Criminal liability of the Police in Cameroon: Prospects and Challenges

This paper looks at the institutional framework and the procedural mechanisms involved in rendering police accountable through the criminal trial process in Cameroon. The difficulties involved in getting a police agent answer for his criminal misconduct as a result of the coexistence of the civil and common-law legal systems will be of particular interest. Challenges facing the criminal trial process prior to and after the enactment of a single criminal procedure code in Cameroon are also examined and recommendation offered with the view to enhancing the criminal trial of police officers in Cameroon without hampering the smooth running of their duties

Factors Influencing Trade Area Capture in the Great Basin Area

International Relations/Trade,

The Regulation of Securities Trading at the Central African Stock Exchange Market

This article deals with the regulation of the Central African Stock Exchange Market (BVMAC) located in Douala Cameroon. It was created in 2003 by the CEMAC countries for the main objective of financing the CEMAC economies. This article focuses on the key regulation problem affecting the CEMAC stock exchange market such as imposing high compliance costs of at least 100 million capital which has thus prevented many companies from listing at BVMAC. Moreover, looking at the legal form of companies to be listed at BVMAC, the fact that only Public Limited Liability Companies are allowed into the market inadvertently excludes small and medium size businesses as well private limited companies which proliferate the CEMAC Zone, from benefiting from financing at the stock market. Generally, there are other regulatory issues like weak regulation, low enforcement, information asymmetry, poor disclosure of sensitive information by listed companies, insider trading, the fact that bonds listed must be at least two years old, and poor implementation of proposed policies like communication. Against this problematic, this article begins by examining the meaning of Securities generally, then the substantive legal provisions aimed at regulating securities trading at the CEMAC stock exchange market and demonstrate how such provisions rather discourage investors based on published materials such as reports, textbooks, theses and journal articles. Next, the article stresses the need to consider some policy proposals at the stock market for better regulation to encourage investors. The last part of the article dwells on conclusion and recommendation

Screening of an E. coli O157:H7 Bacterial Artificial Chromosome Library by Comparative Genomic Hybridization to Identify Genomic Regions Contributing to Growth in Bovine Gastrointestinal Mucus and Epithelial Cell Colonization

Enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) O157:H7 can cause serious gastrointestinal and systemic disease in humans following direct or indirect exposure to ruminant feces containing the bacterium. The main colonization site of EHEC O157:H7 in cattle is the terminal rectum where the bacteria intimately attach to the epithelium and multiply in the intestinal mucus. This study aimed to identify genomic regions of EHEC O157:H7 that contribute to colonization and multiplication at this site. A bacterial artificial chromosome (BAC) library was generated from a derivative of the sequenced E. coli O157:H7 Sakai strain. The library contains 1152 clones averaging 150 kbp. To verify the library, clones containing a complete locus of enterocyte effacement (LEE) were identified by DNA hybridization. In line with a previous report, these did not confer a type III secretion (T3S) capacity to the K-12 host strain. However, conjugation of one of the BAC clones into a strain containing a partial LEE deletion restored T3S. Three hundred eighty-four clones from the library were subjected to two different selective screens; one involved three rounds of adherence assays to bovine primary rectal epithelial cells while the other competed the clones over three rounds of growth in bovine rectal mucus. The input strain DNA was then compared with the selected strains using comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) on an E. coli microarray. The adherence assay enriched for pO157 DNA indicating the importance of this plasmid for colonization of rectal epithelial cells. The mucus assay enriched for multiple regions involved in carbohydrate utilization, including hexuronate uptake, indicating that these regions provide a competitive growth advantage in bovine mucus. This BAC-CGH approach provides a positive selection screen that complements negative selection transposon-based screens. As demonstrated, this may be of particular use for identifying genes with redundant functions such as adhesion and carbon metabolism

Comparative evaluation of the nutrient and anti-nutrient contents of edible flours consumed in Nigeria

