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

Analyzing the outcomes of China's ecological compensation scheme for development-related biodiversity loss

Over the past three decades, China's government has implemented many projects under its ecological compensation policy, including paying compensation fees for habitat creation to redress natural habitat losses caused by development. However, a critical evaluation of both the policy design and its ecological outcomes, has not previously been carried out. We assemble diverse data sources to provide the first evaluation of China's eco-compensation policy and practice, identifying several challenges. In policy, the pricing of forest restoration fees is insufficient in several provinces, and there is no requirement for use of biodiversity metrics or for ecological equivalence of compensation and losses. In practice, only 23% of a sample of 31 developments applied quantitative biodiversity metrics, and fewer than 1% of China's local governments have disclosed information regarding compensation implementation. Thus, to improve the validity of its compensation policy and practice to better secure biodiversity, China may need to embrace higher compensation standards, having first prevented ecological losses where possible. Equally important, China may also need to improve compensation governance for data tracking and conservation effectiveness monitoring

The Proportion of Fixed-Point-Free Elements of a Transitive Permutation Group

In 1990 Hendrik W. Lenstra, Jr. asked the following question: if G is a transitive permutation group of degree n and A is the set of elements of G that move every letter, then can one find a lower bound (in terms of n) for f(G) = |A|/|G|? Shortly thereafter, Arjeh Cohen showed that 1/n is such a bound. Lenstra’s problem arose from his work on the number field sieve. A simple example of how f(G) arises in number theory is the following: if h is an irreducible polynomial over the integers, consider the proportion: |{primes ≤ x | h has no zeroes mod p}| / |{primes ≤ x}| As x → ∞, this ratio approaches f(G), where G is the Galois group of h considered as a permutation group on its roots. Our results in this paper include explicit calculations of f(G) for groups G in several families. We also obtain results useful for computing f(G) when G is a wreath product or a direct product of permutation groups. Using this we show that {f(G) | G is transitive} is dense in [0, 1]. The corresponding conclusion is true if we restrict G to primitive groups

LIBRARIANS PERCEPTION OF BRING YOUR OWN DEVICE POLICIES: BENEFITS FOR UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is an initiative that permits library staff to use a personally owned device to perform official tasks and access electronic library information. The most frequently used personally owned devices are mobile phones, tablets, iPad and laptops. The practice of encouraging personally owned computing devices within professional organizations is becoming more and more acceptable, as this practice enables the organisation to transfer the investment costs of desktop hardware into their employees (Pillay, 2013). The university libraries are faced with difficult economic times and university budget cuts (Tenopir & Kaufman, 2010). Hence, BYOD encourages library staff to use their personal devices to carry out official tasks, this will reduce the cost of hardware purchase and maintenance. Despite the fact that university libraries are faced with budget cuts and BYOD has been reported in many organisations as one of the ways to reduce the cost of hardware purchase. It has been observed that university libraries in Nigeria have not yet fully adopt BYOD policies. It is on this background that this study investigates librarians perception of BYOD policies; identify perceived benefits and shortcomings of BYOD to University libraries in Nigeria. The specific objectives of this study are to find out the knowledge of BYOD among librarians, establish the availability of BYOD policies and perceived benefit of BYOD to the university libraries in Nigeria. A descriptive survey research design will be adopted for this study and a self-structured questionnaire will be used as the major instrument for data collection. The questionnaire will be distributed to the respondents during the Annual Nigerian Library Association Conference that will be held in July 2018 in Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigeria. The choice of administrating the questionnaire at this venue is due to the fact that this conference draws many participants from all the libraries in Nigeria. The target population of this study comprises all 152 and a simple random sampling technique will be used for sample size. The data collected for this study will be subjected to inferential and descriptive statistical analysis using percentage, frequency count, standard deviations and means. The data will be analyzed using SPSS version 22.Covenant Universit

Impact of Primary Care–Based Disease Management on the Health-Related Quality of Life in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes and Comorbidity

Contains fulltext : 80343.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)OBJECTIVE: This study examined the effectiveness of the German diabetes disease management program (DMP) for patients with varying numbers of other medical conditions with respect to their health-related quality of life (HRQoL). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: A questionnaire, including the HRQoL-measured EQ-5D, was mailed to a random sample of 3,546 patients with type 2 diabetes (59.3% female). The EQ-5D score was analyzed by grouping patients according to those on a DMP and those receiving routine care. RESULTS: The analysis showed that participation in the DMP (P < 0.001), the number of other medical conditions (P < 0.001), and the interaction between the DMP and the number of other conditions (P < 0.05) had a significant impact on the EQ-5D score. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that the number of other medical conditions may have a negative impact on the HRQoL of patients with type 2 diabetes. The results demonstrate that the German DMP for type 2 diabetes may help counterbalance this effect

The Climate-system Historical Forecast Project: providing open access to seasonal forecast ensembles from centers around the globe

