Stroke in children with sickle cell anaemia in Sokoto: a ten-year review

Objective: Stroke (cerebrovascular accident) generally occurs more often in children than once suspected, with its attendant potential consequences. It is an under recognized cause of neurologic disabilty in children, with varied causes. Stroke is a devastating and potentially life threatening complication of sickle cell anaemia (SCA). Children with sickle cell haemoglobinopathy have a life time increased risk of developing a stroke. This study aims to assess the pattern of stroke presentation among SCA children in Sokoto, North-Western Nigeria.Methodology: A review of all the clinical records of children with SCA who were diagnosed and managed for sickle cell related stroke at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) Sokoto; Nigeria, over a ten-year period (May, 2004 – April, 2014) was undertaken. Data analysis was done using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 20.Results: Fifteen cases of Paediatrics stroke were identified, out of a total of 416 registered children with SCA, giving a stroke prevalence of 3.6%. Male: Female ratio was 1:1. All the stroke cases were of haemoglobin SS electrophoresis; with a mean age at diagnosis of SCA of 2.2 (±1.5) years and mean age at stroke onset of 6.3 (±2.8) years. Mean time of hospital presentation after the stroke onset was 10 (±2.5) days. Hemiparesis and expressive aphasia were the predominant presenting features. Based on the neuroimaging findings, majority of the stroke types were infarctive (71.4%). No mortality was recorded.Conclusion: The prevalence of sickle cell related childhood stroke of 3.6% in this series is relatively low. Majority of the patients presented to hospital very late, after the stroke onset. There is therefore the need for increased awareness on childhood stroke in our community, in order to facilitate early hospital presentation and prompt management to improve the outcome.Keywords: Paediatric stroke, Sickle cell anaemia, Late Presentation, Outcom

Lombok, Indonesia Earthquake: What Happened and Why?

Earthquake can occur when any sudden shaking of the ground that can cause by the passage of seismic waves through Earth’s rocks. Earthquakes occur most often along geologic faults, narrow zones where rock masses move in relation to one another. The vital fault lines of the world are located at the fringes of the huge tectonic plates that make up Earth’s crust [1]. Seismic wave is a vibration that created by an earthquake, explosion, or similar energetic source and propagated within the Earth or along its surface [2]. Seismic waves can produced when some form of energy stored in Earth’s crust is suddenly released, usually when masses of rock straining against one another suddenly fracture and “slip” [1]

Study of electrical properties of alg-pva-nh4no3 complexed polymer electrolyte films

In this work, the studies on electrical properties of bio-polymer blend electrolytes (BBEs)-based alginate-poly (vinyl alcohol) (Alg-PVA) blend complexed with various NH4NO3 salt weight percent was carried out and successfully prepared via solution casting method. Electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) was used to analyze the film’s conducting behavior, and it was found that both salt content and temperature improved the ionic conductivity of the BBEs system with the highest ionic conductivity reach at 5.20 × 10-4 S cm-1 for a sample containing with 35 wt.% of NH4NO3. The BBEs were found to follow the Arrhenius relation as a function of temperature. From the impedance analysis, the electrical properties of the BBEs system were examined using complex permittivity, ɛ* and complex electrical modulus, M* to further study the relation between the Alg-PVA bio-polymer blend with NH4NO3

Estimation of live weight in Red Sokoto kids using linear body traits

The study was carried out in Akko, Kwame and Yamaltu/Deba Local Government Areas of Gombe State, between August and November, 2019 to estimate body weight of Red Sokoto kids using linear body measurements. A total of 460kids (219 males and 241 females) were used to obtain the following parameters; live weight (LW), body length (BL), chest girth (CG), wither height (WH), leg length (LL), loin girth (LG), ear length (EL) and face length (FL). The animals were sampled from four local markets across the study area (Kashere, Kumo, Malam Sidi and Kwadom). Data generated were subjected to descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, Pearson’s correlation and linear regression analyses. The coefficients of variation of the variables observed ranged from 21.14 % for body weight to 7.86 % for chest girth. The mean LW, BL, CG, WH, LL, LG, EL and FL were 11.09 kg, 37.94 cm, 50.95 cm, 43.84 cm, 14.21 cm, 54.47 cm, 11.13 cm and 8.23 cm, respectively. Location had effect on leg (P<0.01), ear and face lengths (P<0.001). Similarly, significantly wider chest, longer ear and face (P<0.05) were observed in males. The correlation coefficients observed among the parameters were mostly moderate to high, positive and significant (P<0.01). The step-wise multiple regression analysis showed that CG had coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.44 (44 %) when used in the prediction of LW, while subsequent inclusion of LG and BL yielded better result (0.47 and 0.49, respectively). Therefore, the study revealed that both location and sex had no effect on most of the linear body measurements and the accuracy of these traits (linear body measurements) in the prediction of LW is moderate. Keywords: Red Sokoto kids, Prediction, Body weight, Linear body trait

