Energy Consumption in Transport Sector in Nigeria: Current situation and ways forward

Energy use in the transportation sector includes the energy consumed in moving people and goods by road, rail, air, water, and pipeline. Transportation sector energy demand hinges on growth rates for both economic activity and the driving-age population. Economic growth spurs increases in industrial output, which requires the movement of raw materials to manufacturing sites, as well as the movement of manufactured goods to end users. Nigerian transportation fuel use, much of it in the form of liquid fuels increased over the period from 2005 to 2009. Passenger transportation energy use includes fuels used in light-duty vehicles, buses, aircraft, and passenger trains. Freight transportation energy use includes fuels used by large trucks, freight trains, and both domestic and international marine vessels. This paper discusses among other things, the transport modes and their energy consumption pattern looking at the implications of the trend in energy utilization to the national energy consumption. It also looks at the share of the transport sector energy consumption in the country and recommended the possible ways of improving it. Keywords: Energy Consumption, Energy Balance, fossil fuel, Transportation modes, etc.

Seroprevalence of hepatitis C virus antibodies amongst blood donors in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) Kaduna

Background: Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the most common transfusion transmissible infections hence the introduction of routine screening for its antibodies in blood donors in most blood banks. Methods: This was a retrospective study in which the blood donor screening register for all intending donors were reviewed and analyzed. Results: There were 4,731 potential donors with age range 20-41years. Eighty six (1.8%) were sero-positive to HCV antibodies with a decreasing incidence over the period under review. The highest incidence was recorded the age group 31-40 years. Aim: To determine the sero-prevalence of HCV among blood donors in ABUTH Kaduna. Conclusion: HCV infection is not uncommon in our environment hence the need to emphasize it’s routine screening among all potential donors.

Hereditary Spherocytosis in a 27-Year-old Woman: Case Report

Hereditary spherocytosis (HS) is a familial hemolytic disorder with marked heterogeneity of clinical features, ranging from an asymptomatic condition to a fulminant hemolytic anemia. Although a positive family history of spherocytosis increases the risk for this disorder, it may be sporadic in some cases. In severe cases the disorder may be detected in early childhood, but in mild cases it may go unnoticed until later in adult life. A 27-year-old Nigerian woman presented with mild anemia, jaundice, splenomegaly and a history of multiple blood transfusion. Blood film showed about 70% spherocytes, reticulocytosis of 6.5%, increased osmotic fragility test and a negative direct antiglobulin test. She was managed conservatively on nutritional supplements and a significant regression of symptoms after 6 months was achieved.Le spherocytosis h\ue9r\ue9ditaire (HS) est un d\ue9sordre h\ue9molytique familial avec l'h\ue9t\ue9rog\ue9n\ue9it\ue9 marqu\ue9e des dispositifs cliniques, s'\ue9tendant d'un \ue9tat asymptomatique \ue0 une an\ue9mie h\ue9molytique fulminante. Bien que des ant\ue9c\ue9dents familiaux positifs de spherocytosis augmentent le risque pour ce d\ue9sordre, ils peuvent \ueatre sporadiques dans quelques cas. Dans des cas graves le d\ue9sordre peut \ueatre d\ue9tect\ue9 dans l'enfance t\uf4t, mais dans des cas doux il peut entrer inaper\ue7u jusque post\ue9rieur \ue0 la vie d'adulte. Une femme nig\ue9rienne de 27 ans s'est pr\ue9sent\ue9e avec l'an\ue9mie douce, l'ict\ue8re, le splenomegaly et une histoire de transfusion sanguine multiple. Le film de sang a montr\ue9 les spherocytes environ de 70%, reticulocytosis de 6.5%, a augment\ue9 l'essai osmotique de fragilit\ue9 et un essai direct n\ue9gatif d'antiglobulin. Elle a \ue9t\ue9 contr\uf4l\ue9e conservativement sur des suppl\ue9ments alimentaires et une r\ue9gression significative des sympt\uf4mes apr\ue8s 6 mois a \ue9t\ue9 r\ue9alis\ue9e

Classification of Brainwave Asymmetry Influenced by Mobile Phone Radiofrequency Emission

