Negative Mental Health Factors in Children Orphaned by AIDS: Natural Mentoring as a Palliative Care

The study examined the psychosocial mental health of some children whose parents died of AIDS (n = 373) in Uganda and South Africa. The design had 2 control groups: other-causes orphaned (n = 287), and non-orphaned (n = 290) children (grand mean age = 13.59, SD = 2.34). We utilized a battery of standardized psychosocial measures to estimate mental health in the groups. Natural mentoring relationship was estimated with the Ragins and McFarlin (J Vocat Behav 37:321–339, 1990) Mentor Role Instrument. Results indicated that AIDS-orphaned children showed highest negative, and lowest positive mental health factors in the 3 groups. Children in a mentoring relationship showed better mental health factors than those without a mentor. We ascribed the AIDS-orphaned children’s highest negative mental health condition to the incidence of higher double parental loss in the group, and suggested natural mentorship as a palliative care against negative mental health

Census politics in deeply divided societies

Population censuses in societies that are deeply divided along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines can be sensitive affairs – particularly where political settlements seek to maintain peace through the proportional sharing of power between groups. This brief sets out some key findings from a research project investigating the relationship between census politics and the design of political institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kenya, Lebanon and Northern Ireland

Design, Construction and Performance Evaluation of a Small Scale Biofuel Distiller

A biofuel distiller of 20 L feed capacity was designed fabricated and used to distill bioethanol from a biomass broth. The distiller consists of a 40 L volume boiler unit integrated to the combustion chamber as a cylindrical column; and a counter current cylindrical condenser of length, tube and shell internal diameter of 88 cm, 0.0191/0.15 m, inclined at 450.  The reactor is a Top Lit Updraft (T-LUD) type fired with charcoal of moderate lump. Its performance evaluation was conducted using 20 L palm bunch broth as the distiller feed. The palm bunch collected from Siat Nigeria Ltd, Ubima, Rivers State, Nigeria, was physically pretreated by grinding to powder, hydrolyzed with 1.2 % dilute H2SO4, at 160°C for 30 min and fermented for 72 h with S.cerevisiae separated from palm wine. The broth was then separated from the slurry by filtering before distillation. The result of the machine evaluation showed that 817 ml bioethanol was obtained per batch at 20 min from the bubble point which took 95 min. Actual combustion efficiency was found to be 55 % with reactor power rating of 12.2 kW. The machine vaporized bioethanol fuel from the boiler feed fed at 27°C, and released the distillate at 28.3°C. Distillation efficiency was found to be greater than 90 % while the maximum productivity occurred at 10 min from the bubble point. The machine is economical, reliable, convenient to use and can stand diverse environmental conditions. It can be integrated as a waste management step in the downstream end of palm mill operations

USING THE WRITING WORKSHOP TO IMPROVE READING

The study investigated the effect of using the writing workshop to improve reading in senior secondary school students. Most public schools in Nigeria do not explicitly teach reading or writing to students, hence most of these students have poor reading and writing competences. This study applied the writing workshop strategy (Fletcher & Portalupi, 2001) to teach reading to a small group of secondary school students in a rural community in Ezinihitte, Mbaise, near Owerri, South East Nigeria. The study employed the qualitative method of participant observation. A comparison of students’ reading and writing performance before and after the study showed that the treatment had a positive effect on the reading and writing competences of the subjects. It was concluded that using the writing workshop to teach students who are being prepared for the senior secondary school certificate examinations to actively read and write in the English language will go a long way to improve their competence in both reading and writing the language. It is recommended that both the government and all stakeholders should adopt this strategy alongside other useful ones to improve the performance of students in internal and external examinations.  Article visualizations

