FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF ETHANOLIC EXTRACT OF CRYPTOLEPIS SANGUINOLENTA ROOT TABLETS

Objectives: To study were to formulate the ethanolic extract of Cryptolepis sanguinolenta root into tablets and to evaluate the effect of different binders and binder concentration on the properties of tablets. Materials and method: The phytochemistry of ethanolic extract of Cryptolepis sanguinolenta was evaluated. The tablets were formulated by wet granulation using gelatin and sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (SCMC) as binders at concentrations of 2 %, 4 %, 6 % and 8 %w/w. The tablets were evaluated using the necessary official and unofficial tests. Results: Phytochemical analysis revealed the presence of alkaloids, terpenoids, steroids, proteins, carbohydrate, resins, reducing sugars and glycosides. Tannins, saponins, flavonoids and acidic compounds were absent.  The tablets passed the uniformity of weight test and deviations obtained complied with BP specifications. Tablets disintegration time ranged from 8.00 ± 0.10 to 13.50 ± 0.21 min for tablets formulated with 2 and 4 % gelatin and 10.00 ± 0.17 to 31.00 ± 0.27 min for tablets formulated with 2 and 8 % SCMC. C. sanguinolenta tablets formulated gelatin significantly showed higher hardness values than SCMC (p < 0.05). Tablets showed friability of approximately ≤ 1 %. Conclusion: Therefore, gelatin showed good properties for formulating Cryptolepis sanguinolenta normal release tablets than SCMC.Â

Antimicrobial properties, safety, and probiotic attributes of lactic acid bacteria isolated from Sauerkraut

Background: According to the World Health Organization, probiotics have been defined as live microorganisms that when administered in the right amount provide health benefits to the host. This study aims to isolate lactic acid bacteria (LAB) from Sauerkraut and determine their anti-pathogenic potential and suitability as probiotics. Methodology: Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) were isolated from fermented cabbage obtained from an open market in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria by inoculating the prepared cabbage suspension on triplet plates of Rogosa agar (Lactobacillus selecting agar) and incubating in an anaerobic jar with gaspaks at 37°C for 72 hours. The LAB isolates were presumptively identified phenotypically by colony morphology, Gram stain reaction, and catalase test. The antibacterial activity of the LAB isolates was then carried out using agar overlay and agar-well diffusion methods. The most efficient LAB isolate was selected based on its strong antibacterial activity, confirmed by 16S rRNA sequencing and further evaluated for probiotic activities including bile salt resistance, survival in low pH, hydrophobicity of the cell surface, auto-aggregation, and co-aggregation. The putative probiotic LAB isolate was also evaluated for its safety using in vitro tests (antibiotic susceptibility testing, haemolysis, and DNase tests) and in vivo assays (sub-acute oral toxicity tests in male albino rats). Results: A total of 5 LAB isolates were preliminarily identified from the cabbage. The LAB isolate that showed strong antibacterial activity was confirmed as Levilactobacillus brevis. The isolate showed 83.3% survival rate in low pH of 3 and 85.9% in 0.3% bile concentration indicating potential tolerance to gastrointestinal conditions. The cell surface hydrophobicity assay showed 51% and auto-aggregation of 60% which represents the adhesion properties of the isolate. The sub-acute oral toxicity evaluation of the putative probiotic strain in Wister albino rats showed no altered health condition. Conclusion: The findings in this study suggest that Levilactobacillus brevis isolated from Sauerkraut is suitable as probiotics and could be applied in the pharmaceutical and food industry

Preparation of snail cyst and PEG-4000 composite carriers via PEGylation for oral delivery of insulin: An in vitro and in vivo evaluation

Purpose: To develop PEGylated mucin as a carrier system for oral insulin delivery. Methods: Varied ratios of snail cyst were molecularly modified with polyethylene glycol 4000 (PEG 4000). Briefly, In each case, 20 g quantities of snail cyst and PEG 4000 were separately dispersed in distilled water, stirred and allowed to stand for 24 h to produce a homogeneous dispersion and clear solution, respectively. The solution of PEG was added to the snail cyst dispersion, stirred and allowed 12 h for molecular interaction. The mixture was added to a 250-mL beaker containing 100 mL of light liquid paraffin. The microparticles were obtained after stirring and removing the paraffin using chilled acetone. The obtained PEGylated mucin matrices, which were subsequently loaded with insulin using a diffusion method, characterized for particles size, drug loading, encapsulation efficiency, in vitro drug release and evaluated for oral application in diabetic rats. Results: The polymer hybrids improved insulin encapsulation efficiency (max 82.3 %), gave. polydispersity indices that ranged from 0.11 ± 0.1 to 0.24 ± 0.2, zeta potential values between 28 ± 0.3 and 38 ± 1.1 mV. Insulin release was highest (68 % in 6 h) for batch C and was sustained for 10 h in simulated intestinal fluid. The optimized batch (C-5) showed higher hypoglycaemic activity (56.5 %) than control (0.5 %) in diabetic rats. Conclusion: The results suggest that PEGylated mucin can potentially be developed as a platform for oral insulin deliver

