MARIJUANA SMOKING AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ZARIA, NIGERIA: FACTORS RESPONSIBLE AND EFFECTS ON ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Background: The use of Marijuana is on the increase worldwide especially among adolescents and youths. Marijuana smoking has gained a foothold in our environment because of peer group influence, accessibility and availability. Its medico-social effects could ruin the life and future of our youths. This study was undertaken to determine the prevalence and the factors that influence secondary school students in Zaria LGA to smoke and the effects on academic performance. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was employed to generate data among secondary schoolstudents. A multi-stage sampling technique was used. Data was collected with the use of a structured, pre tested self-administered questionnaire. ƒÓ2 test was used to test for significance of associationbetween categorical variables. Results: Of the 350 respondents, 262 (74.9%) were males, while 88 (25.1%) were females. The studyshows that 33 of the students smoke marijuana giving a prevalence of 9.4%. There were more smokers in the age group 15-19 years (54.6%). Other factors that influence marijuana smoking include familybackground, peer pressure and attendance of social functions. There was better academic performance (51.1%) among non smokers as compared to smokers (27.2%), and this was found to be statisticallysignificant (x2 = 11.73,df = 5,P < .05) There was also statistically significant association between age and marijuana smoking (x2 = 24,df = 2,P < .05) Conclusion: The prevalence of marijuana smoking is high. Age, family background, peer pressure and attendance of social function influence marijuana smoking. A comprehensive school health educationprogram should be instituted to curtail this menac

Morphometric analysis of the gastrointestinal mucosa in monosodium glutamate-treated albino rats

The consumption of monosodium glutamate as a major constituent of food flavours or additives has been on the increase in Nigeria despite the strongly speculated side-effects. Objectives: This study intends to determine effects of monosodium glutamate (MSG) on the morphology of stomach and small intestines of male Albino rats. Methods: Forty-four rats weighing 40 80g were randomly divided into four groups of eleven animals each consisting of six treatment and five controls. All the treatment rats were intraperitoneally injected with 4g/kg body weight of aqueous solution of MSG daily while the controls received comparable volume of normal saline. The animals in groups I, II, III, IV were sacrificed at the end of the day one, 2nd&nbsp;week, 4th week and 6th week of experiment respectively. Samples obtained from the fundic and pyloric parts of the stomach, distal parts of duodenum, jejunum and ileum were carefully dissected and quickly fixed in Bouin's fluid for morphometric studies after H&amp;E stain. Results: n comparing the values from sections of MSG treated rats with those of controls a significant (P&lt;0.05) reduction in length and circumference of the small intestines were obtained. The thickness of the gastric mucosa and mucosa of the duodenum and ileum were significantly (P&lt;0.05) increased except for the thickness of jejunal mucosa which was significantly (P&lt;0.05) reduced later during the course of the experiment. Conclusion: These findings indicate that MSG induces trophic changes that are characterized by decrease in the length and circumference of the small intestine and increase in the duodenal and ileal villi length with concomitant increase in the thickness of the gastric mucosa

Three-dimensional vibration analysis of a torus with circular cross section

The free vibration characteristics of a torus with a circular cross section are studied by using the three-dimensional, small-strain, elasticity theory. A set of three-dimensional orthogonal coordinates system, comprising the polar coordinate (r, θ) at each circular cross section and the circumferential coordinate φ around the ring, is developed. Each of the displacement components ur, vτ, and wφ in the r, θ, and φ directions, respectively, is taken as a product of the Chebyshev polynomials in the r direction and the trigonometric functions in the θ and φ directions. Eigenfrequencies and vibration mode shapes have been obtained via a three-dimensional displacement-based extremum energy principle. Upper bound convergence of the first seven eigenfrequencies accurate to at least six significant figures is obtained by using only a few terms of the admissible functions. The eigenfrequency responses due to variation of the ratio of the radius of the ring centroidal axis to the cross-sectional radius are investigated in detail. Very accurate eigenfrequencies and deformed mode shapes of the three-dimensional vibration are presented. All major modes such as flexural thickness-shear modes, in-plane stretching modes, and torsional modes are included in the analysis. The results may serve as a benchmark reference for validating other computational techniques for the problem. © 2002 Acoustical Society of America.published_or_final_versio

Three-dimensional vibration analysis of prisms with isosceles triangular cross-section

This paper studies the three-dimensional (3-D) free vibration of uniform prisms with isosceles triangular cross-section, based on the exact, linear and small strain elasticity theory. The actual triangular prismatic domain is first mapped onto a basic cubic domain. Then the Ritz method is applied to derive the eigenfrequency equation from the energy functional of the prism. A set of triplicate Chebyshev polynomial series, multiplied by a boundary function chosen to, a priori, satisfy the geometric boundary conditions of the prism is developed as the admissible functions of each displacement component. The convergence and comparison study demonstrates the high accuracy and numerical robustness of the present method. The effect of length-thickness ratio and apex angle on eigenfrequencies of the prisms is studied in detail and the results are compared with those obtained from the classical one-dimensional theory and the 3-D finite element method. Sets of valuable data known for the first time are reported, which can serve as benchmark values in applying various approximate beam and rod theories. © 2009 Springer-Verlag.published_or_final_versionSpringer Open Choice, 01 Dec 201

Integrated computational intelligent paradigm for nonlinear electric circuit models using neural networks, genetic algorithms and sequential quadratic programming

© 2019, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature. In this paper, a novel application of biologically inspired computing paradigm is presented for solving initial value problem (IVP) of electric circuits based on nonlinear RL model by exploiting the competency of accurate modeling with feed forward artificial neural network (FF-ANN), global search efficacy of genetic algorithms (GA) and rapid local search with sequential quadratic programming (SQP). The fitness function for IVP of associated nonlinear RL circuit is developed by exploiting the approximation theory in mean squared error sense using an approximate FF-ANN model. Training of the networks is conducted by integrated computational heuristic based on GA-aided with SQP, i.e., GA-SQP. The designed methodology is evaluated to variants of nonlinear RL systems based on both AC and DC excitations for number of scenarios with different voltages, resistances and inductance parameters. The comparative studies of the proposed results with Adam’s numerical solutions in terms of various performance measures verify the accuracy of the scheme. Results of statistics based on Monte-Carlo simulations validate the accuracy, convergence, stability and robustness of the designed scheme for solving problem in nonlinear circuit theory

Arresting metastasis within the microcirculation.

