Synthesis, Characterization and Preliminary Microbial Studies of 4-{[(E)–1h–Indol–3h–Lmethylidene]Amino}–1,5-Dimethyl-2-Phenyl-1,2-Dihydro-3h-Pyrazol–3-One and Its Al(Iii), In(Iii) and Tl(I) Complexes

4-{[(E)–1H–indol–3H–ylmethylidene]amino}–1,5-dimethyl-2-phenyl-1,2-dihydro-3H-pyrazol–3-one and its Al(III), In(III) and Tl(I) Complexes have been synthesized and characterized by physical methods and spectral studies. All the complexes were purified and their structures were elucidated using melting point, stoichiometry, molar conductivity, UV-visible, infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance and GCMS Spectral Studies The geometry around the metals were deduced based on the spectral information and were found to be five coordinate in all the complexes. The Schiff base ligand is coordinated to the metals through the participation of its imine nitrogen, indole-nitrogen and the oxygen of the antipyrine moiety. These complexes were also tested against different bacteria and fungi using Agar well diffusion method to determine their antimicrobial potency and they were found sensitive against Escherichia Coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Basillus subtilis and Candida albicans but none was found active against Staphylococcus aureus

Influencing selectivity in the oxidative coupling of methane by modulating oxygen permeation in a variable thickness membrane reactor

Peer reviewedPostprin

Sediment Quality of Orashi River at Four Oil Producing Communities of Nigeria

Bed Sediment samples were collected in the Dry Season from Orashi River at three sampling sites each located in Mmahu, Opuoma, Abacheke and Ogwu Aniocha communities. Physicochemical parameters, hydrocarbon and heavy metal (As, Cd, Fe and Pb) concentrations were determined with standard methods. Results showed that total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) ranged from 0.11 \ub10.03 to 1.91 \ub10.25 mg/kg while total hydrocarbon content (THC) and oil and grease had ranges of 0.28 \ub10.06-2.98 \ub10.19 and 0.69 \ub10.09-3.60 \ub10.57 mg/kg respectively. The sediment samples were classified as unpolluted in terms of TPH. Mean values for pH had a range of 4.33 \ub10.22 - 6.60 \ub10.52 while the texture of most samples was sandy. Mean organic carbon contents ranged from 0.58\ub10.07 to 3.15\ub10.66 % and mean total nitrogen and total phosphorus had ranges of 0.30\ub10.00 -2.77\ub10.46 and 17.34\ub11.65 - 29.48\ub11.63 mg/kg respectively. Mean Mg concentrations were significantly higher (P<0.05) than the concentrations of other exchangeable bases and mean As concentration had a range of 1.175\ub10.086-1.291\ub10.335 mg/kg. Mean Cd concentrations ranged from 0.948\ub10.072 to 3.120\ub10.131 mg/kg while mean Fe and Pb concentrations had ranges of 57.324\ub110.530-159.707\ub141.192 and 1.300\ub10.295-7.462\ub10.861 mg/kg respectively. As and Pb values were lower than the sediment quality guidelines (SQG) but Cd values were higher than the guidelines in all sites. Contamination factors (CFs) for As and Pb indicated low contamination while CFs for Cd indicated moderate to considerable contamination. Geo-accumulation index (Igeo) values for As and Pb at all sites and that of Cd at one site indicated unpolluted, Igeo values for Cd at all other sites ranged between 0.210 and 1.571 indicating unpolluted to moderately polluted status

Association of Environmental tobacco smoke exposure with depression among non-smoking adults

