Patterns of cephalic indexes in three West African populations

Several craniometric studies involving Caucasian, Mongoloid and Americans have been conducted and its usefulness in facilitating proper identification of skeletal remains and in emphasizing a common origin of studied populations cannot be overemphasized. This study involved 699 (male 361; female 338) volunteer students of Delta State University whose age ranged 18 years and over. Respondents were selected along three ethnic groups including Urhobo (male 156; female 147), Ibo (male 141; female145) and Edo (male 64; female 46). The mean cephalic index (CI) between the sampled populations was 77.95 ± 4.34 cm. There was an observed significant effect of age on cephalic index (p < 0.01) but gendershowed no significant effects on cephalic index. The values for the three selected tribes did not differ significantly from one another nor differ from the population mean (p < 0.05). The mean male and female CI values were 77.67 and 78.14 cm, respectively. The Cephalic index patterns of three indigenous West African ethnic groups (Urhobo, Edo and Ibo) was presented in this study highlighting certain features common to West African and perhaps African populations. It was shown that Cephalic index were significant indices for differentiation of population groups and cultures. In spite of these observations, differences which enable intracultural differentiation commonly occur as exhibited by the  craniometric pattern in this study. Inevitably therefore, craniometric studies are most essential in the study of population dynamics especially with respect to quantitative variables

Solving Multi-Objective Voltage Stability Constrained Power Transfer Capability Problem using Evolutionary Computation

Competitive market forces and the ever-growing load demand are two of the key issues that cause power systems to operate closer to their system stability boundaries. Open access has since introduced competition and therefore promotes inter-regional electrical power trades. However, the economic flows of electrical energy between interconnected regions are usually constrained by system physical limits, e.g. transmission lines capacity and generation active/reactive power capability etc. As such, there is a limitation to the capacity of electrical power that regions can export or import. This maximum allowable electrical power transfer is normally referred to as Total Transfer Capability (TTC). It is critical to understand that TTC does not necessarily represent a safe and reliable amount of inter-regional power transfer as one or more operational limits are usually binding when quantifying TTC. Hence, it is of interest that power system stability issues are being considered during power transfer capability assessment in order to provide a more appropriate and secure power transfer level.The aim of this paper is to formulate an Optimal Power Flow (OPF) algorithm, which is capable of evaluating inter-area power transfer capability considering mathematically-complex voltage collapse margins. Through a multi-objective optimization setup, the proposed OPF-based approach can reveal the nonlinear relationships, i.e. the pareto-optimal front, between transfer capability and voltage stability margins. The feasibility of this approach has been intensively tested on a 3-machine 9-bus and the IEEE 118-bus systems

Effects of anti-malarial alkaloids on the sperm properties and blood levels of reproductive hormones of adult men

The effects of treatment with the anti-malarial alkaloids quinine and chloroquine on sperm properties and blood levels of selected reproductive hormones (testosterone, follicle stimulating hormone andluteinizing hormones) of adult men were determined. Informed consents were obtained from twenty healthy adult volunteers who were subsequently allotted to groups A and B with 5 subjects each .Whilegroup C had 10 subjects. Group A received 600 mg of quinine 8 hourly for 5 days; group B subjects had 4 tablets of chloroquine (250 mg each) daily for 2 days then 2 tablets for one day. Group C subjects hadneither of these drugs in the study period of 65 days. Venous blood and masturbation specimens of semen were obtained from the subjects before treatment, immediately post-treatment and by the 65thday from commencement of treatment. Blood levels of follicle stimulating hormones, leutinizing hormone and testosterone were determined by Enzyme Linked Imuno Assay. Seminal Fluid Analysiswas carried out on the semen specimens to determine sperm count, percentage forward motility and percentage abnormal sperm morphology. The means of all the variables assessed were within the limits of normal for their respective method of analysis. No statistical significant effect of these drugs on sperm count, percentage sperm forward motility and blood levels of testosterone were observed whenpre-treatment results were compared with post-treatment and 65th day results as well as when results of quinine and chloroquine treated groups were compared with those of control group. The suggestion bydisparate in vivo animal and in vitro studies that the short term use of these drugs to treat malaria may be associated with fertility changes as a result of their inherent anti-spermatogenic effects have notbeen collaborated by this study in adult men

The Effects of Bitter Kola Supplemented Diet on Hepatotoxicity of Mercury in Wistar Rats

The effect of bitter kola on the hepatotoxicity following mercury poisoning (mercuric chloride solution of 10ppm) was investigated in rats for a duration of six weeks. Thirty (30) acclimatized Wistar rats were divided into five groups(n=6).Group I served as control and were fed on normal rat chow and clean water ad libitum, group II received normal chow and mercury contaminated water (10ppm), group III animals were given clean water and 5% w/w bitter kola supplemented rat chow, group IV rats received bitter kola supplemented rat chow and mercury contaminated water, group V animals were placed for the first week of the experiment on mercury contaminated water and normal rat chow before substituting with clean water and bitter kola supplemented rat chow. Two (2) animals from each group were sacrificed at the end of 2nd, 4th and 6th week and blood collected by cardiac puncture before the liver was harvested .Serum Alkaline phosphatase (ALP), Glutamate Oxaloacetate Transaminase (GOT), Glutamate Pyruvate Transaminase (GPT) and hepatic content of Mercury (Hg) were determined by standard laboratory methods. The results (Mean \ub1 SEM) showed that G kola supplemented diet significantly lowered the hepatic mercury content as well as limited the hepatotoxic effects of the heavy metal indirectly assessed by measurement of the serum levels of alkaline phosphatase and the transaminases. @ JASE

