Bioaccumulation of heavy metals in frequently consumed leafy vegetable grown along Nigeria-Benin Seme Border, West Africa

Vegetable growing along major highways with heavy vehicular movement has been a serious concern to food safety specialist in large cities. The contributions of heavy metals in selected vegetables through atmospheric deposition were quantified using atomic absorption spectrophotometer. The level of some heavy metal (.Pb, Cu, Fe, and Cr) were examined in the edible portion of Telfciria occidentals, Corchorus olitorius, Celocia argentea, and Thymus Vulgaries, grown along Nigeria-Republic of Benin border Seme. The results showed that the levels of heavy metal ranged from 21.69 ± 7.36 μg/g Cu to172.87 ±62.05 μg/g Fe in Telfaria occidentalis, 21.74±13.00 μg/g Pb to 304.50±72.77 μg/g Fe in Corchorus olitorius, 16.75±10.54 μg/g Pb to 260.74±215.37 μg/g Fe in Celocia argentea and 23.53±3.52 μg/g Cu to 406.33±225.06 μg/g Fe in Thymus Vulgaries were recorded in site A. The value heavy metal contamination obtained from site B ranged from 18.91±11.98 μg/g Pb to 166.49 ± 86.22 μg/g Fe in Telfaria occidentalis, 16.57± 9.22 μg/g Pb to 292.36±196.33 μg/g Fe in Corchorus olitorius, 19.99±8.54 μg/g Pb to 354.03±302.80 Fe in Celocia argentea and 21.73±8.44 μg/g Pb to 388.20±226.39 μg/g Fe in Thymus Vulgaries. The order of contamination in the vegetable sample was Fe > Cr > Cu > Pb. The data were analyzed with t-test and ANOVA. There were no significant different between the (p< .05) between the level of heavy metal in vegetable at each sampling site. The high levels of metal in the sampled vegetable may be attributed to excessive application of fertilizers and other agro chemical, as well the use of use of waste water for washing the vegetables. The obtained results were higher than the threshold value of WHO, FEPA and China stipulated standards for mature plant tissue except for copper in all the analyzed vegetable. Therefore, the consumption of these vegetables as food may pose possible health hazards to human

Toxicity of powder and extracts of Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloides Lam (Rutaceae) root bark from Nigeria to three storage beetles

The root of Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloides Lam is used as antibacterial toothbrush in southwestern Nigeria. The root bark was therefore screened as powder, aqueous and ethanolic extracts for toxicity to adult Callosobruchus maculatus F. (Coleoptera: Bruchidae), Sitophilus zeamais Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) and Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) and the effects of the test extracts on oviposition and progeny development of C. maculatus in laboratory tests. A small scale field trial was also carried out to test the efficacy of test powder as a protectant of cowpea, Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walpers and maize, Zea mays L. grains against insect infestation. Results of the acute toxicity tests showed that all the formulations were toxic to the insects. The 48 h median lethal concentration (LC50) values obtained for the test powder against C. maculatus, S. zeamais and T. castaneum are 0.05 g kg-1, 0.01g kg-1 and 0.04 g kg-1, respectively. For the aqueous extracts the LC50 values are 0.83 g L-1, 0.34 g L-1 and 0.38 g L-1 against C. maculatus, S. zeamais and T. castaneum, respectively while the values are 0.02 g L-1, 0.04 g L-1 and 0.09 g L-1, respectively for ethanolic extract, indicating higher toxicity against the test insects relative to the water-based extract. The ethanolic extract demonstrated residual property, the toxicity to C. maculatus remaining fairly constant over a total post-treatment time of 336 h. Cowpea grain treatment with test plant ethanolic extract resulted in reduction of the number of eggs laid from 93.30 ± 3.46 in the control to 21.00 ± 4.57 in grain treated with 0.10 g L-1 extract without significant difference in the number of adult emergence from the treated grains. Field trials showed that cowpea and maize grains treated with test plant powder respectively were protected from insect infestation for 180 d. These results demonstrate the potentials of Z. zanthoxyloides for protecting cowpea and maize grains against storage insects.Keywords: Zanthoxylum zanthoxyloides, Callosobruchus maculatus, Sitophilus zeamais, Tribolium castaneum, Toxicit

