Associated anomalies in cleft lip and palate: analysis of 811 consecutive patients

Introduction: Clefts are common birth defects and may be associated with oro-facial congenital anomalies. It has not been established if specific types of anomalies are frequently related with clefts, or which organ is most commonly affected. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of associated anomalies in consecutive cleft lip and palate patients treated at two referral centres in Northern Nigeria.Methods: Cleft lip and palate at two referral hospitals in Northern Nigeria from January 2012 to December 2015 were studied. Data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.Results: A total of 811 cleft lip and palate patients were managed. Fifty-five percent (447) were male and 45% (364) were female while 71% (578) were children and 29% (233) were adults. The prevalence of associated anomalies was 11.5%. The most common associated anomaly among cleft patients was facial anomaly (64% of cleft patients). Associated anomalies were most prevalent in patients with isolated cleft palate. Hypertelorism was the commonest type of facial anomaly recorded.Conclusion: Our study showed a low incidence of associated anomalies with a higher incidence in isolated cleft palate cases.Key Words: Cleft lip, Cleft Palate, Associated Facial Anomaly, Congenital anomal

Routine antenatal syphilis screening in South West Nigeria - a questionable practice

Background: Untreated maternal syphilis is strongly associated with adverse birth outcomes, especially in women with high titre syphilis. The WHO recommends routine serological screening in pregnancy. Some workers have advised a reappraisal of this practice, having demonstratedlow sero-prevalence in their antenatal population. In view of this, the aim of this study was to determine the seroprevalence of syphilis in the antenatal population presenting at a major hospital in south-west Nigeria.Methods: This was a cross sectional study of healthy pregnant Nigerian women attending Adeoyo Maternity Hospital in the capital of Oyo State. The case record of every pregnant woman presenting for their first antenatal clinic visit over a 4-month period (September 1st to December 31st 2006) was reviewed.Results: During the study period, two thousand six hundred and seventy-eight women sought antenatal care. Three hundred and sixty-nine women (369; 13.4%) had incomplete records and were excluded from analysis. The records of the 2,318(86.6%) women with adequate records were subsequently reviewed. The mean age of the women was 27.4years (± 5.34) and the mean gestational age 26.4 weeks (±6.36). The modal parity was 0. Only three patients were found to be reactive for syphilis giving a prevalence of 0.13%. Conclusion: The sero- prevalence value in this study is quite low and may justify the call to discontinue routine antenatal syphilis screening. However, a more rigorous screeningprogram using diagnostic tests with higher sensitivity maybe necessary before jettisoning this traditional aspect of antenatal care.Keywords - Pregnancy; syphilis; prevalence; serology; screenin

Stochastic frontier modelling of working capital efficiency across Europe

This paper adopts the stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) to model working capital efficiency (WCE) on a sample of 6,170 European firms from 2009 to 2018. We find: (i) larger firms are more efficient with their working capital management (WCM) than smaller firms, (ii) higher cash holding contributes to WCE, (iii) high competition is less conducive to WCE than low competition, (iv) export and sales growth potential decrease WCE and (v) WCE increases with access to bank credit. In the analysis, a distinction is made between the "old" EU countries and the "new" EU countries. The results are sensitive to the year of admission into the EU. The results are robust to omitted variable bias, using a more novel approach

COTTON FARMERS’ PERCEPTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND ADAPTATION STRATEGIES IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Climate change has been a major threat to agriculture in Nigeria. This study was carried out in Imeko Afon Local Government Area. Purposive selection of all practicing cotton farmers (54) at the time of survey was made from the study area. The mean age of respondents is 56years. The household size is 7persons and the average annual income is N9, 972.00k. The mean score of famers’ perception about the climate change and its effects on cotton production is 2.62. Farmers’ stated that there is an increase temperature due to change in climatic condition (Ẍ= 3.45, S.D ± 1.152), and fluctuation in rainfall pattern (Ẍ= 4.04, S.D ± 0.999). Adopted coping strategies to cushion effects of climate change include; increase use of agro-chemicals (Ẍ = 3.35, S.D ± 0.677), integrated weed pest management (Ẍ = 3.44, S.D ± 0.839) and application of fertilizer to improve the depleted soil nutrients (Ẍ = 3.19, S.D ± 0.646). Results indicates a significant relationship between respondents perceived effects on climate change and coping strategies (r =0.890**, P< 0.05). The study recommends that government agricultural and meteorological agencies should provide timely information to farmers on the climate and means of ameliorating the effects of climate change.     &nbsp

Determinants of utilisation of traditional birth attendant services by pregnant women in Ogbomoso, Nigeria

Background: This study was designed to assess the determinants of utilization of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) services by pregnant women in different communities in Ogbomoso, Nigeria.Methods: This was a community- based cross-sectional study. Fisher's formula was used to calculate the sample size and a total of 270 eligible pregnant women were enrolled for the study using multistage sampling technique. Data was collected using pretested structured interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 20 and results were presented in frequencies and percentages.Results: Factors found to have a significant influence on the utilization of TBA services in this study include: low educational status (p <0.001), lower socioeconomic status (p <0.001), and compassionate care given by the TBAs (p=0.004). Other factors include service proximity and lower cost of TBA services.Conclusions: The impact of TBAs and their services cannot be overemphasized in the present state of maternal and child health in Nigeria.  Lower educational status among others has been found to be a strong predictor of utilization of TBA services. There is, therefore, the need to improve the educational and socioeconomic status of women in order to allow them to access quality health care services that will safeguard their well-being. Inculcating compassionate care into orthodox healthcare delivery will go a long way to improve patronage and discourage TBA utilization

