PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SMALL SCALE PALM FRUIT BIOMASS FIRED BOILER

This study evaluated a boiler designed for small scale palm fruit processing for its performance. The boiler was evaluated for its fuel consumption, steam production rate and efficiency using 100 kg of different fuel samples (shell, palm fibre, empty fruit bunch (efb) and wood) with known calorific value and their combinations for a period of 60 minutes firing time. The rate of fuel consumption by the furnace differs with the type of fuel materials as 100 kg of shell and 100 kg of wood burnt within 55 minutes firing time while the combination of shell and wood was burnt within 60 minutes of its firing time under the same condition. Combination of shell and efb lasted for 50 minutes during firing while efb alone burnt completely within 35 minutes. The highest quantity of steam (17.99 kg/min) and maximum boiler efficiency (79.6%) were recorded when fired with efb only while 10.96 kg/min steam production rate and 76.4% efficiency were recorded when fired with shell and efb combination. Combination of shell and wood produced 10.31 kg/min of steam and 76.6% boiler efficiency while 11.31 kg/min of steam and 76.9 % boiler efficiency was obtained using wood only. Combination of shell, efb and fibre gave 15.28 kg/min of steam and 73.1 % boiler efficiency while 10.32 kg/min of steam and 76% boiler efficiency was obtained using shell only. The study concluded that the boiler developed using adequately-prepared locally-available materials has the potential to be incorporated into the small scale palm fruit processing technology profile and has the capacity to supply the steam requirement in the plant, thereby bridging the identified gap in the small scale palm oil process line

Occurrence of Klebsiella Species in Cultured African Catfish in Oyo State, South-West Nigeria

Over the years, the increase in population, incomes, and demograph has lead to the increase in the consumption of fish as a result of its nutritional values. Clarias gariepinus is the most cultured fish species in Nigeria and attracts significant economic value making it a species of interest. Fish is capable of habouring diseases and therefore, must be safe and free of infectious pathogens if aquaculture should fulfill its potential. Infectious disease has being one of the major causes of death worldwide in recent times. Klebsiella species in the family of enterobacteriacea causes urinary tract infections, pneumonia, septicemias and soft tissue infections in human. They are opportunistic pathogens found the gastrointestinal tract of the host and spread rapidly thereby capable of causing nosocomial outbreaks. The study examined the prevalence of Klebisiella species in fish tissues in Oyo State, Nigeria. A total of seven hundred and fifty-six (756) fish organs from one hundred and eight (108) fish were examined for Klebsiella investigation. Fish of body weight ranges between 300g to 1300g were used for this study using stratified methods. The samples were examined using standard methods, biochemical characterization methods were employed in this study and data obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics. The results show that all the 66 isolates were gram-negative, did not haemolysis sheep blood, catalase positive, oxidase negative, non-motile, and ferment lactose, sucrose and mannitol sugars. Percentages of klebsiella species occurrence were 22.22% in forest zone and 40.72% in savannah zone. Fish with total length 51-60cm had highest incidence (52.17%), and body weight of 601-900g had highest incidence (57.14%). Generally, skin, gill, liver and muscle were the major location of Klebsiella species occurrence ranges from 11% to 14.81%. Therefore occurrence of Klebsiella species in higher in savannah zone than forest zone. The distribution of the klebsiella in fish in Oyo State shows that it is a problem present in fish tissues.Key words: Klebsiella, Occurrence, Diseases, infection

Plasmid mediated resistance in multidrug resistant bacteria isolated from children with suspected septicaemia in Zaria, Nigeria

