A Holistic Approach to Dynamic Modelling of Malaria Transmission. An Investigation of Climate-Based Models used for Predicting Malaria Transmission

The uninterrupted spread of malaria, besides its seasonal uncertainty, is due to the lack of suitable planning and intervention mechanisms and tools. Several studies have been carried out to understand the factors that affect the development and transmission of malaria, but these efforts have been largely limited to piecemeal specific methods, hence they do not offer comprehensive solutions to predict disease outbreaks. This thesis introduces a ’holistic’ approach to understand the relationship between climate parameters and the occurrence of malaria using both mathematical and computational methods. In this respect, we develop new climate-based models using mathematical, agent-based and data-driven modelling techniques. A malaria model is developed using mathematical modelling to investigate the impact of temperature-dependent delays. Although this method is widely applicable, but it is limited to the study of homogeneous populations. An agent-based technique is employed to address this limitation, where the spatial and temporal variability of agents involved in the transmission of malaria are taken into account. Moreover, whilst the mathematical and agent-based approaches allow for temperature and precipitation in the modelling process, they do not capture other dynamics that might potentially affect malaria. Hence, to accommodate the climatic predictors of malaria, an intelligent predictive model is developed using machine-learning algorithms, which supports predictions of endemics in certain geographical areas by monitoring the risk factors, e.g., temperature and humidity. The thesis not only synthesises mathematical and computational methods to better understand the disease dynamics and its transmission, but also provides healthcare providers and policy makers with better planning and intervention tools

Socio-Psychological Determinant Variables’ Effect on Voluntary Taxpayer Compliance among Self-Employed

This paper examines the effect of socio-psychological determinant variables on voluntary taxpayer compliance among self-employed individuals in Borno State, Nigeria. Data collection was carried out using survey research design. The paper considered 105 voluntarily complying self-employed individuals in Borno State, Nigeria grouped into Major, Intermediate and Small. The paper discovered that enhancing taxpayer’s attitude and societal norms affect voluntary taxpayer compliance in the State. It concludes that self-employed persons voluntarily comply as result of positive attitude and influence of societal norms. It recommends that there is a need to direct attention on changing attitude of individual taxpayers as well as that of significant others (family members, friends, colleagues and opinion leaders - highly visible, respected people) whose influences are important in encouraging taxpayer compliance. In this way promotion of taxpayer compliance could be extended to enlisting influential members of the community, households, friends and colleagues to disseminate tax compliance messages. Keywords: Socio-psychological Determinants, Voluntary Tax Compliance, Borno State Self-employe

Effect of Economic Determinant Variables on Voluntary Taxpayer Compliance among Self-Employed

The paper examines the effect of economic determinant variables on voluntary taxpayer compliance among self-employed individuals in Borno State, Nigeria. Survey research design was used in data collection. The paper used a sample of 105 self-employed taxpayers in Borno State, Nigeria who voluntarily comply. They were grouped into Major, Intermediate and Small. The paper discovered that the level of income and the imposition of penalties by the tax authority do not affect voluntary taxpayer compliance in the State. It that compliance would be easily increased if governments simply imposed more severe fines. This, however, is inconsistent with major theoretical and empirical studies. The paper recommends that further research in this area should include more economic variables and consider working with a larger sample by taking the whole of the population of this study and also including the unregistered self-employed individuals in the study area. Keywords: Economic Determinants, Voluntary Tax Compliance, Borno State Self-employe

Ethnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants Used for Wound Healing in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area Enugu State Nigeria

Background: Due to numerous advantages derived from the use of plants, at least 70% of the indigenes of the Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area (LGA) depend on plants. Objectives: The present study was performed to survey medicinal plants used for wound healing by the indigenes of communities in Uzo-Uwani LGA, Nigeria. Methods: A survey was conducted from February to September 2022 to find out plants that are employed for wound healing by the indigenes. Information was gathered through oral interviews, including semi-structured questionnaires, with traditional medicine practitioners in each community, herbalists, and elderly villagers. Results: Overall, 33 plants belonging to 26 families were identified consisting of trees (51.51%), herbs (33.33%), and shrubs (15.15%), and 15.15%, 36.36%, and 48.48% were endangered, threatened, and neither threatened nor endangered, respectively. From the findings, 51.51%, 24.24%, and 24.24% were collected wild, wild plus cultivated, and cultivated, respectively. Fabaceae (21.21%) and Asteraceae (9.10%) families were the highest used species for wound healing, respectively, followed by Liliaceae (6.10%) and Rubiaceae (6.10%) families. Leaves (36.36%) were the most frequently used part, followed by the stembarks (27.27%), whole plant (12.12%), and roots (9.10%), seeds (9.10%), as well as shoot, fruits/pods, and aerial parts (3.03% each). Decoction (72.72%) and infusion (27.27%) were the prominent methods of use. Pycnanthus angolensis had the highest use value (1.04%), fidelity level (100%), informants’ consensus factor (0.66 %), and Rahman’s similarity index (RSI) (84.06%) but low citation. Conclusion: Our findings documented medicinal plants used as ethnomedicinal prescriptions for wound healing by the indigenes with the view to providing alternate drug sources

