Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Matters of Igiogbe Inheritance Under Bini Native Law and Custom

The law of succession as it relates to the inheritance of the property of a deceased person who dies testate or intestate mostly as it relates to the place of the eldest son in relation the inheritance of the ‘igiobe’ of a deceased Benin man under native law and custom has become an area of study that has received several pronouncements by the High Court, court of Appeal and Supreme Court, yet, the more the decisions of courts, the more new areas come up for explanations, clarifications and decisions. “Igiogbe” by the decision of the courts, is the house of the deceased where he lived, died and was buried and it cannot be inherited by or given to any child of the deceased other than the eldest male child who performs the fuel burial rites of his late father. It does not form part of the distributable estate of the deceased.The main findings of this work are firstly, that ignorance, poverty and greed are bane to the inheritance of Igiogbe of a deceased Benin man. Secondly, enforcement of the right of the eldest son to inherit his late father’s igiogbe is prevalent where the first son is uneducated and poor. Thirdly, that the fact that courts void some wiles does not mean that a Benin man cannot write a will and distribute his properties therein as he wishes. A will still has place in relation to the inheritance of igiogbe under Benin native law and custom.It is therefore recommend that to ease quick settling of matters that has to do igiogbe inheritance, Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanism rather than by litigation should be consider more appropriate. DOI: 10.7176/JAAS/54-05 Publication date: April 30th 201

Automatic Recognition of African Bust using Modified Principal Component Analysis (MPCA)

This study identified and analysed the pattern recognition features of African bust. It also developed and evaluated a Modified Principal Component Analysis (MPCA) for recognizing those features. This was with a view to providing information on the developed MPCA for a robust approach to recognition of African bust.The developed MPCA used varying number of eigenvectors in creating the bust space. The characteristics of the bust in terms of facial dimension, types of marks, structure of facial components such as the eye, mouth, chin etc were analysed for identification. The bust images were resized for proper reshaping and cropped to adjust their backgrounds using the Microsoft Office Picture Manager. The system code was developed and run on the Matrix Laboratory software (MatLab7.0).The use of varying values of eigenvectors has proven positive result as far as the system evaluation was concerned. For instance, a sensitivity test carried out revealed that thirteen out of seventeen bust’s images were recognized by selecting only vectors of highest eigenvalues while all the test images were recognized with the inclusion of some vectors of low energy level. That is, the modification made to the Conventional PCA (i.e. Eigenface Algorithm) gave rise an increment of about twenty five percent (25%) as far as recognizing the test images was concerned.The study concluded that the Modification made to the conventional PCA has shown very good performance as far as the parameters involved were concerned. The performance of the MPCA was justified by the identification of all the test images, that is, the MPCA proved more efficient than the Conventional PCA technique especially for the recognition of features of the African busts. Keywords: Eigenvectors, Bust recognition, Modified Principal Component Analysis Technique (MPCA), African Bust

Prevalence of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and extended spectrum β–lactamase producers among bacteria isolated from infected wounds in a tertiary hospital in Ibadan City

Wound colonization by microorganisms is most frequently polymicrobial and incidences of high level resistance among bacterial isolates from wounds have been reported. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and extendedspectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) producing Gram-negative bacteria both constitute serious challenge to physician in their choice of antibiotic treatment of infections caused by these bacteria. This study determined the antibiotic susceptibility profiles and prevalence of MRSA and ESBL producers among wound bacterial isolates from a tertiary hospital in Ibadan City.Forty (40) clinical bacterial isolates from five wound sources were collected from the Microbiology unit of the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan and were authenticated with standard bacteriological techniques. Antibiotic susceptibility test was done by disc-diffusion method using 19 antibiotics belonging to 12 classes. MRSA strains were detected by their resistance to cefoxitin and/or oxacillin antibiotics. Presumptive ESBL production was by double-disc synergy test using 30 μg cefotaxime and ceftazidime around 20/10 μg amoxicillin-clavulanic acid discs. ESBL confirmation was by minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) using agar-dilution method.The authenticated isolates include Proteus spp (47.5%), Staphylococcus aureus (27.5%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (12.5%), Klebsiella spp (7.5%), Acinetobacter baumanii (2.5%) and E. coli (2.5%). Distribution of the isolates collected according to wound sources includes: acute soft tissue wounds (35%), leg ulcer (32.5%), surgical wounds (17.5%), burn wounds (12.5%) and diabetic foot ulcer (2.5%). Distributions according to patients’ gender are: male (65%), female (35%), and according to age-groups are: 0 – 19 years (22.5%), 20 – 39 years (35%), 40 – 59 years (32.5%) and ≥ 60 years (10%). All (100%) the isolates were multidrug resistant (MDR) being resistant to ≥ 3 classes of antibiotics. Percentages of isolates resistance to each of the antibiotic include: piperacillin, piperacillin tozobactam and amoxicillin-clavulanic acid were 100%, ceftazidime, cefuroxime, cefixime, aztreonam, sulphamethoxazole-trimethoprim, erythromycin, chloramphenicol and doxycyclin were > 70%, cefoxitin (62.5%), Nitrofurantion (52.5%), ciprofloxacin (45%), ofloxacin (35%), perfloxacin (37.5%), gentamicin (32.5%) and imipenem (2.5%). Of the 11 Staphylococcus aureus collected, 54.5% were detected to be MRSA strains while ESBL production was detected in 55.2% of the Gram negative isolates.This study revealed 100% MDR phenotype constituting high level of MRSA strains (54.5%) and ESBL producers (55.2%) among Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacterial wound isolates respectively. Hence, this calls for caution in the use of extended spectrum antibiotics in treating patients with infected wounds

