The effect of the interaction of various spawn grains with different culture medium on carpophore dry weights and stipe and pileus diameters of Lentinus squarrosulus

Lentinus squarrosulus, an indigenous mushroom specie commonly found growing on dead logs in the Zaria environ of Kaduna State was cultured on six different medium which were inoculated separately with three different spawn grains and amended with six different oils at five different rates. The interaction of spawn grains x culture medium had a highly significant effect on carpophore dry weight and stipe and pileus diameters of L. squarrosulus. The results reveal that the interaction of millet spawn x animal bedding and rice medium induced the widest stipe diameter while the interaction of corn spawn x animal bedding and rice medium induced the heaviest carpophore dry weight as well as the widest pileus diameter. African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 4 (7), pp. 615-619, 200

The effects of the interaction of various oil types and rates on the mycelial wet and dry weights of Lentinus squarrosulus (Mont.) Singer and Psathyrella atroumbonata Pegler in submerged liquid cultures

Lentinus squarrosulus and Psathyrella atroumbonata, two edible indigenous mushroom species, were cultured in various different media supplemented with coconut, cotton, groundnut, butterfat, palm kernel and palm oil respectively, at 5 different rates. The interaction of the various oil types with different rates produced highly significant differences (

The effect of media, oil type and rate on the mycelia wet and dry weights of Lentinus squarrosulus (Mont.) singer and psathyrella patroumbonata pegler in submerged liquid culture

Lentinus squarrosulus and Psathyrella atroumbonata, two edible indigenous mushroom species, were cultured in four different submerged liquid media supplemented with coconut, cotton, groundnut, butterfat, palm kernel and palm oil at 5 different rates. The differences in the means due to the different media types were highly significant (

Mitigating Coordinated Call Attacks On VoIP Networks Using Hidden Markov Model

Abstract This paper presents a 2-tier scheme for mitigating coordinated call attacks on VoIP networks. Call interaction pattern was considered using talk and salient periods in a VoIP call conversation. At the first-tier, Short Term Energy algorithm was used for call interaction feature extraction and at the second-tier Hidden Markov Model was used for caller legitimacy recognition. Data of VoIP call conversations were collated and analyzed to extract distinctive features in VoIP call interaction pattern to ascertain the legitimacy of a caller against coordinated call attacker. The performance metrics that was used are; False Error Rate (FER), Specificity, Detection Accuracy and Throughput. Several experiments were conducted to see how effective the mitigating scheme is, as the scheme acts as a proxy server to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) server. The experiments show that; when the VoIP server is under coordinated call attack without a mitigating scheme only 15.2% of legitimate VoIP users had access to the VoIP network and out of which about half of the legitimate users had their calls dropped before completion, while with the 2-tier mitigating scheme, when the VoIP server is under coordinated call attacks over 90.3% legitimate VoIP callers had their calls through to completio

Histological and Biochemical Alterations in the Pancreas of Diabetic Wistar Rats Treated with Garcinia Kola and Tetracarpidium Conophorum Extracts

To ascertain the stated effects, phytochemical and LD50 studies of the extracts were determined. Thirty-six adult male Albino Wistar rats weighing 180 – 200 g were divided into 6 groups (n =6). Diabetes mellitus was induced by single intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin (45 mg/kg bw) reconstituted in citrate buffer pH 4.5, and rats with fasting blood glucose (FBG) ≥ 11.3 mmol/L after three days of induction were used for the study. Glibenclamide significantly (p < 0.05) reduced FBG from 22.10 ± 1.65 mmol/L to 4.48 ± 0.29 mmol/L, G. kola from 22.04 ± 4.06 mmol/L to 7.40 ± 2.41 mmol/L, T. conophorum from 14.26 ± 2.38 mmol/L to 5.98 ± 0.57 mmol/L, and combined from 17.54 ± 1.72 mmol/L to 11.58 ± 2.11 mmol/L. Glibenclamide and the extracts significantly increase the insulin levels. G. kola significantly (p < 0.05) lowered the urea and raised the chloride and creatinine levels. T. conophorum significantly (p < 0.05) reduced the urea and increased the sodium and chloride levels, while the combined treatment significantly lowered the urea and raised the sodium levels. Glibenclamide and the extracts significantly ameliorated the histological alterations in the pancreas but only the plant extracts significantly attenuated the alterations in the kidneys. It may be concluded that the combined administration of G. kola and T. conophorum extracts and their single treatments showed hypoglycaemic and nephroprotective effects. Keywords:Albino Wistar rats, Streptozotocin, Glibenclamide, Garcinia Kola, Tetracarpidium conophorum, Pancreas, Kidney DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-14-04 Publication date:July 31st 202

A Modified Real-Time Fault-Tolerant Task Allocation Scheme for Wireless Sensor Networks

In WSNs, the sensor nodes are at risk of failure and malicious attacks (selective forwarding). This may have a profound negative effect when you consider real-time WSNs, making them challenging to deploy. When there is a delay in tasks allocation execution processes in real-time WSNs because of sensor nodes failures, this will cause disastrous consequences if the systems are safety-critical, e.g. aircraft, nuclear power plant, forest fire detection, battlefield monitoring, thus the need to developed a real-time system that is fault-tolerable. This paper developed a modified real-time fault-tolerant task allocation scheme (mRFTAS) for WSNs (wireless sensor networks), using active replication techniques. mRFTAS and RFTAS performance were compared using time of execution of the task, network lifetime and reliability cost. The mRFTAS performance showed an improvement over that of RFTAS when it comes to reducing the time it takes for task execution by 45.56% and reliability cost of 7.99% while prolonging the network lifetime by 36.35%