Septicaemia is a common cause of morbidity and mortality among children in the  developing world. The knowledge of the  epidemiological and antimicrobial pattern of common pathogens that cause septicaemia is useful for prompt treatment of patients. Fifty-five (55) clinical isolates from children with suspected septicaemia were used for the study. The isolates include Coagulase negative Staphylococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella spp., Klebsiella spp., Citrobacter spp., Proteus spp and  Pseudomonas spp. The antibiotic susceptibility testing of isolated bacteria associated with septicaemia in children were carried out using standard  microbiological protocol. The MAR index for the test bacterial isolates was  determined and the bacterial isolates that displayed multiple antibiotic resistance were investigated for the presence of resistant factor such as plasmids. The sizes of the plasmid observed in the bacterial isolates were determined using agarose gel electrophoresis. Observations made from the agarose gel electrophoresis showed that majority of the multiple antibiotic resistant isolates haboured plasmids DNA of different sizes viz: 10.00 Kb, 8.71 Kb, 7.08 Kb, 1.02 Kb, 1.00 Kb, 0. 98 Kb and 0.87 Kb. The plasmid analysis of the results obtained in this study showed that the  predominant plasmid molecular size was 977bp which occurred frequently among  the Citrobacter spp and Staph aureus. These findings suggest an increased  resistance to the antibiotics commonly used for the treatment of septicaemia, and the observed presence of plasmids in some of the test bacteria isolated shows that they could have been acquired from multiple antibiotic resistant bacteria in the community under investigation.Key words: Children, Multiple antibiotic resistance, Plasmids, Septicaemi

Price Competition Among Retailers Of Coca Cola Products In Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

The study was carried out on price competition among retail marketers of Coca-Cola products in Ibadan metropolis. A total of one hundred and ten retailer

Gut Microbiota and Innate Immune Response of Macrobrachium vollenhovenii Infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Aeromonas hydrophila Fed Diets Supplemented with Lactobacillus acidophilus

The use of antibiotics as disease control agents has become contentious due to rise in drug-resistant bacteria such as Psuedomonas aeruginosa and Aeromonas hydrophilla. Studies have shown antibacterial potentials of some probiotics such as Lactobacillus acidophillus as promising alternative. Therefore, effects of diets fortified with Lactobacillus acidophillus on gut ecology and health status of African River prawn, Macrobranchium vollenhovenii were investigated. Prawns fed diets fortified with Lactobacillus acidophillus were challenged with Psuedomonas aeruginosa (1 × 107 cfu/mL) and Aeromonas hydrophilla (5 × 105 cfu/mL) using bath method for 14 days. Total viable and total enterobacteriaceae counts were determined on plate count agar and McConkey agar, respectively. Haemolymph (mL), total haemocyte count (cells/mL), catalase (mg/g protein), superoxide dismutase (mg/g protein, respiratory burst activity (μmoles) and survival rate (%) were evaluated using standard procedures. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at p = 0.05. Results revealed that Marobranchium vollenhovenii-fed supplemented diets had reduced bacteria load, gut flora dominated by beneficial bacteria, enhanced immune system and protection against Aeromonas hydrophila at 103 cfu/mL inclusion level and could be used as immunodulation against Aeromonas infection

EFFECTS OF DIETARY Moringa oleifera LEAF MEAL AS A REPLACEMENT FOR SOYBEAN MEAL ON GROWTH, BODY COMPOSITION AND HEALTH STATUS IN Cyprinus carpio JUVENILES

U radu je istraživana učinkovitost rasta, iskoristivost hranjivih tvari i zdravstveno stanje šarana Cyprinus carpio hranjenih različitim razinama brašna listova moringe Moringa oleifera kao hranidbene zamjenice za sojino brašno. Izrađeno je šest izo-dušičnih hranidbenih smjesa s postotnom zamjenom sirovih proteina od 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% i 50% brašnom listova moringe. Mlađ šarana (n=360; W=8.12±0.21 g) su razdijeljeni u 18 hapasa (1m3) te su hranjeni hranidbenim smjesama u omjeru od 5% ukupne mase tijela ribe. Rezultati su ukazali kako riba hranjena smjesom s razinom zamjene sirovog proteina od 30% ima značajno bolju završnu masu, prirast, specifičnu stopu rasta, omjer proteinske učinkovitosti i omjer pretvorbe hrane, dok su stope preživljavanja nisu bile značajno različite. Također, značajno su poboljšane hematološke, biokemijske i imunološke reakcije riba hranjene smjesama s zamjenom Moringa oleifera. Rezultati upućuju i na to da je viša razina zamjene moringom moguća, ali je i mogući utjecaj na rast ribe i ekonomsku isplativost. Brašno lišća moringe Moringa oleifera može biti korišten za zamjenu 30% sirovog proteina sojinog brašna u hranidbi mlađi šarana Cyprinus carpio.The growth performance, nutrient utilization and health status of Cyprinus carpio fed various levels of Moringa oleifera leaf meal as a replacement for soybean meal was investigated. Six isonitrogenous diets were formulated with Moringa oleifera leaf meal at 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% or 50% crude protein replacement. The diets were fed to the fish at 5% body weight to 360 Cyprinus carpio juveniles (8.12±0.21 g) allotted to 18 happas (1 m3) in a completely randomized design for 12 weeks. The results revealed that crude protein replacement levels of 30% had significantly better final weight, weight gain, specific growth rate, protein efficiency ratio and feed conversion ratio, while survival rates were not significantly different. Also, haematological, biochemical and immune responses of the fish fed Moringa oleifera leaf meal fortified diets were significantly improved. The results further suggest that higher inclusion replacement is possible but opined that, for growth and economic consideration, Moringa oleifera leaf meal could be used to replace 30% crude protein of soybean in the diet of Cyprinus carpio juveniles