Failure Analysis Modelling in an Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) Environment

yesFailure Prediction has long known to be a challenging problem. With the evolving trend of technology and growing complexity of high-performance cloud data centre infrastructure, focusing on failure becomes very vital particularly when designing systems for the next generation. The traditional runtime fault-tolerance (FT) techniques such as data replication and periodic check-pointing are not very effective to handle the current state of the art emerging computing systems. This has necessitated the urgent need for a robust system with an in-depth understanding of system and component failures as well as the ability to predict accurate potential future system failures. In this paper, we studied data in-production-faults recorded within a five years period from the National Energy Research Scientific computing centre (NERSC). Using the data collected from the Computer Failure Data Repository (CFDR), we developed an effective failure prediction model focusing on high-performance cloud data centre infrastructure. Using the Auto-Regressive Moving Average (ARMA), our model was able to predict potential future failures in the system. Our results also show a failure prediction accuracy of 95%, which is good

Spermidine as a promising anticancer agent: Recent advances and newer insights on its molecular mechanisms

Spermidine is a naturally occurring polyamine compound found in semen. It is also found in several plant sources and boasts a remarkable biological profile, particularly with regards to its anticancer properties. Spermidine specifically interferes with the tumour cell cycle, resulting in the inhibition of tumor cell proliferation and suppression of tumor growth. Moreover, it also triggers autophagy by regulating key oncologic pathways. The increased intake of polyamines, such as spermidine, can suppress oncogenesis and slow the growth of tumors due to its role in anticancer immunosurveillance and regulation of polyamine metabolism. Spermidine/spermine N-1-acetyltransferase (SSAT) plays a critical role in polyamine homeostasis and serves as a diagnostic marker in human cancers. Chemically modified derivatives of spermidine hold great potential for prognostic, diagnostic, and therapeutic applications against various malignancies. This review discusses in detail the recent findings that support the anticancer mechanisms of spermidine and its molecular physiology

An Assessment on the Hidden Ecological Factors of the Incidence of Malaria

Confounding effects of climatic factors temporally contribute to the prevalence of malaria. In this study, we explore a new framework for assessment and identification of hidden ecological factors to the incidence of malaria. A statistical technique, partial least squares path modeling and exploratory factor analysis, is employed to identify hidden ecological factors. Three hidden factors are identified: Factor I is related to minimum temperature and relative humidity, Factor II is related to maximum temperature and solar radiation and Factor III is related to precipitation and wind speed, respectively. Factor I is identified as the most influential hidden ecological factor of malaria incidence in the study area, as evaluated by communality and Dillon-Goldstein’s indices

Exploring the therapeutic and anti-tumor properties of morusin: a review of recent advances

Morusin is a natural product that has been isolated from the bark of Morus alba, a species of mulberry tree. It belongs to the flavonoid family of chemicals, which is abundantly present in the plant world and is recognized for its wide range of biological activities. Morusin has a number of biological characteristics, including anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, neuro-protective, and antioxidant capabilities. Morusin has exhibited anti-tumor properties in many different forms of cancer, including breast, prostate, gastric, hepatocarcinoma, glioblastoma, and pancreatic cancer. Potential of morusin as an alternative treatment method for resistant malignancies needs to be explored in animal models in order to move toward clinical trials. In the recent years several novel findings regarding the therapeutic potential of morusin have been made. This aim of this review is to provide an overview of the present understanding of morusin’s beneficial effects on human health as well as provide a comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of morusin’s anti-cancer properties with a special focus on in vitro and in vivo studies. This review will aid future research on the creation of polyphenolic medicines in the prenylflavone family, for the management and treatment of cancers

An updated overview of cyanidins for chemoprevention and cancer therapy

Anthocyanins are colored polyphenolic compounds that belong to the flavonoids family and are largely present in many vegetables and fruits. They have been used in traditional medicine in many cultures for a long time. The most common and abundant anthocyanins are those presenting an O-glycosylation at C-3 (C ring) of the flavonoid skeleton to form -O-β-glucoside derivatives. The present comprehensive review summarized recent data on the anticancer properties of cyanidings along with natural sources, phytochemical data, traditional medical applications, molecular mechanisms and recent nanostrategies to increase the bioavailability and anticancer effects of cyanidins. For this analysis, in vitro, in vivo and clinical studies published up to the year 2022 were sourced from scientific databases and search engines such as PubMed/Medline, Google scholar, Web of Science, Scopus, Wiley and TRIP database. Cyanidins’ antitumor properties are exerted during different stages of carcinogenesis and are based on a wide variety of biological activities. The data gathered and discussed in this review allows for affirming that cyanidins have relevant anticancer activity in vitro, in vivo and clinical studies. Future research should focus on studies that bring new data on improving the bioavailability of anthocyanins and on conducting detailed translational pharmacological studies to accurately establish the effective anticancer dose in humans as well as the correct route of administration