Fabrication and Characterization of ZnSCubic : P3HT, ZnSHexa : P3HT and ZnSHexa : P3HT:PVA-Ag Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

This paper describes the fabrication of P3HT based bulk heterojunction solar cell using ZnS nanoparticles of sphalarite and wurtzite crystal structure and discusses their photovoltaic characteristics. It is found that the device of P3HT : ZnS can give higher Voc and surface modified wurtzite ZnS is able to give higher Voc (~ 1.3 V) as well as higher current density (229.60 A/cm2) and comparable efficiency (0.032 %). Active layer (P3HT : ZnS) showed a broad optical absorption from 320 nm to 650 nm and it is seen that the absorption intensity increased in the blend than the pristine P3HT

Social Welfare and Economics of Family Planning Practice: a Numeric Appreciation of Socio-Economics of Nigerian Family Selection Traits

Due to ignorance of unenlightened minds, man to women relation has given rise to unwanted pregnancies, births of unwanted innocent babies and undesirable loss of women and babies. In making efforts to curb further occurrence of such unfortunate instances, governments and institutions had since embarked on enlightenment and family planning programmes. Contributions had since been made and supports granted on improvement of family life. On having access to relevant information on the issue at stake, urge to formulate numerical measure was developed. In this paper, it is aimed to carry out studies of Nigerian women opinions in support of or against using family planning contraceptives and associated quality of life. In fulfillment of aim, sample opinions on related eight factors of three hundred and eighteen women were demographically processed. Economic selection traces were formulated and related to government supports and insurance covers. The test values obtained revealed that families which initially selected Norplant were likely switching on to Diaphragm. In future, such families would likely resort to use of Condom. Keywords: characterization by factors, selection traces relations, welfare supports and decision making analysis

Variability Analysis of HIV/AIDS Infection among Nigerian Students

HIV/AIDS virus infection and its prevention are of increasing concern to individuals, humanitarian institutions and governments. United Nations report on population fund (see Pop line, January-February 2004) revealed that nearly half of the infected adults were women and three fifth of all people affected were from Sub Saharan Africa. In some areas of Sub Saharan Africa, it was reported that 25% of work force were HIV/AIDS infection positive. HIV/AIDS infection positive definiteness of 15% was then valued to be equivalence of 1% drop in Gross Domestic Product of the affected nation states. Vast majority of those affected by the virus often had no access then to proven life saving antiretroviral therapy. With aim of alleviating suffering, WHO and UNAIDS 1999 decided to make treatment available to three million people in 2005 and to step down costs of drugs. Noting that HIV/AIDS virus is most sexually transmitted, this paper is of opinion that availability of up to date reproductive and sexual health information and services is required to provide basis for prevention of virus infection It is aimed to carry out a survey on the current state of infection among Nigerian students and to provide demographic analysis of relevant models. Analysis carried out on 822 effective responses yielded such models as infection trend forecast tool. Keywords: pre test data analysis, variability analysis, trends estimation, infection indicator and ratios

Economic Model-Based Calculation of Per Capita Income Level in Nigeria

A survey carried out revealed that socio-economic human development programme (SHDP) is a major item of United Nations development agenda. The objective of the nations` development plan had always aimed to ascertain and improve quality of living (QL) worldwide. Due to inaccuracy of available population and national income data, the existing method of calculating per capita income is inadequate and does not manifest true life situation. This paper is aimed to develop alternative method of calculating per capita income level, based on details of Nigerian workers` pay package. The Nigerian population figures were classified into three economic groups of varying capabilities. The adjustment error affecting accuracy of the calculation was subjected to H-test to facilitate relevance to true life affairs. Keywords: human development elements; pay indices; 25:75 SHDP; QL parameters; formatted figure distribution

Computer-aided acute leukemia blast cells segmentation in peripheral blood images

Computer-aided diagnosis system of leukemic cells is vital tool, which can assist domain experts in the diagnosis and evaluation procedure. Accurate blast cells segmentation is the initial stage in building a successful computer-aided diagnosis system. Blast cells segmentation is still an open research topic due to several problems such as variation of blats cells in terms of color, shape and texture, touching and overlapping of cells, inconsistent image quality, etc. Although numerous blast cells segmentation methods have been developed, only few studies attempted to address these problems simultaneously. This paper presents a new image segmentation method to extract acute leukemia blast cells in peripheral blood. The first aim is to segment the leukemic cells by mean of color transformation and mathematical morphology. The method also introduces an approach to split overlapping cells using the marker-controlled watershed algorithm based on a new marker selection scheme. Furthermore, the paper presents a powerful approach to separate the nucleus region and the cytoplasm region based on the seeded region growing algorithm powered by histogram equalization and arithmetic addition to handle the issue of non-homogenous nuclear chromatin pattern. The robustness of the proposed method is tested on two datasets comprise of 1024 peripheral blood images acquired from two different medical centers. The quantitative evaluation reveals that the proposed method obtain a better segmentation performance compared with its counterparts and achieves remarkable segmentation results of approximately 96 % in blast cell extraction and 94 % in nucleus/cytoplasm separation

Fabrication and Characterization of ZnSCubic : P3HT, ZnSHexa : P3HT and ZnSHexa : P3HT:PVA-Ag Bulk Heterojunction Solar Cells

