Factors Associated with Nutritional Practices of PregnantWomen Attending Antenatal Clinic of Selected Hospitals in Benin-City, Nigeria

The health of a pregnant mother and her nutritional status can influence the health and survival of the growing foetus because of the biological link between her and her child. This study assessed the knowledge and practice of healthy nutrition among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in two selected hospitals in Benin City. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used in this study. A sample size of 284 was sampled for the target population of 972 pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in tertiary and Mission hospitals using a selfstructured questionnaire with a split-half reliability test of Cronbachs alpha value of 0.886, 0.768, and 0.851. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics (frequency and percentages). The result revealed that 157(55.3%) had good knowledge, 79(27.8%) had average knowledge while 48(16.9%) had poor knowledge. 81(28.5%) had poor practice while the majority 203(71.5%) had good practice of healthy nutrition. Ignorance (2.86±0.423), Religion (2.73±0.430), Cultural belief (2.88±0.422), were reported to be factors affecting the practice of healthy nutrition. Conclusion: Although knowledge and practices of healthy nutrition were high, the cultural belief still affects pregnant women’s practice of healthy nutrition and health talk should be encouraged on each antenatal day with an emphasis on healthy nutrition

Functional Properties of Processed Pinto Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) Grown in Plateau State, Nigeria

It is well documented that processing method influences the chemical composition and utilization of plant foods. For this purpose, the effect of different processing methods (boiled, cooked, roasted, sprouted and fermented) was investigated on the functional properties of pinto bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) flour. Functional properties (water, oil, oil emulsion and foaming capacities: WAC, OAC, OEC, FC; foaming and oil emulsion stabilities: FS, OES; least gelation concentration: LGC; bulk density: BD; protein solubility: PS) of raw and processed pinto bean flour were all determined using standard analytical techniques. The results showed that OEC, OES, LGC and BD were enhanced by different processing methods while WAC and OAC were reduced by roasting method. Processing significantly (p ?0.05) affected the content of some functional parameters in pinto bean flour. Boiling, sprouting and fermenting increased WAC and OAC contents by 34.6, 28.8, 21.2% and 33.0, 24.2, 36.3%, respectively while cooking, roasting and sprouting reduced FS by respective 3.9, 32.4 and 13.6%. The protein solubility studies of the raw and processed sample flour were found to have minimum solubility at pH range of 4.0 to 5.2 which correspond to isoelectric points where protein isolates might be recovered from the samples. Generally, all the functional parameters determined in this study were good thereby making raw and processed samples of pinto bean potentially useful in some food formulations. Keywords: Pinto bean, domestic processing, functional parameters

Change in Lipid Quality of Tilapia Fish (Oreochromis niloticus) After Different Heat Treatments

Tilapia fish (Oreochomis niloticus) has been considered to be popular among the freshwater fishes, economically cheap and more abundant in Nigeria. For this reason, a study was conducted on the effect of traditional processing methods on fatty acid composition of Oreochomis niloticus using electric oven (control), sawdust, melon husk and rice bran as different heat treatments. Fatty acid composition was determined using standard analytical technique. The result showed that palmitic and oleic acids had the highest concentrations among saturated and unsaturated fatty acids in all the processed samples, respectively. It was also revealed that samples of Oreochomis niloticus recorded decrease in total saturated fatty acid (TSFA) with various heat treatments whereas the same heat treatments enhanced the components of total unsaturated fatty acids (TUFA) and total essential fatty acid (TEFA). It was found that levels of ratio of n–6 PUFA to n–3 PUFA and oleic to linoleic which are used as biomedical index are desirable in all the processed samples of Oreochomis niloticus oils. However, heat treatment using sawdust was proven to be of good economic potential. Keywords: Oreochomis niloticus, agricultural wastes, fatty acids

Physicochemical Analyses of Different Sources of Drinking Water in Okene Local Government Area of Kogi State, Nigeria