AbstractA discriminant classification of human brainwave signals influenced by mobile phone radiofrequency (RF) emission is proposed in this paper. Brainwave signals were recorded using electroencephalograph (EEG) focusing on the alpha sub-band with frequency range from 8 to 12Hz. The EEG test was divided into 3 sessions; Before, During and After with 5minutes duration for each session. Analysis involved 95 participants from engineering students. The students were grouped into 3 groups according to the side of exposure; Left Exposure (LE), Right Exposure (RE) and Sham Exposure (SE). This work suggested that RF emit by the mobile phone give several effects to brainwave signals and there are significant different between the session of exposure. As result, the highest classification rate as high as 94.7% is achieved in session During

Electrolyte and oxidative stress profile of healthy adult population in Zaria, Nigeria, and their relationship with experimental pain response

Background: Electrolyte imbalance and oxidative stress (OS) are known to impair physiological functions, which can alter health and wellbeing. The reactive species produced due to OS are detoxified by endogenous antioxidants to maintain homeostasis. This study investigated the electrolyte and oxidative stress profile of a healthy adult population in Zaria, Nigeria and their relationship with experimental pain outcome. Method: Participants were apparently healthy adult volunteers between the ages of 20 to 65 years and drawn from the city of Zaria and its environs. Experimental pain was induced using pressure algometry. About 5 ml of blood was collected for determination of serum electrolytes, malondialdehyde (MDA), reduced glutathione (GSH) and superoxide dismutase (SOD). Result: The results showed that serum concentrations of sodium, potassium and chloride as well as oxidative stress profile did not vary with sex, age and ethnicity among the studied population. There was a significant negative correlation between pressure pain threshold and serum concentration of potassium (r = 0.2330, p = 0.003) and chloride (r = 0.2126, p = 0.007), while serum sodium correlated positively (r = 0.3439, p = 0.000). Serum MDA, SOD and GSH did not show statistically significant correlation with pressure pain threshold (p > 0.05). Conclusion: Serum electrolytes, but not oxidative stress markers, correlate significantly with experimental pressure pain threshold among healthy adult population in Zaria, Nigeria Keywords: Electrolytes, oxidative stress, pressure pain, sex, age, ethnicit

Measurement of the top quark mass using events with a single reconstructed top quark in pp collisions at root s=13 TeV

Abstract:A measurement of the top quark mass is performed using a data sample en-riched with single top quark events produced in thetchannel. The study is based on proton-proton collision data, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 35.9 fb−1, recorded at√s= 13TeV by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2016. Candidate events are selectedby requiring an isolated high-momentum lepton (muon or electron) and exactly two jets,of which one is identified as originating from a bottom quark. Multivariate discriminantsare designed to separate the signal from the background. Optimized thresholds are placedon the discriminant outputs to obtain an event sample with high signal purity. The topquark mass is found to be172.13+0.76−0.77GeV, where the uncertainty includes both the sta-tistical and systematic components, reaching sub-GeV precision for the first time in thisevent topology. The masses of the top quark and antiquark are also determined separatelyusing the lepton charge in the final state, from which the mass ratio and difference aredetermined to be0.9952+0.0079−0.0104and0.83+1.79−1.35GeV, respectively. The results are consistentwithCPTinvariance

Acute Ischemic Stroke Brainwave Classification Using Relative Power Ratio Cluster Analysis

AbstractThis study proposed the application of cluster analysis to classify the brainwaves of stroke level based on the Relative Power Ratio (RPR) techniques. RPR was performed to determine the brainwave characteristics due to group of stroke level. In this research, we determined seventy four stroke patients brainwave activity with open eyes (OE) session. Then group them into Advance Group (AG), Intermediate Group (IG) and Early Group (EG). Simultaneously, their Electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded from which the EEG dataset will be calculated using the RPR formula. Beta, Alpha, Theta and Delta Power Spectrum Density (PSD) are used as input for RPR. The results show that by implementing RPR technique, the pattern of group stroke level, especially in the cognitive or thinking abilities can be clearly observed. Then cluster analysis using a factorial ANOVA (analysis of variance) design with factors Group will be deployed to cluster RPR towards the corresponding group of stroke level. It can be concluded that the AG are higher in the cluster 1 for RPR Beta (RPRB) while IG and EG were grouped together because they do not differ from each other in cluster 2. For RPR Alpha (RPRA), EG are higher in the cluster 2 while AG and IG were grouped together in cluster 1. AG was found in both clusters for RPR Theta (RPRT) and AG are lower in cluster 1 for RPR Delta (RPRD). This indicates that the group stroke level can discriminate due to the brainwaves characteristics