Investigation and Scaling of Hydrogen Production by Klebsiella sp. ABZ11 for Optimal Yield and the Kinetics of Batch Fermentation Process

The slow metabolism of bacteria at low temperatures affects the catalytic efficiency of enzymes and productivity. This article investigates the use of a psychrotolerant bacteria (Klebsiella sp. ABZ11) for biohydrogen production, yield and scaling at optimal temperature, pH and glucose in a batch fermentation process within a 2-liter bioreactor using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to report the process performance. The results show 33.5°C, pH 6.75 and 9.15 g glucose as the optimal conditions. Scale-up yielded 137.56 mol/L biohydrogen, 22.13% more than production under optimized conditions. Biomass grew at 0.081/h and doubled in 17 h with 0.71 g cells to reach maximum production. Compared to 0.062/h, 22 h with 0.87 g cells in optimal condition to achieve maximum biohydrogen production. This result shows the potential of biohydrogen production using Antarctic psychrotolerant bacteria at mesophilic temperature

The Comparison of the Performance of ARIMA and MA Model Selection on Road Accident Data in Nigeria

In this research work, time series model selection was performed by given consideration for a number of models that most suitable for the incidence of accident cases in Nigeria. Among the candidate models considered are the Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) and Moving Average (MA) models each at various parameters specifications. Results from this work showed that the best models that are suitable to describe the accident cases in Nigeria are the ARIMA(3,1,1) and MA(0,1,2) according to the Mean Square Error (MSE) and Akaike Information Criteria (AIC). National data set on cases of accident in Nigeria

Global impacts of scientific publications by academic staff: a case study of College of Medical Sciences, University of Maiduguri, Nigeria

The impacts of scientific research by an individual or institution are measured using various bibliometric indices such as the h-index and citations index among others. Objective: The present study assessed the global impacts of scientific publications by academic staff of the College of Medical Sciences, University of Maiduguri (CMS-UNIMAID) using selected bibliometric indices. Methodology: The data (demographic data, research experience, and the number of publications) of the 202 academic staff of College of Medical Sciences CMS-UNIMAID were obtained from the records submitted for the 2019/2020 annual appraisal. The h-index, citations index (CI), number of documents (ND), RG score, research interest (RI), citation/item, and citation/year of the staff were extracted from Google Scholar, Publons, ResearchGate, and Scopus using th authors search until 25 December 2020. Staff and publication online visibilities were determined. Descriptive statistics were prepared for all records obtained and subjected to appropriate inferential statistics. Results: The mean age and research experience of the staff were 45.4±9.2 and 13.9±9.6 years, respectively. The majority (p<0.05) of the staff were male (85.1%), had a PhD/Professional Fellowship (61.4%), and were senior academic staff (53.5%). Atotal of 4940 publication entries were submitted for the appraisal. Only 2.5% of the staff were visible on all platforms with staff online visibility of 63.9, 55.5, 15.8, and 5.0% (p<0.05) on Scopus, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Publons, respectively. Male staff (68.0%) were more visible (p<0.05) than their female counterparts (40.0%) on Scopus while senior academic staff were more visible (p<0.05) than junior academic staff on all platforms except Publons. Publication online visibility was highest (p<0.05) in Google Scholar (78.4%) and ResearchGate (65.9%) than Publons (28.0%) and Scopus (25.1%). The mean h-index, CI, and ND were 8.3±1.1, 401.8±97.8, and 36.2±4.9, respectively on Google Scholar and 5.0±0.4, 166.4±25.6 and 9.0±0.9, on ResearchGate. Publons showed means h-index, CI, and ND of 5.0±0.3, 77.2±13.7, and 25.6±2.1, respectively while Scopus showed 4.0±1.6, 144.4±95.3, and 14.5±6.2, respectively. In addition, the means RG score and RI were 10.0±0.7 and 113.1±15.4, respectively while the means citation/item and citation/year were 3.9±1.7 and 10.7±6.8, respectively. Conclusions: Low bibliometric indices indicate poor global impact of scientific publications from CMS-UNIMAID. Concerted efforts are required to improve the quality of research and publication through adequate funding, infrastructure, and mentorship among others

Descriptive characterization of suspected yellow fever cases in Kano state, Nigeria, 2015-2018

Introduction: Yellow fever remains a serious public health problem globally with an estimated 200, 000 cases annually despite the availability of an effective vaccine for more than 70 years. Nigeria had an outbreak of Yellow fever in 2017 after more than 2 decades of silence. We described the epidemiological characteristic of yellow fever in Kano State from 2015 to 2018. Methods: We conducted a retrospective review of suspected cases of yellow fever in Kano state from January 2015 to December 2018. A suspected yellow fever case was defined as any person residing in Kano state with sudden onset of fever, with jaundice appearing within two weeks of the onset of the first symptoms from the year 2015 to 2018. We calculated incidences, frequencies and proportions using Microsoft excel 2016 and health mapper version 4.3. Results: A total of 107 patients with suspected yellow fever were reported in the state between 2015 and 2018. The median age of the suspected cases was 13years (range 2-120years) and age group 15-44years had the highest number of cases. More males were affected 69 (64%) with rural local governments having the highest number of patients. Generally, the disease occurred all year round with peaks occurring the wet season mostly in June, July and August. The annual incidence increased from 1.7/1,000,000 populations in 2015 to 2.2/1,000,000 populations in 2016, remained at 2.2/1,000,000 populations in 2017 and slightly decreased to 2.1/1000,000 population in 2018. No mortality was recorded during the reporting period. Majority (99.1%) of the suspected patients had never received yellow fever vaccine. Conclusion: The study revealed no change in the incidence rate of suspected Yellow Fever cases in Kano State. Majority of the suspected cases are in the rural areas where immunization coverage was very low. Routine immunization has to be strengthened to address the problem. The findings were reported to the Kano state Ministry of Health for appropriate action

