Failed induction in a rudimentary horn of uterus with sacculation: A case report

Pregnancy in a non-communicating horn of the uterus, though rare should always be suspected in cases of failed ripening/induction of labour. This case revealed the significant morbidity that such patients may go through in vain attempts to deliver them vaginally. Despite the repeat Ultrasound scan and Doppler interrogation, the fact that the foetus was in a blind uterine horn was missed. This can be avoided by using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). She eventually had lower segment caesarean section (LSCS) and laterre-exploration, perforation of uterine septum due to clot retention as well as massive blood transfusion before she could recover fully

Knowledge, attitude and practice of childhood immunization among mothers of under-fives in Kosofe Local Council Development Area, Lagos State

Background and Objectives: Vaccine preventable diseases cause significant morbidity and mortality among children in developing countries despite the availability of vaccines. This study determined childhood immunization uptake and associated factors among mothers of underfives in Kosofe, Lagos State.Methodology: This was a descriptive cross sectional study among mothers of children less than five years of age who resided in Kosofe LCDA of Lagos State, Nigeria. It was conducted between April and June, 2013. A multi-stage sampling technique was used to select the 300 mothers who participated in the study. Data was collected with structured, pre-tested, interviewer-administered questionnaire and analyzed with Epi info version 3.5.1. Level of significance set for analysis was a 5% significance level.Results: Only a small proportion of respondents (17%) had good knowledge of childhood immunization; their attitude towards childhood immunization was generally positive (96.6%) and their immunization uptake was good (88.1%). The prevalence of individuals who had missed their immunizations was 14%. The commonest immunizations missed were measles and yellow fever. Higher maternal educational level, Christian religion and better knowledge of immunization had significant, positive influence on the uptake of childhood immunization.Conclusion: Mothers had poor knowledge but high uptake of childhood immunization. A high rate of incomplete immunisations was also observed. We recommend health education as well as female education to improve maternal knowledge and further improve the uptake of immunization. Short message service (SMS) reminders may also be considered to reduce incidence of incomplete immunization.Keywords: childhood immunization, uptake, under-fives, care-givers, Lago

Infant feeding practices in the first six months of life among HIV positive mothers attending Teaching Hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria

Background: In the absence of any interventions, 5-20% of infants born to HIVinfected women will be infected through breastfeeding.Objectives: This study determined the pattern of infant feeding in the first six months among HIV positive women attending Teaching Hospitals in Lagos.Methods: It was a cross sectional descriptive study. All mothers who were registered between July and September 2012 in the ‘Prevention of mother to child transmission’ (PMTCT) clinic were interviewed (n=200). Pre-tested interviewer administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data and analysis was done using Epi-info software. Chi-square and Fischer exact tests were used to determine associations and p-value was set at 0.05.Results: Many of the respondents, 46.5% (n=93) were within the age range of 30 – 34. Exclusive formula feeding (EFF) was practiced by majority 73.5% (n=147) of the respondents, 18.5% (n=37) practiced Exclusive Breastfeeding (EBF) while 8% (n=16) practiced mixed feeding. Poor knowledge of infant feeding options and feeling that EBF was not enough in the first six months of life were associated with EFF (p = 0.04) and mixed feeding (p = 0.01) respectively.Conclusion: Although majority of the respondents practiced exclusive formula feeding, a sizeable proportion still practiced mixed feeding. Strengthening of counseling sessions at PMTCT clinic, encouragement of exclusive breastfeeding with antiretroviral drugs would help reduce the prevalence of mixed feeding and hence the risk of mother to child transmission of HIV.Key Words: Infant feedingpractices, Mothers, HIV Positiv

Crystallographic Structure, Intermolecular Packing Energetics, Crystal Morphology and Surface Chemistry of Salmeterol Xinafoate (Form I).

Single crystals of salmeterol xinafoate (form I), prepared from slow cooled supersaturated propan-2-ol solutions, crystallise in a triclinic P‾1 symmetry with two closely related independent salt pairs within the asymmetric unit, with an approximately double unit cell volume compared to the previously published crystal structure(1). Synthonic analysis of the bulk intermolecular packing confirms the similarity in packing energetics between the two salt pairs. The strongest synthons, as expected, are dominated by coulombic interactions. Morphological prediction reveals a plate-like morphology, dominated by the {001}, {010} and {100} surfaces, consistent with experimentally grown crystals. Though surface chemistry of the slow growing {001} face comprises of large sterically hindering phenyl groups, weaker coulombic interactions still prevail from the alcohol group present on the phenyl and hydroxymethyl groups. The surface chemistry of the faster growing {010} and {100} faces are dominated by the significantly stronger cation/anion interactions occurring between the carboxylate and protonated secondary ammonium ion groups. The importance of understanding the cohesive/adhesive nature of the crystal surfaces of an API, with respect to their interaction with other API crystals and excipients and how that may impact formulation design is highlighted

Searching for O2_2 in the SMC:Constraints on Oxygen Chemistry at Low Metallicities

We present a 39 h integration with the Odin satellite on the ground-state 118.75 GHz line of O2 towards the region of strongest molecular emission in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Our 3sigma upper limit to the O2 integrated intensity of <0.049 K km/s in a 9'(160 pc) diameter beam corresponds to an upper limit on the O2/H2 abundance ratio of <1.3E-6. Although a factor of 20 above the best limit on the O2 abundance obtained for a Galactic source, our result has interesting implications for understanding oxygen chemistry at sub-solar metal abundances. We compare our abundance limit to a variety of astrochemical models and find that, at low metallicities, the low O2 abundance is most likely produced by the effects of photo-dissociation on molecular cloud structure. Freeze-out of molecules onto dust grains may also be consistent with the observed abundance limit, although such models have not yet been run at sub-solar initial metallicities.Comment: 4 pages, accepted to A&A Letter

On the flexibility of the design of Multiple Try Metropolis schemes

The Multiple Try Metropolis (MTM) method is a generalization of the classical Metropolis-Hastings algorithm in which the next state of the chain is chosen among a set of samples, according to normalized weights. In the literature, several extensions have been proposed. In this work, we show and remark upon the flexibility of the design of MTM-type methods, fulfilling the detailed balance condition. We discuss several possibilities and show different numerical results