The Fecundity of Brackish River Prawn (Macrobrachium macrobrachion, Herklots, 1851) from Great Kwa River, Obufa Esuk Beach, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria

The fecundity of Macrobrachium macrobrachion Herklots, 1851 from Great Kwa River, Obufa Esuk Beach, Cross River State, Nigeria. Shrimp were sample for a period of six months (February, 2006 - July, 2006). A total of 200 berried female shrimp were examined. The results show that the number of eggs ranged from 63 to 14,531. The mean number of eggs per female was 4,420.58. The eggs were spherical in shape; on the long axis the egg diameter ranged from 0.26 to 0.38mm with a mean of 0.33mm while on the short axis, the egg diameter ranged from 0.25 to 0.38mm with a mean of 0.31mm. There was a positive relationship between body weight, standard length, total length, carapace length and the number of eggs: Y = 155.7-1107x and r2 = 0.986, Y = 1148.4- 9353x and r2= 0.949, Y = 809.69-7578.8x and r2 = 0.949, Y = 848.39-8567x and r2 = 0.934 respectively. There was high correlation between female body weight, standard length, total length, carapace length and the number of eggs. Fecundity increases with the standard length, total length and carapace length. The number of eggs also increases with increase in body weight, standard length, total length and carapace length. Generally, fecundity was linear and a function of the body weight and body length. The study shows that the fecundity of the prawn was low when compared to other studies. Keywords: Egg diameters, Macrobrachium macrobrachion, Great Kwa River, Obufa Esuk Beach, Nigeria

Food and Feeding Habits of the Brackish River Prawn (Macrobrachium macrobrachion, Herklots, 1857) from Great Kwa River, Obufa Esuk Beach, Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.

The study investigated the stomach contents of Macrobrachium macrobrachion from the commercial artisanal catches in Obufa Esuk Beach along Great Kwa River, Cross River, Nigeria. Samples were collected for a period of six months from February, 2006 to July, 2006. The stomach analysis was carried out using frequency of occurrence and numeric methods. It was observed that the prawn fed on a variety of food items such as detritus; diatoms, sand, mud particle fish bone, insect part and flagellate which were consistent. In terms of percentage frequency of occurrence detritus topped the list of food items with 19.58% while unidentified invertebrates were the least food component 0.74% by number. Detritus, diatoms, unidentified algae, mud particles, sand were not numerically quantified. Fish bones were only counted in stomach where no fish remain occurred. The results indicated that M. macrobrachion can be considered as an omnivorous detritivore. Keywords: Stomach analysis, Food items, Macrobrachium macrobrachion, Obufa Esuk Beach, Nigeri

Effect of brand extension strategy on customers’ preference of Coca – Cola products in University of Calabar

This study on the effect of brand extension strategy on customers‘ preference of Coca –Cola products in University of Calabar focused on determining the effect of the elements of brand extension strategy such as perceived quality, perceived fit and customer familiarity on customers‘ preference of Coca – Cola products.The study adopted a survey research design which enabled the administration of structured questionnaire on the 246 respondents within the University of Calabar community who constituted the sample size of this study and were using a purposive non probability sampling technique. The responses obtained through the questionnaire were subjected to statistical analysis using regression analysis, which in turn revealed that extended perceived quality, extended perceived fit as well as customer familiarity all have an effect on customer preference for Coca- Cola products in University of Calabar. Based on theabove result, it was concluded that when an organization effectively adopts and implements a branding strategy with special focus on perceived quality, perceived fit and customer familiarity, such a firm is bound to enjoy the preference of its products by consumers because once the view of the customer towards the above considered elements of the branding strategy are favourable, it therefore implies that the customer would, to a large extent, extend such favourable response to the extended products of such an organization. Hence, it was further recommended that Coca- Cola should always ensure that the quality of their drinks remain a paramount consideration within the organization by ensuring that quality test and measures are put in place to help spot deficiencies in the production process. Because once the customer perceives a drink to be of quality, it has been proven that such a customer would always attribute such perceived quality to other variants of the brand. Key words: Brand extension strategy, Customer preference, Perceived quality, Perceived fit, Customer familiarit

Rethinking the Gains from Immigration: Theory and Evidence from the U.S.

