Conflagrated Violence in Literature of Diaspora, Wright and Baldwin

This paper visualizes a meta-critical approach in delineating the instrument of violence unleashed on the African people beginning from the plight of the African American. The paper argues the psychological and philosophical currents that arise from this phenomenon. The application of realism with narratology demonstrates the question of man and the need for a new direction of tranquillity for Nigeria and Africa.Keywords: Violence, Literature, African American, Wright, Baldwin and Diaspor

Isolation and characterisation of nitrilase producing Aspergillus species recovered from solid waste leachates at two dump sites in Lagos, Nigeria

Aims: Nitrile compounds are cyanogenic intermediates, products, byproducts and waste products of agriculture, chemical and pharmaceutical industries and fossil fuels degradation. The enzymatic hydrolysis of nitriles to non-toxic carboxylic acids or amides plays an increasingly important role in environment remediation. This study aimed at exploring the potential of Aspergilli in the detoxification nitrile compounds at two selected dump sites in Lagos, Nigeria. Methodology and results: Decomposing solid waste leachate samples (SWL) were randomly collected at two selected dump sites namely Olusosun (Ojota) and Isolo (Oke-Afa). Samples per site were pooled, processed by selective enrichment and screened for the presence of Aspergilli by culture technique and intergenic spacer sequencing (ITS). Biomass generation and pH changes in the culture fluids were monitored at 4-days interval by dry weight measurements. Nitrilase production was determined spectrophotometrically. Two nitrilase producing Aspergillus strains: Aspergillus fumigatus strain WO2 with accession number MF78882 and Aspergillus niger strain WO7 with accession number MH542673 were identified. Growth investigation revealed biomass generations of 17.8 g and 23.8 g dry weight per one liter media for A. fumigatus strain WO2 and A. niger strain WO7 respectively. Progressive pH monitoring showed decline from 7.2 to 4.5 and 7.2 to 6.2 was obtained for strains WO2 and WO7 respectively, during nitrilase production at different yields of 0.0150 and 0.0161 mg/mL/min respectively. Conclusion, significance and impact of study: This study supports the studied dump sites as important sources of nitrilase-producing A. fumigatus and A niger strains with potentials as cost-effective environmental bioremediation agents in Nigeria

Representation of Africa online: sourcing practice and frames of reference

The dominant perspective on the representation of Africa in the western media claims that western media coverage is bias and crisis orientated and the liberal perspective claims that the coverage of Africa is not as negative as is often assumed. However, there is a paucity of literature on the representation of Africa online. This research enquiry is relevant because literature claims that the Internet has the potential to resolve the journalistic predicament of representing other culture through political participation and deliberation. But this requires a re-orientation of the sourcing practice of news organization to embrace sensitivity to and knowledge of African cultures. Moreover, the journalistic predicament can be resolved or not depending on the news gathering approach adopted by the news organization. Literature has identified two approaches, that is, ‘gatekeeping’ used mainly by dominant traditional media and ‘gatewatching’ used by alternative media in their quest to counter mainstream ideology. This study examines the impacts of the ‘gatewatching’ approach adopted by Africa Have Your Say (AHYS) website on its representation and frames of reference of Africa. It uses on-site observation, in-depth interviews and textual analysis to gather data. The study found that although the sourcing practice at the AHYS is elaborate and complex, the ‘gatewatching’ approach makes its susceptible to second level agenda setting. Hence, its frame repeats the attributes and tone used by the mainstream traditional media. However, a minority of users did not use repeat this frame in their comments

Novel Application of Statistical Methods to Identify New Urinary Incontinence Risk Factors

Longitudinal data for studying urinary incontinence (UI) risk factors are rare. Data from one study, the hallmark Medical, Epidemiological, and Social Aspects of Aging (MESA), have been analyzed in the past; however, repeated measures analyses that are crucial for analyzing longitudinal data have not been applied. We tested a novel application of statistical methods to identify UI risk factors in older women. MESA data were collected at baseline and yearly from a sample of 1955 men and women in the community. Only women responding to the 762 baseline and 559 follow-up questions at one year in each respective survey were examined. To test their utility in mining large data sets, and as a preliminary step to creating a predictive index for developing UI, logistic regression, generalized estimating equations (GEEs), and proportional hazard regression (PHREG) methods were used on the existing MESA data. The GEE and PHREG combination identified 15 significant risk factors associated with developing UI out of which six of them, namely, urinary frequency, urgency, any urine loss, urine loss after emptying, subject's anticipation, and doctor's proactivity, are found most highly significant by both methods. These six factors are potential candidates for constructing a future UI predictive index

Novel Application of Statistical Methods to Identify New Urinary Incontinence Risk Factors

Longitudinal data for studying urinary incontinence (UI) risk factors are rare. Data from one study, the hallmark Medical, Epidemiological, and Social Aspects of Aging (MESA), have been analyzed in the past; however, repeated measures analyses that are crucial for analyzing longitudinal data have not been applied. We tested a novel application of statistical methods to identify UI risk factors in older women. MESA data were collected at baseline and yearly from a sample of 1955 men and women in the community. Only women responding to the 762 baseline and 559 follow-up questions at one year in each respective survey were examined. To test their utility in mining large data sets, and as a preliminary step to creating a predictive index for developing UI, logistic regression, generalized estimating equations (GEEs), and proportional hazard regression (PHREG) methods were used on the existing MESA data. The GEE and PHREG combination identified 15 significant risk factors associated with developing UI out of which six of them, namely, urinary frequency, urgency, any urine loss, urine loss after emptying, subject’s anticipation, and doctor’s proactivity, are found most highly significant by both methods. These six factors are potential candidates for constructing a future UI predictive index

