Doe productivity indices and sire effects of a heterogeneous rabbit population in South-western Nigeria

Doe productivity indices are important in evaluating rabbit population since it influences the efficiency and profitability of rabbit production for small-holders and commercial rabbit production. Rabbits for this study were obtained from heterogeneous populations reared in south-western Nigeria, and a total of fifty-six adult rabbits (6 months old) comprising of 49 does and 7 sires were randomly allocated into sire families. Reproductive data were taken from each breeding doe and recorded for each sire family. The reproductive data obtained include annual productivity indices for each doe and sire family at birth, weaning and at week 12 post-partum. The total number of kits delivered at each kindling were recorded as the litter size at birth , the numbers weaned/doe/year were derived by multiplying the average litter size at weaning by number of litters/doe/year. The numbers of fryers/doe/year were obtained by multiplying average number weaned/doe by number of litters/doe/year multiplied by post weaning survival. Annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year were obtained by multiplying total number of fryers/doe/year with live market weight (kg). Kilogram meat/doe/year were derived from the product of annual fryer yield (kg)/doe/year and the dressing percentage (0.55). Descriptive and inferential statistics were computed using SAS® 2004. Results showed that, the long kindling interval (93 to 115 days ) between two consecutive litters affected overall numerical doe productivity with a range of 6 to 27, 3 to 21 and 3 to 18 kits per doe/year at kindling, weaning and 12th week of age respectively. Annual fryer yield/doe/year was 20.24 Kg and the projected Kg meat/doe/year was 11.13 Kg. Mortality was highest in the first two weeks of life and continued to occur throughout the period of the study though at varying degrees across sire families. There was significant sire effect (P<0.05) in litter size at weaning and kindling- interval in the sire families. It was concluded that, the major factors affecting doe productivity indices in this population were low litter size at birth, long kindling interval and pre-weaning mortality. Thus, future genetic improvement programmes targeted towards productivity for this rabbit population must consider selection for traits which include increased litter size at birth, short kindling interval and low pre-weaning mortality in the maternal lines while litter size at weaning and kindling interval must be considered for the paternal lines

Exercise-induced bronchospasm and its associated factors among secondary school students in an urban community

Introduction: Exercise-induced bronchospasm (EIB) is a transient narrowing of the airway that usually occurs shortly after exercise. It occurs commonly in people with asthma; however EIB has also been reported in individuals without clinical asthma. The study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with EIB among secondary school students. Methods: It was a descriptive cross-sectional school- based study involving secondary school students aged between 10 and 17 years without previous history of asthma. Subjects undertook a six-minute running test, spirometry was done and the best of three FEV1 readings were obtained pre-exercise, at 5, 10, 15 and 30 minutes post exercise. The diagnosis of EIB was made when there was a decrease in FEV1 of ≥10% from baseline after exercise. Results: Of the 265participants studied, 34 (12.8%) had EIB at 5 minutes post exercise. EIB was significantly more in the 10–13 years age group (χ2 = 18.416, p = <0.001), there was no significant gender difference. The presence of allergic (vernal) conjunctivitis and rhinitis were both significantly associated with the development of EIB (χ2 = 13.574, p < 0.001 and 0.011 respectively). There was no significant association with previous history of wheeze and exposure to indoor air pollution such as cooking with biomass fuel and parental cigarette smoking. Conclusion: EIB exist among non-asthmatic school children, and it is more frequent in the early adolescent age-group. Students with allergic conjunctivitis and rhinitis are more likely to manifest exercise induced bronchospasm

Giardia Infection in Recently Acclimatized Kalahari Red Goats in Nigeria

Prevalence of Giardia duodenalis in recently acquired and acclimatized Kalahari Red goats in Nigeria was determined using a commercially produced enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit. Giardia duodenalis coproantigens were detected in 46.9% of the faecal samples collected from 98 Kalahari Red goats. The highest (58.1%) and lowest rates (38.2%) were recorded in pre-weaned goat kids up to three months of age and adults goats over one year of age respectively. Infection was higher in females (56.8%) and diarrhoeic goats (75.0%) than males (38.9%) and non-diarrhoeic goats (45.7%) respectively. No significant difference (p>0.05) was observed in the infection rates among age categories, sexes and stool consistencies of the goats. The results of this study showed a high prevalence of Giardia infection in the Kalahari Red goat herd which may imply that they are susceptible to giardiasis if managed under conditions that may facilitate transmission from infected indigenous animals.Key words: ELISA, Giardia, goat, Kalahari Red, Nigeria

Effect of Manure Application on Herbage Yield, Nutritive Value and Performance of Wad Sheep Fed Panicum maximum

