Familial congenital glaucoma and epilepsy: a case series.

We present two siblings from consanguineous marriage, both with congenital glaucoma and seizure disorders with progressive visual impairment and blindness. The pedigree showed that five (one male and four females) of the eleven siblings have varied degrees of visual impairment to blindness with seizure disorders. To the best of our knowledge, familial congenital glaucoma with epilepsy has not been reported, hence the communication to highlight this unusual condition which could be an association or syndromic.Key words: Consanguinity, Familial, Congenital glaucoma, Epilepsy

Presentation, complications and management outcome of community acquired pneumonia in hospitalized children in Maiduguri, Nigeria

Background: Pneumonia remains a leading cause of U-5 morbidity and mortality in developing countries like Nigeria. This study was conducted to determine the clinical presentation, complications and factors contributing to mortality in the hospitalized children with community acquired pneumonia (CAP) in Maiduguri, Nigeria.Methods: Children younger than 14 years admitted into the EmergencyPaediatric Unit of the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital(UMTH), Maiduguri, in 2011 with the diagnosis of community acquiredpneumonia were followed up until discharge or death. Chest radiographswere read by radiologists.Results: Eighty nine children aged two months to 14 years were studied. The commonest clinical features were fever, cough, tachypnoea and dyspnoea. Radiographic evidence of pneumonia was found in 84 (94.4%) of cases. Dehydration and congestive cardiac failure (CCF) were the commonest complications encountered. Eight (9.0%) children died, seven of whom had complications of pneumonia. The rate of occurrence of complications, radiographic pattern of pneumonia and outcome of treatment did not significantly differ statistically in the different age groups; p = 0.135, 0.622 and 0.167 respectively.Conclusion: While dehydration and CCF were found to be commonestcomplications, mortality was commoner among the male infants hospitalized for pneumonia

AVALANCHE MITIGATION USING THE GEOELECTRICAL RESISTIVITY METHOD OF SCHLUMBERGER CONFIGURATION IN TIROMANDA VILLAGE MAKALE SELATAN DISTRICT TANA TORAJA REGENCY

Mitigation of landslides in Tiromanda sub-district, Makale Selatan sub-district, Tana Toraja district using the shclumberger configuration geoelectrical resistivity method plays an important role in reducing disaster risk. This study aims to determine the distribution of rock lithology in the Tiromanda sub-district, Makale Selatan district, Tana Toraja district. In this study, measurements were made using the geoelectrical resistivity method of the Schlumberger configuration. Measurements were made on 2 tracks with a length of each track is 120 m with the smallest spacing is 1.5 m and the largest spacing is 10 m. The results showed that the lithology in Tiromanda village consisted of three types of rock lithology, namely overburden with a resistivity of 10.7 m – 21.9 m, shale with a resistivity of 157 m – 1955 m, and sediment containing water with a resistivity of 0.484 m – 15.5 m. Based on the results of the analysis of the data indicated as a slip plane at coordinates S 2˚57'13.0" E 119˚55'21.3" with a depth of 5.76 m and the constituent material is shale in fresh condition. Mitigation that can be done is structural mitigation

Alkaline protease production by alkaliphilic marine bacteria isolated from Marsa-Matrouh (Egypt) with special emphasis on Bacillus cereus purified protease

Among the eighteen (18) alkaliphilic marine bacterial isolates studied in ten sampling sites in Marsa-Matrouh beaches, the highest alkaliphilic and proteolytic activities were detected in Bacillus cereus. Alkaline protease from B. cereus was purified by ammonium sulfate precipitation and Sephadex G-200. The molecular mass determined using SDS-PAGE, was nearly 31.0 39 kDa. Some fundamental properties like effects of different temperatures, pH, metal ions (Ca2+, Mg2+, Cu2+, Pb3+, Mn2+ and Cd2+) and ethylene diamine tetraacetic acid (EDTA) on protease activity were also studied. Maximum activities were obtained at pH 10, 50°C and only Cu2+ ions enhanced the relative enzyme activity up to 112%. The application of alkaline protease for the removal of blood stains from cotton cloth indicates its potential use in detergent formulations. B. cereus protease showed excellent stability in the presence of locally available detergents and retained about 60% of its activity with most of them even after 3 h of incubation at temperature of 50°C.Key words: Protease producing bacteria, detergents, Bacillus cereus, purification, enzyme stability and activity

Optimization, economization and characterization of cellulase produced by marine Streptomyces ruber

Cellulase is a very important enzyme due to its great industrial applications. Six marine strains of actinomycetes were screened for their carboxymethyl cellulase (CMCase) productivity. Streptomyces ruber was chosen to be the best producing strain. The highest enzyme production (25.6 U/ml) was detected at pH 6 and 40°C after 7 days of incubation. Plackett-Burman design was applied to optimize the different culture conditions affecting enzyme production. Results showed that a high concentration of KH2PO4, and a low concentration of MgSO4 had a significant effect on enzyme production. Rice straw was used as a low cost source of cellulose. It was found that 30 g/l rice straw was the suitable concentration for maximum enzyme production. Partial purification of cellulase enzyme using an anionexchange chromatography resulted in the detection of two different types of CMCases, type I and II, with specific activity of 4239.697 and 846.752 U/mg, respectively. Moreover, estimation of their molecular weight revealed 27.0 kDa for cellulase type I and 24.0 kDa for cellulase type II. It could be concluded that S. ruber is a powerful cellulase producer strain under our tested experimental conditions.Key words: Cellulase production, Streptomyces ruber, Plackett-Burman design, rice straw, enzyme characterization

