Histomophological Effect of Chronic Oral Consumption of Ethanolic Extract of Picralima Nitida (Akuamma) Seed on the Caudal Epidydimis of Adult Wistar Rats

Histomorphological effect of chronic consumption of ethanolic extract of Picralima nitida seed on the caudal Epididymis of adult albino wistar male rats was investigated using 20 male albino wistar rats; they were distributed into 5 rats in each group. Group 1 was the control group while groups 2 to group 4 were the experimental groups. Group 1 was given distilled water and normal rat feed, Group 2 was given 250mg/kg serving as low dose, group 3 was given 350mg/kg as middle dose and group 4 was given 450mg/kg as High dose of Picralima nitida seeds extract orally for 21 days. At the end of administration, the rats were sacrificed and Caudal Epidydidmis from all the groups were carefully dissected out, fixed immediately in Bouin’s fluid and sent to Laboratory for histopathological analysis. 2-3mm in thickness were section out, and re-fixed in neutral buffered formalin solution, processed to paraffin sections and cut at 5micron using Rotary microtome and evaluated under digital microscope. Result of histopathology showed normal cellular architecture of seminiferous tubules containing distinct Basal and Principal  cell, distinct area of interstitium, the  tubules were lined with Pseudo-stratified squamous epithelial cell with goblet cells enclosed in it are the spermatocytes stocked in the seminal fluid, there is no evidence of cellular abnormality seen. While in group 2 and 3 with Low and middle dose, there was no obvious cellular abnormality, though there is slight area of interstitial and tubular constriction as compared to control group and in group 4 (High dose), revealed cellular abnormality with evidence of cellular proliferation, abnormalities in the semniferous tubules, interstitium and epithelial lining as compared to control group. In conclusion, Picralima nitida seeds does not pose cellular abnormality at low dose level when it is consumed with cautions, however prolong intake at high concentration has deleterious and adverse effect on cytoarchitecture of caudal epidydimis of male Adult wistar rats. Keywords: Picralima nitida, Histopathology, wistar rat, and Caudal Epidydimis

Histomophological Study of the Effect of Ethanolic Extract of Nauclea latifolia on Neonatal Kidney

Histomorphological study of the effect of ethanolic leaf extract of Nauclea latifolia on neonatal kidney was investigated. 72 albino wistar rats consisting of 60 females and 12 males weighing between 100-273g were used for this study. This study was divided into 3 phases, each phase consisting of 4 groups (one control group and three experimental groups). LD50 was carried out to determine the doses represented as low dose (500mg/kg), middle dose (1000mg/kg) and high dose (1500mg/kg) of Nauclea latifolia leaf extract. In all the 3 phases, the control groups (1A, 2A and 3A) received 10% Tween 80. In phase 1, the experimental animals designated (1B, 1C and 1D) received, 500mg/kg, 1000mg/kg and 1500mg/kg of Nauclea latifolia respectively for 21 days before pregnancy. In phase 2, the experimental group animals designated (2B, 2C and 2D) received, 500mg/kg, 1000mg/kg and 1500mg/kg of Nauclea latifolia respectively for 21 days before pregnancy and 7th to 13th day of gestation. In phase 3, the experimental group animals designated (3B, 3C and 3D) received 500mg/kg, 1000mg/kg and 1500mg/kg of Nauclea latifolia respectively from 7th to 13th day of gestation and the litters were sacrificed within 48 hrs and tissues were processed using haematoxylin and eosin (H & E). The result showed that the extract affects the cytoarchitecture of the neonatal kidney. In phase 1 and the sub-groups, there was an abnormal cellular pattern with area of inflammation in the experimental animals. Phase 2 revealed abnormal cellular patterns with numerous area of necrosis in the entire treated sub - groups while in Phase 3 there was an abnormal cellular pattern with numerous areas of necrosis and vascular degeneration in the experimental animals compared to the control groups. It is evident that Naulea latifolia at low doses, showed mild toxic effect on neonatal kidney and the effect increases tangentially as the doses increased. Gross morphologically, there was significant weight gain in the body weight of the groups compared to the control groups at p > 0.05. Thus signifies the use of this plant during pregnancy/gestation impose deleterious effect with histopathological alterations and the usage to be discouraged during pregnancy. Keywords: kidney, body weight Nauclea latifolia and albino wistar rat

Simultaneous energy and mass calibration of large-radius jets with the ATLAS detector using a deep neural network

The energy and mass measurements of jets are crucial tasks for the Large Hadron Collider experiments. This paper presents a new calibration method to simultaneously calibrate these quantities for large-radius jets measured with the ATLAS detector using a deep neural network (DNN). To address the specificities of the calibration problem, special loss functions and training procedures are employed, and a complex network architecture, which includes feature annotation and residual connection layers, is used. The DNN-based calibration is compared to the standard numerical approach in an extensive series of tests. The DNN approach is found to perform significantly better in almost all of the tests and over most of the relevant kinematic phase space. In particular, it consistently improves the energy and mass resolutions, with a 30% better energy resolution obtained for transverse momenta pT > 500 GeV

The effects of age on muscle texture and eating qualities of the broiler chickens for Nigerians

An experiment was conducted to test the effect of age on the eating qualities of broiler chickens slaughtered at 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 weeks of age for the Nigerian consumers. The birds that provided the meat for the experiment were raised conventionally. Thigh and drumstick meat of the ovenroasted chickens were subjected to a 15man tastepanel for sensory evaluation, using a rating scale of 1-10, to score for toughness, flavour, juiciness and general acceptability: like extremely, like moderately, not like or dislike, dislike moderately, dislike extremely. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in toughness among the 10, 11 and 12 weeks old broiler meat. The 8 and 9 weeks old broiler chicken meat were similar and scored significantly higher than the 7-week old chicken meat for toughness. The 7 weeks old broilers scored lowest (not like or dislike). These toughness scores were reflected in the general acceptability scores, where 10, 11 and 12 weeks groups were scored extremely liked. The 9 weeks group was also scored extremely liked although less tender in the toughness score. The 7 and 8 weeks old broiler meat were scored liked moderately in general acceptability. Juiciness scores exhibited no significant differences in the panelists' perception among the treatments, whereas in flavour perception the 12 weeks old broiler meat was liked extremely followed by 10 and 11 weeks old broiler meat which were similar and of equal flavour perception and liked moderately. Flavour perception of 7, 8, and 9 weeks old broilers were similar. Age had a profound effect on the meat texture and thus influenced acceptability. Key Words: Broiler chickens, age, meat texture, eating qualities. (Global Journal of Pure and Applied Sciences: 2002 8(3): 295-298