This paper describes the fabrication of P3HT based bulk heterojunction solar cell using ZnS nanoparticles of sphalarite and wurtzite crystal structure and discusses their photovoltaic characteristics. It is found that the device of P3HT : ZnS can give higher Voc and surface modified wurtzite ZnS is able to give higher Voc (~ 1.3 V) as well as higher current density (229.60 A/cm2) and comparable efficiency (0.032 %). Active layer (P3HT : ZnS) showed a broad optical absorption from 320 nm to 650 nm and it is seen that the absorption intensity increased in the blend than the pristine P3HT

Preparation and study the mechanical properties of CMC/PVA composites by sound waves

The CMC/PVA composite membranes were prepared by casting method, the appropriate weight of CMC was variable (0.1, 0.15, 0.2, 0.25 and 0.3 gm) was dissolved in (25ml) of distilled water under stirring and heat (80?C) for (30 min.) then add the PVA with different weights (0.2, 0.4 and 0.6 gm) for each CMC weight. In order to evaluate the mechanical properties of CMC/PVA composite the ultrasonic measurements were performed at the samples , these properties are ultrasonic velocity, compressibility, acoustic impedance and bulk modulus, were made at fixed frequency (f =2.5 KHz), another acoustic mechanical properties were measured and calculated at a same time such as the ultrasonic wave amplitude before and after absorption by composite were measured using oscilloscope ,then we calculated absorption coefficient , transmittance and the reflected pressure ratio of the sound. It was found that there is significant relationship between ultrasonic velocity and material properties also results show that adding PVA affects on the density then the absorption of the ultrasonic waves inside the composites samples. Keywords: Carboxy methylcellulose; polyvinyle alcohol; mechanical properties; casting method

Kinetic Model for Solute Diffusion in Liquid Membrane Systems

In this study, a mathematical model for the kinetics of solute transport in liquid membrane systems (LMSs) has been formulated. This model merged the mechanisms of consecutive and reversible processes with a “semi-derived” diffusion expression, resulting in equations that describe solute concentrations in the three sections (donor, acceptor and membrane). These equations have been refined into linear forms, which are satisfying in the special conditions for simplification obtaining the important kinetic constants of the process experimentally

Antimicrobial resistance among migrants in Europe: a systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Rates of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are rising globally and there is concern that increased migration is contributing to the burden of antibiotic resistance in Europe. However, the effect of migration on the burden of AMR in Europe has not yet been comprehensively examined. Therefore, we did a systematic review and meta-analysis to identify and synthesise data for AMR carriage or infection in migrants to Europe to examine differences in patterns of AMR across migrant groups and in different settings. METHODS: For this systematic review and meta-analysis, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, PubMed, and Scopus with no language restrictions from Jan 1, 2000, to Jan 18, 2017, for primary data from observational studies reporting antibacterial resistance in common bacterial pathogens among migrants to 21 European Union-15 and European Economic Area countries. To be eligible for inclusion, studies had to report data on carriage or infection with laboratory-confirmed antibiotic-resistant organisms in migrant populations. We extracted data from eligible studies and assessed quality using piloted, standardised forms. We did not examine drug resistance in tuberculosis and excluded articles solely reporting on this parameter. We also excluded articles in which migrant status was determined by ethnicity, country of birth of participants' parents, or was not defined, and articles in which data were not disaggregated by migrant status. Outcomes were carriage of or infection with antibiotic-resistant organisms. We used random-effects models to calculate the pooled prevalence of each outcome. The study protocol is registered with PROSPERO, number CRD42016043681. FINDINGS: We identified 2274 articles, of which 23 observational studies reporting on antibiotic resistance in 2319 migrants were included. The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or AMR infection in migrants was 25·4% (95% CI 19·1-31·8; I2 =98%), including meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (7·8%, 4·8-10·7; I2 =92%) and antibiotic-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (27·2%, 17·6-36·8; I2 =94%). The pooled prevalence of any AMR carriage or infection was higher in refugees and asylum seekers (33·0%, 18·3-47·6; I2 =98%) than in other migrant groups (6·6%, 1·8-11·3; I2 =92%). The pooled prevalence of antibiotic-resistant organisms was slightly higher in high-migrant community settings (33·1%, 11·1-55·1; I2 =96%) than in migrants in hospitals (24·3%, 16·1-32·6; I2 =98%). We did not find evidence of high rates of transmission of AMR from migrant to host populations. INTERPRETATION: Migrants are exposed to conditions favouring the emergence of drug resistance during transit and in host countries in Europe. Increased antibiotic resistance among refugees and asylum seekers and in high-migrant community settings (such as refugee camps and detention facilities) highlights the need for improved living conditions, access to health care, and initiatives to facilitate detection of and appropriate high-quality treatment for antibiotic-resistant infections during transit and in host countries. Protocols for the prevention and control of infection and for antibiotic surveillance need to be integrated in all aspects of health care, which should be accessible for all migrant groups, and should target determinants of AMR before, during, and after migration. FUNDING: UK National Institute for Health Research Imperial Biomedical Research Centre, Imperial College Healthcare Charity, the Wellcome Trust, and UK National Institute for Health Research Health Protection Research Unit in Healthcare-associated Infections and Antimictobial Resistance at Imperial College London