Rethinking Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in Africa: The Dilemma of Nation-Building in Nigeria

After over fifty years of independence, many African states are steeped in the crisis of nation-building. Many have either witnessed sectarian violent conflict or are currently going through one. This has impacted negatively on socio-economic development across the continent. With many African states either failing or at the verge of failing, the future of nation-building in Africa appears not only bleak but also gravitating towards a justification of the thesis of colonisation that Africans are incapable of developing state systems without the intervention of the outsider – the West. Some scholars have blamed territorial nationalism for the nation-building deficit in Africa. Nigeria, the most populous nation of blacks in the world, is a typical illustration of a state currently steeped in the crisis of nation-building in Africa. This study interrogates her nation-building experience with a view to locating the roots of the problem and suggesting possible ways of fixing it. It finds that at the heart of the crisis of nation-building is the absence of an enabling political ideology. The study argues that the ideologies of nationalism and Pan-Africanism are not necessarily antithetical but mutually reinforcing. Consequently, the failure of nation-building in Africa as illustrated by the existential reality of Nigeria is the failure to realize the complementarities of nationalism and Pan-Africanism as ideologies of nation-building. It is recommended therefore that Nigeria and other African states should adopt Pan-Africanism as their political ideology as a way out of the crisis of nation-building in the twenty-first century. Keywords: Pan-Africanism, nationalism, ideology, nation-building, Nigeria, Afric

Economic Integration, Democracy and Regional Security in the Post-Military ECOWAS: Reflecting on Nigeria’s Experience in the Twenty-First Century

The post-military West Africa has rubbished Western development theories that assume that economic integration and democracy are prerequisites for the transformation of African nation-states. This study interrogates the nexus between democracy, economic integration and regional security in West Africa within the framework of ECOWAS. It finds that the degenerating regional security has direct correlation with weak regional economic integration and the return of democracy. The study, therefore, concludes that the deficits in democratic governance and economic integration significantly contribute to the causation and escalation of insecurity in ECOWAS member-states and the sub-region. Finally, it recommends a radical revision of the social basis of economic integration and democracy in a manner that strengthens institutions and structures of ECOWAS to attain the goal of regional security. Nigeria must demonstrate exceptional capabilities to provide the leadership necessary for the attainment of this objective in the twenty-first century. Keywords: Democracy; Economic Integration; Regional Security; ECOWAS; Post-Military; Nigeria; West Africa

Estimating entropies from molecular dynamics simulations

The methods to compute the excess entropy and the entropy of solvation using liquid water as a test system were studied. The accuracy and convergence behavior of five methods based on thermodynamic integration and perturbation techniques was evaluated. Through the thermodynamic integration accurate entropy differences were obtained in which many copies of a solute were desolvated. Only two methods yield useful results, the calculation of solute-solvent entropy through thermodynamic integration and the calculation of solvation entropy through the temperature derivative of the corresponding free-energy difference, when one solute molecule is involved

Effects of Mega Dose Micronutrient Supplementation On Serum Zinc, Retinol and Immune Status of Adult Males and Females Diagnosed with and Without HIV, Malaria and TB in Western Kenya – An Unpublished Perspective as at The Year 2004

Background: The role of micronutrients in management of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB remains poorly understood worldwide. Objectives: To assess differences in mega dose nutritional management between HIV-seronegative and seropositive adult males and females diagnosed with HIV at Voluntary Testing and Counseling Centers (VCT) in Western Kenya. Methods: This was a randomized controlled study in which 90 subjects were recruited on the basis of an HIV-seropositive result from a voluntary and counseling center (VCT) using rapid HIV test kits. They were evaluated at baseline and every 4 weeks for 3 months to establish their clinical, biochemical and immunological status. After 12 weeks, 74 clients were still in the study, 9 were lost to follow-up while 7 had died. Of the 74 who completed the study, confirmation of baseline HIV status by ELIZA revealed that 63 were HIV-seropositive while 11 were HIV-seronegative despite losing spouses to HIV/AIDS. Correlations between parameters at baseline, during and after intervention were determined; Spearman’s Rho Coefficients indicating the level of significance. Group means were used to compare continuous data while categorical data was compared using Chi-Square. Results: Significant reductions in the clinical manifestation of disease were noted in the cohort after intervention for 12 weeks. Despite the large and different micronutrient dosages used between the two study arms, the only difference by arm of intervention was in the serum vitamin E level at 4 weeks which was much higher in arm 1 than it was in arm 2 of the study (p = 0.005). This might have been occasioned by the significant repletion of zinc in both arms, probably because use of citric acid in both arms improved zinc up-take from the supplements, food and/or reserves enabling other nutrients to be appropriately restored in both arms, these supporting the decision to pool the study arms and compare differences by HIV-seronegative and seropositive, notwithstanding the small sample sizes recruited but which nonetheless were our study limitation. Independent of the intervention arms, reduction of viral load by more than 0.5 log10 copies/ml correlated with higher baseline optical densities of HIV antibodies (P = 0.016) and higher baseline viral loads (p = 0.0001). A lower optical density of HIV antibodies at baseline correlated with higher serum zinc levels at 12 weeks (p = 0.008) and a lower Body Mass Index (BMI) at baseline (p = 0.029). Independent of the arm of study, a significant increase in CD4 cells counts post intervention correlated with lower baseline viral loads (p = 0.010), lower baseline NK cell counts (p = 0.007