In vitro Degradation of Extracted Cassava Linamarin by Bacillus Species Isolated from cassava wastewater

Linamarin is the most abundant cyanoglucoside present in cassava cells and may generate the equivalent amount of hydrocyanic acid. This study was aimed to assess degradative capacities of Bacillus pumilus strain WOB3 and WOB7on linamarin. The test organisms for linamarase activity were identified on the basis of phenotype, biochemical properties and 16S rDNA gene sequencing as: Bacillus pumilus strain WOB3 KX774195 and Bacillus pumilus strain WOB7 KX774196. Growth studies showed that the strains grew in all the substrates tested. The doubling times of Bacillus pumilus strain WOB3 and Bacillus pumilus strain WOB7 were 8.25 d and 7.53 d on cassava effluent, 6.30 dand 5.78 d on supplemented cassava effluent, 8.66 dand 9.90 d on waste leachate and 6.30 d and 9.24 d on supplemented waste leachate respectively; with specific growth rates of 0.084 d-1 and 0.092 d-1 on cassava effluent, 0.11 d-1 and 0.12 d-1 on supplemented cassava effluent, 0.080 d-1 and 0.070 d-1 on waste leachate and 0.11 d-1 and 0.075 d-1 on supplemented waste leachate respectively. High-performance liquid chromatographic analysis studies revealed that linamarin degradation by the strains followed a linamarase pathway involving CO2 and HCN as metabolic intermediates. Based on HPLC analysis, linamarin residual concentration at day 12 by the strains WOB3 and WOB7 was 26.73 mgL-1(19.79 %) and 29.79 mgL-1 (21.92 %). These novel features make the bacteria suitable candidates for in-situ application on sites contaminated with cassava processing wastes

Synthesis, structure and in vitro anti-trypanosomal activity of non-toxic Arylpyrrole-Based Chalcone derivatives:

With an intention of identifying chalcone derivatives exhibiting anti-protozoal activity, a cohort of relatively unexplored arylpyrrole-based chalcone derivatives were synthesized in moderate to good yields. The resultant compounds were evaluated in vitro for their potential activity against a cultured Trypanosoma brucei brucei 427 strain. Several compounds displayed mostly modest in vitro anti-trypanosomal activity with compounds 10e and 10h emerging as active candidates with IC50 values of 4.09 and 5.11 µM, respectively. More importantly, a concomitant assessment of their activity against a human cervix adenocarcinoma (HeLa) cell line revealed that these compounds are non-toxic

Medical theses as part of the scientific training in basic medical and dental education: experiences from Finland

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Teaching the principles of scientific research in a comprehensive way is important at medical and dental schools. In many countries medical and dental training is not complete until the candidate has presented a diploma thesis. The objective of this study was to evaluate the nature, quality, publication pattern and visibility of Finnish medical diploma theses.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A total of 256 diploma theses presented at the University of Oulu from 2001 to 2003 were analysed. Using a standardised questionnaire, we extracted several characteristics from each thesis. We used the name of the student to assess whether the thesis resulted in a scientific publication indexed in medical article databases. The number of citations received by each published thesis was also recorded.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A high proportion of the theses (69.5%) were essentially statistical in character, often combined with an extensive literature review or the development of a laboratory method. Most of them were supervised by clinical departments (55.9%). Only 61 theses (23.8%) had been published in indexed scientific journals. Theses in the fields of biomedicine and diagnostics were published in more widely cited journals. The median number of citations received per year was 2.7 and the range from 0 to 14.7.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The theses were seldom written according to the principles of scientific communication and the proportion of actually published was small. The visibility of these theses and their dissemination to the scientific community should be improved.</p

The risk factors for unexplained antepartum stillbirths in Scotland, 1994 to 2003

Objective: To determine the factors contributing to unexplained antepartum stillbirth in Scotland. Study Design: A 10-year birth database in Scotland was used to compare the unexplained antepartum stillbirth with other birth outcomes. The sample unit was a pregnant mother with a gestational age of 20 weeks and above and with a fetal birth weight of 200 g and above. Result: Maternal age of 35 years and above, lower deprivation category, inaccessible area of residence, maternal smoking, maternal height of <160 cm and gestational age of above 39 weeks were significantly associated with unexplained antepartum stillbirth. In multivariable analysis only maternal age (adjusted odds ratio (OR): 1.8, confidence interval (CI): 1.1 to 3.0, P=0.02), smoking during pregnancy (adjusted OR: 2.0, CI: 1.1 to 3.5, P=0.02), and maternal height (adjusted OR: 1.4, CI: 1.1 to 1.8, P=0.01), remain significant. Screening of pregnancies based on these three risk factors had 4.2% sensitivity and 99.4% specificity. The prevalence of stillbirth for this population was 0.2%. A positive predictive value of only 1.2% implies that only 1 in 83 women with these three risk factors will have antepartum stillbirth. The remaining 82 will suffer needless anxiety and potentially diagnostic procedures. Conclusion: Advanced maternal age, maternal smoking, and shorter maternal height were associated risk for unexplained antepartum stillbirth but screening based on these factors would be of limited value