Counseling and Client Provider-Interactions as Related To Family Planning Services in Nigeria

Family planning is an essential service in medicine. It is a means of promoting good health and population control. In view of the importance of family planning, this study examined counseling and client provider-interactions in family planning centers in Nigeria. The study was a cross-sectional design and sixty eight pharmaceutical and eighty five family planning centers were randomly selected from the Northern and Southern parts of Nigeria. Quality of Care for Integrated Services Tool and Simulated Client Method were used to obtain relevant data. It was found that, 58.8% of the sampled family planning centers received their guests (stimulated clients) in a friendly and polite manner. The essential prerequisite of first demanding a prescription from first time users was ignored by 41.18% of the centers. Scheduled follow-up appointments were found to be necessary in 76.47% of the health centers and almost all the health care providers at the Family Planning centers referred clients to other facilities for unavailable services. The findings stressed the need for health facility owners and pharmaceutical shop attendants to acquire training in counseling and commodities management. Keywords: Counseling, Client Provider - Interactions, Family Planning service

A slow mode wave as a possible source of Pi 2 and associated particle precipitation: a case study

International audienceAn intensification of auroral luminosity referred to as an auroral break-up often accompanies the onset of geomagnetic pulsation (Pi 2) at the dip-equator. One such auroral break-up occurred at 2239 UT on 16 June, 1986, being accompanied by weak substorm activity (AE~50 nT) which was recorded in all-sky image of Syowa Station, Antarctica (66.2°S, 71.8°E in geomagnetic coordinates). The associated Pi 2 magnetic pulsation was detected by a fluxgate magnetometer in the afternoon sector at the dip-equator (Huancayo, Peru; 1.44°N, 355.9° in geomagnetic coordinates; 12.1°S, 75.2°W in geographic coordinates; L=1.00). In spite of the large separation of the two stations in longitude and latitude, the auroral break-up and subsequent luminosity modulation were seen to be correlated with the wave form of the ground Pi 2 pulsation. This occurred in such a way that the luminosity maximum was seen to occur at the phase of maximum amplitudes of Pi 2 wave form. We argue that the observed correlation could be interpreted as indicating a Pi 2-modulation of a field-aligned acceleration of the low energy electrons that may occur near the equator of the midnight magnetosphere

Paleoclimatic significance of microflora retrieved from Well ‘Y’, Western Niger Delta, Nigeria

Palynomorph species comprising 53 pollen, 7 spores, 2 algae and 6 dinoflagellate cysts were recovered from a section of well ‘Y’ located in the offshore western Niger Delta and were used for paleoclimatic deductions of the sediments. There was a dominance of the fresh water swamp species over the brackish, savannah and the rain forest types. Stratigraphically, four floral zones corresponding to inferred climatic units were identified. M2 floral zone, at the lower portion of the well, occurred between 8150 ft (2486 m) and 6440 ft (2147 m). It corresponded to wet and humid climate with periodic rainfall. M1 floral zone was between 6440 ft (1964 m) and4820 ft (1470 m) indicating a dry climatic phase in a high sea level stand. The P7 floral zone was also a humid climate in a sea level rising environment while the topmost floral zone between 4370 ft (1333 m) and3125 ft (953 m) was a fluctuating dry and wet climatic phase in a tidally influenced environment. A humid tropical climate characterised by alternation of dry and wet regimes occasioned by sea level changes and cyclic fluctuation in continental climatic condition is inferred from the analysed well that spanned through Late Miocene and Early Pliocene.Keywords: Floral zones; Niger Delta; Paleoclimate; Palynomorphs; spores; polle

Human Capital Development and Poverty in Nigeria, 1960 - 2009: An Econometric Assessment

This study examined the relationship between human capital development and poverty in Nigeria using data spanning 1960-2009. The human capital development variable was measured using conventional variables i.e. education and health, with government expenditures on education and health being used as the proxies. Other variables on  communication, transportation and utility were used as control. A readily available poverty measure, gross domestic product per capita was used to capture poverty status. This is based on the fact that poverty is mostly measured in monetary terms captured by income or consumption per capita or household in the absence of direct primary data observation. After carrying out the diagnostic tests, the cointegration analysis carried out proved that, to some extent, a cointegrating relationship exists between the poverty measure and human capital development indicators. However, the Granger causality estimation results show that both education and health expenditures are fundamental in reducing poverty level based on the uni-directional causality while no causality runs from poverty status to the indicators. Keywords: Poverty, Human Capital Development, Cointegration, Granger Causalit

ECB policy and Eurozone fragility: Was De Grauwe right?