Effects of extracts of Daucus carota and Brassica oleraceae on ethanol-induced gastric ulcer

Disruption of gastric mucosal integrity occurs due to imbalance between defensive and offensive factors. This requires treatment using pharmacological agents to reduce the burden. The associated drug adverse effects attract research into crude plant materials and plant products from which active compounds with promising therapeutic results can be obtained. Phytochemical screening of D. carota and B. oleraceae extract were done. Forty-eight Wistar strain rats, age 8-10 weeks, weighing 100g–152g, were acclimatized for 14 days after which they were fasted for 10-12h and given 1ml of 90% ethanol/100g body weight orally to induce gastric ulceration. Extract of D. carota and B. oleraceae were administered orally for fifteen days after which the rats were sacrificed and stomach harvested. Phytochemical screening showed that both D. carota and B. oleraceae contain tannin, cardiac glycoside. Stomach tissue antioxidant levels showed a non-significant increase in GSH (p = 0.21); a significant increase in SOD and CAT (p = 0.000, 0.000); and a significant decrease in MDA, GPx, and GPR (p = 0.000, 0.002, 0.000) in the treated groups. B. oleraceae extract demonstrated a 25.7% cure, D. carota extract showed 56.6% cure while combined B. oleraceae and D. carota extracts showed 70% cure rate. Modifications of gastric mucosal damage by the administered extracts were revealed histopathologically. It could be concluded that extract of D. carota and B. oleraceae singly or in combination exhibited antiulcer activities in ethanol-induced gastric ulceration and showed some synergism in the management of gastric ulcer.Keywords: Daucus carota, Brassica oleraceae, ethanol, antioxidants, gastric ulcerAfr. J. Biomed. Res. Vol. 22 (January, 2019); 89- 9

Spray Pyrolysed Nanostructured Gold-Doped Tin Oxide (Auto) Thin Films

Nanostructured SnO2 thin films were grown by the chemical spray pyrolysis (CSP) method. Homemade spray pyrolysis technique is employed to prepare thin films. SnO2 is wide band gap semiconductor material whose film is deposited on glass substrate. A gold nanoparticle-doped tin oxide thin film (AuTO) was also prepared. UV-VIS (ultraviolet visible) spectroscopy and four-point probe analysis are done for optical and electrical analysis. UV-Visible absorption spectra show that the band gap of SnO2 thin film is 3.78 eV and 3.82 eV for AuTO. Band gap of SnO2 thin film can be tuned that it can be used in optical devices. The films have transmittance increases (to about 60%) and the absorbance decreases in the visible region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The electrical conductivity of the Tin Oxide is enhanced by functionalizing with the Gold nanoparticles. It is higher than that of the Tin oxide only; 0.77 x 10-2 (Ohm cm)-1 and 3.55 x 10-2 (Ohm cm)-1 for SnO2 and AuTO respectively. These properties reveal that Tin Oxide doped with gold can actually be a good material for a transparent conducting oxide to be used in photovoltaic fabrication and in electronics

Milk yield and composition of West African dwarf (wad) goats fed palm kernel cake supplement for conventional concentrate