The Correlation of In Vivo MR Spectroscopy and Ex Vivo 2-Hydroxyglutarate Concentration for the Prediction of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation Status in Diffuse Glioma

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutation status is an important biomarker in the glioma-defining subtype and corresponding prognosis. This study proposes a straightforward method for 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) quantification by MR spectroscopy for IDH mutation status detection and directly compares in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy with ex vivo 2-HG concentration measured in resected tumor tissue. Eleven patients with suspected lower-grade glioma (ten IDH1; one IDHwt) were prospectively included. Preoperatively, 3T point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) was acquired; 2-HG was measured as the percentage elevation of Glx3 (the sum of 2-HG and Glx) compared to Glx4. IDH mutation status was assessed by immunochemistry or direct sequencing. The ex vivo 2-HG concentration was determined in surgically obtained tissue specimens using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Pearson correlation was used for assessing the correlation between in vivo MR spectroscopy and ex vivo 2-HG concentration. MR spectroscopy was positive for 2-HG in eight patients, all of whom had IDH1 tumors. A strong correlation (r = 0.80, p = 0.003) between 2-HG MR spectroscopy and the ex vivo 2-HG concentration was found. This study shows in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy can non-invasively determine IDH status in glioma and demonstrates a strong correlation with ex vivo 2-HG concentration in patients with lower-grade glioma. </p

Mild Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Is Marked by Systemic Oxidative Stress:A Pilot Study

Oxidative stress has been implicated to play a critical role in the pathophysiology of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and may therefore be considered as a relevant therapeutic target. Serum free thiols (R-SH, sulfhydryl groups) comprise a robust marker of systemic oxidative stress, since they are readily oxidized by reactive oxygen species (ROS). In this study, serum free thiol concentrations were measured in hospitalized and non-hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and healthy controls and their associations with relevant clinical parameters were examined. Serum free thiol concentrations were measured colorimetrically (Ellman’s method) in 29 non-hospitalized COVID-19 subjects and 30 age-, sex-, and body-mass index (BMI)-matched healthy controls and analyzed for associations with clinical and biochemical disease parameters. Additional free thiol measurements were performed on seven serum samples from COVID-19 subjects who required hospitalization to examine their correlation with disease severity. Non-hospitalized subjects with COVID-19 had significantly lower concentrations of serum free thiols compared to healthy controls (p = 0.014), indicating oxidative stress. Serum free thiols were positively associated with albumin (St. β = 0.710, p < 0.001) and inversely associated with CRP (St. β = −0.434, p = 0.027), and showed significant discriminative ability to differentiate subjects with COVID-19 from healthy controls (AUC = 0.69, p = 0.011), which was slightly higher than the discriminative performance of CRP concentrations regarding COVID-19 diagnosis (AUC = 0.66, p = 0.042). This study concludes that systemic oxidative stress is increased in patients with COVID-19 compared with healthy controls. This opens an avenue of treatment options since free thiols are amenable to therapeutic modulation

The Correlation of In Vivo MR Spectroscopy and Ex Vivo 2-Hydroxyglutarate Concentration for the Prediction of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation Status in Diffuse Glioma

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutation status is an important biomarker in the glioma-defining subtype and corresponding prognosis. This study proposes a straightforward method for 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) quantification by MR spectroscopy for IDH mutation status detection and directly compares in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy with ex vivo 2-HG concentration measured in resected tumor tissue. Eleven patients with suspected lower-grade glioma (ten IDH1; one IDHwt) were prospectively included. Preoperatively, 3T point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) was acquired; 2-HG was measured as the percentage elevation of Glx3 (the sum of 2-HG and Glx) compared to Glx4. IDH mutation status was assessed by immunochemistry or direct sequencing. The ex vivo 2-HG concentration was determined in surgically obtained tissue specimens using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Pearson correlation was used for assessing the correlation between in vivo MR spectroscopy and ex vivo 2-HG concentration. MR spectroscopy was positive for 2-HG in eight patients, all of whom had IDH1 tumors. A strong correlation (r = 0.80, p = 0.003) between 2-HG MR spectroscopy and the ex vivo 2-HG concentration was found. This study shows in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy can non-invasively determine IDH status in glioma and demonstrates a strong correlation with ex vivo 2-HG concentration in patients with lower-grade glioma. </p