Management of calcaneal fractures: a case series

Background: Untreated or inappropriately treated, calcaneal fractures can result in arthritis, chronic ankle pain, and ankle deformity which can significantly impact the lifestyle of affected patients. Even though calcaneal fractures are common among those with multiple injuries, they can easily be missed, and not treating them would significantly impact on the patient negatively. Case Presentation: This article is a retrospective recall of the six patients seen with calcaneal fractures that were treated in our hospital between 2010 and 2018, they were mainly multiply injured and the advanced trauma life support (ATLS) protocol helped to delineate these fractures, the use of modern-day operative and non-operative methods of management and rehabilitation were employed. Discussion and conclusion: Calcaneal fractures are mostly associated with high-energy trauma which includes falls from heights or vehicle accidents with almost 50% soft tissue involvement. This is similar to cases presented in this paper as all the patients were either involved in road traffic accidents or had fallen from a height, however, soft tissue destruction manifesting as open fractures were absent in our series. Calcaneal fractures are rare and can easily be missed as patients may present as multiply injured. Prompt and adequate Rehabilitation is important to improve function

Dilute Acid Hydrolysis of Cowpea Hulls: A Kinetic Study

In this study, dilute acid hydrolysis of cowpea hulls was carried out in two stages under the following conditions: pre-hydrolysis (4%v/v H2SO4, 121˚C, 30 minutes) and hydrolysis ( at 10% and 15% v/v H2SO4,varied at different temperatures 150 oC, 160 oC, 170 oC and 180 oC for 2.5 hrs.). The substrate was characterized using both Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and proximate analysis. The percentage lignocellulosic composition of the substrate was obtained for cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin as 34%, 14% and 4.7% respectively. Maximum glucose concentration of 8.09g was obtained using 10%v/v acid concentration at 170˚C after a reaction time of 90min. Saeman’s model gave a good fit for the experimental data. Activation energy for glucose formation using 10%v/v and 15%v/v H2SO4 was obtained as 38.28KJ and 82.204KJ respectively. From the results obtained it can be concluded that cowpea hulls can be converted to a useful product

Multitasking, but for what benefit? The dilemma facing Nigerian university students regarding part-time working.

Students working part-time while studying for a full-time university degree are commonplace in many Western countries. This paper however, examines the historically uncommon part-time working activities and career aspirations among Nigerian university students. In particular, how working is perceived to contribute to developing employability skills, and whether it is influenced by their self-efficacy. Survey data from 324 questionnaires was collected from a federal university, although the data analysis used a mixed-method. The findings indicate that despite low levels of part-time working generally among students, older, more experienced, higher level and female students, place a premium on the skills that part-time work can develop. Moreover, self-efficacy and being female, is a significant predictor in understanding part-time work and career aspirations. This study offers originality by focusing on students’ part-time work, the value working provides, and its link with career aspirations, within a relatively unexplored context of Nigeria

Generation of a neutralizing antibody against RD114-pseudotyped viral vectors

The feline endogenous RD114 glycoprotein has proved to be an attractive envelope to pseudotype both retroviral and lentiviral vectors. As a surface protein, its detection on packaging cells as well as viral particles would be useful in different fields of its use. To address this, we generated a monoclonal antibody against RD114 by immunization of rats, termed 22F10. Once seroconversion was confirmed, purified 22F10 was cloned into murine Fc and characterized with a binding affinity of 10nM. The antibody was used to detect RD114 and its variant envelopes on different stable viral packaging cell lines (FLYRD18 and WinPac-RD). 22F10 was also shown to prevent the infections of different strains of RD-pseudotyped vectors but not related envelope glycoproteins by blocking cell surface receptor binding. We are the first to report the neutralization of viral particles by a monoclonal αRD114 antibody

The role of peptides in bone healing and regeneration: A systematic review

Background: Bone tissue engineering and the research surrounding peptides has expanded significantly over the last few decades. Several peptides have been shown to support and stimulate the bone healing response and have been proposed as therapeutic vehicles for clinical use. The aim of this comprehensive review is to present the clinical and experimental studies analysing the potential role of peptides for bone healing and bone regeneration. Methods: A systematic review according to PRISMA guidelines was conducted. Articles presenting peptides capable of exerting an upregulatory effect on osteoprogenitor cells and bone healing were included in the study. Results: Based on the available literature, a significant amount of experimental in vitro and in vivo evidence exists. Several peptides were found to upregulate the bone healing response in experimental models and could act as potential candidates for future clinical applications. However, from the available peptides that reached the level of clinical trials, the presented results are limited. Conclusion: Further research is desirable to shed more light into the processes governing the osteoprogenitor cellular responses. With further advances in the field of biomimetic materials and scaffolds, new treatment modalities for bone repair will emerge