The effect of replacement of conventional Concentrate (CC) supplement with Palm Kernel Cake (PKC) on the milk composition and yield of West African Dwarf (WAD) dams fed Pennisetum purpureum silage (grass) basal ration was investigated. Twenty five lactating WAD dams of average weight of 13kg ± 0.2 were randomly assigned into five dietary treatments in a Completely Randomized Design (CRD) layout. Each treatment group consists of five replicates of lactating dam. Dams were individually housed and offered silage freely with 400g of one of the five supplement treatments (T) per day ( viz: C/PKC: T1 – T5); T1: 100/0; T2: 75/25; T3: 50/50; T4: 25/75 and T5: 0/100). The replacement of CC by PKC had significant (p<0.05) effect on the average milk yield, percentage (%) fat, protein, specific gravity, ash and fat corrected milk (FCM) but showed no significant (p>0.05) effect on the total solid (TS%) of the milk of the treatments. Based on this result it can be concluded that the proportionate combinations of CC and PKC as supplement to Pennisetum purpureum (grass) silage rations of WAD goats during lactation will improve the milk yield and the composition without adverse effect. However, at 50% replacement of CC by PKC (50/50) the milk yield is enhanced while the fat and protein components were improved at 100% replacement of CC by PKC. &nbsp

Principal component and stepwise discriminant analysis of the morphometric traits of three dual-purpose breeds of chicken

Using the principal component procedure of SAS, 10 variables; body weight (BW), body length (BL), breast girth (BG), shank length (SL), thigh length (TL), comb length (CL), comb height (CH), wing length (WL), wattle length (WAL) and wattle thickness (WT) obtained from three dual-purpose chicken breeds (Shika, Kuroiler, and Sasso), variables were separated. Similarly, stepwise discriminant analsis procedure of the SAS software was employed to evaluate variables that contribute to the overall differences in breeds. Results showed three principal components (PC1, PC2 and PC3) were extracted for all the breeds and pooled data. 45.60% of total variance was accounted for by PC1, 28.17% by PC2 and 16.22% by PC3. The principal components partitioning of total variance were 50.80, 15.10 and 9.70%, 50.82, 19.90 and 14.90%, and 48.63, 14.00 and 12.67% for Shika, Kuroiler, and Sasso breeds respectively, with different factor loadings. Communalities ranged from 0.43-0.97, 0.45-0.83, 0.45-0.88 and 0.45-0.90, indicating that a good amount of variance was accounted for. Stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that seven morphometric traits, TL, SL, WAL, WL, CL, CH and BL, contributed significantly (P<0.001) to the separation of the birds into breeds. TL and SL, however, indicated higher discriminating power compared to others. The principal component analysis allowed for better understanding of the complex correlations among traits and reduced the number of traits along with high communalities, using only PC1, PC2 and PC3the first three PCs, without loss of information. Summary of stepwise discriminant analysis shows that lengthwise measures of long bones of the body of chickens, such as thigh and shank, are viable metrics for phenotypic differentiation of birds in the studied population.Keywords: Principal Component, Stepwise discriminant Analysis, Morphometric traits, chicken

Performance of West African Dwarf nursing does and kids fed graded levels of palm kernel cake as replacement for formulated concentrates

A sixteen-week feeding trial was conducted to evaluate the replacement value of formulated concentrate (FC) supplemented with palm kernel cake (PKC) using Pennisetum purpureum as a basal diet for nursing West African Dwarf (WAD) goats. Parameters assessed were dry matter intake, average initial live weight, average live weight change of the does and suckled kids. Fifteen lactating WAD goats and suckling kids were randomly allocated to five concentrate supplement groups of FC: PKC ratio, namely, diet 1 (100:0), diet 2 (75:25), diet 3 (50:50), diet 4 (25:75), and diet 5 (0:100) respectively in a completely randomized design (CRD). Each treatment had three replicates of one nursing doe and a suckling kid. The replacement of FC supplemented with PKC had a significant (P 0.05) effect was observed in their total DM intake. The levels of replacement of FC by PKC indicated a significant (P<0.05) effect on the average feed intake, average live weight of nursing does and suckled kids. The results concluded that 50% fraction replacement of FC by PKC perfectly enhanced better performance

Effect of dietary supplementation with arginine on haematological indices, serum chemistry, carcass yield, gut microflora, and lymphoid organs of growing turkeys

