Risk factors for chronic kidney disease among patients at Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital in Sagamu, Nigeria: A retrospective cohort study

Background: Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is common and often goes undetected and undiagnosed until the disease is well advanced and kidney failure is imminent. It is estimated that approximately 36 million Nigerians suffer from different stages of CKD, as one in seven Nigerians has kidney disease.Methods: This research was a retrospective cohort study of 150 cases and 300 controls. Selection of subjects was by a retrospective review of records of in-patients from 2010-2013 in a state teaching hospital. Data was analyzed using Chi-square at 5% level of significance.Results: Majority of subjects were between ages 20 – 29 years. The mean (SD) age of the cases was 40.6 (14.4) and controls was 38.6 (15.8). Ninety (60%) of the cases and 212(70.7%) of the controls were males (p= 0.023). Almost 87% of the cases and 42% of the controls ingest herbal concoction. Use of bleaching substances was more among the cases 20(13.4%) compared with the controls 2(0.7%), ( p= 0.001). Eight (5.3%) of the cases had family history of CKD while only 1(0.3%) of the control had similar history (p= 0.001). There were more cases (10.7%) with diabetic mellitus compared with the controls (2.7%), (p= 0.001). The number of cases with high blood pressure was more than the number of controls, (p-value <0.001). Sixty-four percent of the cases had history of chronic use of analgesic compared with 10.3% of the controls (p < 0.001).Conclusions: CKD is mostly found among men in their productive age, who were either diabetic or hypertensive with history of ingestion of herbal concoction and chronic use of analgesic. Individual should engage in regular medical check, modify their life style while government and health care providers increase awareness and campaign on the causes and risk factors of CKD

The Business Case for Community Paramedicine: Lessons from Commonwealth Care Alliance's Pilot Program

Mobile integrated health care and community paramedicine (MIH-CP) programs expand the role of traditional emergency medical services personnel to address non-emergency needs and bring outpatient primary and urgent care into patients' homes. These programs offer potential for reducing health care costs, eliminating unecessary emergency department use, and shifting service back to community-based and home settings. Between 2014 and 2015, the Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Care Alliance (CCA) piloted a community paramedicine prgoram, Acute Community Care (ACC), to serve its members in the Greater Boston area.This brief summarizes ACC's business case assessment, which showed that increasing patient volume after the pilot period would reuslt in net savings given the progam's success in averting unnecessary emergency care. By illustrating cost considerations for an expansion of MIH-CP services, this brief may inform the design and sustainability planning of other MIH-CP programs. The business case assessment was conducted by Mathematica Policy Research through support from the Center for Health Care Strategies' Complex Care Innovation Lab, a Kaiser Permanente Community Benefit-funded initiative

Effect of temperature on the postembryonic stages and adults of the blowfly, chrysomya chloropyga (diptera: calliphoridae)

Chrysomya chloropyga biology was studied under controlled temperature (15.6, 22.2, 28.8, 32.2, and 36.1 °C) for an incubation period of eight hours. Development and survival of incubated eggs, larval stages I, II and pupae to adult emergence were highest between 22.2 and 28.8 °C and resistant to temperatures below and above that range. Third larva stage showed a difference, with emergence higher at 15.6 than at 22.2 °C. No adult fly emerged at 36.1 °C. The male and female flies of ages 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 days were divided into batches (n = 20). Batches of male and female flies was incubated separately for eight hours and further monitored for 72 hours in the laboratory for survival. Adult males and females survived within 15.6 – 28.8 °C than at higher temperatures irrespective of the ages; 36.1 °C had a lethal effect on the flies. There was no significant difference (P>0.05) in the survival of adult flies at incubation and after 72 hours of exposure. The results suggest that the effect of temperature depends upon the stage of development of Chrysomya chloropyga. Temperature is fundamental in the development of C. chloropyga and should be considered during PMI determination and in the formulation of control strategies

Applicability of Artificial Neural Network for Automatic Crop Type Classification on UAV-Based Images

Recent advances in optical remote sensing, especially with the development of machine learning models have made it possible to automatically classify different crop types based on their unique spectral characteristics. In this article, a simple feed-forward artificial neural network (ANN) was implemented for the automatic classification of various crop types. A DJI Mavic air drone was used to simultaneously collect about 549 images of a mixed-crop farmland belonging to Federal University of Technology Minna, Nigeria. The images were annotated and the ANN algorithm was implemented using custom-designed Python programming scripts with libraries such as NumPy, Label box, and Segmentation Mask, for the classification. The algorithm was designed to automatically classify maize, rice, soya beans, groundnut, yam and a non-crop feature into different land spectral classes. The model training performance, using 70% of the dataset, shows that the loss curve flattened down with minimal over-fitting, showing that the model was improving as it trained. Finally, the accuracy of the automatic crop-type classification was evaluated with the aid of the recorded loss function and confusion matrix, and the result shows that the implemented ANN gave an overall training classification accuracy of 87.7% from the model and an overall accuracy of 0.9393 as computed from the confusion matrix, which attests to the robustness of ANN when implemented on high-resolution image data for automatic classification of crop types in a mixed farmland. The overall accuracy, including the user accuracy, proved that only a few images were incorrectly classified, which demonstrated that the errors of omission and commission were minimal

Levels and Trends in Household Source of Cooking Fuel in Nigeria: Implications on Under-Five Mortality

