. The optimum dietary requirements for essential amino acids, in percent of the diet, were: 0.8% histidine, 1.01% isoleucine, 1.7% leucine, 1.4% phenylalanine, and 0.2% tryptophan. Expressed as percent of the dietary protein, the requirement values were: 2.2% histidine, 2.7% isoleucine, 4.3% leucine, 3.7% phenylalanine, and 0.5% tryptophan. This information is crucial in optimizing growth and feed efficiency and in developing cost-effective diets for P. monodon