Recent influential empirical work has emphasized the negative impact immigrants have on the wages of U.S.-born workers, arguing that immigration harms less educated American workers in particular and all U.S.-born workers in general. Because U.S. and foreign born workers belong to different skill groups that are imperfectly substitutable, one needs to articulate a production function that aggregates different types of labor (and accounts for complementarity and substitution effects) in order to calculate the various effects of immigrant labor on U.S.-born labor. We introduce such a production function, making the crucial assumption that U.S. and foreign-born workers with similar education and experience levels may nevertheless be imperfectly substitutable, and allowing for endogenous capital accumulation. This function successfully accounts for the negative impact of the relative skill levels of immigrants on the relative wages of U.S. workers. However, contrary to the findings of previous literature, overall immigration generates a large positive effect on the average wages of U.S.-born workers. We show evidence of this positive effect by estimating the impact of immigration on both average wages and housing values across U.S. metropolitan areas (1970-2000). We also reproduce this positive effect by simulating the behavior of average wages and housing prices in an open city-economy, with optimizing U.S.-born agents who respond to an inflow of foreign-born workers of the size and composition comparable to the immigration of the 1990s

Effect of early tranexamic acid administration on mortality, hysterectomy, and other morbidities in women with post-partum haemorrhage (WOMAN): an international, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background Post-partum haemorrhage is the leading cause of maternal death worldwide. Early administration of tranexamic acid reduces deaths due to bleeding in trauma patients. We aimed to assess the effects of early administration of tranexamic acid on death, hysterectomy, and other relevant outcomes in women with post-partum haemorrhage. Methods In this randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, we recruited women aged 16 years and older with a clinical diagnosis of post-partum haemorrhage after a vaginal birth or caesarean section from 193 hospitals in 21 countries. We randomly assigned women to receive either 1 g intravenous tranexamic acid or matching placebo in addition to usual care. If bleeding continued after 30 min, or stopped and restarted within 24 h of the first dose, a second dose of 1 g of tranexamic acid or placebo could be given. Patients were assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight numbered packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Participants, care givers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. We originally planned to enrol 15 000 women with a composite primary endpoint of death from all-causes or hysterectomy within 42 days of giving birth. However, during the trial it became apparent that the decision to conduct a hysterectomy was often made at the same time as randomisation. Although tranexamic acid could influence the risk of death in these cases, it could not affect the risk of hysterectomy. We therefore increased the sample size from 15 000 to 20 000 women in order to estimate the effect of tranexamic acid on the risk of death from post-partum haemorrhage. All analyses were done on an intention-to-treat basis. This trial is registered with ISRCTN76912190 (Dec 8, 2008); ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT00872469; and PACTR201007000192283. Findings Between March, 2010, and April, 2016, 20 060 women were enrolled and randomly assigned to receive tranexamic acid (n=10 051) or placebo (n=10 009), of whom 10 036 and 9985, respectively, were included in the analysis. Death due to bleeding was significantly reduced in women given tranexamic acid (155 [1·5%] of 10 036 patients vs 191 [1·9%] of 9985 in the placebo group, risk ratio [RR] 0·81, 95% CI 0·65–1·00; p=0·045), especially in women given treatment within 3 h of giving birth (89 [1·2%] in the tranexamic acid group vs 127 [1·7%] in the placebo group, RR 0·69, 95% CI 0·52–0·91; p=0·008). All other causes of death did not differ significantly by group. Hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (358 [3·6%] patients in the tranexamic acid group vs 351 [3·5%] in the placebo group, RR 1·02, 95% CI 0·88–1·07; p=0·84). The composite primary endpoint of death from all causes or hysterectomy was not reduced with tranexamic acid (534 [5·3%] deaths or hysterectomies in the tranexamic acid group vs 546 [5·5%] in the placebo group, RR 0·97, 95% CI 0·87-1·09; p=0·65). Adverse events (including thromboembolic events) did not differ significantly in the tranexamic acid versus placebo group. Interpretation Tranexamic acid reduces death due to bleeding in women with post-partum haemorrhage with no adverse effects. When used as a treatment for postpartum haemorrhage, tranexamic acid should be given as soon as possible after bleeding onset. Funding London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Pfizer, UK Department of Health, Wellcome Trust, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Measurement of the nuclear modification factor for muons from charm and bottom hadrons in Pb+Pb collisions at 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Heavy-flavour hadron production provides information about the transport properties and microscopic structure of the quark-gluon plasma created in ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions. A measurement of the muons from semileptonic decays of charm and bottom hadrons produced in Pb+Pb and pp collisions at a nucleon-nucleon centre-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. The Pb+Pb data were collected in 2015 and 2018 with sampled integrated luminosities of 208 mu b(-1) and 38 mu b(-1), respectively, and pp data with a sampled integrated luminosity of 1.17 pb(-1) were collected in 2017. Muons from heavy-flavour semileptonic decays are separated from the light-flavour hadronic background using the momentum imbalance between the inner detector and muon spectrometer measurements, and muons originating from charm and bottom decays are further separated via the muon track's transverse impact parameter. Differential yields in Pb+Pb collisions and differential cross sections in pp collisions for such muons are measured as a function of muon transverse momentum from 4 GeV to 30 GeV in the absolute pseudorapidity interval vertical bar eta vertical bar < 2. Nuclear modification factors for charm and bottom muons are presented as a function of muon transverse momentum in intervals of Pb+Pb collision centrality. The bottom muon results are the most precise measurement of b quark nuclear modification at low transverse momentum where reconstruction of B hadrons is challenging. The measured nuclear modification factors quantify a significant suppression of the yields of muons from decays of charm and bottom hadrons, with stronger effects for muons from charm hadron decays