Optimization of the Adsorptive Dehydration of Ethanol –Water System

This work has explored the use of enzyme modified corn starch for the dehydration of ethanol – water mixtures. The X - RD analysis revealed that the enzyme modified corn starch is amorphous in nature while the Scanning Electron Microscopy revealed that the enzyme modified corn starch particles are spherical and irregular in shape with the existence of pores in the starch molecule. Optimization and modelling of the process variables was carried out using the RSM (BBD) design of experiment. The optimum process variables obtained were 2.75mm, 61.69min, and 49.99oC for particle size, time, and temperature respectively at an initial concentration of 90wt% with predicted value of 95.4065wt%. The model was validated at the optimum conditions which gave an experimental value of 95.00wt% ethanol concentration. The experimentally result obtained is 99.574% close to the result obtained from the predicted optimum value. Keywords: Response surface methodology, Enzyme Modified Corn starch, X – RD, SEM, Optimization, Ethanol – water mixtures, Box – Behnken design

Assessment of frequency, density and abundance of weed species in different Cropping Systems

This study was conducted at the Teaching and Research Farm, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria to determine effect of cropping systems on weed diversity  and weed seeds bank at various soil depths. Weed flora composition in different cropping systems were also correlated with land use history. Two broad  cropping systems were considered namely; plantation cropping (cocoa, oil palm and cashew) and arable fields (maize, cassava/maize and a natural fallow which served as control. Twenty six weed families were recorded in all. Out of these 26 families, only two are grasses while the remaining were broadleaves. Oil palm and cashew plantations had the highest weed diversity. Using Shannon index (H&gt;1.0), Panicum maximum (Poaceae) and Vigna gracilis (Papilionaceae) weeds were more frequently encountered across the cropping systems with diversity index H&gt;0.5. Asteraceae, Papilionaceae, Rubiaceae were the broadleaves families widely distributed in the cropping systems. Results on the weed seed bank indicated that the number of weed seeds decreased as soil depth increased, the highest number of seeds was found in the soil layer of 0-8 cm. Keywords: Cropping System, Seed bank, abundance, densit

A Study on the Effects of Internal Heat Generation on the Thermal Performance of Solid and Porous Fins using Differential Transformation Method

In this study, the impacts of internal heat generation on heat transfer enhancement of porous fin is theoretical investigated using differential transform method. The parametric studies reveal that porosity enhances the finheat dissipating capacity but the internal heat generation decreases the heatenhancement capacity of extended surface. Also, it is established that whenthe internal heat parameter increases to some certain values, some negativeeffects are recorded where the fin stores heat rather than dissipating it. Thisscenario defeats the prime purpose of the cooling fin. Additionally, it is established in the present study that the limiting value of porosity parameterfor thermal stability for the passive device increases as internal heat parameter increases. This shows that although the internal heat parameter canhelp assist higher range and value of thermal stability of the fin, it producesnegative effect which greatly defeats the ultimate purpose of the fin. Theresults in the work will help in fin design for industrial applications whereinternal heat generation is involved

Formulation and Environmental Impact Evaluation of Walnut and Soya Bean Oil Based Drilling Fluid

One of the oil and gas hazard that associated with drilling operation is oil based drilling fluid and its associated cutting disposition. It is highly imperative for policy maker to propagate the use of environmental friendly oil based mud for drilling operation. This paper formulated environmentally friendly oil based mud (using walnut and soya bean plant oil) that can carry out the same function as convectional oil based drilling fluid and equally meeting up with the HSE (Health, safety and environment) standard. Mud laboratory tests were carried out at standard condition on plant oil samples so as to ascertain the rheological properties of the drilling fluid formulations. The synthetic oil based was obtained from drilling company in Nigeria and was used as control experiment. At the end of the experiment, the properties of the walnut and soya beans based mud wascompared with industry oil based mud (synthetic oil based mud). All the results were shown to be similar to that of commercial synthetic oil based drilling mud which was gotten from the industry.From the results it can be seen that walnut and soya beans based mud actually gives a less toxic,better rheological properties, requires less waste disposal costs, hence making them more economically and technically viable for oil and gas drilling operation

Nonlinear Vibration Analysis of an Electrostatically Actuated Microbeam using Differential Transformation Method

In this paper, nonlinear vibration of electrostatically actuated microbeam is analyzed using differential transformation method.The high level of accuracy of the analytical solutions of the method was established through comparison of the results of the solutions of exact analytical method, variational approach, homotopy analysis method and energy balance methods. Also,with the aid of the present analytical solution, the time response, velocity variation and the phase plots of the system are presented graphically. It is hope that the method will be widely applied to more nonlinear problems of systems in various fields of study.