DNA Genotype of Human Papilloma Virus Infection among Adolescent Girls at Kenyatta National Hospital Youth Clinic

Background: Adolescents have risky sexual behaviour exposing them to the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV ) infection. With clear causal relationship between high risk the HPV (16 and 18) infection and invasive cancer, this study focuses on the distribution of HPV genotypes among the female adolescent and youth at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) youth clinic.Objective: To determine DNA genotype of HPV infection among adolescent girls at KNH - Youth Clinic and use it as an advocacy tool for the introduction of the HPV vaccine provision in the clinic.Design: Cross-sectional study.Setting: Kenyatta National Hospital Youth clinic.Subjects: Adolescent (and youths) girls aged between 12-24 years.Results: Two hundred and sixty four participants were recruited into the study for a period of three months. The recruitment was done in the clinic till the required sample size was obtained. The prevalence of cervical HPV infection was 9.8% (95% CI : 6.13 to 13.41). There were multiple serotypes with 27% infected with HPV strain type 18 and 66. Type 16 was 5%, type 18 was 9%, and there were mixed genotype infections in the rest. There were no low risk strains isolated and 18% of the respondents who tested positive for HPV DNA had uncharacterised strains.Conclusion: The prevalence of HPV among the adolescent girls at KNH youth clinic was 9.8%. Twenty seven percent had co-infection with type 18 and 66

Ogilvie’s syndrome: case report of spontaneous rupture of the ceacum following caesarean section

In acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (ACPO) there is colonic distension without an organic obstacle (intrinsic or extrinsic to intestinal wall). This becomes a potential site of ceacal rapture which can lead to the demise of the patient. Presented is a case of a mother who had spontaneous caecal rapture five days after Caesarean delivery. At Laparotomy the ceacal rapture was confirmed and a colostomy was done. The patient succumbed in Intensive care unit two days post-operatively

Fertility Differentials in Kenya: The Effect of Female Migration

This study uses the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey (KDHS) data conducted in 1988/89.The hypothesis of the paper is that women who migrate tend to maximise their other lifetime aspirations at the expense of their reproductive roles and performance. That is, female migrants are involved in behaviours and practices that negatively influence fertility relative to non-migrants. The analysis shows that through the influence of migration on fertility, reproductive behaviour and performance is modified; migration is a mechanism through which the changes observed in fertility behaviour and levels can be explained. The influence of migration on fertility levels is estimated using two procedures: the comparison of the mean CEB and multivariate analysis. The study demonstrated that there is an inverse relationship between migration and the number of children ever born

A framework for energy based performability models for wireless sensor networks

A novel idea of alternating node operations between Active and Sleep modes in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) has successfully been used to save node power consumption. The idea which started off as a simple implementation of a timer in most protocols has been improved over the years to dynamically change with traffic conditions and the nature of application area. Recently, use of a second low power radio transceiver to triggered Active/Sleep modes has also been made. Active/Sleep operation modes have also been used to separately model and evaluate performance and availability of WSNs. The advancement in technology and continuous improvements of the existing protocols and application implementation demands continue to pose great challenges to the existing performance and availability models. In this study the need for integrating performance and availability studies of WSNs in the presence of both channel and node failures and repairs is investigated. A framework that outlines and characterizes key models required for integration of performance and availability of WSN is in turn outlined. Possible solution techniques for such models are also highlighted. Finally it is shown that the resulting models may be used to comparatively evaluate energy consumption of the existing motes and WSNs as well as deriving required performance measures

On the performance, availability and energy consumption modelling of clustered IoT systems

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) form a large part of the ecosystem of the Internet of Things (IoT), hence they have numerous application domains with varying performance and availability requirements. Limited resources that include processing capability, queue capacity, and available energy in addition to frequent node and link failures degrade the performance and availability of these networks. In an attempt to efficiently utilise the limited resources and to maintain the reliable network with efficient data transmission; it is common to select a clustering approach, where a cluster head is selected among the diverse IoT devices. This study presents the stochastic performance as well as the energy evaluation model for WSNs that have both node and link failures. The model developed considers an integrated performance and availability approach. Various duty cycling schemes within the medium-access control of the WSNs are also considered to incorporate the impact of sleeping/idle states that are presented using analytical modeling. The results presented using the proposed analytical models show the effects of factors such as failures, various queue capacities and system scalability. The analytical results presented are in very good agreement with simulation results and also present an important fact that the proposed models are very useful for identification of thresholds between WSN system characteristics

Effects of climatic variability on livelihood choices among rural populace in Baringo County, Kenya and Jigawa State, Nigeria

This paper analysed the implication of climatic variability on livelihood assets among the rural populance in Baringo County, Kenya and Jigawa State, Nigeria. Purposive sampling and questionnaires were administered to 338 households in Baringo County, 153 households in Jigawa State were sampled and Focused Group Discussion were organised. Data were analysed using frequency distribution statistics, trend and Multiple Regression analysis. The result shows that age, gender, education level and house hold size are the major determinant of livelihood choices in both locations. In Jigawa State, decreasing rainfall showed positive impacts on livestock keeping, maize and beans cultivation, bee keeping, aquaculture while the increasing temperature was observed to have positive impacts on millet, beans and sorghum farming while it showed negative impact on horticulture, bee keeping and aquaculture, livestock keeping, poultry farming and fruit production both in Baringo County and Jigawa. In Baringo County, drought (̅=3.78), crop pest and diseases (̅=3.65), livestock pest and diseases (̅=3.70), cases of human diseases (̅=4.01) and drying of water bodies (̅=3.53) and in Jigawa, drought (̅=3.95), livestock pest and diseases (̅=3.4670), cases of human diseases (̅=3.46) and drying of water bodies (̅=4.14) were identified as implications of climatic variability respectively. The paper empahasised the need for pro-active measures to avert the negative implications of climatic variability in order to maximize the positive influences. Also relevant governement agencies should act promptly to update the rural populance on the adaption measures especially water management and conservation methods.Keywords: Climatic variability, Livelihood, Rainfall, Temperature, Perceptio