A search for an unexpected asymmetry in the production of e+μ− and e−μ+ pairs in proton-proton collisions recorded by the ATLAS detector at root s = 13 TeV

This search, a type not previously performed at ATLAS, uses a comparison of the production cross sections for e(+)mu(-) and e(-)mu(+) pairs to constrain physics processes beyond the Standard Model. It uses 139 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data recorded at root s = 13 TeV at the LHC. Targeting sources of new physics which prefer final states containing e(+)mu(-) and e(-)mu(+), the search contains two broad signal regions which are used to provide model-independent constraints on the ratio of cross sections at the 2% level. The search also has two special selections targeting supersymmetric models and leptoquark signatures. Observations using one of these selections are able to exclude, at 95% confidence level, singly produced smuons with masses up to 640 GeV in a model in which the only other light sparticle is a neutralino when the R-parity-violating coupling lambda(23)(1)' is close to unity. Observations using the other selection exclude scalar leptoquarks with masses below 1880 GeV when g(1R)(eu) = g(1R)(mu c) = 1, at 95% confidence level. The limit on the coupling reduces to g(1R)(eu) = g(1R)(mu c) = 0.46 for a mass of 1420 GeV

Utilization of nanochitosan in the sterilization of ponds and water treatment for aquaculture

Water pollution constitutes the leading cause of infant mortality, neonatal deformities, and shrinkage of man’s average life expectancy. Pollutants come from point and nonpoint sources; and water pollution arises from the discharge of wastewater containing undesirable impurities used for domestic, agricultural, and industrial purposes. More so, high nutrient and wastewater runoffs from fish production systems contribute to the fouling and eutrophication of recipient water bodies. Hence, aquaculture which is inextricably linked to the natural environment is challenged by the dearth of appropriate water quantity and quality, militating against fish, and fishery production. Nanochitosans as polysaccharides produced by the alkalescent deacetylation of chitin, comprise a series of 2-deoxy-2 (acetylamino) glucose linked by ß-(1-4) glycosidic linkages. They are naturally formed from the deacetylation of shellfish shells and exoskeletons of aquatic arthropods and crustaceans. The unique attributes of chitin confer a wide range of biotechnological applications on the polymer, observed in flocculation as a wastewater treatment and purification route initiated by chitosan. This chapter highlights nanochitosan properties of aquaculture relevance; and elucidates the purification potentials of nanochitosan, compared to inorganic coagulants and organic polymeric flocculants. Effects of chitosan on contaminants and microorganisms, as well as applications in fish pathogens detection, fish disease diagnosis, and control are discussed

Utilization of nanochitosan for enzyme immobilization of aquatic and animal-based food packages

Studies have identified the properties of enzymes, functionalized molecules, and compounds in food industry applications as edible coatings and encapsulations, that assure prolonged food quality and standards. These molecules present benefits of longer shelf-life by delayed deterioration and inhibition of the proliferation of spoilage and mycotoxigenic microorganisms. However, challenges of reduced nutrient levels, miniaturized size, and low chemical stability remain concerning. Chitosan polymers naturally formed from the deacetylation of shellfish shells and exoskeletons of aquatic arthropods and crustaceans offer improved benefits when functionalized into nanoparticles as nanochitosans. These polysaccharides produced by the alkalescent deacetylation of chitin, comprise a series of 2-deoxy-2 (acetylamino) glucose linked by ß-(1-4) glycosidic linkages. This chapter considers the health impacts and