The development and validation of a scoring tool to predict the operative duration of elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy

Background: The ability to accurately predict operative duration has the potential to optimise theatre efficiency and utilisation, thus reducing costs and increasing staff and patient satisfaction. With laparoscopic cholecystectomy being one of the most commonly performed procedures worldwide, a tool to predict operative duration could be extremely beneficial to healthcare organisations. Methods: Data collected from the CholeS study on patients undergoing cholecystectomy in UK and Irish hospitals between 04/2014 and 05/2014 were used to study operative duration. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was produced in order to identify significant independent predictors of long (> 90 min) operations. The resulting model was converted to a risk score, which was subsequently validated on second cohort of patients using ROC curves. Results: After exclusions, data were available for 7227 patients in the derivation (CholeS) cohort. The median operative duration was 60 min (interquartile range 45–85), with 17.7% of operations lasting longer than 90 min. Ten factors were found to be significant independent predictors of operative durations > 90 min, including ASA, age, previous surgical admissions, BMI, gallbladder wall thickness and CBD diameter. A risk score was then produced from these factors, and applied to a cohort of 2405 patients from a tertiary centre for external validation. This returned an area under the ROC curve of 0.708 (SE = 0.013, p  90 min increasing more than eightfold from 5.1 to 41.8% in the extremes of the score. Conclusion: The scoring tool produced in this study was found to be significantly predictive of long operative durations on validation in an external cohort. As such, the tool may have the potential to enable organisations to better organise theatre lists and deliver greater efficiencies in care

Impact of opioid-free analgesia on pain severity and patient satisfaction after discharge from surgery: multispecialty, prospective cohort study in 25 countries

Background: Balancing opioid stewardship and the need for adequate analgesia following discharge after surgery is challenging. This study aimed to compare the outcomes for patients discharged with opioid versus opioid-free analgesia after common surgical procedures.Methods: This international, multicentre, prospective cohort study collected data from patients undergoing common acute and elective general surgical, urological, gynaecological, and orthopaedic procedures. The primary outcomes were patient-reported time in severe pain measured on a numerical analogue scale from 0 to 100% and patient-reported satisfaction with pain relief during the first week following discharge. Data were collected by in-hospital chart review and patient telephone interview 1 week after discharge.Results: The study recruited 4273 patients from 144 centres in 25 countries; 1311 patients (30.7%) were prescribed opioid analgesia at discharge. Patients reported being in severe pain for 10 (i.q.r. 1-30)% of the first week after discharge and rated satisfaction with analgesia as 90 (i.q.r. 80-100) of 100. After adjustment for confounders, opioid analgesia on discharge was independently associated with increased pain severity (risk ratio 1.52, 95% c.i. 1.31 to 1.76; P < 0.001) and re-presentation to healthcare providers owing to side-effects of medication (OR 2.38, 95% c.i. 1.36 to 4.17; P = 0.004), but not with satisfaction with analgesia (beta coefficient 0.92, 95% c.i. -1.52 to 3.36; P = 0.468) compared with opioid-free analgesia. Although opioid prescribing varied greatly between high-income and low- and middle-income countries, patient-reported outcomes did not.Conclusion: Opioid analgesia prescription on surgical discharge is associated with a higher risk of re-presentation owing to side-effects of medication and increased patient-reported pain, but not with changes in patient-reported satisfaction. Opioid-free discharge analgesia should be adopted routinely

Computational tools to address challenging targets in drug discovery: target-focused chemical libraries and structure-based machine learning.