Background: Studies have shown that characteristics present in the neighbourhood where children are raised might likely influence the mortality risks of such children. Cooking fuel can be regarded as one of the environmental factors determined by the socioeconomic background of the household, but the nexus between this and the health outcome of under-five children had received little attention. Objective: This study seeks to examine the levels and trends of source of cooking fuels among households in Nigeria as implied on under-five mortality. Methods: The data used was the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS)-Child Recode file of 2003, 2008 and 2013. The method of analysis used was the descriptive approach which includes cross tabulation, charts and tables. The chi-square statistic was used to show the significance of the association between the variables of interest in the study. Results: The percentage of U-5 children who lived in homes where wood was used as cooking fuel was about 80 percent. The findings from this study show that there was a highly significant relationship between type of cooking fuel and under-five mortality in Nigeria (P<0.001). The poorest and the poorer represented the highest percentage among the households that used wood and agric. crop/dung for cooking. Environmental factor such as type of cooking fuel is significantly associated to socioeconomic characteristics of the household where the child lives, some of which includes wealth status and place of residence as discussed in the result. Recommendation and conclusion: The study found that, there has not been a major improvement in the source of cooking fuel in households where under-five children are raised and this contribute in determining their health outcomes. Therefore, the government of Nigeria needs to provide reliable power supply (electricity) for household consumption. Also, gas fuel must be made available and affordable for household consumption

EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION STYLES ON EMPLOYEES JOB PERFORMANCE IN OGUN-OSUN RIVER BASIN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY (OORBDA), OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

Organizations cannot exist without effective communication because the changing in social and economic atmosphere bring changes in the work settings of any organization. The study determined impact of organizational communication on job performance in Ogun-Osun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA) Ogun State, Nigeria. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique was use to select 114 respondents which represented 35% of the total population.  The study  showed that majority (53.3%) of employees were male , 60.9% of the employees fall within the age categories of 20-40 years, majority (77.2%) were married, more than half  (58.7%) had higher degrees. Also, the mean age of the respondents was 38.5 years. The findings also revealed that the most preferred communication channel was Face to face (x̅=3.46), Memo ((x̅=3.42) and Letter (x̅=3.30, while the least preferred communication channels were, Facebook (x̅=2.42), WhatsApp (x̅=2.27 and Intranet (x̅=2.0). Furthermore, the study revealed that majority of the respondents (75.2%) indicated that leaders at OORBDA deployed the use of Assertive/dominant communication styles while very few (8.3%) indicated that aggressive communication style in the organization. The inferential statistics show that significant relationship was existed between marital status (χ2=12.795, p&lt;0.00), education (χ2=11.762, p&lt;0.00) and employee’s job performance. Study’s analysis showed that organization communication styles do not have significant effect on job performance. The study concluded that the employees who are better educated perform well on their job also, majority of leader at OORBDA deployed the use of assertive/dominant communication style in the organization. Management of the organization should ensure motivation incentives such as access to training and promotion as at when due to deserving employees are ensured to boost employees’ job performance.

Sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy (Rosai-Dorfman Disease): Report of a case in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Sinus histiocytosis with massive lymphadenopathy (SHML) is a rare, benign disease of unknown aetiology. This disease typically presents with massive, painless cervical lymphadenopathy but may occur in a wide variety of extranodal sites. This report describes a 43-year old man with a left submandibular swelling and left lateral cervical lymphadenopathy clinically suggestive of a malignancy. Initial cytological examination of a fine needle aspirate specimen taken from the mass suggested a chronic granulomatous inflammatory lesion. A definitive diagnosis of SHML was however made only after excisional biopsy of the lesion. The patient was followed up for 6 months and no recurrence of the lesion was observed. SHML may be considered a rare lesion among Nigerians. Knowledge of its clinical presentation with understanding of the differentials diagnosis is important to avoid unnecessary intervention. The diagnosis can be made from FNAC, histopathology and immune-histochemistry. There is no ideal protocol for the treatment. Follow-up is however necessary to detect relapses

Time-resolved energy transfer from single chloride terminated nanocrystals to graphene

We examine the time-resolved resonance energy transfer of excitons from single n-butyl amine-bound, chloride-terminated nanocrystals to two-dimensional graphene through time-correlated single photon counting. The radiative biexponential lifetime kinetics and blinking statistics of the individual surface-modified nanocrystal elucidate the non-radiative decay channels. Blinking modification as well as a 4 times reduction in spontaneous emission were observed with the short chloride and n-butylamine ligands, probing the energy transfer pathways for the development of graphene-nanocrystal nanophotonic devices

Enhancement of Perfluoropolyether Boundary Lubrication Performance

A ball bearing simulator operating under starved conditions was used to perform screening tests to evaluate the boundary lubrication performance of a branched perfluoropolyether (PFPE), K-143 AB. Several approaches to enhance boundary lubrication were studied. These included: (1) soluble boundary additives, (2) bearing surface modifications, (3) 'run-in' surface films, and (4) ceramic bearing components. In addition, results were compared with two non-perfluorinated liquid lubricant formulations. Based on these tests, the following tentative conclusions can be made: (1) Substantial improvements in boundary lubrication performance were observed with a beta-diketone boundary additive and a tricresyl phosphate (TCP) liquid surface pretreatment, (2) the use of rough Si3N4 balls (R(sub a) = 40 micro-inch) also provided increases in test duration, but with concomitant abrasive wear, (3) moderate improvements were seen with two boundary additives (a phosphine and a phosphatriazine) and a neat (100%) fluid (a carboxylic acid terminated PFPE); and small improvements with surface pretreatments with synthetic hydrocarbons, a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) coating, and TiC coated 440 C and smooth Si3N4 balls (R(sub a) = 1 micro-inch), and (4) two non-PFPE lubricant formulations (a polyalphaolefin (PAO) and synthetic hydrocarbon) yielded substantial improvements