Background Depression is a psychological dysfunction that impairs health and quality of life. However, whether environmental tobacco smoke exposure (ETSE) is associated with depression is poorly understood. This study was designed to evaluate the association of ETSE with depression among non-smoking adults in the United States. Method Using the 2015–2016 United States National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), we identified 2623 adults (females – 64.2%, males – 35.8%) who had never smoked and applied multivariable adjusted-logistic regression to determine the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) at P < 0.05 for the association of ETSE with depression adjusting for relevant confounders. Results Mean age of respondents was 46.5 ± 17.9 years, 23.5% reported ETSE, and 4.7% reported depression. Also, aORs for the association of ETSE with depression were 1.992 (1.987, 1.997) among females and 0.674 (0.670, 0.677) among males. When we examined the association by age groups, the aORs were 1.792 (1.787, 1.796) among young adults (< 60 years) and 1.146 (1.140, 1.152) among older adults (≥60 years). Conclusions We found that ETSE was associated with higher odds of depression among females but not among males.The Brain Pool Program supported this work through the National Research Foundation of Korea, funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (2020H1D3A1A04081265). The funding body played no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the manuscript

BACTERIAL ISOLATES ASSOCIATED WITH PELVIC INFLAMMATORY DISEASE AMONG FEMALE PATIENTS ATTENDING SOME HOSPITALS IN ABUJA, NIGERIA.

Background: Pelvic inflammatory disease refers to any infection in the female lower reproductive tract that spreads to the upper reproductive tract. The disease comprises a spectrum of inflammatory disorders of the upper female genital tract, including any combination of endometritis, salpingitis, tubo-ovarian abscess and pelvic peritonitis. PID is not a notifiable disease in most countries, so accurate statistics are not available. This situation is not in any way different here in Nigeria and more so in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja where this research was conducted, there had never been any published report so far on PID. It therefore became pertinent that such studies be carried out to evaluate the bacterial organisms which may be associated with the disease in this part of Nigeria so that health care providers could take a better look at this affliction in women. Materials and Methods: Endocervical swabs totalling 100 were aseptically collected from patients with confirmed Pelvic Inflammatory Disease (PID), attending some hospitals in Abuja, Nigeria for detection of bacterial pathogens based on cultural and biochemical characterisation tests. Antibiogram was also conducted on the identified bacterial isolates. Results: Out of the 100 samples analysed, 43% yielded pure cultures of bacterial isolates, 2% yielded mixed cultures while no bacterial growths were recorded from the remaining 55% samples. Organisms encountered were Staphylococcus aureus (16%), Escherichia coli (10%), Streptococcus faecalis (8%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (4%), Streptococcus pyogenes (3%), Klebsiella pneumoniae (3%), Proteus rettgeri (2%) and Proteus mirabilis (1%). The highest percentage occurrence of pathogenic isolates was observed in polygamous married patients (90%). The age group most affected falls within the mean age 30.5 years (68%) while the least affected group falls within the mean age 40.5 years (5%). There was a significant difference in the acquisition of PID in relation to marital status (P 0.05). Antibiogram patterns of pathogenic isolates revealed varied resistance to most of the antibiotics employed. Cefotaxime (a new generation cephalosporin antibiotic) was established in this study as the best antimicrobial agent for treatment of PID due to Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria isolated from the women examined. Conclusion: In conclusion, Pelvic inflammatory disease is a major health problem in developed or developing countries of the world. PID is not a notifiable disease, as accurate statistics on disease prevalence are rarely available. There is therefore no doubt thousands of young women have salpingitis every year and their sheer number makes it an important health problem. PID hence can be said to be a very serious complication of sexually transmitted disease which should be critically and promptly handled by healthcare providers. The right type sample should be aseptically collected and be appropriately handled for laboratory investigation. Treatment of PID should be initiated as soon as the presumptive diagnosis has been made. Immediate administration of antibiotics has been effective in the long-term sequelae associated with PID, especially new generation antibiotics, such as cefotaxime as recorded in this study

Using antenatal care as a platform for malaria surveillance data collection: study protocol

