Availability and utilization of internet facilities by users in Federal Colleges of Education Libraries in north eastern Nigeria

This paper examined the availability and utilization of internet services at the Federal Colleges of Education (FCE) library of Adamawa, Gombe and Yobe States. Four objectives and four research questions guided the study. The study was limited to FCE Adamawa, Gombe and Yobe State Library. Survey research design was used for the study. The population of the study comprised of all the 420 registered users of internet services, and 200 of them were randomly selected as sample for the study, using simple random sampling technique. Questionnaire and Interview were the instruments used for data collection for the study. Descriptive statistics was used for data analysis. The results revealed among other things that there were internet services in the entire FCE libraries under study but the available internet services are inadequate in meeting user’s information needs; the FCE library’s collection under study are not integrated to the internet services but other library’s collection can be accessed through the FCE library’s internet services; users are not highly satisfied with the internet services in all the three FCE libraries.Keywords: internet services, internet facilities, colleges of education, north east, Nigeri

PHYTOCHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS OF THE LEAVES OF STERCULIA SETIGERA

ABSTRACT Many countries of the world particularly Africa are abundantly blessed in terms of plants most of which exist in the wild. Some of these are consumed as leafy vegetable particularly as source food and as curative therapeutic agent for relieving pain and curing ailments. Hence the practical need for phytochemically screening these plants and proper characterisation of these sleeping giants for their utilization as precursors in pharmaceutical related applications. This systematic documented procedure could serve as useful information sources for drug related applications and facts to buttress the claims by the traditional forerunners and subsequent comparison of orthodox and traditional systems. In this regard, Elucidation of the crude drug of STERCULIA SETIGERA, (family: STERCULIACEAE) leaves was carried out in terms of physico-chemical techniques. Phytochemcial screening showed the presence of alkaloids, flavonoids, phenolic and glycosides. The powdered plant subsequent extraction was carried out with methanol. Further analysis was carried out for quantitative determinations of sugars by TLC. The methanolic extract tested positive for all the phytoconstituents under the present investigation. TLC analysis of the methanolic extract gave three spots RF values of 0.86 for aglycone and 0.92 for flavonoidal glycoside (Glycon).Reducing and non reducing sugars were also carried out by hydrolysis. A positive test was obtained for the presence of reducing and non-reducing sugars

Correlates of radiographic changes in Nigerian patients with osteoarthritis of the knee

Background:To determine the relationship between age, gender,and duration of Knee Osteoarthritis and radiographic changes using the Kellgren – Lawrence (K – L) grading.Methods:The study was retrospective and cross-sectional.We reviewed the case notes of patients with knee osteoarthritis attending a  rheumatology clinic in Lagos over a ten year period,looking at their ages,gender,disease duration,K-L grading and deformities from radiological reports.Results:Three hundred and eighteen patients were studied, of which 261(82.08%) were females.Their ages range between 31 and 91 years, with a mean of 60.92±10.96.The least duration of complaints at the time of presentation was 1.5 months, the longest 348 months, with a median of 48 months. Right knee joint alone was affected in 31 (9.84%), left knee in 21(6.67%), and both in 263 (83.49%) patients.The right knee joint alone was affected in 31 (9.75%) patients,left knee in 21(6.60%) patients,and both knees in 266 (83.65%) patients.Six patients (1.89%) had K-L grade 0,12 had 1 (3.77%),168 had 2 (52.83 %),107 had 3 (33.65%),and 25 (7.86%) had K-L grade 4. Deformities noted in 32 patients, among which Genu valgus seen in 18 (56.25%), Genu Varus in 11 (34.38%), and fixed flexion deformities in 1 patient (3.13%); both Valgus and Varus in 1 patient (3.13), and both Varus and Fixed flexion deformities in 1 patient(3.13%). Among patients who were 44yrs and below,19 (79%) had K-L grade II;while in those 65yrs and above, 57 (44%) had grade III, with a p value of 0.00. But there were no statistically significant differences in K-L grading between males and females, and between K-L grading withdeformities, or with the duration of knee OA at the time of presentation (p> 0.05).Conclusion:This study,as in previous ones,showed that the age of the patient with knee OA is directly proportional to the likely severity of the K-L radiographic grading, but not with disease duration.Key Words: Knee Osteoarthritis,Relationships,Kellgren – Lawrence (K – L) gradin

Assessment of asthma control and lung function in asthmatic children in Sokoto, North Western Nigeria