The water quality of three different sources of drinking water (stream, hand–dug well and borehole) collected within the Okene local government area of Kogi State, Nigeria was investigated by determining some physicochemical parameter of the water samples using standard analytical techniques. The results of physicochemical parameters (pH, temperature, turbidity, conductivity, alkalinity, total dissolved solids, total suspended solids, total solids, bicarbonate, chloride and dissolved oxygen) for both dry and wet seasons revealed high spatial variations in the concentrations of physicochemical parameters. Alkalinity was not recorded in all the three different sources of water samples for both seasons however, other physicochemical parameter values fall within the acceptable values of EU and SON standard limits except turbidity values in two sources (stream and borehole) which are higher than SON acceptable limit. Therefore, it is imperative that the water sources should be monitored regularly and be subjected to further treatments in order to reduce the concentrations of the few identified pollution indicators that may pose some dangers to the health of people living in this area. Keywords: Stream, hand–dug well, borehole, physicochemical parameters

Assessment of Trace Metals in Imported Cosmetics marketed in Nigeria

This work is aimed at investigating the levels of some trace metals in make-up items mainly imported into Nigeria. Ten different make-up items were analyzed for seven trace metals. Atomic adsorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) was used to quantify the presence of these heavy metals. The trace metals analyzed included Zn, Cr, Co, Cd, Mn, Pb, and Ni. The concentration of Zn (0.6866 mg/Kg) was found to be the highest in sample I followed by Mn with (0. 5485 mg/Kg) while Cr in sample C and F, and Cd in sample A where below detectable limit.  These heavy metals were found to be within safe limits of Health Canada, The Japanese Standards of Cosmetic Ingredients (JSCI), FDA and The European Cosmetics Directive for healthy cosmetics free of trace metals toxicity. Keywords: Trace metals, Imported, Nigeria, AAS, limit, and FDA

Compositional Evaluation of Pulp and Seed of Blood Plum (Haematostaphis barteri), a Wild Tree Found in Taraba State, Nigeria

Traditional leafy vegetables represent inexpensive but high quality nutritional sources for the poor segment of the population especially in developing world like Nigeria, where malnutrition is wide spread. Blood plum (Haematostaphis barteri) is an under–utilized leafy vegetable belonging to the Anacardiacea family. A comparative study was carried out on proximate composition and amino acid profile of pulp and seed of H. barteri. The proximate composition values (%) for pulp and seed samples were found to be as follows: Moisture (3.56 and 2.75), ash (2.97 and 3.92), crude fat (17.76 and 29.68), crude protein (21.81 and 29.38), crude fibre (8.44 and 2.40), and carbohydrate (45.48 and 31.88). The calculated fatty acids and metabolizable energy were 14.21 and 23.74%; 1801.05 and 2139.58 kJ/100g, respectively. The high metabolizable energy values showed that the samples have an energy concentration more favourable than cereals, and which compare favourably well with those of legumes. The amino acid profiles revealed that pulp and seed samples of H. barteri contained nutritionally useful quantities of most of the essential amino acids. The total amino acids (TAA), total essential amino acids (TEAA) (with His), total sulphur amino acids (TSAA), and essential aromatic amino acids (EArAA) for the pulp and seed samples were 53.39 and 67.07; 26.49 and 34.28; 1.21 and 2.59; 2.70 and 3.37, respectively. However, supplementation of essential amino acid is required in a dietary formula based on H. barteri (pulp and seed), when comparing the EAAs in this report with the recommended FAO/WHO provisional pattern. The limiting EAAs in the pulp and seed of H. barteri were Leu and Lys, respectively. Keyword: Proximate, amino acids, pulp, seed, Haematostaphis barter