Census and ear-notching of black rhinos (Diceros bicornis michaeli) in Tsavo East National Park, Kenya

This paper updates the status of the black rhino population in Tsavo East National Park (NP). Data were acquired through aerial counts of the black rhino between 3 and 9 October 2010 using three fixed-wing husky aircrafts and a Bell 206L helicopter in an area of about 3,300 km2. Based on previous sightings of rhinos, the area was divided into 14 blocks, with each block subdivided into 400 m transects. An aircraft flying at about 500 m above the ground was assigned to carry out the aerial survey following these transects within each block. Observers scanned for rhinos about 200 m on either sides of the flight paths. Intensive searches in areas with dense vegetation, especially along the Galana and Voi Rivers and other known rhino range areas was also carried out by both the huskies and the helicopter. The count resulted in sighting of 11 black rhinos. Seven of these individuals were ear notched and fitted with radio transmitters and the horns were tipped off to discourage poaching. Three of the seven captured rhinos were among the 49 animals translocated to Tsavo East between 1993 and 1999. The other four animals were born in Tsavo East. Two female rhinos and their calves were not ear-notched or fitted with transmitters. It is recommended that another count be carried out immediately after the wet season as the rhinos spend more time in the open areas while the vegetation is still green. The repeat aerail count is to include blocks north of River Galana

Potential of hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) for paired phytoremediation and bioenergy production

Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) is a multi-use crop that has been investigated for its potential use in phytoremediation of heavy metals, radionuclides, and organic contaminants, and as a feedstock for bioenergy production. A review of research literature indicates that hemp is a suitable crop for phytoremediation, and a competitive option for bioenergy. Coupling phytoremediation and bioenergy production from a single hemp crop is a potential solution to overcoming the economic constraints of phytoremediation projects. The current challenge is ensuring that the extracted contaminants are not introduced into the consumer marketplace. After several decades of limited research on hemp in the United States, the purpose of this review is to identify the knowledge available for hemp applications in phytoremediation or in production of bioenergy, and if and how those two purposes have been combined. The literature shows that hemp growth has been demonstrated successfully at the field scale for phytoremediation and in several bioenergy conversion technologies. Little is known about the fate of contaminants during hemp growth or during post-harvest processing, especially the relationships between hemp genetics, metabolomics, and contaminant partitioning. Complicating the understanding is the expectation that contaminant fate will be dependent on the contaminant type, the concentration in the material, and the processing methods. Before hemp from phytoremediation applications can be used for bioenergy, the fractionation of heavy metals, radionuclides, and/or organic compounds during transesterification, anaerobic digestion, fermentation, and/or combustion of hemp must be evaluated

Deployment challenges and developments in wireless sensor networks clustering

Clustering techniques for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been extensively studied and proven to improve the network lifetime, a primary metric, used for performance evaluation of sensor networks. Although introduction of clustering techniques has the potential to reduce energy consumption and extend the lifetime of the network by decreasing the contention through either power control or node scheduling, scalability remains an issue. Therefore, the optimality of the cluster size still needs to be thoroughly investigated. In this paper, a single cluster head (CH) queuing model is presented. Using an event based simulation tool (Castalia), key issues that affect the practical deployment of clustering techniques in wireless sensor networks are analysed. These include identifying the bottlenecks in terms of cluster scalability and predicting the nature of data packets arrival distribution at the CH. Results presented show that this analysis can be used to specify the size of a cluster, when a specific flow of data is expected from the sensing nodes based on a particular application and also the distribution of the inter-arrival times of data packets at the CH follows exponential distribution

Decadal rainfall variability modes in observed rainfall records over East Africa and their relations to historical sea surface temperature changes.

Detailed knowledge about the long-term interface of climate and rainfall variability is essential for managing agricultural activities in Eastern African countries. To this end, the space-time patterns of decadal rainfall variability modes over East Africa and their predictability potentials using Sea Surface Temperature (SST) are investigated. The analysis includes observed rainfall data from 1920-2004 and global SSTs for the period 1950-2004. Simple correlation, trend and cyclical analyses, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with VARIMAX rotation and Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) are employed. The results show decadal signals in filtered observed rainfall record with 10 years period during March - May (MAM) and October – December (OND) seasons. During June - August (JJA), however, cycles with 20 years period are common. Too much / little rainfall received in one or two years determines the general trend of the decadal mean rainfall. CCA results for MAM showed significant positive correlations between the VARIMAX-PCA of SST and the canonical component time series over the central equatorial Indian Ocean. Positive loadings were spread over the coastal and Lake Victoria regions while negative loading over the rest of the region with significant canonical correlation skills. For the JJA seasons, Atlantic SSTs had negative loadings centred on the tropical western Atlantic Ocean associated with the wet / dry regimes over western / eastern sectors. The highest canonical correlation skill between OND rainfall and the Pacific SSTs showed that El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO)/La Niña phases are associated with wet/dry decades over the region