Meta-analysis on the association between genetic polymorphisms and prepulse inhibition of the acoustic startle response

Federal Ministry of Education and Research; German Research Network on Schizophrenia; Wellcome Trust; University of Crete; Manasaki and Propontis Scholarship Foundation

Large-scale gene-centric analysis identifies novel variants for coronary artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) has a significant genetic contribution that is incompletely characterized. To complement genome-wide association (GWA) studies, we conducted a large and systematic candidate gene study of CAD susceptibility, including analysis of many uncommon and functional variants. We examined 49,094 genetic variants in ~2,100 genes of cardiovascular relevance, using a customised gene array in 15,596 CAD cases and 34,992 controls (11,202 cases and 30,733 controls of European descent; 4,394 cases and 4,259 controls of South Asian origin). We attempted to replicate putative novel associations in an additional 17,121 CAD cases and 40,473 controls. Potential mechanisms through which the novel variants could affect CAD risk were explored through association tests with vascular risk factors and gene expression. We confirmed associations of several previously known CAD susceptibility loci (eg, 9p21.3:p&lt;10-33; LPA:p&lt;10-19; 1p13.3:p&lt;10-17) as well as three recently discovered loci (COL4A1/COL4A2, ZC3HC1, CYP17A1:p&lt;5×10-7). However, we found essentially null results for most previously suggested CAD candidate genes. In our replication study of 24 promising common variants, we identified novel associations of variants in or near LIPA, IL5, TRIB1, and ABCG5/ABCG8, with per-allele odds ratios for CAD risk with each of the novel variants ranging from 1.06-1.09. Associations with variants at LIPA, TRIB1, and ABCG5/ABCG8 were supported by gene expression data or effects on lipid levels. Apart from the previously reported variants in LPA, none of the other ~4,500 low frequency and functional variants showed a strong effect. Associations in South Asians did not differ appreciably from those in Europeans, except for 9p21.3 (per-allele odds ratio: 1.14 versus 1.27 respectively; P for heterogeneity = 0.003). This large-scale gene-centric analysis has identified several novel genes for CAD that relate to diverse biochemical and cellular functions and clarified the literature with regard to many previously suggested genes.</p

Genome-Wide Association Study of Coronary Heart Disease and Its Risk Factors in 8,090 African Americans: The NHLBI CARe Project

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is the leading cause of mortality in African Americans. To identify common genetic polymorphisms associated with CHD and its risk factors (LDL- and HDL-cholesterol (LDL-C and HDL-C), hypertension, smoking, and type-2 diabetes) in individuals of African ancestry, we performed a genome-wide association study (GWAS) in 8,090 African Americans from five population-based cohorts. We replicated 17 loci previously associated with CHD or its risk factors in Caucasians. For five of these regions (CHD: CDKN2A/CDKN2B; HDL-C: FADS1-3, PLTP, LPL, and ABCA1), we could leverage the distinct linkage disequilibrium (LD) patterns in African Americans to identify DNA polymorphisms more strongly associated with the phenotypes than the previously reported index SNPs found in Caucasian populations. We also developed a new approach for association testing in admixed populations that uses allelic and local ancestry variation. Using this method, we discovered several loci that would have been missed using the basic allelic and global ancestry information only. Our conclusions suggest that no major loci uniquely explain the high prevalence of CHD in African Americans. Our project has developed resources and methods that address both admixture- and SNP-association to maximize power for genetic discovery in even larger African-American consortia

Large-scale gene-centric analysis identifies novel variants for coronary Artery disease

Coronary artery disease (CAD) has a significant genetic contribution that is incompletely characterized. To complement genome-wide association (GWA) studies, we conducted a large and systematic candidate gene study of CAD susceptibility, including analysis of many uncommon and functional variants. We examined 49,094 genetic variants in ∼2,100 genes of cardiovascular relevance, using a customised gene array in 15,596 CAD cases and 34,992 controls (11,202 cases and 30,733 controls of European descent; 4,394 cases and 4,259 controls of South Asian origin). We attempted to replicate putative novel associations in an additional 17,121 CAD cases and 40,473 controls. Potential mechanisms through which the novel variants could affect CAD risk were explored through association tests with vascular risk factors and gene expression. We confirmed associations of several previously known CAD susceptibility loci (eg, 9p21.3:p<10−33; LPA:p<10−19; 1p13.3:p<10−17) as well as three recently discovered loci (COL4A1/COL4A2, ZC3HC1, CYP17A1:p<5×10−7). However, we found essentially null results for most previously suggested CAD candidate genes. In our replication study of 24 promising common variants, we identified novel associations of variants in or near LIPA, IL5, TRIB1, and ABCG5/ABCG8, with per-allele odds ratios for CAD risk with each of the novel variants ranging from 1.06–1.09. Associations with variants at LIPA, TRIB1, and ABCG5/ABCG8 were supported by gene expression data or effects on lipid levels. Apart from the previously reported variants in LPA, none of the other ∼4,500 low frequency and functional variants showed a strong effect. Associations in South Asians did not differ appreciably from those in Europeans, except for 9p21.3 (per-allele odds ratio: 1.14 versus 1.27 respectively; P for heterogeneity = 0.003). This large-scale gene-centric analysis has identified several novel genes for CAD that relate to diverse biochemical and cellular functions and clarified the literature with regard to many previously suggested genes

Novel Loci for Adiponectin Levels and Their Influence on Type 2 Diabetes and Metabolic Traits : A Multi-Ethnic Meta-Analysis of 45,891 Individuals

J. Kaprio, S. Ripatti ja M.-L. Lokki työryhmien jäseniä.Peer reviewe