Influence of social media on students’ academic achievement

This study determined the influence of using social media on the academic achievement of senior secondary school students. A sample of 150 students comprising 70 males and 80 females were drawn from five schools and used for the study, this was arrived at through multi-stage sampling procedure. Social Media Questionnaire (SMQ) and Students’ Accounting Achievement Proforma (SAAP) were used for data collection. The result showed that students frequently engage in social media in order to make new friends, research about their assignments and source for other educational materials, stay up to dates with latest trends and news. The finding also showed that students spend an average, 2 to 4 hours daily on social media. There was no significant influence of frequency of social media use by students on their mean academic achievements in Accounting; however, gender of students was found to have a significant influence on students’ mean academic achievement in Accounting. Students should be guided properly and informed on the vulnerabilities likely to come their way if they fail to appropriately utilize the opportunities that come with having social media platforms

Causal attribution of mental illness in south-eastern Nigeria

Background: Understanding of mental illness in sub-Saharan Africa has remained under-researched in spite of the high and increasing neuropsychiatric burden of disease in the region. Aims: This study investigated the causal beliefs that the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria hold about schizophrenia, with a view to establishing the extent to which the population makes psychosocial, biological and supernatural attributions. Method: Multi-stage sampling was used to select participants (N = 200) to which questionnaires were administered. Results: Mean comparison of the three causal models revealed a significant endorsement of supernatural causation. Logistic regressions revealed significant contributions of old age and female gender to supernatural attribution; old age, high education and Catholic religious denomination to psychosocial attributions; and high education to biological attributions. Conclusions: It is hoped that the findings would enlighten, augment literature and enhance mental health care service delivery

Diffeomorphism covariant representations of the holonomy-flux star-algebra

Recently, Sahlmann proposed a new, algebraic point of view on the loop quantization. He brought up the issue of a star-algebra underlying that framework, studied the algebra consisting of the fluxes and holonomies and characterized its representations. We define the diffeomorphism covariance of a representation of the Sahlmann algebra and study the diffeomorphism covariant representations. We prove they are all given by Sahlmann's decomposition into the cyclic representations of the sub-algebra of the holonomies by using a single state only. The state corresponds to the natural measure defined on the space of the generalized connections. This result is a generalization of Sahlmann's result concerning the U(1) case.Comment: 37 pages, no figures, LaTeX2e, to be published in Class. Quant. Grav; typos corrected, minor clarifying remark

Safety and Immunogenicity of Malaria Vectored Vaccines Given with Routine Expanded Program on Immunization Vaccines in Gambian Infants and Neonates: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Heterologous prime-boost vaccination with chimpanzee adenovirus 63 (ChAd63) and modified vaccinia virus Ankara (MVA) encoding multiple epitope string thrombospondin-related adhesion protein (ME-TRAP) has shown acceptable safety and promising immunogenicity in African adult and pediatric populations. If licensed, this vaccine could be given to infants receiving routine childhood immunizations. We therefore evaluated responses to ChAd63 MVA ME-TRAP when co-administered with routine Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) vaccines. METHODS: We enrolled 65 Gambian infants and neonates, aged 16, 8, or 1 week at first vaccination and randomized them to receive either ME-TRAP and EPI vaccines or EPI vaccines only. Safety was assessed by the description of vaccine-related adverse events (AEs). Immunogenicity was evaluated using IFNγ enzyme-linked immunospot, whole-blood flow cytometry, and anti-TRAP IgG ELISA. Serology was performed to confirm all infants achieved protective titers to EPI vaccines. RESULTS: The vaccines were well tolerated in all age groups with no vaccine-related serious AEs. High-level TRAP-specific IgG and T cell responses were generated after boosting with MVA. CD8+ T cell responses, previously found to correlate with protection, were induced in all groups. Antibody responses to EPI vaccines were not altered significantly. CONCLUSION: Malaria vectored prime-boost vaccines co-administered with routine childhood immunizations were well tolerated. Potent humoral and cellular immunity induced by ChAd63 MVA ME-TRAP did not reduce the immunogenicity of co-administered EPI vaccines, supporting further evaluation of this regimen in infant populations. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: The clinical trial was registered on http://Clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02083887) and the Pan-African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR201402000749217)