There are many human drug targets without any known small molecule inhibitors, and a lot of these challenging targets play a crucial role in important disease-relevant processes. RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are some of the examples of these kind of targets. While RBPs play a crucial role in countless cellular processes, including post-transcriptional regulation of genes, efforts directed at finding small molecule inhibitors for these targets have been largely unsuccessful. For this reason, I have focused my PhD studies in developing computational methods that will allow us to rapidly and robustly identify small-molecule inhibitors of RBPs. From an in-silico standpoint, the scoring functions that power most computational structure-based drug discovery are limited by high false positive rates. To address this challenge, I built the first false-positive-aware machine learning scoring function (vScreenML). vScreenML demonstrated a significant improvement in the false positive rate over the current state-of-the-art classical and machine learning scoring functions—both in retrospective and prospective evaluations. More broadly, existing virtual screening approaches were also built to suit traditional drug targets. By contrast, RBPs have unique structural features that differentiate them from most of these types of target classes: they have a large, shallow interface that more polar than most traditional drug targets. Since RBPs are structurally distinct, this may explain why traditional methods have struggled to find chemical matter to address these. To tackle this challenge, we built the first fully automated RBP pharmacophore extractor that identifies “hotspots” on the RNA that contribute extensively to the binding affinity of the protein-RNA interaction; these hotspots are then used as template for pharmacophoric virtual screening. This tool also powers the first PDB-wide pharmacophore analysis and selectivity profiling of RBPs and was instrumental to our success in designing the first series of rationally designed inhibitors of Musashi proteins. Finally, the compounds that comprise typical screening libraries are also biased towards the types of chemical space that are appropriate for traditional drug targets. To address this, I developed a method for building target-focused libraries of synthetically accessible compounds and applied this to build a collection of compounds enriched in likely Musashi inhibitors. To test the utility of this library, I synthesized and tested some of the top-scoring hits and confirmed that we had identified new Musashi inhibitors from this library. Looking ahead, I envision that these three tools will collectively enable development of better inhibitors targeting Musashi, and entirely new inhibitors of other RBPs

EFFECTS OF COMPUTER ASSISTED INSTRUCTION ON INDEPENDENT LEARNING SKILLS OF ECONOMICS STUDENTS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

The study investigated “Effects of Computer Assisted Instruction on Independent Learning Skills of Economics Students in Secondary Schools in Kaduna State”. ICT are information handling tools used for producing, processing, distributing exchanging and storing of information. Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) is an ICT-Driven Instructional technique in which computer system is used as an instructional material and the teacher monitors, the learning that takes place. The objective of the study among others was to determine the rate at which independent learning skills acquisition could be enhanced among Economics students taught with the use of Computer Assisted Instruction and those taught with the conventional method of teaching. Hypotheses were drawn from the objectives of the study. The research design was the two by two pre-test post-test quasi experimental control group design. The targeted population were the twenty-three thousand four hundred and sixty Public Senior Secondary two (SS2) students in twelve educational zones of Kaduna State. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted to draw two hundred SS2 Economics students from the rural and urban centres of two educational zones of the State. An Economics Achievement Test (EAT) was developed and validated as test instrument for data collection. The hypothesis was tested using covariance at 0.05 level of significance for acceptance or rejection. The results amongst others revealed that students taught with the use of CAI performed significantly better than those taught without CAI, and also the result shows that the use of CAI in teaching Economics is not significantly affected by school location. However, it was therefore recommended amongst others that, the “Opon Imo” meaning “Tablet of Knowledge” used in Osun State Senior Secondary Schools should be adopted by government for all Senior Secondary Schools in Nigeria