Paul De Grauwe's Eurozone fragility hypothesis states that sovereign debt markets in a monetary union without a lender-of-last-resort are vulnerable to self-fulfilling dynamics fuelled by pessimistic investor sentiment that can trigger default. We test this contention by applying an eclectic methodology to a two-year window around Mario Draghi's “whatever-it-takes” pledge that can be understood as the implicit announcement of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program. A principal components analysis reveals that the perceived commonality in default risk among peripheral and core Eurozone sovereigns increased after the announcement. An event study reveals significant pre-announcement news transmission from Spain to Italy, France, Belgium and Austria that clearly dissipates post-announcement. Country-specific regressions of CDS spreads on systematic risk factors reveal frequent days of large adverse shocks affecting simultaneously those five Eurozone countries, but only during the pre-announcement period. Altogether these findings support the fragility hypothesis and endorse the OMT program

Domestic Banks As Lightning Rods? Home Bias and Information during the Eurozone Crisis

European banks have been criticized for holding excessive domestic government debt during the recent Eurozone crisis, which may have intensified the diabolic loop between sovereign and bank credit risks. By using a novel bank-level data set covering the entire timeline of the Eurozone crisis, I first reconfirm that the crisis led to the reallocation of sovereign debt from foreign to domestic banks. In contrast to the recent literature focusing only on sovereign debt, I show that the banks' private-sector exposures were (at least) equally affected by the rise in home bias. Consistent with this pattern, I propose a new debt reallocation channel based on informational frictions and show that the informationally closer foreign banks increase their relative exposures when the sovereign risk rises. The effect of informational closeness is economically meaningful and robust to the use of different information measures and controls for alternative channels of sovereign debt reallocation

Diagnosis, prescription drug use and potentially inappropriate medications among adults aged ≥50 years in a Nigerian Hospital

Older adults are peculiar in diagnosis, medicine use and medication related problems. To categorize diagnosis, evaluate drug use and determine potentially inappropriate medications among ≥50 year olds, a 12 months retrospective audit was conducted using 300 medical files of adults aged 50 years and above attending outpatient clinics of Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital Sagamu, Ogun State, Nigeria. Information on sex, age, occupation, diagnosis and medicines prescribed was retrieved consecutively. Statistical Package for Social Science Version 20 was used for frequencies. Diagnosis was categorized using the International Statistical Classification of Diseases Tenth Revision Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM). Potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) were evaluated using the 2012 American Geriatric Society Beers Criteria. A majority of encounters were females, 173 (57.6%); traders by occupation, 144 (48.2%) and 60-69 years old, 107 (35.6%). Based on ICD-10-CM, hypertension (I10) 53 (17.7%) and osteoarthritis (M17), 47 (15.7%), were the most prevalent. Diseases of the musculoskeletal system and connective tissue (M00-M99), 85 (28.3%), was the most occurring title. The average number of medicines was 1.99. Antihypertensives (65.3%) were the most prescribed medicines. Diazepam, 35 (11.5%), and naproxen, 15 (5%), were the most prescribed Potentially Inappropriate Medications. Although numerous diagnoses and co-morbidities were encountered, medicine use was adjudged optimal. It is recommended that benefits be weighed against risk before use of such medicines.Keywords: Categorize, Diagnosis, ICD-10-M, Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, OOUTH, Sagam

Parallel electric fields produced by ionospheric injection

It is well known that there exists a thin layer in the lower boundary of the ionosphere between altitudes of 80 and 140 km in which collisional ions and collisionless electrons mix. Local breakdown of charge neutrality may be initiated in this layer by electric fields from the magnetosphere as well as by electric fields generated there by the local neutral winds. The breakdown may be momentarily canceled by Pedersen currents, but complete neutralization is prevented because some ionospheric plasmas are released as outflows by parallel electric fields. Those parallel electric fields are produced by inherent plasma processes in the polar ionosphere and act as auroral drivers. A new scenario creating parallel potential gradients is proposed.</p

Effects of Moringa oleifera on the developing cerebrum of young wistar rats

The study evaluated the effects of moringa oleifeira on the histoarchitecture of the cerebral cortex, the body weight and brain weight of young wistar rats. Fifteen (15) young wistar rats of both sexes weighing 20-30g were used for this study. They were randomly assigned into three groups (A, B and C) of five rats each. Group A served as control and received distilled water, group B and C received 100 mg/kg and 200mg/kg of moringa oleifera respectively. Treatment lasted for a period of 6 weeks (orally). Rats were weighed and sacrificed under ketamine (30 mg/kg) anaesthesia. The cerebrum was harvested and fixed immediately in 10% formolcalcium, for further histological processing. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze data, followed by Newan-Keuls (SNK) for multiple comparisons. The results showed that there was significant increase in the feed intake of animals in groups B and C starting from the 4th week of administration. There was no significant difference in the relative brain weight and the mean weight of the rats in group B and C when compared with group A. Histological findings revealed that there was slight distortion in group B and more distortion in group C when compared with the normal histoarchitecture in control group A. The results obtained from this study showed that high doses of Moringa oleifera caused damage of some parts of histoarchitecture of the frontal cortex of developing wistarKey words: MORINGA OLEIFERA; Cerebrum; Frontal Corte