An investigation of threat types to the conservation of Pan troglodytes ellioti at Kwano forest of Gashaka-Gumti national park, Nigeria

The Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee has been classified on the red list of threatened species (endangered) of IUCN and It has been established that it is only when animal or plant species are subject to certain threat factors that the species can be considered as threaten. It is in view of the aforementioned that this research was carried out to determine those threat factors that mitigates against the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee habitat. Transects, trails and random forest walks were the methods used for the data collection while tables, charts and mean values as well as photo plats were used to analyse the data collected. The different types of threats observed were Poaching which (11 segments; 52.4 5 %) of the habitat, illegal bush burning (16 segments; 76.6 %) of the habitat, river poisoning (1 segment; 4.8 %) of the habitat, tree felling (4 segments; 19.1 %) of the habitat and Non Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) extraction (7 segments; 33.3 %) of the habitat. Poaching activities were highest in Ngiti forest (49.4 %), followed by Yakuba forest (25.3 %) while Tounga (16.5 %) and Bakashi (8.9 %) experienced the least poaching activities. Despite the status of Kwano forest as a protected area; the sitting of a research project in the area and constant presence of researchers, some threat factors to the conservation of this forest prevails. Concerted effort from both the National Parks Service and Non-governmental organisations is highly needed to reduce or absolutely eliminate illegal activities from this area.Keywords: Chimpanzee, Habitat, Conservation, Threats and Kwan

A spatio-temporal analysis of trends in rainfall from long term satellite rainfall products in the Sudano Sahelian zone of Nigeria

Rainfall and its variability drive the rural economies across the Sudano-Sahelian zone of northern Nigeria, where drought strategies largely determine crop yields. The increasing scarcity of rain gauges in West Africa generally limits assessments of the degree and spatial extent of hardship arising from rainfall deficiency. However, the improved availability and robustness of satellite-based rainfall products since the early 1980s, offers an alternative source of rainfall data which is spatially, and often temporally, more complete than rain gauges. This research evaluates four satellite-based rainfall products for their ability to represent both long term rainfall trends such as recovery from decadal droughts, and trends in seasonal rainfall variables relevant to crop yield prediction. The Climate Hazards group Infrared Precipitation with Stations (CHIRPS) rainfall product at 5 km resolution, was observed to be consistently most representative of ground station rainfall across northern Nigeria over a 35-year period 1981–2015, followed by TARCAT. CHIRPS was found to give a good overall prediction of rainfall amounts at dekadal, monthly and seasonal time scales, and was therefore used in the study to represent the typical performance of satellite rainfall datasets. The CHIRPS-observed increase in growing season length since the 1970s and 80s drought decades, was accompanied by significant rainfall increases in the later part of the growing season, especially marked in northern and northeastern states. This is especially important for the main subsistence crops sorghum and millet as the risk of late drought impedes swelling of the grain, affecting dry weight production. The CHIRPS data also indicate a significant decrease in dry spells in the northwest and southern parts of the study area, which would have favourable outcomes for crop production in the densely populated rural hinterlands of the cities of Sokoto, Jos and Abuja. In view of the continued intra-and inter-annual rainfall variability across northern Nigeria, and amid rapid rural population growth recently, a return to the rainfall levels of the drought decades, would require informed response. The study suggests that satellite rainfall estimates can offer such information, especially since we observed high spatial variability in rainfall distributions and trends

Antibiotics modulate biofilm formation in fish pathogenic isolates of atypical Aeromonas salmonicida

Atypical Aeromonas salmonicida causes furunculosis infections of non‐salmonid fish, which requires antibiotic therapy. However, antibiotics may induce biofilm in some bacteria, which protects them against hostile conditions while allowing them to persist on surfaces, thus forming a reservoir for infection. The aim of this study was to determine whether atypical isolates of A. salmonicida increased biofilm in the presence of two antibiotics, florfenicol and oxytetracycline. A microtitre plate assay was used to quantify biofilm in the presence and absence of each antibiotic. Fifteen of 28 isolates formed biofilms under control conditions, while 23 of 28 isolates increased biofilm formation in the presence of at least one concentration of at least one antibiotic. For oxytetracycline, the most effective concentration causing biofilm to increase was one‐quarter of that preventing visible bacterial growth, whereas for florfenicol it was one‐half of this value. This is the first study to demonstrate that a bacterial pathogen of fish increases biofilm in response to antibiotics. Biofilm formation may increase the risk of re‐infection in culture systems and this lifestyle favours the transmission of genetic material, which has implications for the dissemination of antibiotic‐resistance genes and demonstrates the need for enhanced disease prevention measures against atypical A. salmonicida