Backtracking Search Optimization for Collaborative Beamforming in Wireless Sensor Networks

Due to energy limitation and constraint in communication capabilities, the undesirable high battery power consumption has become one of the major issues in wireless sensor network (WSN). Therefore, a collaborative beamforming (CB) method was introduced with the aim to improve the radiation beampattern in order to compensate the power consumption. A CB is a technique which can increase the sensor node gain and performance by aiming at the desired objectives through intelligent capabilities. The sensor nodes were located randomly in WSN environment. The nodes were designed to cooperate among each other and act as a collaborative antenna array. The configuration of the collaborative nodes was modeled in circular array formation. The position of array nodes was determined by obtaining the optimum parameters pertaining to the antenna array which implemented by using Backtracking Search Optimization Algorithm (BSA). The parameter considered in the project was the side-lobe level minimization. It was observed that, the suppression of side-lobe level for BSA was better compared to the radiation beampattern obtained for conventional uniform circular array

A comparative study of conventional PID and intelligent Fuzzy-PID FordDC motor speed control

The development of a Self Tuning Fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller was done to be compared with the conventional controller that is being used in a direct current (DC) motor. Simulation study is used to overcome the appearance of nonlinearities and uncertainties in the system with the proposed controller for the armature voltage controlled DC motors. Each parameter of the Fuzzy-PID controller is self tuned using 49 fuzzy rules in the fuzzy logic controller. The proportional, integral and derivative (KP,KI,KD) gains of the PID controller is being tuned by the controller. Different types of membership functions are evaluated in the fuzzy control and the best performance will be used in Fuzzy-PID for comparative analysis with the conventional PID.The FIS editor from MATLAB defines the membership function and the rules. Load disturbances from a variety of speed response and the step response are simulated from different scenarios.The Fuzzy PID has resulted to be more robust and it is insensitive to variations in the parameter

High-pressure CO2/CH4 separation of Zr-MOFs based mixed matrix membranes

The gas separation properties of 6FDA-DAM mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) with three types of zirconium-based metal organic framework nanoparticles (MOF NPs, ca. 40 nm) have been investigated up to 20 bar. Both NPs preparation and MMMs development were presented in an earlier publication that reported outstanding CO2/CH4 separation performances (50:50 vol% CO2/CH4 feed at 2 bar pressure difference, 35 °C) and this subsequent study is to demonstrate its usefulness to the natural gas separation application. In the current work, CO2/CH4 separation has been investigated at high pressure (2–20 bar feed pressure) with different CO2 content in the feed (10–50 vol%) in the temperature range 35–55 °C. Moreover, the plasticization, competitive sorption effects, and separation of the acid gas hydrogen sulfide (H2S) have been investigated in a ternary feed mixture of CO2:H2S:CH4 (vol% ratio of 30:5:65) at 20 bar and 35 °C. The incorporation of the Zr-MOFs in 6FDA-DAM enhances both CO2 permeability and CO2/CH4 selectivity of this polymer. These MMMs exhibit high stability under separation conditions relevant to an actual natural gas sweetening process. The presence of H2S does not induce plasticization but increases the total acid gas permeability, acid gas/CH4 selectivity and only causes reversible competitive sorption. The overall study suggests a large potential for 6FDA-DAM Zr-MOF MMMs to be applied in natural gas sweetening, with good performance and stability under the relevant process conditions

Virtual Machine Based Autonomous Web Server

Enterprises are turning to Internet technology to circulate information, interact with potential customers and establish an e-commerce business presence. These activities are depending highly on Web server and maintaining good sewer security has been a requirement for avoiding any malicious attacks especially web defacements and malware. Web server administrators should be alert and attentive to the status of the server at all time. They need to be persistent in monitoring the server in order to detect any attempted attacks. This is an advantage for a web sewer that is maintained by a big company that has a big budget to hire a knowledgeable web server administrator, for a new established small company it will only burden their expenses. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a low cost system called Autonomous Web Server Administrator (AWSA) that is fully developed using open source software. AWSA combines several computing concepts such as Virtual Machine, Intrusion Detection System and Checksum. AWSA offers a Virtual Machine based Web server that has the ability to automatically detect intrusions and reconstruct corrupted data or the file system without any human intervention