BACKGROUND: While many malaria-endemic countries have health management information systems that can measure and report malaria trends in a timely manner, these routine systems have limitations. Periodic community cross-sectional household surveys are used to estimate malaria prevalence and intervention coverage but lack geographic granularity and are resource intensive. Incorporating malaria testing for all women at their first antenatal care (ANC) visit (i.e., ANC1) could provide a more timely and granular source of data for monitoring trends in malaria burden and intervention coverage. This article describes a protocol designed to assess if ANC-based surveillance could be a pragmatic tool to monitor malaria. METHODS: This is an observational, cross-sectional study conducted in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia. Pregnant women attending ANC1 in selected health facilities will be tested for malaria infection by rapid diagnostic test and administered a brief questionnaire to capture key indicators of malaria control intervention coverage and care-seeking behaviour. In each location, contemporaneous cross-sectional household surveys will be leveraged to assess correlations between estimates obtained using each method, and the use of ANC data as a tool to track trends in malaria burden and intervention coverage will be validated. RESULTS: This study will assess malaria prevalence at ANC1 aggregated at health facility and district levels, and by gravidity relative to current pregnancy (i.e., gravida 1, gravida 2, and gravida 3 +). ANC1 malaria prevalence will be presented as monthly trends. Additionally, correlation between ANC1 and household survey-derived estimates of malaria prevalence, bed net ownership and use, and care-seeking will be assessed. CONCLUSION: ANC1-based surveillance has the potential to provide a cost-effective, localized measure of malaria prevalence that is representative of the general population and useful for tracking monthly changes in parasite prevalence, as well as providing population-representative estimates of intervention coverage and care-seeking behavior. This study will evaluate the representativeness of these measures and collect information on operational feasibility, usefulness for programmatic decision-making, and potential for scale-up of malaria ANC1 surveillance

An explainable model of host genetic interactions linked to COVID-19 severity

We employed a multifaceted computational strategy to identify the genetic factors contributing to increased risk of severe COVID-19 infection from a Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) dataset of a cohort of 2000 Italian patients. We coupled a stratified k-fold screening, to rank variants more associated with severity, with the training of multiple supervised classifiers, to predict severity based on screened features. Feature importance analysis from tree-based models allowed us to identify 16 variants with the highest support which, together with age and gender covariates, were found to be most predictive of COVID-19 severity. When tested on a follow-up cohort, our ensemble of models predicted severity with high accuracy (ACC = 81.88%; AUCROC = 96%; MCC = 61.55%). Our model recapitulated a vast literature of emerging molecular mechanisms and genetic factors linked to COVID-19 response and extends previous landmark Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS). It revealed a network of interplaying genetic signatures converging on established immune system and inflammatory processes linked to viral infection response. It also identified additional processes cross-talking with immune pathways, such as GPCR signaling, which might offer additional opportunities for therapeutic intervention and patient stratification. Publicly available PheWAS datasets revealed that several variants were significantly associated with phenotypic traits such as “Respiratory or thoracic disease”, supporting their link with COVID-19 severity outcome

Brucellosis as an Emerging Threat in Developing Economies:Lessons from Nigeria

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, has a large proportion of the world's poor livestock keepers, and is a hotspot for neglected zoonoses. A review of the 127 accessible publications on brucellosis in Nigeria reveals only scant and fragmented evidence on its spatial and temporal distribution in different epidemiological contexts. The few bacteriological studies conducted demonstrate the existence of Brucella abortus in cattle and sheep, but evidence for B. melitensis in small ruminants is dated and unclear. The bulk of the evidence consists of seroprevalence studies, but test standardization and validation are not always adequately described, and misinterpretations exist with regard to sensitivity and/or specificity and ability to identify the infecting Brucella species. Despite this, early studies suggest that although brucellosis was endemic in extensive nomadic systems, seroprevalence was low, and brucellosis was not perceived as a real burden; recent studies, however, may reflect a changing trend. Concerning human brucellosis, no studies have identified the Brucella species and most reports provide only serological evidence of contact with Brucella in the classical risk groups; some suggest brucellosis misdiagnoses as malaria or other febrile conditions. The investigation of a severe outbreak that occurred in the late 1970s describes the emergence of animal and human disease caused by the settling of previously nomadic populations during the Sahelian drought. There appears to be an increasing risk of re-emergence of brucellosis in sub-Saharan Africa, as a result of the co-existence of pastoralist movements and the increase of intensive management resulting from growing urbanization and food demand. Highly contagious zoonoses like brucellosis pose a threat with far-reaching social and political consequences