Exploring User Experience and Effectiveness of an Innovative Leanbuild UK Software: Usability Study Post Development Stage

This paper explores the usability and efficiency of the LeanBuild project management software; an innovative solution rooted in Lean Construction 4.0 principles. Through collaboration with the University of Wolverhampton UK, Kingston University UK, and London South Bank University UK, the LeanBuild Limited project presents a promising innovation in the construction industry. The integration of usability evaluations and user recommendations in software development is limited, despite the importance of usability testing. Even with limited adoption of construction project management software, Target Value Delivery principles are often overlooked. The study employs a mixed-methods approach, incorporating focus groups, questionnaires, and interviews to assess the software's usability. Recommendations gathered from industry practitioners, academics, and IT professionals emphasize the need for improvements such as financial reporting, critical path display, resource assignment features, simultaneous file uploads, BIM integration, enhanced security, and E-Tendering and Marketplace integration. The paper concludes that despite requiring further enhancements from its minimum viable product, LeanBuild is an effective solution, endorsed by users as a viable and scalable innovation with global applicability for efficient project delivery. This study highlights the importance of post-development usability checks and positions LeanBuild as a significant breakthrough in the construction software landscape

Preliminary Investigation of Trace Elements in Acid Mine Drainage from Odagbo Coal Mine, Northcentral, Nigeria

The objective of this study was to assess the concentration of trace elements in acid mine drainage (AMD) from Odagbo coal mine. Composite AMD samples were collected from active and abandoned mining pits and were analysed for lead, nickel, cobalt, chromium, mercury, zinc, arsenic and iron using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS). Comparisons were made between the trace elements and environmentally acceptable quality standard (EQS) for heavy metal discharges from mines using student’s t-test. The mean concentrations of these elements were lead (0.10 mg/l), nickel (0.49 mg/l), cobalt (0.88 mg/l), chromium (0.55 mg/l), cadmium (0.19 mg/l), arsenic (0.01 mg/l) and iron (5.80 mg/l). There were significant differences between the means of lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and EQS for heavy metal discharges from mines (P < 0.05). There were no significant differences between the means of nickel, chromium, iron and EQS for heavy metal discharges from mines (P > 0.05). Cobalt, iron, nickel and chromium were the dominant trace elements in the AMD. Further studies are required to determine the influence of AMD on surface water and soils around the mine. Keywords: Acid mine drainage, trace elements, coal, mine, sulphide minerals

A 5-year review of contraceptive uptake among women attending family planning clinic at Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, North-Central Nigeria

Background: Rapidly rising population in Africa is of great concern, most especially in Nigeria because of its impact on social stability. Family planning is an indispensable tool for population control and also in preventing unwanted pregnancy and its complications. Women and men at any given point in their lifetime should be able to choose the most appropriate contraceptive methods from many available options, as this is an important contributor to the successful use of contraception. Aim of the study was to determine the uptake and trend in contraceptive use from 2014-2018 in the family planning unit of a specialist hospital in the North central, Nigeria. Methods: It is a retrospective, descriptive study of contraceptive uptake of women attending family planning clinic of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH), Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria from 2014 to 2018. Results: Of the 5448 women accessing family planning services in the hospital within the study period, 5277 folders were retrieved with complete data. A vast majority of the women were married (99.6%) with the mean age of the subjects being 28.8±6.0 years. Contraceptive uptake was 43.2% of deliveries in the hospital. Implants (65.4%) remained the preferred contraceptive choice, followed by injectables (20.7%) and intrauterine devices (IUDs) (10.3%). Less popular were bilateral tubal ligation (BTL) (0.2%), Sayana press (0.1%) and Standard Days Methods (SDM) (0.0%). Implants, injectables and IUDs consistently remained the preferred contraceptive choices yearly throughout the studied years. Conclusions: Implants is the most popular contraception in DASH. Contraceptive uptake is relatively high among the women but there is still need to increase access to effective contraception and if possible make them freely available at all levels of health care