Number 2

ABSTRACT The phthalate esters contents of children toys were analyzed using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC). Understanding the distribution of ubiquitous phthalate esters in plastic products were necessary because of their subtle toxicity to humans. The phthalate esters were obtained using liquid-liquid extraction procedure, after which the extracts were cleaned up using solid phase clean up technique, and finally analyzed by HPLC. Results revealed that the toy samples contained high concentrations of phthalate esters. For dimethyl-, diethyl-, diphenyl-, and dibutyl-phthalates, baby suckers toy mean values (µg/g) of 44.56 ± 1.14, 3.29 ± 0.03, 225.73 ± 3.16, and 47.94 ± 0.62 were recorded while truck toys have mean values (µg/g) of 278.81 ± 2.84, 175.32 ± 2.00, 41.01 ± 1.23, and 89.20 ± 1.21, respectively. A soft colorful rabbit with carrot toy showed mean values (µg/g) of ND, 217.79 ± 1.39, 60.86 ± 1.38, and 1625.25 ± 25.3. Mean values (µg/g) of ND, 387.50 ± 3.54, 7.84 ± 0.06, ND and 1.19 ± 0.01, 0.32 ± 0.03, 48.18 ± 0.23, 82.47 ± 3.71 were recorded for a Barbie-type girl doll toy and teether and rattle toy, respectively. On percentage basis, the amounts of these phthalate esters as determined in these toys were much higher than the stipulated EU limit of 0.1% (w/w) in toys. The percentage concentration for dibutyl-phthalate ranges between 0.1 -14.17% and between 0.1 -1.00% for diphenyl-phthalate. Conversely, diethyl-phthalate percentage concentrations ranged between 0.1 -5.06 %, and that of dimethyl-phthalate ranges between 0.1 -63.34%, respectively. The study is noteworthy and significant because most toys used by children (0 -3 years) are usually intended to be placed in the mouth which could lead to the leaching of these chemicals into their blood stream, which in turn, poses a health risk to infants

Executive summary of the KDIGO 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline for Diabetes Management in Chronic Kidney Disease:an update based on rapidly emerging new evidence

The Kidney Disease: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) 2022 Clinical Practice Guideline for Diabetes Management in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) represents a focused update of the KDIGO 2020 guideline on the topic. The guideline targets a broad audience of clinicians treating people with diabetes and CKD. Topic areas for which recommendations are updated based on new evidence include Chapter 1: Comprehensive care in patients with diabetes and CKD and Chapter 4: Glucose-lowering therapies in patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and CKD. The content of previous chapters on Glycemic monitoring and targets in patients with diabetes and CKD (Chapter 2), Lifestyle interventions in patients with diabetes and CKD (Chapter 3), and Approaches to management of patients with diabetes and CKD (Chapter 5) has been deemed current and was not changed. This guideline update was developed according to an explicit process of evidence review and appraisal. Treatment approaches and guideline recommendations are based on systematic reviews of relevant studies and appraisal of the quality of the evidence, and the strength of recommendations followed the “Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation” (GRADE) approach. Limitations of the evidence are discussed, and areas for which additional research is needed are presented

Measuring the capability to raise revenue process and output dimensions and their application to the Zambia revenue authority

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability to raise revenue remain underdeveloped. This article aims at filling this gap and presents a model consisting of the three process dimensions ‘information collection and processing’, ‘merit orientation’ and ‘administrative accountability’. ‘Revenue performance’ constitutes the fourth capability dimension which assesses tax administration’s output. This model is applied to the case of the Zambia Revenue Authority. The dimensions prove to be valuable not only for assessing the how much but also the how of collecting taxes. They can be a useful tool for future comparative analyses of tax administrations’ capabilities in developing countries.Die weltweite Verbreitung der Good-Governance- und New-Public-Management-Konzepte hat zu einer zunehmenden Konzentration auf staatliche Leistungsfähigkeit und, im Besonderen, auf die Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuererhebung in Entwicklungsländern geführt. Allerdings bleiben die analytischen Werkzeuge für ein umfassendes Verständnis von Leistungsfähigkeit unterentwickelt. Dieser Artikel stellt hierfür ein Modell vor, das die drei Prozess-Dimensionen „Sammeln und Verarbeiten von Informationen“, „Leistungsorientierung der Mitarbeiter“ und „Verantwortlichkeit der Verwaltung“ beinhaltet. „Einnahmeperformanz“ ist die vierte Dimension und erfasst den Output der Steuerverwaltung. Das mehrdimensionale Modell wird für die Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuerbehörde Zambias (Zambia Revenue Authority) genutzt. Es erweist sich nicht nur für die Untersuchung des Wieviel, sondern auch des Wie des Erhebens von Steuern als wertvoll. Die vier Dimensionen können in Zukunft zur umfassenden und vergleichenden Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit verschiedener Steuerverwaltungen in Entwicklungsländern genutzt werden