The behaviour of circulating tumour cells in the microcirculation remains poorly understood. Growing evidence suggests that biomechanical adaptations and interactions with blood components, i.e. immune cells and platelets within capillary beds, may add more complexity to CTCs journey towards metastasis. Revisiting how these mediators impact the ability of circulating tumour cells to survive and metastasise, will be vital to understand the role of microcirculation and advance our knowledge on metastasis

Off-Street Vehicular Fog for Catering Applications in 5G/B5G: A Trust-based Task Mapping Solution and Open Research Issues

One of the key enablers in serving the applications requiring stringent latency in 5G networks is fog computing as it is situated closer to the end users. With the technological advancement of vehicles’ on-board units, their computing capabilities are becoming robust, and considering the underutilization of the off-street vehicles, we envision that the off-street vehicles can be an enormously useful computational source for the fog computing. Additionally, clustering the vehicles would be advantageous in order to improve the service availability. As the vehicles become highly connected, trust is needed especially in distributed environments. However, vehicles are made from different manufacturers, and have different platforms, security mechanisms, and varying parking duration. These lead to the unpredictable behavior of the vehicles where quantifying trust value of vehicles would be difficult. A trust-based solution is necessary for task mapping as a task has a set of properties including expected time to complete, and trust requirements that need to be met. However, the existing metrics used for trust evaluation in the vehicular fog computing such as velocity and direction are not applicable in the off-street vehicle fog environments. In this paper, we propose a framework for quantifying the trust value of off-street vehicle fog computing facilities in 5G networks and forming logical clusters of vehicles based on the trust values. This allows tasks to be shared with multiple vehicles in the same cluster that meets the tasks’ trust requirements. Further, we propose a novel task mapping algorithm to increase the vehicle resource utilization and meet the desired trust requirements while maintaining imposed latency requirements of 5G applications. Results obtained using iFogSim simulator demonstrate that the proposed solution increases vehicle resource utilization and reduces task drop noticeably. This paper presents open research issues pertaining to the study to lead..

Extra-hepatic fascioliasis with peritoneal malignancy tumor feature

Fascioliasis is a zoonose parasitic disease caused by Fasciola hepatica and Fasciola gigantica and is widespread in most regions of the world. Ectopic fascioliasis usually caused by juvenile Fasciola spp., but in recent years a few cases of tissue-embedded ova have been reported from different endemic areas. A 79-year-old Iranian man resident in Eird-e-Mousa village from Ardabil Province, north-west of Iran, complained with abdominal pain, nausea, and intestinal obstruction symptoms referred to Ardabil Fatemi hospital. In laparotomy multiple intestinal masses with peritoneal seeding resembling of a malignant lesion were seen. After appendectomy and peritoneal mass biopsy with numerous intraperitoneal adenopathy, paraffin embedded blocks were prepared from each tissues. A blood sample was taken from the patient 5 months later for serological diagnosis. Histopathological examination of sections showed fibrofatty stroma with dense mixed inflammatory cells infiltration and fibrosis in peritoneal masses. Large numbers of ova of Fasciola spp. were noted with typical circumscribed granulomas. Despite of anti-fasciola treatment, IHA test for detecting anti F. hepatica antibodies was positive 5 months after surgery with a titer of 1/128. Due to multiple clinical manifestation of extra-hepatic fascioliasis, its differential diagnosis from intraperitoneal tumors or other similar diseases should be considered

Clearance of technetium-99m-DTPA and HRCT findings in the evaluation of patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis

BACKGROUND: Clearance of inhaled technetium-labeled diethylenetriamine pentaacetate ((99m)Tc-DTPA) is a marker of epithelial damage and an index of lung epithelial permeability. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of (99m)Tc-DTPA scan in patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Our hypothesis is that the rate of pulmonary (99m)Tc-DTPA clearance could be associated with extent of High Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) abnormalities, cell differential of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BALF) and pulmonary function tests (PFTs) in patients with IPF. METHODS: We studied prospectively 18 patients (14 male, 4 female) of median age 67yr (range 55–81) with histologically proven IPF. HRCT scoring included the mean values of extent of disease. Mean values of these percentages represented the Total Interstitial Disease Score (TID). DTPA clearance was analyzed according to a dynamic study using a Venticis II radioaerosol delivery system. RESULTS: The mean (SD) TID score was 36 ± 12%, 3 patients had mild, 11 moderate and 4 severe TID. Abnormal DTPA clearance half-time (t(1/2)<40 min) was found in 17/18 (94.5%) [mean (SD) 29.1 ± 8.6 min]. TID was weakly correlated with the DTPA clearance (r = -0.47, p = 0.048) and with % eosinophils (r = 0.475, p = 0.05). No correlation was found between TID score or DTPA and PFTs in IPF patients. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that (99m)Tc-DTPA lung scan is not well associated with HRCT abnormalities, PFTs, and BALF cellularity in patients with IPF. Further studies in large scale of patients are needed to define the role of this technique in pulmonary fibrosis