Design, synthesis, and in silico‑in vitro antimalarial evaluation of 1,2,3‑triazole‑linked dihydropyrimidinone quinoline hybrids

Please read abstract in the article.The National Research Foundation (South Africa) and the University of Pretoria, South Africa. Open access funding provided by University of Pretoria.https://link.springer.com/journal/11224Chemistr

Physico-chemical characterization of polyethylene glycol- conjugated betulinic acid

Betulinic acid (BA) is a naturally occurring plant pentacyclic triterpenoid with activity against cancer and infectious diseases like malaria and AIDS. Its pharmacological activity is limited by low aqueous solubility and bioavailability. Attempts have been made to improve the solubility of BA by conjugation to the water-soluble polymer polyethylene glycol (PEG) but with very limited physico-chemical characterizations. This work presents physico-chemical characterizations of a PEG-BA conjugate using H NMR spectroscopy, electron microscopy, DLS and XRD. The NMR data showed successful conjugation through the formation of an amide bond with a 5% drug loading although the appearance of some chemical shift signals were solvent-dependent. TEM images showed a spherical morphology of the conjugate with average diameter of 59.58±4.47 nm.https://aip.scitation.org/journal/apcpm2021Chemistr

Modelling Flood Hazards Impacted by Ungauged River in Urbanised Area Using HEC-RAS and GIS

Ilorin City is located downstream of Asa, Oyun and Awun River Basins. The Asa River is a major river that traverses the city and divides the metropolitan area into east and west, almost equally. The river often overflows its banks to inundate adjacent communities, influencing severe economic damage and impact on human lives. However, efforts to mitigate this have majorly been focused on dredging the Asa River channel which has not solved the problem. For an accurate spatial and temporal understanding of the risks of floods and their potential hazards, it is important to estimate floods using river hydrology. The objective of this study is to model steady flow of the rivers using flow data and to map flood-prone areas in Ilorin using HEC-RAS integrated with GIS. Using the HEC-GeoRAS extension in the GIS environment, the geometric data of the rivers were obtained from the 30 m resolution digital elevation model (DEM) and input into HEC-RAS applying Manning Co-efficient values of 0.04, 0.045, and 0.04. For each river, flow data (Q) was given as the upstream boundary condition while a normal depth of 0.001 was assigned for the downstream condition to model a steady flow and inundation extents. The result of the HEC-RAS model has shown the flood-prone areas along the river channels delineated. The floodplain map produced reveals the spatial distribution and extent of the high flood-risk areas in the Ilorin metropolis. The total flooded area covers approximately 60.95 km2 (18%) majorly along the river channels. This study has demonstrated that integration of hydraulic modelling using HEC-RAS and GIS process is capable of producing an inundation flood map with good accuracy that will aid in suggesting effective measures to mitigate the impact of flooding

Synthesis, physicochemical characterization, toxicity and efficacy of a PEG conjugate and a hybrid PEG conjugate nanoparticle formulation of the antibiotic moxifloxacin

Antibiotic resistance is increasing at such an alarming rate that it is now one of the greatest global health challenges. Undesirable toxic side-effects of the drugs lead to high rates of non-completion of treatment regimens which in turn leads to the development of drug resistance. We report on the development of delivery systems that enable antibiotics to be toxic against bacterial cells while sparing human cells. The broad-spectrum fluoroquinolone antibiotic moxifloxacin (Mox) was successfully conjugated to poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) which was further encapsulated into the hydrophobic poly(3- caprolactone) (PCL) nanoparticles (NPs) with high efficiency, average particle size of 241.8 4 nm and negative zeta potential. Toxicity against erythrocytes and MDBK cell lines and drug release in human plasma were evaluated. Hemocompatibility and reduced cytotoxicity of the PEG–Mox and PCL(PEG– Mox) NPs were demonstrated in comparison to free Mox. Antimicrobial activity was assessed against drug sensitive and resistant: Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae. The antibacterial activity of Mox was largely maintained after conjugation. Our data shows that the toxicity of Mox can be effectively attenuated while, in the case of PEG–Mox, retaining significant antibacterial activity. At the conditions employed in this study for antimicrobial activity the encapsulated conjugate (PCL(PEG–Mox) NPs) did not demonstrate, conclusively, significant antibacterial activity. These systems do, however, hold promise if further developed for improved treatment of bacterial infections.The National Research Foundation of South Africa and the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Egypt.http://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journalissues/raam2021Chemistr

Thiol modified mycolic acids

Patient serum antibodies to mycolic acids have the potential to be surrogate markers of active tuberculosis (TB) when they can be distinguished from the ubiquitously present cross-reactive antibodies to cholesterol. Mycolic acids are known to interact more strongly with antibodies present in the serum of patients with active TB than in patients with latent TB or no TB. Examples of single stereoisomers of mycolic acids with chain lengths corresponding to major homologues of those present in Mycobacterium tuberculosis have now been synthesised with a sulfur substituent on the terminal position of the -chain; initial studies have established that one of these binds to a gold electrode surface, offering the potential to develop second generation sensors for diagnostic patient antibody detection.MMS and ADS wish to acknowledge support from the Government of Iraq through the award of PhD studentships.http://www.elsevier.com/locate/chemphysliphb2017BiochemistryChemistr