Randomised control trial on immediate post-operative outcomes on patients done either closure or non-closure of peritoneum at caesarean delivery at the Kenyatta national hospital

Objectives: To assess effects of non-closure as compared to closure of the peritoneum at caesarean delivery on the intra-operative and early post-operative outcomes.Design: Randomised controlled trial.Setting: Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH), Nairobi, Kenya.Subjects: One hundred and thirty (130) women undergoing first elective or emergency caesarean delivery.Main outcome measure: Primary outcome measures were operation time, number of sutures used, post-operative pain, febrile morbidity, wound dehiscence and hospital stay.Results: The mean duration of Caesarean Section (CS) was 42.8 minutes ± SD12.5. The closure group took longer than non-closure group (45.7±15Vs. 39.6 ±8, P<0.05). The number of sutures used was on average were 4.7 ± SD 0.8, the closure group more compared with the non-closure group (5.2 ±0.7 Vs. 4.2 ±0.7, p<0.05). Post-operative pain was generally not a problem to the patients with a mean Visual analogue score of 1.4 ± SD 1.0 on a scale of 0-10. The non-closure group however indicated slightly more pain (1.5± SD0.93) compared with the closure group (1.2 ±1.1), but this difference was not significant. The adverse outcomes like febrile morbidity and wound complications at Caesarean section were rare and not different whether peritoneum was closed or not during Caesarean section.Conclusion: Non-closure of peritoneum during CS took less time (42.8± SD 8) and number of sutures used (4.2±0.7) can result in cost savings. There were no statistically significant differences in post-operative pain scores, febrile morbidity, wound complications and length of hospital stay. Obstetricians and Medical institutions should consider adoption of non-closure of peritoneum at Caesarean delivery as part of the standard operating procedures

Five-dimensional Monopole Equation with Hedge-Hog Ansatz and Abel's Differential Equation

We review the generalized monopole in the five-dimensional Euclidean space. A numerical solution with the Hedge-Hog ansatz is studied. The Bogomol'nyi equation becomes a second order autonomous non-linear differential equation. The equation can be translated into the Abel's differential equation of the second kind and is an algebraic differential equation.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, typos correcte

Dynamical Compactification and Inflation in Einstein-Yang-Mills Theory with Higher Derivative Coupling

We study cosmology of the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in ten dimensions with a quartic term in the Yang-Mills field strength. We obtain analytically a class of cosmological solutions in which the extra dimensions are static and the scale factor of the four-dimensional Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric is an exponential function of time. This means that the model can explain inflation. Then we look for solutions that describe dynamical compactification of the extra dimensions. The effective cosmological constant $\lambda_1$ in the four-dimensional universe is determined from the gravitational coupling, ten-dimensional cosmological constant, gauge coupling and higher derivative coupling. By numerical integration, the solution with $\lambda_1=0$ is found to behave as a matter-dominated universe which asymptotically approaches flat space-time, while the solution with a non-vanishing $\lambda_1$ approaches de Sitter space-time in the asymptotic future.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

Intensification of smallholder livestock production through utilisation of crop residues for livestock feed in Tanzania

Poor feed utilisation and seasonal feed availability are considered contributory factors leading to less-than-optimal livestock productivity on smallholder farms in Babati, Tanzania. Cereal and legume crop residues, such as dry or green maize stover and bean haulms, are commonly fed to livestock but are also of low quality and they are poorly used by farmers. Improving the efficiency with which the crop residues can be used as animal feed appears the first step towards solving critical feed shortage. Studies on maize crop residue uses and trade-offs on smallholder crop-livestock farmers have proven on an economic perspective that it is logical to prioritise its use for feed over soil fertility management. A study was conducted to assess availability of types, quantity and quality of crop residues and other feed resources for livestock on farms. The study aimed to understand how cereal and legume crop residues are harvested, stored, processed and used in different farms. It also aimed to identity gaps in managing crop residues in intensified systems and factors that may affect adoption. Post-harvest forage processing technologies such as feed choppers offer potential to enhance use of crop residues for livestock feeding. This not only reduces feed wastage but also enhances feed intake and quality. It also has potential to improve quantity and quality of manure. Following the study a feed chopping technology to enhance utilisation was introduced to farmers. The findings showed that the average household tropical livestock unit (TLU) is 3.8 (se = 0.15). Crop residues are the major contributor to livestock diet in the dry season. The most dominant cereal crop residues are maize stover (57%) and rice straw (20%) while the most common legumes straws are pigeon pea (4%); bean (12%), groundnut (5%) and cowpea (2%) haulms. On average the maize stover yield on farms is 9.3 t ha-1 (se = 0.28). There is a lot of feed waste on farms due to chopping by using a machete. Yield of maize stover from a hectare of land can sustain one TLU of livestock for 247 days

