The implications of digital estate in shariah compliant Fintech: a legal analysis

The surge in shariah compliant fintech has continued to create large volume, value and scale of intangible digital assets across platforms. This paper provides a legal analysis for digital estates in shariah compliant fintech environments. The paper adopts qualitative analysis of both primary and secondary sources from existing journals and regulatory instruments in Islamic finance jurisdictions to explore the gaps in the law regarding digital estate and unclaimed money regulation. The paper further compares different legal approaches adopted by other jurisdictions in regulating digital estate. The paper finds that there is a scope for administration of digital estate in both regulated and unregulated shariah compliant fintech platforms. Similarly, the adoption of e-KYC which complies with shariah ethos is essential to ensure that digital estate is not lost upon the demise of the account holder. The legal right and title of the account holder and legal heirs can only be protected through the operation of digital estate regulation in a Shariah-compliant fintech environment. Similarly, this paper is of value to successor and administrators of account holders in fintech environments as recommends measures to uphold the property rights and financial benefit of the account holders and legal heirs

Optimisation and dose responses of bioluminescent bacterial biosensors induced with target hydrocarbons

Routine analytical methods are constrained in the speed of application, sample throughput and inability to determine the right bioavailable loading of pollutants. Microbial biosensor technology resolved these constraints by offering the most rapid, sensitive, reliable and cost-effective technology, especially in a bioavailable context. This study describes the growth characterisation and optimisation of three different lux-marked biosensors and their induction bioassay, thus testing their responses to doses of target hydrocarbons (naphthalene, toluene, Isopropylbenzene) and solution of mixed hydrocarbons. These biosensors, Pseudomonas fluorescence HK44, Escherichia coli HMS174 and Pseudomonas putidaTVA8 harbours luxCDABE reporter genes coupled to induction by hydrocarbons. Biosensors harvested at optimal exponential phase and induced with hydrocarbon using the optimised assay conditions are highly sensitive and responsive to their inducers in a proportionate dose-dependent status. The established dose responses of these catabolic biosensors signify the prospect of extrapolation for estimating the genuine contamination loading of pollutants for environmental relevance. However, several factors may contribute to the quenching effect at high concentration of inducers. Robust responsiveness to mixed hydrocarbon solution has been also realised accentuating its feasibility in analysing of real environmental samples containing heterogenous pollutants. This study emphasises the suitability of bioluminescent bacterial biosensors for pollutants analysis and notably the detection of soluble bioavailable fractions of diverse hydrocarbons, hence, serves as a reliable bioindicator of hydrocarbon pollution in an environment. Even so, the real value of biosensors is for a suite of ecologically justified biosensors to be applied in complementary combinations with other focused analytical or chemical methods for broad and resourceful inference

Subjective reasons for COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and sociodemographic predictors of vaccination in Nigeria: an online survey

The purpose of this study was to examine the subjective reasons for hesitancy to receive COVID-19 vaccination and the sociodemographic factors associated with vaccination uptake. An online social media survey was conducted among the general Nigerian population using a self-developed questionnaire. Data were analyzed using binary logistic regression with crude and adjusted odds ratios (AOR) at a 95% confidence interval (CI) and a p value of less than 0.05. A total of 576 participants with a mean age of 31.86 years participated in the study. 28% (n = 158) received one or more doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Teachers were significantly less likely than health professionals to be vaccinated (AOR = 0.33, 95% CI 0.16–0.69). In addition, unemployed people (AOR = 0.37, 95% CI 0.15–0.89) were less likely to be vaccinated than government employees, and those of intermediate socioeconomic status (AOR = 0.47 95% CI 0.26–0.88) were less likely to be vaccinated than were those of high socioeconomic status. Five main themes emerged regarding participants’ subjective reasons for hesitating to receive the COVID-19 vaccine: fear related to vaccine content (e.g., efficacy), negative effects on the body (e.g., blood clots), distrust of the system/government (e.g., politics), psychological concerns (e.g., anxiety), and misconceptions. Sociodemographic variables and vaccine misconceptions were found to play an important role in COVID-19 vaccination coverage in Nigeria