Effect of types of manure on herbage yield, nutritive value and performance of WAD Sheep fed native Panicum maximum was investigated. The experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design with each plot replicated thrice. Poultry manure and sheep - goat manure were applied through broadcasting to an established Panicum maximum stand to supply 200kgN/ha and 0kgN/ha (control). Grass herbage harvested from experiment plot were fed as sole diets to West African dwarf sheep to determine feed intake (g/h/d), nutrient digestibility (%) and weight gain (g/h/d). Results showed that Panicum maximum fertilized with poultry manure produced (P<0.05) higher values for biomass yield, number of tillers, tiller height, leaf length and leaf width. The chemical composition of Panicum maximum fertilized with poultry manure produced (P<0.05) higher CP and GE compared to sheep-goat manure. Similar trend of result was observed on mineral composition of Panicum maximum fertilized with poultry manure produced (P<0.05) higher values for P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Zn and Cu compared to sheep-goat manure. The feed intake (g/h/d), nutrient digestibility (%) and weight gain of the animals fed Panicum maximum fertilized with poultry manure produced higher values compared to its counterpart. It was concluded based on data obtained from this study that poultry manure application will promote higher yield and nutritive value for the Panicum maximum. Animals fed with this as sole diet and as short feeding regime experienced high weight gain. Keywords: Poultry manure, sheep - goat manure, herbage yield, Panicum maximum, WAD Shee

Novel <i>GREM1 </i>Variations in Sub-Saharan African Patients With Cleft Lip and/or Cleft Palate

Objective: Cleft lip and/or cleft palate (CL/P) are congenital anomalies of the face and have multifactorial etiology, with both environmental and genetic risk factors playing crucial roles. Though at least 40 loci have attained genomewide significant association with nonsyndromic CL/P, these loci largely reside in noncoding regions of the human genome, and subsequent resequencing studies of neighboring candidate genes have revealed only a limited number of etiologic coding variants. The present study was conducted to identify etiologic coding variants in GREM1, a locus that has been shown to be largely associated with cleft of both lip and soft palate. Patients and Method: We resequenced DNA from 397 sub-Saharan Africans with CL/P and 192 controls using Sanger sequencing. Following analyses of the sequence data, we observed 2 novel coding variants in GREM1. These variants were not found in the 192 African controls and have never been previously reported in any public genetic variant database that includes more than 5000 combined African and African American controls or from the CL/P literature. Results: The novel variants include p.Pro164Ser in an individual with soft palate cleft only and p.Gly61Asp in an individual with bilateral cleft lip and palate. The proband with the p.Gly61Asp GREM1 variant is a van der Woude (VWS) case who also has an etiologic variant in IRF6 gene. Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that there is low number of etiologic coding variants in GREM1, confirming earlier suggestions that variants in regulatory elements may largely account for the association between this locus and CL/P. </jats:sec

Optimal Model for Path Loss Predictions using Feed-Forward Neural Networks

[EN] In this paper, an optimal model is developed for path loss predictions using the Feed-Forward Neural Network (FFNN) algorithm. Drive test measurements were carried out in Canaanland Ota, Nigeria and Ilorin, Nigeria to obtain path loss data at varying distances from 11 different 1,800 MHz base station transmitters. Single-layered FFNNs were trained with normalized terrain profile data (longitude, latitude, elevation, altitude, clutter height) and normalized distances to produce the corresponding path loss values based on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm. The number of neurons in the hidden layer was varied (1-50) to determine the Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model with the best prediction accuracy. The performance of the ANN models was evaluated based on different metrics: Mean Absolute error (MAE), Mean Squared Error (MSE), Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), standard deviation, and regression coefficient (R). Results of the machine learning processes show that the FNN architecture adopting a tangent activation function and 48 hidden neurons produced the least prediction error, with MAE, MSE, RMSE, standard deviation, and R values of 4.21 dB, 30.99 dB, 5.56 dB, 5.56 dB, and 0.89, respectively. Regarding generalization ability, the predictions of the optimal ANN model yielded MAE, MSE, RMSE, standard deviation, and R values of 4.74 dB, 39.38 dB, 6.27 dB, 6.27 dB, and 0.86, respectively, when tested with new data not previously included in the training process. Compared to the Hata, COST 231, ECC-33, and Egli models, the developed ANN model performed better in terms of prediction accuracy and generalization ability.This work was supported by Covenant University [grant number CUCRID-SMARTCU-000343].Popoola, SI.; Adetiba, E.; Atayero, AA.; Faruk, N.; Tavares De Araujo Cesariny Calafate, CM. (2018). Optimal Model for Path Loss Predictions using Feed-Forward Neural Networks. 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