Executive summary of the 2020 KDIGO Diabetes Management in CKD Guideline:evidence-based advances in monitoring and treatment

THE KIDNEY DISEASE: Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) Clinical Practice Guideline for Diabetes Management in Chronic Kidney Disease represents the first KDIGO guideline on this subject. The guideline comes at a time when advances in diabetes technology and therapeutics offer new options to manage the large population of patients with diabetes and chronic kidney disease (CKD) at high risk of poor health outcomes. An enlarging base of high-quality evidence from randomized clinical trials is available to evaluate important new treatments offering organ protection, such as sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists. The goal of the new guideline is to provide evidence-based recommendations to optimize the clinical care of people with diabetes and CKD by integrating new options with existing management strategies. In addition, the guideline contains practice points to facilitate implementation when insufficient data are available to make well-justified recommendations or when additional guidance may be useful for clinical application. The guideline covers comprehensive care of patients with diabetes and CKD, glycemic monitoring and targets, lifestyle interventions, antihyperglycemic therapies, and self-management and health systems approaches to management of patients with diabetes and CKD

Partnership and Capacity Building of Local Governance

Partnership is about sharing of power, responsibility and achievements. According to the World Bank Public Private Partnership (PPP) promoting group, ―partnership refer to informal and shortterm engagements of non-governmental organizations, the private sector and/or government agencies that join forces for a shared objective; to more formal, but still short-term private sector engagements for the provision of specific services, for example, annual outsourcing arrangements for janitorial services for a school or operations of the school cafeteria; to more complex contractual arrangements, such as build, operate, transfer regimes, where the private sector takes on considerable risk and remains engaged long term; or to full privatizations‖ (World Bank Group 2014, 29).© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020. This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Partnerships for the Goals. Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71067-9_21-1.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Acute kidney injury in children

Acute kidney injury (AKI) (previously called acute renal failure) is characterized by a reversible increase in the blood concentration of creatinine and nitrogenous waste products and by the inability of the kidney to regulate fluid and electrolyte homeostasis appropriately. The incidence of AKI in children appears to be increasing, and the etiology of AKI over the past decades has shifted from primary renal disease to multifactorial causes, particularly in hospitalized children. Genetic factors may predispose some children to AKI. Renal injury can be divided into pre-renal failure, intrinsic renal disease including vascular insults, and obstructive uropathies. The pathophysiology of hypoxia/ischemia-induced AKI is not well understood, but significant progress in elucidating the cellular, biochemical and molecular events has been made over the past several years. The history, physical examination, and laboratory studies, including urinalysis and radiographic studies, can establish the likely cause(s) of AKI. Many interventions such as ‘renal-dose dopamine’ and diuretic therapy have been shown not to alter the course of AKI. The prognosis of AKI is highly dependent on the underlying etiology of the AKI. Children who have suffered AKI from any cause are at risk for late development of kidney disease several years after the initial insult. Therapeutic interventions in AKI have been largely disappointing, likely due to the complex nature of the pathophysiology of AKI, the fact that the serum creatinine concentration is an insensitive measure of kidney function, and because of co-morbid factors in treated patients. Improved understanding of the pathophysiology of AKI, early biomarkers of AKI, and better classification of AKI are needed for the development of successful therapeutic strategies for the treatment of AKI

Mind the gap? Civil society policy engagement and the pursuit of gender justice: critical discourse analysis of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in Africa 2003–2015

This article presents critical discourse analysis of state and civil society organisations’ efforts to implement the gender mainstreaming goals set out in the United Nations’ Beijing Declaration. It is argued that the latter represents a generational opportunity to apply a Feminist Political Economic Framework to development in Africa. However, the research findings show how current practice falls short of the sought-after participative democratic model of mainstreaming. Instead, analysis reveals significant differences in state and civil society organisations’ policy framing, issues over conceptual clarity and a disjuncture in state and civil society prioritisation of key gendered issues such as poverty, economic inequality and conflict resolution. This matters because it indicates that the capacity of the civil sphere to act as a political arena from which NGOs may challenge the traditionally male-dominated power structures is being undermined by a ‘disconnect’ between state and civil society as they pursue contrasting agendas