Fil: Tompkins, Adrian M.. The Abdus Salam; ItaliaFil: Ortiz de Zarate, Maria Ines. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Saurral, Ramiro Ignacio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Vera, Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Ciudad Universitaria. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Centro de Investigaciones del Mar y la Atmósfera; Argentina. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique; FranciaFil: Saulo, Andrea Celeste. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Ministerio de Defensa. Secretaria de Planeamiento. Servicio Meteorológico Nacional; ArgentinaFil: Merryfield, William J.. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis; CanadáFil: Sigmond, Michael. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis; CanadáFil: Lee, Woo Sung. Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and Analysis; CanadáFil: Baehr, Johanna. Universitat Hamburg; AlemaniaFil: Braun, Alain. Météo-France; FranciaFil: Amy Butler. National Ocean And Atmospheric Administration; Estados UnidosFil: Déqué, Michel. Météo-France; FranciaFil: Doblas Reyes, Francisco J.. Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avancats; España. Barcelona Supercomputing Center - Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion; EspañaFil: Gordon, Margaret. Met Office; Reino UnidoFil: Scaife, Adam A.. University of Exeter; Reino UnidoFil: Yukiko Imada. Japan Meteorological Agency. Meteorological Research Institute. Climate Research Department; JapónFil: Masayoshi Ishii. Japan Meteorological Agency. Meteorological Research Institute. Climate Research Department; JapónFil: Tomoaki Ose. Japan Meteorological Agency. Meteorological Research Institute. Climate Research Department; JapónFil: Kirtman, Ben. University of Miami; Estados UnidosFil: Kumar, Arun. National Ocean And Atmospheric Administration; Estados UnidosFil: Müller, Wolfgang A.. Max-Planck-Institut für Meteorologie; AlemaniaFil: Pirani, Anna. Université Paris-Saclay; FranciaFil: Stockdale, Tim. European Centre for Medium-Range Weather; Reino UnidoFil: Rixen, Michel. World Meteorological Organization. World Climate Research Programme; SuizaFil: Yasuda, Tamaki. Japan Meteorological Agency. Climate Prediction Division; Japó

Ecological niche partitioning between Anopheles gambiae molecular forms in Cameroon: the ecological side of speciation

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Speciation among members of the <it>Anopheles gambiae </it>complex is thought to be promoted by disruptive selection and ecological divergence acting on sets of adaptation genes protected from recombination by polymorphic paracentric chromosomal inversions. However, shared chromosomal polymorphisms between the M and S molecular forms of <it>An. gambiae </it>and insufficient information about their relationship with ecological divergence challenge this view. We used Geographic Information Systems, Ecological Niche Factor Analysis, and Bayesian multilocus genetic clustering to explore the nature and extent of ecological and chromosomal differentiation of M and S across all the biogeographic domains of Cameroon in Central Africa, in order to understand the role of chromosomal arrangements in ecological specialisation within and among molecular forms.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Species distribution modelling with presence-only data revealed differences in the ecological niche of both molecular forms and the sibling species, <it>An. arabiensis</it>. The fundamental environmental envelope of the two molecular forms, however, overlapped to a large extent in the rainforest, where they occurred in sympatry. The S form had the greatest niche breadth of all three taxa, whereas <it>An. arabiensis </it>and the M form had the smallest niche overlap. Correspondence analysis of M and S karyotypes confirmed that molecular forms shared similar combinations of chromosomal inversion arrangements in response to the eco-climatic gradient defining the main biogeographic domains occurring across Cameroon. Savanna karyotypes of M and S, however, segregated along the smaller-scale environmental gradient defined by the second ordination axis. Population structure analysis identified three chromosomal clusters, each containing a mixture of M and S specimens. In both M and S, alternative karyotypes were segregating in contrasted environments, in agreement with a strong ecological adaptive value of chromosomal inversions.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Our data suggest that inversions on the second chromosome of <it>An. gambiae </it>are not causal to the evolution of reproductive isolation between the M and S forms. Rather, they are involved in ecological specialization to a similar extent in both genetic backgrounds, and most probably predated lineage splitting between molecular forms. However, because chromosome-2 inversions promote ecological divergence, resulting in spatial and/or temporal isolation between ecotypes, they might favour mutations in other ecologically significant genes to accumulate in unlinked chromosomal regions. When such mutations occur in portions of the genome where recombination is suppressed, such as the pericentromeric regions known as speciation islands in <it>An. gambiae</it>, they would contribute further to the development of reproductive isolation.</p

Epidemiología de las enfermedades reumáticas en México. Un estudio de 5 regiones basado en la metodología COPCORD

To estimate the prevalence of musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders and to describe predicting variables associated with rheumatic diseases in 5 regions of México

Understanding and predicting seasonal-to-interannual climate variability - the producer perspective

Seasonal prediction is based on changes in the probability of weather statistics due to changes in slowly varying forcings such as sea surface temperature anomalies, most notably those associated with El Niňo–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). However, seasonal weather can be perturbed by many factors, and is very much influenced by internal variability of the atmosphere, so comprehensive models are needed to identify what can be predicted. The predictability and probabilistic nature of seasonal forecasts is explained with suitable examples. Current capabilities for seasonal prediction that have grown out of work done in the research community at both national and international levels are described. Dynamical seasonal prediction systems are operational or quasi-operational at a number of forecasting centres around the world. Requirements for seasonal prediction include initial conditions, particularly for the upper ocean but also other parts of the climate system; high quality models of the ocean-atmosphere-land system; and data for verification and calibration. The wider context of seasonal prediction and seamless forecasting is explained. Recommendations for the future of seasonal prediction and climate services are given