Malaria infection and socioeconomic status of some residents of Port Harcourt metropolis, Rivers State, Nigeria

The study investigated the prevalence of malaria and socioeconomic status of subjects in part of Port Harcourt metropolis. Following ethical clearance which was obtained from the University of Port Harcourt and the parents of the subjects who gave their written consents, blood samples were collected and analysed following standard parasitological method from 200 subjects within the age bracket of 0-17years. The demographic characteristics of 200 subjects showed that more males, 105 (52.5%), were examined compared with females, 94 (47.5%). The socioeconomic status of subjects were grouped into higher class with 144 (72.0%), middle class with 22 (11.0%) and lower class with 34 (17.0%). Overall prevalence of 71 (35.5%) was recorded. Sex related prevalence showed that more males were infected with 42 (40.0%) and parasite density of 91120 μl than females with 29 (30.5%) and parasite density of 62480 μl. The differences in prevalence between males and females was not significant (P>0.05).The prevalence of malaria infections based on socioeconomic status showed that greater percentage of infection of 55 (38.2%) was recorded among the higher class with parasite density of 112880 μl followed by infection of 12 (35.3%) and parasite density of 29120 μl in the lower class with the least percentage of 4 (18.2%) and parasite density of 11600 μl recorded in the middle class. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in infection rate on the basis of socioeconomic status. In Conclusion, malaria infection does not respect individual’s socioeconomic status. There is need to sustain the current intervention measures and awareness campaign among Port Harcourt residents for prevalence rate to be reduced to the desired zero level.Keywords: Malaria infection, prevalence, Parasite intensity, Socio-economic status

CMS Physics Technical Design Report: Addendum on High Density QCD with Heavy Ions

This report presents the capabilities of the CMS experiment to explore the rich heavy-ion physics programme offered by the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The collisions of lead nuclei at energies $\sqrt{s_{NN}}= 5.5\,{\rm TeV}$ , will probe quark and gluon matter at unprecedented values of energy density. The prime goal of this research is to study the fundamental theory of the strong interaction \u2014 Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) \u2014 in extreme conditions of temperature, density and parton momentum fraction (low- x ). This report covers in detail the potential of CMS to carry out a series of representative Pb-Pb measurements. These include "bulk" observables, (charged hadron multiplicity, low p T inclusive hadron identified spectra and elliptic flow) which provide information on the collective properties of the system, as well as perturbative probes such as quarkonia, heavy-quarks, jets and high p T hadrons which yield "tomographic" information of the hottest and densest phases of the reaction