Objectives: This study aimed at assessing asthma control using Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) asthma assessment, and determining its relationship with lung function parameters among asthmatic children in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching hospital, Sokoto.Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study among 60 children with asthma diagnosed based on GINA guidelines. It was conducted over a period of 4 months. The GINA asthma control assessment was administered to assess asthma control. Lung function was done using a portable spirometer.Results: Males accounted for 58.3% of the study population with M: F of 1.4:1 and median age of 9.47 years, with majority from urban domicile (91.7%). Well-controlled asthma accounted for 50.0% while 35.0% had partly controlled asthma and 15.0% had poorly controlled asthma. The median FEV1/FVC among the study participants was 0.856 (IQR: 0.170). There was no relationship between asthma control and LF parameters (FEV1: r = 0.044, P = 0.736, FVC: r = 0.010, P = 0.941, FEV1/FVC: r = 0.122, P = 0.352, and PEFR: r = 0.015, P = 0.911).Conclusion:Majority of the study participants had well-controlled asthma and no relationship was found between asthma control and lung function. Thus, serial monitoring of LF in addition to uniformly agreed standardized assessment of asthma control is required to objectively evaluate asthma control in children

Phytoconstituents evaluation and antimicrobial efficacy of the crude flavonoids and saponins rootbark extracts of Terminalia avicennioides and Ficus polita

Introduction: Plant is a friend to man in survival as it gives him food, shelter and medicine beyond the ages of human civilization. This paper evaluates the phytochemical constituents and the antimicrobial activities undertaken on Terminalia avicennioides and Ficus polita. Methods: Phytochemical screening was conducted on the root extracts according to the standard procedures. The hole-in-plate disc diffusion technique was used to determine the antimicrobial activities of the crude saponins and crude flavonoids against the tested microorganisms used in this study. Results: The results revealed the presence of alkaloids flavonoids, saponins, sterols, phlobatannins and terpenoids. The antimicrobial activities presented as diameter of inhibition zones showed high activity value of 34.70±0.57 mm against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa at a concentration of 100 mg/mL and by crude flavonoids portion of T. avicennioides while the least activity was shown by crude saponins portion of F. polita at a concentration of 25 mg/mL with value of 9.67±0.58 mm against Shigella dysenteriae. The crude flavonoids inhibited the growth of Candida albicans at all concentrations while resisitances were found towards the crude saponins portion of both plants. Hence, flavonoids extractives from the two plants appeared to be more effective than the saponins against the tested microorganisms. Conclusion: These findings justify their potential use as drug-plant against bacterial-related infections in African traditional medical system and also suggest a possible insight for the isolation of bioactive chemotherapeutic agents from T. avicennioide

Extensive Calcinosis in an Adult Nigerian Woman with Dermatomyositis

Objectives: Extensive calcinosis in a patient with dermatomyositis is a rare clinical presentation in adults. The aim of this report is to present the clinical and radiographic features of a 25-year-old woman with dermatomyositis and extensive calcinosis. Case Presentation: A 25-year-old woman with extensive calcinosis on background dermatomyositis is described. Results: The clinical and radiographic features of the patient were consistent with dermatomyositis complicated by extensive calcinosis in an adult. Conclusion: Dermatomyositis with extensive calcinosis is a rare clinical presentation in adults

Breast Imaging Reporting and Data Systems category 3 (probably benign) breast lesions detected on diagnostic breast ultrasound: The prevalence, outcome and malignancy detection rate in Zaria, Nigeria

Background: Probably benign breast lesions in the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data Systems (BI-RADS 3) constitute a crucial category and a considerable number of all palpable breast masses. Local data concerning the outcome of such lesions in the Nigerian environment is almost non-existent. Objectives: The goal of this article is to report the frequency, outcome and malignancy detection rate among palpable breast masses that were categorised on ultrasound as BI-RADS category 3 (probably benign) according to the American College of Radiology (ACR). Methods: Between January 2015 and July 2017, 603 patients had diagnostic whole-breast ultrasound scans. There were 277 women who complained of palpable breast masses, of whom 151 women were diagnosed as having BI-RADS 3 lesions. The final lesion outcome was determined by either biopsy or ultrasound follow-up examination for a total of 2 years. All data were recorded and analysed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 (Chicago, USA). Results: The frequency of BI-RADS category 3 lesions among all the women who underwent breast ultrasound was 25% (151/603); and 54% (151/277) in patients with palpable breast masses. There were 25 patients who were excluded because of incomplete data or who were lost to follow-up. A total of 122 patients had both ultrasound examination and histopathologic diagnosis, while only 4 were followed up for 2 years on ultrasound alone. Of the 122 women biopsied, 117 (95.9%) had benign histologic outcomes, and of the remaining 5, cancer was confirmed in 2 (1.6%), while the remaining 3 patients (2.5%) had lesions considered intermediate at histology (juvenile papillomatosis, borderline phylloides and atypical ductal hyperplasia). Three out of four patients who had ultrasound follow-up alone had stable lesions after 2 years, while one patient had complete resolution. Conclusion: This study found a significantly high biopsy rate of 80% (122/151) for probably benign lesions but a low detection rate for malignancy (1.6%). Follow-up with imaging rather than biopsy for lesions sonographically described as probably benign, will reduce medical costs and unwarranted invasive procedures