Hard-wall Potential Function for Transport Properties of Alkali Metals Vapor

This study demonstrates that the transport properties of alkali metals are determined principally by the repulsive wall of the pair interaction potential function. The (hard-wall) Lennard-Jones(15-6) effective pair potential function is used to calculate transport collision integrals. Accordingly, reduced collision integrals of K, Rb, and Cs metal vapors are obtained from Chapman-Enskog solution of the Boltzman equation. The law of corresponding states based on the experimental-transport reduced collision integral is used to verify the validity of a LJ(15-6) hybrid potential in describing the transport properties. LJ(8.5-4) potential function and a simple thermodynamic argument with the input PVT data of liquid metals provide the required molecular potential parameters. Values of the predicted viscosity of monatomic alkali metals vapor are in agreement with typical experimental data with the average absolute deviation 2.97% for K in the range 700-1500 K, 1.69% for Rb, and 1.75% for Cs in the range 700-2000 K. In the same way, the values of predicted thermal conductivity are in agreement with experiment within 2.78%, 3.25%, and 3.63% for K, Rb, and Cs, respectively. The LJ(15-6) hybrid potential with a hard-wall repulsion character conclusively predicts best transport properties of the three alkali metals vapor.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures, 41 reference

Constructing patch-based ligand-binding pocket database for predicting function of proteins

Background Many of solved tertiary structures of unknown functions do not have global sequence and structural similarities to proteins of known function. Often functional clues of unknown proteins can be obtained by predicting small ligand molecules that bind to the proteins. Methods In our previous work, we have developed an alignment free local surface-based pocket comparison method, named Patch-Surfer, which predicts ligand molecules that are likely to bind to a protein of interest. Given a query pocket in a protein, Patch-Surfer searches a database of known pockets and finds similar ones to the query. Here, we have extended the database of ligand binding pockets for Patch-Surfer to cover diverse types of binding ligands. Results and conclusion We selected 9393 representative pockets with 2707 different ligand types from the Protein Data Bank. We tested Patch-Surfer on the extended pocket database to predict binding ligand of 75 non-homologous proteins that bind one of seven different ligands. Patch-Surfer achieved the average enrichment factor at 0.1 percent of over 20.0. The results did not depend on the sequence similarity of the query protein to proteins in the database, indicating that Patch-Surfer can identify correct pockets even in the absence of known homologous structures in the database

On the low-temperature lattice thermal transport in nanowires

We propose a theory of low temperature thermal transport in nano-wires in the regime where a competition between phonon and flexural modes governs the relaxation processes. Starting with the standard kinetic equations for two different types of quasiparticles we derive a general expression for the coefficient of thermal conductivity. The underlying physics of thermal conductance is completely determined by the corresponding relaxation times, which can be calculated directly for any dispersion of quasiparticles depending on the size of a system. We show that if the considered relaxation mechanism is dominant, then at small wire diameters the temperature dependence of thermal conductivity experiences a crossover from $T^{1/2}$ to $T^3$-dependence. Quantitative analysis shows reasonable agreement with resent experimental results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 eps figure

Landscape natural resources management using forage grasses and legume intercrops

United States Agency for International Developmen