A Review of Minority Stress Related to Employees' Demographics and the Development of an Intersectional Framework for Their Coping Strategies in the Workplace

Every employee embodies manifestations of every demographic that attach to him or her different minority and majority statuses at the same time. As these statuses are often related to organizational hierarchies, employees frequently hold positions of dominance and subordination at the same time. Thus, a given individual's coping strategies (or coping behavior) in terms of minority stress due to organizational processes of hierarchization, marginalization and discrimination, are very often a simultaneous coping in terms of more than one demographic. Research on minority stress mostly focuses on single demographics representing only single facets of workforce diversity. By integrating the demographics of age, disability status, nationality, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, and religion into one framework, the intersectional model proposed in this article broadens the perspective on minorities and related minority stress in the workplace. It is shown that coping with minority stress because of one demographic must always be interpreted in relation to the other demographics. The manifestation of one demographic can limit or broaden one's coping resources for coping with minority stress because of another dimension. Thus the manifestation of one demographic can determine the coping opportunities and coping behavior one applies to situations because of the minority status of another demographic. This coping behavior can include disclosure decisions about invisible demographics. Therefore organizational interventions aiming to create a supportive workplace environment and equal opportunities for every employee (e.g. diversity management approaches) should include more demographics instead of focusing only on few. (author's abstract

Catalytic Transformations of Alkynes via Ruthenium Vinylidene and Allenylidene Intermediates

NOTICE: This is the peer reviewed version of the following book chapter: Varela J. A., González-Rodríguez C., Saá C. (2014). Catalytic Transformations of Alkynes via Ruthenium Vinylidene and Allenylidene Intermediates. In: Dixneuf P., Bruneau C. (eds) Ruthenium in Catalysis. Topics in Organometallic Chemistry, vol 48, pp. 237-287. Springer, Cham. [doi: 10.1007/3418_2014_81]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Springer Verlag Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.Vinylidenes are high-energy tautomers of terminal alkynes and they can be stabilized by coordination with transition metals. The resulting metal-vinylidene species have interesting chemical properties that make their reactivity different to that of the free and metal π-coordinated alkynes: the carbon α to the metal is electrophilic whereas the β carbon is nucleophilic. Ruthenium is one of the most commonly used transition metals to stabilize vinylidenes and the resulting species can undergo a range of useful transformations. The most remarkable transformations are the regioselective anti-Markovnikov addition of different nucleophiles to catalytic ruthenium vinylidenes and the participation of the π system of catalytic ruthenium vinylidenes in pericyclic reactions. Ruthenium vinylidenes have also been employed as precatalysts in ring closing metathesis (RCM) or ring opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). Allenylidenes could be considered as divalent radicals derived from allenes. In a similar way to vinylidenes, allenylidenes can be stabilized by coordination with transition metals and again ruthenium is one of the most widely used metals. Metalallenylidene complexes can be easily obtained from terminal propargylic alcohols by dehydration of the initially formed metal-hydroxyvinylidenes, in which the reactivity of these metal complexes is based on the electrophilic nature of Cα and Cγ, while Cβ is nucleophilic. Catalytic processes based on nucleophilic additions and pericyclic reactions involving the π system of ruthenium allenylidenes afford interesting new structures with high selectivity and atom economy

ERP markers are associated with neurodevelopmental outcomes in 1–5 month old infants in rural Africa and the UK