Performance evaluation of best route and broadcast strategy for NDN producer’s mobility

Named Data Networking is a novel concept mainly for the future Internet infrastructure that is centered on routable named data. The NDN infrastructure comprises of a new constituent known as the strategy layer. The layer give access for automatic selection of network routes by considering network pre-conditions such as delay in Interest messages forwarding via a producer. However, expressing appropriate pre-condition in selecting the best possible routes to forward Interest messages remains a challenging factor in NDN, because various parameters and conditions opposes one another when selecting best routes. Besides, it is possible for data in NDN to be retrieved from several sources. Yet, so far preceding research on forwarding strategy techniques that can calculate, from which route accurate NDN data contents content are realized does not regard a network attacker trying to transmit invalid data contents containing same name as accurate data. Therefore, this paper evaluate performance of forwarding strategy using analytical and simulation, and that can be compatible to related network applications such as voice. In analytical, we exploit the use of distribution function for consistency. These are the Probability Density Function (PDF) and Cumulative Distribution Function (CDF). In simulation, each application require its own form of forwarding policy using best route and broadcast. These were exploited to evaluate the total delay in a given interval from 10 through 50 seconds for five times. Similarly in our evaluation, a largescale ring topology was use in the simulation consisting of 30 nodes and 48 links. Link bandwidth is configured as 1Mbps. Numbers of content consumer/producer starts from 1 to 18 so as to achieve our simulations. Both consumers and producers were randomly selected in term of unique content request on the access network. ndnSIM 2.1 is used in simulating the scenarios for several time intervals. Performance results presents best route policy carries significant delay when compared with broadcast policy. Also, in our result, Delay metric is half the value obtained during analytical and simulation processes for NDN producer’s best route and broadcast using CDF, as compared to the value realized in our benchmark paper for NDN consumer

Estimation of zinc levels among children with malnutrition at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto, Northwestern Nigeria

Objective: Zinc plays a critical role in many body functions and its deficiency is associated with impaired cognitive function, behavioral problems, memory impairment, growth retardation, increased incidence of diarrhoea and recurrent infections. Although severe zinc deficiency is not common, mild to moderate deficiency is quite common globally. It is estimated that some form of zinc deficiency affects about one third of the world population, with estimates ranging from 4% to 73% across sub Saharan Africa. To determine the prevalence of zinc deficiency among malnourished children at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH), Sokoto.Methods: Study was descriptive cross-sectional, carried out at the Paediatric department of UDUTH, Sokoto from April 2013 to June 2014. It was conducted among children aged between 6 and 60 months who presented to the OPD and those that were admitted into paediatric wards of UDUTH with malnutrition. Children with similar characteristics that were well nourished served as controls. Cohorts were recruited consecutively until the required sample size was obtained. 5mls of venous blood was taken for serum zinc analysis from each child.Results: A total of 550 children were studied with 275 apiece for cohorts. The mean age of the malnourished children was 26.2±14.6 months compared to 28.2±17.0 months recorded for the controls (p=0.157).The mean serum zinc levels for the study subjects 13.5±3.3μmol/Lwas significantly lower than that of the controls (15.8±1.9μmol/L) (t=9.42, df=548, p=0.0001).Conclusion: The prevalence of zinc deficiency among both malnourished children and the controls was 0% using WHO reference value for children below the age of 5 years. Prophylactic doses of zinc should be given in all malnourish children in situation where mineral mix is not added to feed or f75 and f100 are not available. There is need to adhere to and use recommended cut off values recommended by WHO for defining zinc deficiency by researchers.Keywords: zinc, malnutrition, Sokot

Detecting mobile producer’s position in a wireless named data network environment using signal strength

Named Data Networking (NDN) is a new Content Centric Network architecture that can possibly overwhelm most issues of IP mobility and security. The NDN is centered on addressing contents by themselves using names, rather than assigning IP addresses to packets on hosts where information is located on the global Internet. Due to the developing scope of remote access around the world and Wi-Fi accessibility, scenarios change because of additional networking devices. This paper analyses existing methodologies of mobile device communication using Wi-Fi in NDN. This involves using a mobile producer and a rendezvous node connected via content routers in an NDN scenario. Their location is detected and predicted immediately handoff occur and it send content transmission as a consumer. The approach of transmitting content signals uses sign power pointer (RSSI), TOA, and TSE in the network. Several challenges were noted and pointed out enhance future work