A 8-wk feeding experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with Arg on haematological indices, serum chemistry, carcass yield, gut microflora, and lymphoid organ weights of growing turkeys. A total of one hundred and eighty 56-d-old male grower turkeys were weighed individually and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 dietary treatments with 6 replicate pens, and 10 turkeys per pen in a completely randomized design. Dietary treatments consisted of basal diets supplemented with 0, 0.5, and 1.0 g Arg/kg. Haematological indices and serum chemistry were measured at 84 and 112 d of study. Carcass yield, relative weights of retail cuts, organ weights, and gut microflora were measured at d 112. Except eosinophil, no effect of Arg supplementation was obtained on haematological indices at d 84. At d 112, finisher turkeys fed the diet supplemented with 0.5 g Arg/kg had the greatest red blood cell (quadratic, P<0.001), lymphocyte (linear, P=0.011; quadratic, P<0.001), and basophil counts (quadratic, P<0.001). In grower turkeys at d 84, total serum protein (quadratic, P=0.030), and serum globulin concentrations (quadratic, P=0.043) increased initially as Arg supplementation increased from 0 to 0.5 g/kg, but decreased with the 1.0 g Arg/kg. Uric acid concentration and alanine aminotransferase activity reduced as Arg supplementation increased from 0 to 0.5 g/kg, but increased with the 1.0 g Arg/kg (quadratic, P=0.002). In finisher turkeys at d 112, total serum protein (linear, P=0.004; quadratic, P=0.002), serum globulin (linear, P=0.008; quadratic, P=0.030), serum albumin (linear, P=0.012; quadratic, P=0.040), and triodosterine concentrations (linear, P=0.025; quadratic, P=0.033) increased with increasing Arg supplementation. At d 112, spleen weights increased linearly (P=0.006), while thymus weights increased quadratically (P=0.003) with increasing dietary Arg supplementation. Salmonella counts in the small intestinal content of turkeys at d 112 reduced quadratically as Arg supplementation increased from 0 to 1.0 g/kg (P=0.029). In conclusion, Arg supplementation increased packed cell volume of finisher turkeys, improved serum chemistry of grower, and finisher turkeys as indicated by increased total serum protein, and reduced serum enzymes with appreciable improvement obtained when included at 0.5 g Arg/kg. Arginine supplementation enhanced the relative weights of thymus, spleen, and reduced Salmonella counts in small intestine of turkeys

Growth performance, nutrient digestibility, metabolizable energy, and intestinal morphology of growing turkeys fed diet supplemented with arginine

A 8-wk feeding experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary supplementation with Arg on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, metabolizable energy, and intestinal morphology of growing turkeys. A total of one hundred and eighty 56-d-old male grower turkeys were weighed individually and randomly assigned to 1 of 3 dietary treatments with 6 replicate pens and 10 turkeys per pen in a completely randomized design. Dietary treatments consisted of basal diets supplemented with 0, 0.5, and 1.0 g Arg/kg. Growth response was measured during the grower (d 56–84) and finisher (d 84–112) phases, while nutrient digestibility, metabolizable energy, and intestinal morphology were measured at d 84 and 112. Arginine supplementation had no effect on growth response during the grower phase. During the finisher phase, feed conversion ratio decreased initially as Arg supplementation increased from 0 to 0.5 g/kg, but it increased with the 1.0 g Arg/kg (quadratic, P=0.028). At d 84, grower turkeys fed diets supplemented with 1.0 g Arg/kg had greater (linear, P<0.001) apparent dry matter, crude protein, and ether extract digestibility. At d 84, greatest apparent metabolizable energy, nitrogen corrected apparent metabolizable energy, and true metabolizable energy values were obtained with grower turkeys fed diet supplemented with 0.5 g Arg/kg (quadratic, P<0.001). At d 84, duodenum, and ileum villus height in grower turkeys increased linearly, and quadratically (P<0.001) with increasing Arg supplementation. Dietary supplementation with Arg reduced the apical widths in duodenum (linear, P=0.003; quadratic, P<0.001), jejunum (linear and quadratic, P<0.001), and ileum (linear, P=0.010; quadratic, P=0.004) of grower turkeys. At d 112, jejunum villus height (quadratic, P=0.042), and ileum villus height (linear, P=0.022; quadratic, P=0.042) of finisher turkeys increased, while duodenum apical widths reduced (quadratic, P=0.033) with increasing Arg supplementation. In conclusion, Arg supplementation showed a linear improvement in nutrient digestibility of grower turkeys at d 84, increased nutrient absorption in grower, and finisher turkeys as indicated by increased intestinal villus height at d 84, and 112. Furthermore, dietary supplementation with 0.5 g Arg/kg promoted a quadratic improvement in feed conversion ratio of finisher turkeys, and metabolizable energy values of grower turkeys at d 84