Introduction: Infants and children in low- and middle-income countries are frequently exposed to a range of poverty-related risk factors, increasing their likelihood of poor neurodevelopmental outcomes. There is a need for culturally objective markers, which can be used to study infants from birth, thereby enabling early identification and ultimately intervention during a critical time of neurodevelopment. Method: In this paper, we investigate developmental changes in auditory event related potentials (ERP) associated with habituation and novelty detection in infants between 1 and 5 months living in the United Kingdom and The Gambia, West Africa. Previous research reports that whereas newborns’ ERP responses are increased when presented with stimuli of higher intensity, this sensory driven response decreases over the first few months of life, giving rise to a cognitively driven, novelty-based response. Anthropometric measures were obtained concurrently with the ERP measures at 1 and 5 months of age. Neurodevelopmental outcome was measured using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) at 5 months of age. Results: The described developmental change was observed in the UK cohort, who exhibited an intensity-based response at 1 month and a novelty-based response at 5 months of age. This change was accompanied by greater habituation to stimulus intensity at 5 compared to 1 month. In the Gambian cohort we did not see a change from an intensity-to a novelty-based response, and no change in habituation to stimulus intensity across the two age points. The degree of change from an intensity towards a novelty-based response was further found to be associated with MSEL scores at 5 months of infant age, whereas infants’ growth between 1 and 5 months was not. Discussion: Our study highlights the utility of ERP-based markers to study young infants in rural Africa. By implementing a well-established paradigm in a previously understudied population we have demonstrated its use as a culturally objective tool to better understand early learning in diverse settings world-wide. Results offer insight into the neurodevelopmental processes underpinning early neurocognitive development, which may in the future contribute to early identification of infants at heightened risk of adverse neurodevelopmental outcome

Fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl-N-methylamino acids synthesized in a flow tube-in-tube reactor with a liquid-liquid semipermeable membrane

Both steps of the N-methylation of 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) amino acids were carried out in a microstructured tube-in-tube reactor equipped with a semipermeable Teflon® AF 2400 membrane as the inner tubing. In the first step, gaseous formaldehyde was passed through the inner membrane to effect the acid-catalyzed conversion of the Fmoc amino acids into the corresponding N-Fmoc oxazolidinones. In the second step, liquid–liquid transfer of trifluoroacetic acid was used for the first time in such a reactor for the reductive opening of these oxazolidinones to give Fmoc N-methylamino acids in high yields

Detection and identification of blood-borne infections in goats in Nigeria using light microscopy and polymerase chain reaction

Haemoparasitisms in animals are known to impose substantial economic burdens on owners. In Nigeria, most laboratories utilize only Light Microscopy (LM) for their diagnosis. Hence there is a need to have an update assessment of haemoparasitism of goat in Nigeria using molecular investigation.&nbsp;Using LM, blood samples from a total of 173 goats in Ibadan were screened for haemoparasites and haemocytopathological evaluation. Among them, 126 blood samples were randomly selected and PCR tested for the 18S rRNA gene of Babesia/Theileria spp (B/T) and the 16S rRNA gene of Anaplasma/Ehrlichia spp (A/E), while 91 samples were evaluated for the 16S RNA of hemotropic mycoplasma (hemoplasma). Relationship between the haematological changes and PCR results was evaluated.&nbsp;The PCR detection rate was significantly and more than 4-fold higher compared to LM (61.5% and 14.5%, respectively; P &lt; 0.0001) alone. A total of 150 animals were tested by both methods with 62.7% overall infection proportion. Comparison of LM and PCR analyses showed approximately 50% misdiagnosis of Hemoplasma spp by LM with 82.7% and 100% false negative for A/E and B/T recorded by LM, respectively. The haemoparasites detected by LM were Borrelia spp, Hemoplasma spp, Babesia spp, Anaplasma spp and, Trypanosoma brucei. A total of 34.1%, 23% and, 51.6% samples were positive for B/T, A/E and, hemoplasma, respectively. Sequencing and phylogenetic analyses of some PCR products identified samples with high homology with Anaplasma ovis in the A/E group while the B/T were highly related to Theileria velifera. Sequencing of hemoplasma positive samples identified Mycoplasma ovis, Mycoplasma wenyonii and Pseudomonas fluorescens. The haematological changes were unspecific to infection types and, showed no significant deviation between haemoparasite positive and negative animals.The striking disparity between LM and PCR methods for haemoparasite detection and a larger repertoire of haemoparasites are presented. Borrelia spp, Mycoplasma wenyonii, Pseudomonas fluorescens and Theileria velifera are newly reported in goat with hemotropic mycoplasma being the most prevalent in Ibadan. Studies geared towards pathogenicity investigation in the unusual host, their diversity and factors of transmission are envisaged for effective prevention and control.&nbsp;</p

Analysis of biodiesel and frying vegetable oils by means of FTIR photoacoustic spectroscopy

Fourier Transform Infrared Photoacoustic Spectroscopy was used to determine the mid-infrared vibrational modes of biodiesel and vegetable oils. Our results indicate that this method can contribute significantly to the biodiesel wash process during the sample preparation. Besides, by analyzing the spectra of vegetable oils used to fry snacks we could to monitor the degradation in function of the fried time