Information-seeking and use by human and veterinary medical scientists (HVMS) in Africa: Case study from Borno State, Nigeria

Study of information seeking behavior among veterinary scientists in a Nigerian library. Investigates preclinical faculty members of the University of Maiduguri College of Medicine, human and veterinary medical scientists, in Borno State, Nigeria, as a case study

Geological and Geotechnical Evaluation of Gully Erosion at Nguzu Edda, Afikpo Sub-Basin, Southeastern Nigeria

A detailed geological field mapping of Nguzu Edda has revealed that gully erosion and landslides have remained active over the years, posing serious threats to human life, agricultural land, infrastructure and socio-economic activities within the area. Consequently, twelve true representative soil samples from different locations within gully sites have been analyzed based on ASTM and British Standards, to evaluate geologic conditions and geotechnical parameters that influence the gullies problems. The results of the laboratory tests revealed that the soil at the gully sites are predominantly sands (57~99.5 % with mean of 69.7%) with low amount of fines (silt; 0.3~ 22% with average value of 14.6% and clay: 0.2 ~ 21% with average value of 13.9%). The liquid limit (LL) ranged from 15 ~ 31.50 % with mean of 23.32% and the plasticity index (PI) ranged from 2.92~14.42% with mean of 8.95%. The moisture content, permeability, bulk density, porosity, organic matter and pH have average values of 25.31%, 6.04×10-4 cm/sec, 1.55 kg/m3, 40.40, 1.26% and 5.12, respectively. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) is low, which could be attributed to low organic matter, pH and non active clay minerals. With regard to the aforementioned characteristics, the soils at gully sites are loose sands with low amount of fines fraction, hence cohesionless, and are easily exposed to agents/factors of gully erosion. Thus, provides insights about the vulnerable causes of gully erosion and landslides problems that are prevalent in the area. This research addresses, to a great extent the effects of local geology, geotechnical properties of the underlying soil and associated human activities on the formation of gully erosion, in-turn results to landslides within in the study area. Engineering-geologic aspects of soil erosion control were also recommended. Keywords: Afikpo Sub-basin, Geologic conditions, Geotechnical analysis, Gully erosion and Erosion control measures

Effects of Single Bout and Short Term Aerobic Exercise on C-Reactive Protein in Type-2 Diabetes Patients: A Pilot Study

Type-2 diabetes is a leading risk for cardiovascular diseases and events due to ease of develop­ment of atherosclerosis in people with type-diabetes. Chronic inflammation is a major driver of atherosclerosis in type-2 diabetes and it has been linked to elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) level. The objective of this study was to determine whether CRP is amenable to aerobic exercise. A total of 40 adults diagnosed with type-2 diabetes patients were sampled randomly, and later, conveniently allocated into exercise and control groups. All the subjects were on the diabetes exchange diet as recommended by their Dieticians. Results show that the glucose level of the subjects of this study was fairly under control ((glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) = 0.80±0.11% for each of the group)). A weak negative correlation was found between ex­ercise-induced reductions in CRP and HbA1c (r = -0.345; p = 0.029). Significant (p < 0.05) difference in CRP was found between study and control groups following single bout (30 min) aerobic exercise, however, no significant (p > 0.05) difference in CRP was found between study and control groups after 8-weeks. Single bout or short-term aerobic exercises does not reduce CRP in people with fairly controlled type-2 diabetes mellitus

Police Brutality, Human Rights Violations and the 2020 #EndSARS Protests in Lagos, Nigeria.

This study examines the factors responsible for the outbreak of the #EndSARS protest in Lagos, Nigeria. Relying on primary sources of data (questionnaires and Focus Group Discussions), correlation, regression and content analysis were employed to establish (i) relationship between human rights violations and protest outbreak; (ii) relationship between repressive response of government to protest and protest transformation from peaceful to violent one as well as manifestation of criminality. The results show that there exist a strong positive relationship between human rights violations and protest outbreak and between repressive response of state’s security agencies and protest transformation

Meta-analysis of factors affecting prevalence estimates of HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder in sub-Saharan Africa

Successful treatment of HIV with anti-retroviral therapy (ART) is resulting in more people living with HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder (HAND). In sub-Saharan Africa, this calls for strategic planning and judicious allocation of scarce resources, which requires an accurate estimate of the prevalence of HAND. Estimates of the prevalence of HAND in sub-Saharan Africa vary greatly, between 18.8% and 88.3%. This variability may be explained by factors such as different diagnostic approach, neuromedical examination, ART status, sampling method, substance abuse, assessors’ qualification, depression and outcome measure. Different methods of diagnosing HAND, different outcome measures and non-random sampling techniques make it almost impossible to accurately estimate the prevalence of HAND in subSaharan Africa, often resulting in overestimation of the burden of disease. Consumers of health research should consider certain study characteristics and exercise appropriate caution when interpreting burden of disease in sub-Saharan Africa, especially when pursuing policy shift. Underestimating the prevalence of HAND will certainly affect the capacity and speed of containment, while overestimating will draw unnecessary attention and result in the misallocation of scarce resources. Significance: • The high prevalence of HAND in sub-Saharan Africa as estimated in this review calls for further research on the impact of HAND on activities of daily living and putative therapeutic modalities. • We highlight which study characteristics should be critically checked when using prevalence estimates for the purpose of health policy and distribution of scarce resources in sub-Saharan Africa. • By favouring certain factors, this review will guide HIV health researchers in which techniques should be used to estimate the burden of HAND. These factors may also apply to estimating the burden of other diseases in sub-Saharan Africa.University of Pretoria.https://sajs.co.zaPhysiotherap