Tuberculin screening of some selected Fulani lactating cows in north-central Nigeria

The prevalence of mycobacterial infection among lactating Fulani cows was investigated in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and Kaduna State of Nigeria. Tuberculin testing using single comparative intradermal tuberculin test showed a 14.6 % positive, 4 % doubtful, and 81.4 % negative reactors. Mycobacterial infection was found to be present in the nomadic (constantly moving) and seminomadic (limited movement) management systems studied but management showed no significant effect on the prevalence of the disease. However, the prevalence was significantly higher in older age groups than the younger ones (P < 0.05).Peer reviewedSubmitted Versio

Dynamic quadrilateral characteristic based distance relays for transmission lines equipped with TCSC

Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. A two-fold adaptive dynamic quadrilateral relay is developed in this research for protecting Thyristor-Controlled Series Compensator (TCSC)-compensated transmission lines (TLs). By investigating a new tilt angle and modifying the Takagi method to recognize the fault zone identifier, the proposed relay adapts its reactive reach and resistive reach separately and independently. The investigated tilt angle and identified fault zone use the TCSC reactance to compensate its effect on the TL parameters and system homogeneity. Excessive tests are simulated by MATLAB on the non-homogenous network, IEEE-9 bus system and further tests are carried out on IEEE-39 bus system in order to generalize and validate the efficiency of the proposed approach. The designed trip boundaries are able to detect wide range of resistive faults under all TCSC modes of operations. The proposed approach is easy to implement as there no need for data synchronization or a high level of computation and filtration. Moreover, the proposed adaptive dynamic relay can be applied for non-homogeneity systems and short as well as long TLs which are either TCSC-compensated or -uncompensated TLs

Seizure localization using pre ictal phase-amplitude coupling in intracranial electroencephalography

Understanding changes in brain rhythms provides useful information to predict the onset of a seizure and to localize its onset zone in epileptic patients. Brain rhythms dynamics in general, and phaseamplitude coupling in particular, are known to be drastically altered during epileptic seizures. However, the neural processes that take place before a seizure are not well understood. We analysed the phaseamplitude coupling dynamics of stereoelectroencephalography recordings (30 seizures, 5 patients) before and after seizure onset. Electrodes near the seizure onset zone showed higher phase-amplitude coupling. Immediately before the beginning of the seizure, phase-amplitude coupling dropped to values similar to the observed in electrodes far from the seizure onset zone. Thus, our results bring accurate information to detect epileptic events during pre-ictal periods and to delimit the zone of seizure onset in patients undergoing epilepsy surgeryFil: Cámpora, Nuria Elide. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; ArgentinaFil: Mininni, Camilo Juan. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Fundación de Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental. Instituto de Biología y Medicina Experimental; ArgentinaFil: Kochen, Sara Silvia. Universidad Nacional Arturo Jauretche. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Ministerio de Salud. Hospital Alta Complejidad en Red El Cruce Dr. Néstor Carlos Kirchner Samic. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Unidad Ejecutora de Estudios en Neurociencias y Sistemas Complejos; ArgentinaFil: Lew, Sergio Eduardo. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ingeniería. Instituto de Ingeniería Biomédica; Argentin

Cognitive dysfunction in naturally occurring canine idiopathic epilepsy

Globally, epilepsy is a common serious brain disorder. In addition to seizure activity, epilepsy is associated with cognitive impairments including static cognitive impairments present at onset, progressive seizure-induced impairments and co-morbid dementia. Epilepsy occurs naturally in domestic dogs but its impact on canine cognition has yet to be studied, despite canine cognitive dysfunction (CCD) recognised as a spontaneous model of dementia. Here we use data from a psychometrically validated tool, the canine cognitive dysfunction rating (CCDR) scale, to compare cognitive dysfunction in dogs diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy (IE) with controls while accounting for age. An online cross-sectional study resulted in a sample of 4051 dogs, of which n = 286 had been diagnosed with IE. Four factors were significantly associated with a diagnosis of CCD (above the diagnostic cut-off of CCDR ≥50): (i) epilepsy diagnosis: dogs with epilepsy were at higher risk; (ii) age: older dogs were at higher risk; (iii) weight: lighter dogs (kg) were at higher risk; (iv) training history: dogs with more exposure to training activities were at lower risk. Impairments in memory were most common in dogs with IE, but progression of impairments was not observed compared to controls. A significant interaction between epilepsy and age was identified, with IE dogs exhibiting a higher risk of CCD at a young age, while control dogs followed the expected pattern of low-risk throughout middle age, with risk increasing exponentially in geriatric years. Within the IE sub-population, dogs with a history of cluster seizures and high seizure frequency had higher CCDR scores. The age of onset, nature and progression of cognitive impairment in the current IE dogs appear divergent from those classically seen in CCD. Longitudinal monitoring of cognitive function from seizure onset is required to further characterise these impairments