Preference and views of final year medical students on mentoring in Bayero University Kano

Background: Mentoring is vital to the maturation of individuals, especially early in their careers and aids professional growth. This study was conducted to find out the views of final year students of Bayero University Medical School on mentoring. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional observational study. The students were given a self-administered questionnaire after a careful explanation and consent obtained. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16 using Chi-square (χ2) and Fischer exact test (F) with a P< 0.05 considered to be significant. Results: There were a total of 84 students with a male:female ratio of 3.4:1. The age range was between 22 and 42 years with a mean age of 26.4 ± 2.99 years. All the students had formal mentors assigned to them, but none had mentors in the 1st year of school, and only two (2.3%) were assigned mentors in the 2nd year of study. Religion, ethnicity, gender, or specialties of the mentors were not considered important characteristics of mentors by majority of the students, and there was no gender difference in these views. Developing career goals and time management were the priority mentor topics. During the initiation of formal mentoring, only 7 (8.3%) of the students were asked for their goals before being assigned to mentors. Conclusion: Mentoring should be commenced in the 1st year of study, and mentoring goals should be clearly defined for a successful mentee – mentor relationship

Assessment of Legibility of Handwritten Prescriptions and Adherence to W.H.O. Prescription Writing Guidelines in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria – Kaduna State, Nigeria

Introduction: The issues of incorrectness and incompleteness for written prescriptions may result to dispensing errors and unintended outcomes of care. The objective of the study was to assess the legibility of handwritten prescriptions and adherence to W.H.O. prescription writing guidelines in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. Method: A cross-sectional prospective study design was used, and existing prescriptions were sampled from selected in-patient and outpatient pharmacy units of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria. This was approved by the ethics and research committee of the institution. The prescriptions were then evaluated for quality based on the layout, legibility, and clarity of the details in the prescriptions and screened for medication errors. Result: The extent of prescribing drugs by generic name was (68.37%), the legibility percentage was moderate and the percentage of prescriptions in which details of the drug, route of administration, and duration of treatment were complete was 85.23%, 80.80%, and 82.40%, respectively. The doctor's signature (84.87%) was present in the prescriptions. Many of the prescribers did not use to indicate patients’ weight, age, and clinic on prescriptions, these are deviations from good prescribing practices while total medication error was 38.01%. Conclusion: Prescribers have a duty of care to their patient and a professional duty to their colleagues (pharmacists) to ensure drug prescriptions are readily identifiable. Interventional techniques such as the use of printed or electronic prescriptions can improve the ease of interpreting information and reduce medication errors

Understanding rural women's preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria: a discrete choice experiment

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of mobile phones to provide primary health care services and maintain continuity of care. This study aims to understand rural women’s preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria.Methods A discrete choice experiment was conducted alongside an action research project that empowered primary health care workers to develop and implement a telephone call intervention to assess and enhance experiences with facility childbirth care. Between January and March 2022, 30 providers from 10 primary health care facilities implemented the choice experiment among rural women who had institutional childbirth to elicit service user preferences for telephone call engagement. The women were asked to express their preferred scenario for telephone call engagement with their primary health care providers. Generalised linear mixed models were used to estimate women’s preferences.Results Data for 460 women were available for the discrete choice experiment. The study showed that rural women have preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers. Specifically, women preferred engaging with female to male callers (β=1.665 (95% CI 1.41, 1.93), SE=0.13, p&lt;0.001), preferred call duration under 15 min (β=1.287 (95% CI 0.61, 1.96), SE=0.34, p&lt;0.001) and preferred being notified before the telephone engagement (warm calling) (β=1.828 (95% CI 1.10, 2.56), SE=0.37, p&lt;0.001). Phone credit incentive was also a statistically significant predictor of women’s preferences for engagement. However, neither the availability of scheduling options, the period of the day or the day of the week predicts women’s preferences.Conclusions The study highlights the importance of understanding rural women’s preferences for telephone call engagement with healthcare providers in low-income and middle-income countries. These findings can inform the development of mobile phone-based interventions and improve acceptability and broader adoption