Healthy foods/diets are essential for maintaining good health and preventing diseases. Recently, there has been increase in the incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide and this has brought about a lot of research on the effect of various foods on the nutritional status of people. Also, this has led to the development of healthier alternatives to manage such health conditions. The aim of this study was to comparatively evaluate the nutrient and anti-nutrient content of four commonly-consumed flours. Processed wheat, oat and unripe plantain flours were purchased from the market while fonio was purchased as whole grain before it was cleaned and milled into fine flour. Samples were stored at room temperature in properly-labelled, air-tight sample glass bottles for analyses. Proximate composition was determined using standard methods of the Association of Analytical Chemists (AOAC). Micronutrients were estimated by Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometry, while anti-nutrients were determined using standard spectrophotometric methods. Inferential and descriptive statistics was used to analyze the data at a significance level of P<0.05. The proximate parameters varied significantly (P<0.05) among the flours. Carbohydrate varied from 76.38 + 0.59% (oat flour) to 87.65 + 0.36% (unripe plantain flour). Protein was least (8.75 + 0.25%) in unripe plantain flour and highest (16.08 + 0.26%) in wheat flour. Oat flour had significantly (P<0.05) higher content of beta-carotene (8.67 + 0.03mcg/100g), while wheat flour had significantly (P<0.05) higher content of calcium (45.36 + 0.29mg/100g). For the antinutrients, oat flour had the least content of hydrogen cyanide and oxalate, while wheat flour had the highest content of both. Generally, oat flour showed significantly (p<0.05) lower levels of the 6 anti-nutrients analyzed. From the results of this study, oat flour shows some food properties which may be beneficial for people who seek to reduce starch and caloric intake. Fonio flour could be a healthier alternative to most starchy meals, as a result of its good micronutrient content and preferred nutritional value. Consumption of these cereal flours as alternatives to some indigenous starchy meals should be encouraged for both adults and children

Joseph Ratzinger: The word became love and truth in the Church

Thesis advisor: Barbara RadtkeThesis advisor: Margaret GuiderThe aim of this thesis is to study the convictions of Ratzinger the theologian, with specific reference to his ecclesiological positions, commitments or convictions. It is my humble opinion that understanding Ratzinger’s systematic approach to the question of the Church is crucial in analyzing his impact on Catholicism and the world, especially on the many fronts where he engaged issues from the perspective of the faith and as a theologian. This thesis explores Benedict from the inside, from the internal theological and formative forces and convictions that shaped him and contributed to his making the decision that shook the world on February 11, 2013. Besides the media speculations and obvious embarrassing stories that emerged from the papal household, such as the theft of his private papers by his own butler; the belated effort by the communication machinery bogged down in the realm of endless bureaucratic ritual and unable to come to terms with a Pope who seemed more inclined to the religious dimension of his papacy than staging theatrical media drama. It is my strong conviction that, for a man who had withstood so much pressure and opprobrium throughout most of his ecclesiastical career, Ratzinger’s renunciation of papal power came about through the lens with which he had often judged and discerned situations – the life of the Church, the gift of the Church and what was best for this Church that had meant all to Ratzinger. His remarkable final public address, delivered on February 27, 2013, captures this sentiment. It reads in part: When, on 19 April almost eight years ago I accepted to take on the Petrine ministry, I had the firm certainty that has always accompanied me: this certainty for the life of the Church from the Word of God. At that moment, as I have already expressed many times, the words that resounded in my heart were: Lord, what do You ask of me? It is a great weight that You are placing on my shoulders but, if You ask it of me, I will cast my nets at your command, confident that You will guide me, even with all my weaknesses. And eight years later I can say that the Lord has guided me. He has been close to me. I have felt His presence every day. It has been a stretch of the Church's path that has had moments of joy and light, but also difficult moments. I felt like St. Peter and the Apostles in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. The Lord has given us many days of sunshine and light breezes, days when the fishing was plentiful, but also times when the water was rough and the winds against us, just as throughout the whole history of the Church, when the Lord seemed to be sleeping. But I always knew that the Lord is in that boat and I always knew that the boat of the Church is not mine, not ours, but is His. And the Lord will not let it sink. He is the one who steers her, of course also through those He has chosen because that is how He wanted it. This was and is a certainty that nothing can tarnish. And that is why my heart today is filled with gratitude to God, because He never left—the whole Church or me—without His consolation, His light, or His love. These profound words of inspiration mirror the character of a churchman who placed the good of the Church before his own personal interest. It was a significant message to those in the Church, especially within the clerical ranks that tended to pursue careerism, even at the detriment of the Church’s mission of spreading the gospel. Within the context of the infighting that had rocked the Roman Curia under Benedict XVI’s watch that came to a head with his butler stealing and revealing his private papers to the media, the former pontiff appeared to be far above the moral mendacity in the Roman Curia that had become a house divided within itself with the brazen maneuvering and infighting that was embarrassing the Church. It is important to make the distinction between the sincere love of the Church by Benedict and the administrative setbacks he faced, which were all counter-productive to his vision of the Church as a community of love and truth. This thesis is divided into Three Chapters. Chapter One considers Ratzinger’s Bavarian roots in terms of the effects these had on his theological imagination, particularly his experience of Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s. Ratzinger’s vision of liturgical ecclesiology was definitely affected by the religious piety of his native Bavaria. Foundational to this first chapter is the conviction that the human being is often subjected to and formed by varied life-formative experiences and encounters. The public display of Catholic faith in Bavaria, the rituals and public processions, the times and seasons of Catholic life that affected even the daily menu of Bavarians, instilled in Ratzinger a deep conviction that Catholicism was not just a cultic liturgical expression, but a deep transforming experience that oriented all to a communion. Chapter Two examines the theological attitudes that shaped Ratzinger’s ecclesiology, which are helpful in understanding his theological assumptions. This chapter considers Ratzinger’s theological formation in Augustine and Bonaventure, Ratzinger’s theological mentors. In Augustine, Ratzinger saw the Church as the people and house of God, formed by the spirit of Caritas. This Church is universal and the central act of worship is the Eucharist. In Bonaventure, Ratzinger found a transcendental and spiritual vision of the Church and history that is determined by a vision that is eschatologically triumphant, with a Christo-cosmic consciousness that spans the life of the Church, from ecclesia ab Abel – the Church of the Just, to the ecclesia contemplativa – the final and definitive form of the Church’s existence. This triumph of the Church can only come about through patient endurance of suffering and rejection on the part of the Church, after the pattern of Christ. Chapter Three proposes theological insights and implications from understanding the Church from the perspective of the Bavaria, Augustine and Bonaventure of Joseph Ratzinger, with the aim of offering the Church of today lessons that could be helpful to the Church’s contemporary evangelical efforts.Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2015.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology

TheAufklärung as the Hermeneutical Framework of the Christo-Ecclesiology of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI:

Thesis advisor: Brian DunkleThe eighteenth-century Enlightenment movement that swept across much of Europe, notably France, England and Germany, came to mean different things to different peoples, embodying different strands and currents of thought. Even with the national and cultural specificities, the common element that cut across national boundaries was the appeal to reason as the point of departure in interpreting individual and communal behavior. The Aufklärung, that is, the German strand of the Enlightenment, was particularly acute in its interaction and more pointedly, its challenge of traditional Christian orthodoxy and doctrines. Given this obvious interest in Christian thought by the Aufklärung, it is quite predictable that Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI became concerned with the perspectives and positions of the Aufklärer. To Ratzinger, the Aufklärung marked an enduring criticism of revealed faith, a critique that the Church is yet to fully engage and respond to. The critique of faith by the Aufklärung has lost nothing of its freshness and attraction, two centuries later. This task of opening avenues of rational engagements with the modes of thought of the Aufklärung is not just the expedient thing to do. There is a more profound reason: Christianity, as Ratzinger has repeatedly pointed out, is a religion of the Logos, a Logos that at the fullness of time (Gal 4:4), entered history. To foster this rapport between faith and the Aufklärung, Ratzinger therefore finds a ready tool in the Johannine appropriation of the Greek concept of the Logos. In Ratzinger, one discerns a five-fold usage of the concept of logos that could be useful in creating a space of interaction and engagement with the Aufklärung: As Creative Reason, Son, Person, Unity of Love and Word. These five appropriations of logos will therefore provide avenues by which Ratzinger will engage the Aufklärung. What this dissertation seeks to achieve by way of moving the needle of knowledge is to study Ratzinger from the philosophical prism of the Aufklärung, that is, how do Ratzinger’s theological ideas, convictions and conclusions place him in dialogue and engagement with the philosophical currents of the post-Aufklärung era, especially the philosophers that emerge from Germany? This thesis therefore places Ratzinger in dialogue with notable Aufklärung figures like Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger around the central Christological and Ecclesiological questions as seen in the multiple appropriation of the concept of logos by Ratzinger. Overall, one gains a deeper appreciation not only of Ratzinger’s Christo-ecclesial hermeneutical framework, but also the philosophical currents and presuppositions that shaped and contextualized the thinking of Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI, especially from the prism of the dialogue between faith and reason, and the continuous relevance for such a hermeneutical framework for today’s Church, as we continue to grapple with the challenges of the autonomy of reason and science vis-à-vis the traditional claims of Christian orthodoxy.Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2019.Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry.Discipline: Sacred Theology

