Moderate Alcohol Consumption and Cognitive Functioning in a Zambian Population

Objectives: To investigate the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and cognitive functioning.Design: A cross-sectional study comprising a sample of 157 (48.5%) males and 167 (51.5%) females, with an age range of between 20 and 50 years. All the participants were conversant with the English language. Their educational range was between 5-19 years of schooling.Measures: The Zambia Neurobehavioural Test Battery was used to measure cognitive functioning. Self-reported alcohol consumption was obtained by means of the Chinese Substance Use Form.Results: Male moderate drinkers have performed better on the Stroop Colour and Word Test, t-score (M=52.78; SD=8.4) than the non-drinking males, (M=48; SD= 10.2). The drinking females however, seemed to perform less well (M= 47.36; SD= 8.2) when compared to the non-drinking females (M=50.68; SD= 9.2) in the area of Verbal Episodic Memory.Conclusion: The male participants seem to benefit from moderate alcohol consumption whereas a seemingly negative outcome in terms of cognitive functioning was observed in the female moderate alcohol consumers. It should be noted, however, that these differences observed though statistically significant are not clinically significant. Therefore, both the drinking and non-drinking groups with similar demographic characteristics are more or less expected to fall with the normal range of performance

Heavy metal ions removal from oil wastewater using highly enhanced Chitosan membrane technology: a response surface methodology study

This paper investigates the removal of heavy metal ions from oily wastewater using enhanced Chitosan Membrane. Cellulose and gelatin have been used successfully to modify chitosan. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and X - Ray Diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize chitosan. We looked at the impacts of pH solution and conductivity. To eliminate the heavy metals, adsorption study was conducted. Results showed removal percentages higher than 90% especially when the initial pH is 7.50 and the volume of Hexane is 12 mL. Conductivities of wastewater were positive and negative depending on whether the medium is acidic and basic respectively and values higher than +260 mV and lower than –340 mV were observed. Experiments were designed employing Central Composite Design (CCD) of the Response Surface Methodology to examine the effects of experimental conditions (RSM). R2 values for analysis of variances of Cu2+, Fe2+, and Pb2+ were all almost the same at 0.99. The quadratic models appeared significant and adequate in evaluating the experimental results. The differences in experimental and projected % Removal values were negligible for all models. The 3D response surface plots that resulted permitted paired analysis of variable impacts on each response model

Heavy metal ions removal from oil wastewater using highly enhanced Chitosan membrane technology: a response surface methodology study

This paper investigates the removal of heavy metal ions from oily wastewater using enhanced Chitosan Membrane. Cellulose and gelatin have been used successfully to modify chitosan. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), and X - Ray Diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize chitosan. We looked at the impacts of pH solution and conductivity. To eliminate the heavy metals, adsorption study was conducted. Results showed removal percentages higher than 90% especially when the initial pH is 7.50 and the volume of Hexane is 12 mL. Conductivities of wastewater were positive and negative depending on whether the medium is acidic and basic respectively and values higher than +260 mV and lower than –340 mV were observed. Experiments were designed employing Central Composite Design (CCD) of the Response Surface Methodology to examine the effects of experimental conditions (RSM). R2 values for analysis of variances of Cu2+, Fe2+, and Pb2+ were all almost the same at 0.99. The quadratic models appeared significant and adequate in evaluating the experimental results. The differences in experimental and projected % Removal values were negligible for all models. The 3D response surface plots that resulted permitted paired analysis of variable impacts on each response model

HIV- and AIDS-associated neurocognitive functioning in Zambia – a perspective based on differences between the genders

Norma Kabuba,1,2 J Anitha Menon,1 Donald R Franklin Jr,3 Robert K Heaton,3 Knut A Hestad2,4,5 1Department of Psychology, The University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia; 2Department of Psychology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; 3Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA; 4Department of Research, Innlandet Hospital Trust, Hamar, Norway; 5Department of Public Health, Hedmark University of Applied Sciences, Elverum, Norway Abstract: Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) are frequently associated with neurocognitive impairment (NCI). However, few studies have examined the interrelationship between gender and NCI in the HIV and AIDS population. This cross-sectional study examined the neurocognitive (NC) functioning of HIV-infected male and female adults from urban Zambia. The participants included 266 HIV seropositive (HIV+) adults (males [n=107] and females [n=159]). Participants completed NC assessment by means of a comprehensive test battery using normative data from 324 HIV-seronegative (HIV-) controls. The norms corrected for effects of age, education, and gender in the general population, and the test battery measures domains of attention/working memory (learning and delayed recall), executive function, verbal fluency, processing speed, verbal and visual episodic memory, and fine motor skills. An overall comparison of the HIV+ male and female participants yielded no statistically significant differences. Analysis of covariance results controlling for disease characteristics showed that HIV+ female participants had worse delayed recall scores than males, F(1,117) =9.70, P=0.002, partial ƞ2=0.077. The females also evidenced a trend toward greater impairment on learning efficiency (P=0.015). The findings suggest that there are gender-related differences in NCI after controlling for disease characteristics. It was observed that although the HIV+ females enjoyed better health compared to their HIV+ male counterparts, they still had worse performance on the neuropsychological tests. This implies that HIV may have more NC consequences for Zambian females than males. Keywords: HIV-1, neurocognitive functioning, gender, Zambi