Dog Ecology and Management in Niger State, Nigeria: A Basic Tool for Rabies Control

Aims: To examine the dog ecology and management as it relates to the control of rabies in Niger State, Nigeria. Study Design: Questionnaire based survey. Place and Duration of Study: Structured questionnaires on dog ecology and management were administered in Niger State of Nigeria between January and March 2012. Methodology: Structured questionnaires on dog ecology and management comprising of 4 sections, were administered to 300 adult participants between the ages of 18-70 years using systematic randomization; 237 questionnaires were returned. Descriptive statistics using the SAS statistical package were employed to analyze the data. Results: Results indicated that there was a population ratio of 1:5.4 dogs to humans and 1:1.9 female to male dog ratio with an estimated 732,476 dog population in Niger State. Most of the dogs (58.6%) in the state were kept for security reasons and that majority of the dogs strayed at night (52.4%) and evenings (23.8%) into homes across the state. About 52% of dogs were not confined and responsibility for dogs in terms of welfare, mostly (61.5%) lied on everybody in the family and 61% of dogs were fed on family left overs. About 30.4% of dogs were never vaccinated and 31% of the respondents (or their family members) have been inflicted with a dog bite, but only 28.1% of cases received post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP). For those humans that were bitten, about 13.8% resulted in death. Conclusion: Due to free roaming and irregular vaccination of dogs in the state; there is bound to be increased dog bite cases/rabies spread. This study concludes that dogs were not catered for as expected in the state and that employment of dog ecological studies before any rabies control programmes, will explore necessary data for planning the programme in Niger State of Nigeria. Improvement and employment of dog ecological studies across states for rabies control programmes in Nigeria and W/Africa is hereby recommended

Tuberculosis in Humans and Cattle in Jigawa State, Nigeria: Risk Factors Analysis

A cross-sectional study was conducted from September 2008 to March 2009 to identify risk factors for BTB in cattle and humans in Jigawa State, Nigeria. A total of 855 cattle belonging to 17 households were subjected to comparative intradermal tuberculin test (CITT) while interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to obtains information on the risk factors. Twenty-two (22) respondent (5%) amongst the families sampled had TB or clinical signs suggestive of TB, while 9 (2%) had reactor cattle in their herds; However, no statistically significant association (≥0.05) was observed between reactor cattle and human TB cases in the households. The habit of milk and meat consumption was found to be affected by occupation and location of the household residence. None of these risk factors (food consumption, living with livestock in the same house, and presence of BTB-positive cattle) were found to be statistically significant

Multidrug Resistance and Plasmid Patterns of Escherichia coli O157 and Other E. coli Isolated from Diarrhoeal Stools and Surface Waters from Some Selected Sources in Zaria, Nigeria

We have assessed the prevalence of Escherichia coli O157 in diarrhoeal patients and surface waters from some selected sources in Zaria (Nigeria), evaluating the antibiotic susceptibility and plasmid profiles of 184 E. coli isolates, obtained from 228 water samples and 112 diarrhoeal stool specimens (collected from children aged <15 years), using standard methods. The detection rate of E. coli O157 in surface waters was 2.2% and its prevalence in children with diarrhoea was 5.4%. The most active antibiotics were gentamicin, chloramphenicol and fluoroquinolones. Seventy-nine (42.9%) of 184 E. coli isolates were resistant to four or more antibiotics. Multidrug resistance (MDR) was higher amongst aquatic isolates than the clinical isolates. Out of 35 MDR isolates (20 of which were O157 strains), 22 (62.9%) harboured plasmids all of which were no less than 2.1 kb in size. Amongst the 20 E. coli O157 strains, only seven (35.0%) contained multiple plasmids. An aquatic O157 isolate containing two plasmids was resistant to seven drugs, including ampicillin, cefuroxime, ciprofloxacin, cotrimoxazole, nalidixic acid, nitrofurantoin and tetracycline. Loss of plasmid correlated with loss of resistance to antibiotics in cured (mutant) strains selected in tetracycline (50 μg/mL)-nutrient agar plates. Our findings revealed that plasmids were prevalent in both the aquatic and clinical isolates, and suggest that the observed MDR is plasmid-mediated. The occurrence of plasmid-mediated multidrug resistant E. coli O157 in surface waters used as sources for drinking, recreation and fresh produce irrigation heightens public health concern

Use of mixed methods designs in substance research: a methodological necessity in Nigeria

The utility of mixed methods (qualitative and quantitative) is becoming increasingly accepted in health sciences, but substance studies are yet to substantially benefit from such utilities. While there is a growing number of mixed methods alcohol articles concerning developed countries, developing nations are yet to embrace this method. In the Nigerian context, the importance of mixed methods research is yet to be acknowledged. This article therefore, draws on alcohol studies to argue that mixed methods designs will better equip scholars to understand, explore, describe and explain why alcohol consumption and its related problems are increasing in Nigeria. It argues that as motives for consuming alcohol in contemporary Nigeria are multiple, complex and evolving, mixed method approaches that provide multiple pathways for proffering solutions to problems should be embraced