Detecting human Activities Based on a multimodal sensor data set using a bidirectional long short-term memory model: a case study

Human falls are one of the leading causes of fatal unintentional injuries worldwide. Falls result in a direct financial cost to health systems, and indirectly, to society’s productivity. Unsurprisingly, human fall detection and prevention is a major focus of health research. In this chapter, we present and evaluate several bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) models using a data set provided by the Challenge UP competition. The main goal of this study is to detect 12 human daily activities (six daily human activities, five falls, and one post-fall activity) derived from multi-modal data sources - wearable sensors, ambient sensors, and vision devices. Our proposed Bi-LSTM model leverages data from accelerometer and gyroscope sensors located at the ankle, right pocket, belt, and neck of the subject. We utilize a grid search technique to evaluate variations of the Bi-LSTM model and identify a configuration that presents the best results. The best Bi-LSTM model achieved good results for precision and f1-score, 43.30% and 38.50%, respectivel

Monitoring of microbial hydrocarbon remediation in the soil

Bioremediation of hydrocarbon pollutants is advantageous owing to the cost-effectiveness of the technology and the ubiquity of hydrocarbon-degrading microorganisms in the soil. Soil microbial diversity is affected by hydrocarbon perturbation, thus selective enrichment of hydrocarbon utilizers occurs. Hydrocarbons interact with the soil matrix and soil microorganisms determining the fate of the contaminants relative to their chemical nature and microbial degradative capabilities, respectively. Provided the polluted soil has requisite values for environmental factors that influence microbial activities and there are no inhibitors of microbial metabolism, there is a good chance that there will be a viable and active population of hydrocarbon-utilizing microorganisms in the soil. Microbial methods for monitoring bioremediation of hydrocarbons include chemical, biochemical and microbiological molecular indices that measure rates of microbial activities to show that in the end the target goal of pollutant reduction to a safe and permissible level has been achieved. Enumeration and characterization of hydrocarbon degraders, use of micro titer plate-based most probable number technique, community level physiological profiling, phospholipid fatty acid analysis, 16S rRNA- and other nucleic acid-based molecular fingerprinting techniques, metagenomics, microarray analysis, respirometry and gas chromatography are some of the methods employed in bio-monitoring of hydrocarbon remediation as presented in this review

Cucumeropsis mannii seed oil ameliorates Bisphenol‐A‐induced adipokines dysfunctions and dyslipidemia

From Wiley via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2022-12-25, rev-recd 2023-01-07, accepted 2023-02-06, pub-electronic 2023-02-18Article version: VoRPublication status: PublishedThis study demonstrated the therapeutic potentials of Cucumeropsis mannii seed oil (CMSO) capable of alleviating BPA‐induced dyslipidemia and adipokine dysfunction. In this study, we evaluated the effects of CMSO on adipokine dysfunctions and dyslipidemia in bisphenol‐A (BPA)‐induced male Wistar rats. Six‐week‐old 36 albino rats of 100–200 g weight were assigned randomly to six groups, which received varied doses of BPA and/or CMSO. The administration of BPA and CMSO was done at the same time for 42 days by oral intubation. The adipokine levels and lipid profile were measured in adipose tissue and plasma using standard methods. BPA induced significant (p < .05) increases in triglycerides, cholesterol, leptin, LDL‐C, and atherogenic and coronary risk indices in adipose tissue and plasma, as well as a decrease in adiponectin and HDL‐C levels in Group II animals. BPA administration significantly (p < .05) elevated Leptin levels and reduced adiponectin levels. BPA plus CMSO reduced triglycerides, cholesterol, leptin, LDL‐C, and atherogenic and coronary risk indices while increasing adiponectin levels and HDL‐C in adipose tissue and plasma (p < .05). The results showed that BPA exposure increased adipose tissue as well as serum levels of the atherogenic index, triglycerides, cholesterol, coronary risk index, LDL‐C, leptin, and body weight with decreased adiponectin levels and HDL‐C. Treatment with CMSO reduced the toxicities caused by BPA in rats by modulating the body weight, adiponectin/leptin levels, and lipid profiles in serum and adipose tissue. This study has shown that CMSO ameliorates BPA‐induced dyslipidemia and adipokine dysfunctions. We suggest for further clinical trial to establish the clinical applications

Globally, songs and instrumental melodies are slower and higher and use more stable pitches than speech: A Registered Report

Both music and language are found in all known human societies, yet no studies have compared similarities and differences between song, speech, and instrumental music on a global scale. In this Registered Report, we analyzed two global datasets: (i) 300 annotated audio recordings representing matched sets of traditional songs, recited lyrics, conversational speech, and instrumental melodies from our 75 coauthors speaking 55 languages; and (ii) 418 previously published adult-directed song and speech recordings from 209 individuals speaking 16 languages. Of our six preregistered predictions, five were strongly supported: Relative to speech, songs use (i) higher pitch, (ii) slower temporal rate, and (iii) more stable pitches, while both songs and speech used similar (iv) pitch interval size and (v) timbral brightness. Exploratory analyses suggest that features vary along a “musi-linguistic” continuum when including instrumental melodies and recited lyrics. Our study provides strong empirical evidence of cross-cultural regularities in music and speech