A real valued neural network based autoregressive energy detector for cognitive radio application

A real valued neural network (RVNN) based energy detector (ED) is proposed and analyzed for cognitive radio (CR) application. This was developed using a known two-layered RVNN model to estimate the model coefficients of an autoregressive (AR) system. By using appropriate modules and a well-designed detector, the power spectral density (PSD) of the AR system transfer function was estimated and subsequent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the detector generated and analyzed. A high detection performance with low false alarm rate was observed for varying signal to noise ratio (SNR), sample number, and model order conditions. The proposed RVNN based ED was then compared to the simple periodogram (SP), Welch periodogram (WP), multitaper (MT), Yule-Walker (YW), Burg (BG), and covariance (CV) based ED techniques. The proposed detector showed better performance than the SP, WP, and MT while providing better false alarm performance than the YW, BG, and CV. Data provided here support the effectiveness of the proposed RVNN based ED for CR application

A real valued neural network based autoregressive energy detector for cognitive radio application

A real valued neural network (RVNN) based energy detector (ED) is proposed and analyzed for cognitive radio (CR) application. This was developed using a known two-layered RVNN model to estimate the model coefficients of an autoregressive (AR) system. By using appropriate modules and a well-designed detector, the power spectral density (PSD) of the AR system transfer function was estimated and subsequent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the detector generated and analyzed. A high detection performance with low false alarm rate was observed for varying signal to noise ratio (SNR), sample number, and model order conditions. The proposed RVNN based ED was then compared to the simple periodogram (SP), Welch periodogram (WP), multitaper (MT), Yule-Walker (YW), Burg (BG), and covariance (CV) based ED techniques. The proposed detector showed better performance than the SP, WP, and MT while providing better false alarm performance than the YW, BG, and CV. Data provided here support the effectiveness of the proposed RVNN based ED for CR application

Seasonal Assessment of Household Food Access in Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

Abstract The study was carried out in Ibadan metropolis of South Western Nigeria to determine average household food access and diversity. Structured questionnaire was used to obtain responses from 180 households interviewed both during harvest and hunger periods. Data was analysed using Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) and Z-test. It appeared that average households tended to have significantly better food access during the harvest than hunger period. During the harvest period, at 95 % confidence interval, the HFIAS score ranged between 5.23 and 7.01 i.e. an average household had adequate food access; however during the hunger period, at 95 % confidence interval, a higher HFIAS score that ranged between 9.75 and 11.77 was observed i.e. in the hunger period, an average household still maintained an adequate food access though poorer compared to the previous season. Combined, the households in Ibadan metropolis had a higher mean score for dietary diversity in the harvest period than in the hunger period. In the harvest period with the combined mean score of food groups consumed during the harvest period being 3.08 i.e. households in Ibadan metropolis consumed an average of 3 food groups during the harvest period decreasing to an average score of 2.54 i.e. households in the settlement consumed lesser food groups in the hunger period. The difference in the mean score using Z-test, for food groups between the periods was significant at p< 0.01. The findings suggest that food access varied significantly with season in metropolises howbeit to a lesser degree in a metropolis closer to agricultural markets. Urban agriculture is therefore recommended

The impacts of social restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical activity levels of over 50-year olds: the CHARIOT COVID-19 Rapid Response (CCRR) cohort study

Objectives To quantify the associations between shielding status and loneliness at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and physical activity (PA) levels throughout the pandemic. Methods Demographic, health and lifestyle characteristics of 7748 cognitively healthy adults aged >50, and living in London, were surveyed from April 2020 to March 2021. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) short-form assessed PA before COVID-19 restrictions, and up to 6 times over 11 months. Linear mixed models investigated associations between baseline shielding status, loneliness, and time-varying PA. Results Participants who felt ‘often lonely’ at the outset of the pandemic completed an average of 522 and 547 fewer Metabolic Equivalent of Task (MET) minutes/week (95% CI: -809, -236, pConclusions Those shielding or lonely at pandemic onset were likely to have completed low levels of PA during the pandemic. These associations are influenced by co-morbidities and health status