The Correlation of In Vivo MR Spectroscopy and Ex Vivo 2-Hydroxyglutarate Concentration for the Prediction of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation Status in Diffuse Glioma

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutation status is an important biomarker in the glioma-defining subtype and corresponding prognosis. This study proposes a straightforward method for 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) quantification by MR spectroscopy for IDH mutation status detection and directly compares in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy with ex vivo 2-HG concentration measured in resected tumor tissue. Eleven patients with suspected lower-grade glioma (ten IDH1; one IDHwt) were prospectively included. Preoperatively, 3T point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) was acquired; 2-HG was measured as the percentage elevation of Glx3 (the sum of 2-HG and Glx) compared to Glx4. IDH mutation status was assessed by immunochemistry or direct sequencing. The ex vivo 2-HG concentration was determined in surgically obtained tissue specimens using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Pearson correlation was used for assessing the correlation between in vivo MR spectroscopy and ex vivo 2-HG concentration. MR spectroscopy was positive for 2-HG in eight patients, all of whom had IDH1 tumors. A strong correlation (r = 0.80, p = 0.003) between 2-HG MR spectroscopy and the ex vivo 2-HG concentration was found. This study shows in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy can non-invasively determine IDH status in glioma and demonstrates a strong correlation with ex vivo 2-HG concentration in patients with lower-grade glioma. </p

Distinct amyloid-beta and tau-associated microglia profiles in Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent form of dementia and is characterized by abnormal extracellular aggregates of amyloid-beta and intraneuronal hyperphosphorylated tau tangles and neuropil threads. Microglia, the tissue-resident macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS), are important for CNS homeostasis and implicated in AD pathology. In amyloid mouse models, a phagocytic/activated microglia phenotype has been identified. How increasing levels of amyloid-beta and tau pathology affect human microglia transcriptional profiles is unknown. Here, we performed snRNAseq on 482,472 nuclei from non-demented control brains and AD brains containing only amyloid-beta plaques or both amyloid-beta plaques and tau pathology. Within the microglia population, distinct expression profiles were identified of which two were AD pathology-associated. The phagocytic/activated AD1-microglia population abundance strongly correlated with tissue amyloid-beta load and localized to amyloid-beta plaques. The AD2-microglia abundance strongly correlated with tissue phospho-tau load and these microglia were more abundant in samples with overt tau pathology. This full characterization of human disease-associated microglia phenotypes provides new insights in the pathophysiological role of microglia in AD and offers new targets for microglia-state-specific therapeutic strategies

The Correlation of In Vivo MR Spectroscopy and Ex Vivo 2-Hydroxyglutarate Concentration for the Prediction of Isocitrate Dehydrogenase Mutation Status in Diffuse Glioma

Isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH) mutation status is an important biomarker in the glioma-defining subtype and corresponding prognosis. This study proposes a straightforward method for 2-hydroxyglutarate (2-HG) quantification by MR spectroscopy for IDH mutation status detection and directly compares in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy with ex vivo 2-HG concentration measured in resected tumor tissue. Eleven patients with suspected lower-grade glioma (ten IDH1; one IDHwt) were prospectively included. Preoperatively, 3T point-resolved spectroscopy (PRESS) was acquired; 2-HG was measured as the percentage elevation of Glx3 (the sum of 2-HG and Glx) compared to Glx4. IDH mutation status was assessed by immunochemistry or direct sequencing. The ex vivo 2-HG concentration was determined in surgically obtained tissue specimens using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Pearson correlation was used for assessing the correlation between in vivo MR spectroscopy and ex vivo 2-HG concentration. MR spectroscopy was positive for 2-HG in eight patients, all of whom had IDH1 tumors. A strong correlation (r = 0.80, p = 0.003) between 2-HG MR spectroscopy and the ex vivo 2-HG concentration was found. This study shows in vivo 2-HG MR spectroscopy can non-invasively determine IDH status in glioma and demonstrates a strong correlation with ex vivo 2-HG concentration in patients with lower-grade glioma. </p