Normalization of Pain-Evoked Neural Responses Using Spontaneous EEG Improves the Performance of EEG-Based Cross-Individual Pain Prediction

An effective physiological pain assessment method that complements the gold standard of self-report is highly desired in pain clinical research and practice. Recent studies have shown that pain-evoked electroencephalography (EEG) responses could be used as a readout of perceived pain intensity. Existing EEG-based pain assessment is normally achieved by cross-individual prediction (i.e., to train a prediction model from a group of individuals and to apply the model on a new individual), so its performance is seriously hampered by the substantial inter-individual variability in pain-evoked EEG responses. In this study, to reduce the inter-individual variability in pain-evoked EEG and to improve the accuracy of cross-individual pain prediction, we examined the relationship between pain-evoked EEG, spontaneous EEG, and pain perception on a pain EEG dataset, where a large number of laser pulses (>100) with a wide energy range were delivered. Motivated by our finding that an individual’s pain-evoked EEG responses is significantly correlated with his/her spontaneous EEG in terms of magnitude, we proposed a normalization method for pain-evoked EEG responses using one’s spontaneous EEG to reduce the inter-individual variability. In addition, a nonlinear relationship between the level of pain perception and pain-evoked EEG responses was obtained, which inspired us to further develop a new two-stage pain prediction strategy, a binary classification of low-pain and high-pain trials followed by a continuous prediction for high-pain trials only, both of which used spontaneous-EEG-normalized magnitudes of evoked EEG responses as features. Results show that the proposed normalization strategy can effectively reduce the inter-individual variability in pain-evoked responses, and the two-stage pain prediction method can lead to a higher prediction accuracy.published_or_final_versio

Double half-cone flap umbilicoplasty for proboscoid umbilical hernia in a 2 years old child with satisfactory results 2 years later

Surgical repair of large umbilical hernias may present a challenging surgical problem; standard surgical  techniques have proven to be inadequate for both closing the fascial defect of the umbilicus and providing a  satisfactory cosmetic result. We describe here a case of double half-cone flap umbilicoplasty that was  performed in a 2 years old boy. The case of a 2 years old child with proboscoid umbilical hernia. The protruding umbilical skin was excised sharply by two V-shaped cuts leaving two half cones, a short cephalic (0.5cm) and a long caudal (1cm). A classic herniotomy was carried out, with repair of the facial defect. The caudal half cone was sutured from its apex till half it's length upon itself with interrupted sutures and it was anchored deeply to the fascia. Then we inverted the cephalic half cone which was sutured to the caudal cone to form the new umbilicus. The early result was excellent with no complications and the result after 2years revealed a  cosmetically satisfactory shape of the umbilicus. this technique provides a good solution for reconstruction of the protruding umbilical skin and it is easy to learn, easy to be taught and perform in surgical environments and may be applicable for any kind of umbilical reconstruction.Key words: Double half-cone flap, proboscoid umbilical hernia, umbilicoplast

Regional Action Plan for the Conservation of the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli)

From Executive Summary: This document represents the consensus of experts who met at a workshop in April 2006 in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria, to formulate a set of priority actions that would increase the survival prospects for the Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli). The Cross River gorilla is recognized by IUCN as Critically Endangered, and is the most threatened taxon of ape in Africa. It is the most westerly and northerly form of gorilla, and occurs only in a limited area around the mountainous headwaters of the Cross River, straddling the border between Cameroon and Nigeria. Participants at the 2006 workshop, which built upon the outcomes of previous meetings in Calabar in 2001 and Limbe, Cameroon, in 2003, included representatives of forestry and wildlife conservation agencies from the two range countries, of local and international nongovernmental conservation and development organizations, and of university-based researchers