Prevalence and associated factors of Schistosomiasis among children in Yemen: implications for an effective control programme

BACKGROUND Schistosomiasis, one of the most prevalent neglected tropical diseases, is a life-threatening public health problem in Yemen especially in rural communities. This cross-sectional study aims to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of schistosomiasis among children in rural Yemen. METHODS/FINDINGS Urine and faecal samples were collected from 400 children. Urine samples were examined using filtration technique for the presence of Schistosoma haematobium eggs while faecal samples were examined using formalin-ether concentration and Kato Katz techniques for the presence of S. mansoni. Demographic, socioeconomic and environmental information were collected via a validated questionnaire. Overall, 31.8% of the participants were found to be positive for schistosomiasis; 23.8% were infected with S. haematobium and 9.3% were infected with S. mansoni. Moreover, 39.5% of the participants were anaemic whereas 9.5% had hepatosplenomegaly. The prevalence of schistosomiasis was significantly higher among children aged >10 years compared to those aged ≤ 10 years (P<0.05). Multivariate analysis confirmed that presence of other infected family member (P<0.001), low household monthly income (P = 0.003), using unsafe sources for drinking water (P = 0.003), living nearby stream/spring (P = 0.006) and living nearby pool/pond (P = 0.002) were the key factors significantly associated with schistosomiasis among these children. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE This study reveals that schistosomiasis is still highly prevalent in Yemen. These findings support an urgent need to start an integrated, targeted and effective schistosomiasis control programme with a mission to move towards the elimination phase. Besides periodic drug distribution, health education and community mobilisation, provision of clean and safe drinking water, introduction of proper sanitation are imperative among these communities in order to curtail the transmission and morbidity caused by schistosomiasis. Screening and treating other infected family members should also be adopted by the public health authorities in combating this infection in these communities

Uji Larvasida Dan Repelansia Beberapa Ekstrak Tumbuhan Pada Nyamuk Culex SP

There is a plethora of evidence to suggest that host seeking in mosquitoes is medicated by infochemicals or semichemicals emanating from the host and visual clues that the mosquitoes recognize. The objectives of this research was to evaluate larvacidal and repellant effect of several herbal extracts that repell the mosquitoes. The result shown that ethanolic extract of Piper aduncum effective as larvacide for the first instar of Culex sp, while extract of Canangium odoratum repelled almost all of the female mosquitoes treated

Nutritional and socio-economic determinants of cognitive function and educational achievement of Aboriginal schoolchildren in rural Malaysia

A community-based cross-sectional study was carried out among Aboriginal schoolchildren aged 7–12 years living in remote areas in Pos Betau, Pahang, Malaysia to investigate the potential determinants influencing the cognitive function and educational achievement of these children. Cognitive function was measured by intelligence quotient (IQ), while examination scores of selected school subjects were used in assessing educational achievement. Blood samples were collected to assess serum Fe status. All children were screened for soil-transmitted helminthes. Demographic and socio-economic data were collected using pre-tested questionnaires. Almost two-thirds (67·6 %) of the subjects had poor IQ and most of them (72·6 %) had insufficient educational achievement. Output of the stepwise multiple regression model showed that poor IQ was significantly associated with low household income which contributed the most to the regression variance (r2 0·059; P = 0·020). Low maternal education was also identified as a significant predictor of low IQ scores (r2 0·042; P = 0·043). With educational achievement, Fe-deficiency anaemia (IDA) was the only variable to show significant association (r2 0·025; P = 0·015). In conclusion, the cognitive function and educational achievement of Aboriginal schoolchildren are poor and influenced by household income, maternal education and IDA. Thus, effective and integrated measures to improve the nutritional and socio-economic status of rural children would have a pronounced positive effect on their education

Changes in lipid oxidation of reconstituted omega-3 plus milk powder treated by superheated steam

In this study the effect of superheated steam on the oxidative stability of reconstituted omega-3plus milk powder was studied. The changes in fatty acids, peroxide, acids, thiobarbutric acid reactive substances (TBARS), and p-anisidine values were measured to reconstitute omega-3 plus milk powder in relation to thermal treatment by using a superheated steam (SHS) with different temperatures and time periods. The temperature and time period ranged from 120-180 °C between 5-15 min. For applying the SHS treatment did not produce changes in SFA, MUFA and PUFA at 120-150 °C to 10-15 min as compared with the control. While, the proportion of PUFA and MUFA values were recorded differences on temperature 180 °C comparison with control. The result of POV showed no changes between the temperature 120-150 °C compared with control, but indicated significant differences at the temperature 180 °C with long time 15 min. Acids and p- anisdine values did not show any differences between temperature 120-180 °C for a short period of time 5 min compare with the control, but recorded significantly on long period of time 10-15 min compared with the control. The values of TBARS showed no significant differences in temperature 120-150 for 5 min compare with control. This study showed oxidative stability of milk fat supplied long chain unsaturated fatty acids treated by SHS on temperature range 120-150 at time 5-10 min with some affected by the high temperature 180 °C at 15 min can maintain the quality of fatty acid and milk fat

The Impact of Some Economic Factors on Imports in Jordan

The purpose of this paper is to build a multiple linear econometrics model which reveals impact of some important economic factors on Jordanian imports. Different models have been modified to get the best model in estimating and predicting imports. The major findings of the paper were that imports in Jordan are dominated by Consumer Price Index (CPI), Remittance (REM), Relative Prices RP) and Exchange Rate(ER) respectively. ER has a small coefficient compared to other predictors. CPI actually contributes more to the model because it has a larger standardized coefficient.

Entropy generation for MHD natural convection in enclosure with a micropolar fluid saturated porous medium with Al2O3Cu water hybrid nanofluid

This contribution gives a numerical investigation of buoyancy-driven flow of natural convection heat transfer and entropy generation of non-Newtonian hybrid nanofluid (Al2O3-Cu) within an enclosure square porous cavity. Hybrid nanofluids represent a novel type of enhanced active fluids. During the current theoretical investigation, an actual available empirical data for both thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of hybrid nanofluids are applied directly. Numerical simulation have been implemented for solid nanoparticles, the volumetric concentration of which varies from 0.0% (i.e., pure fluid) to 0.1% of hybrid nanofluids. Heat and sink sources are situated on a part of the left and right sides of the cavity with length B, while the upper and bottom horizontal sides are kept adiabatic. The stated partial differential equations describing the flow are mutated to a dimensionless formulas, then solved numerically via the help of an implicit finite difference approach. The acquired computations are given in terms of streamlines, isotherms, isomicrorotations, isoconcentraions, local Began number, total entropy, local and mean Nusselt numbers. The data illustrates that variations of ratio of the average Nusselt number to the average Nusselt of pure fluid Num+ is a decreasing function of Ha and φ, while e+ is an increasing function of Ha and φ parameters of hybrid nanofluid

Cattaneo–Christov heat flux impacts on MHD radiative natural convection of Al2O3-Cu-H2O hybrid nanofluid in wavy porous containers using LTNE

This paper aims to examine impacts of Cattaneo–Christov heat flux on the magnetohydrodynamic convective transport within irregular containers in the presence of the thermal radiation. Both of the magnetic field and flow domain are slant with the inclination angles&nbsp;Ω and γ, respectively. The worked fluid is consisting of water (H2O) and Al2O3-Cu hybrid nanoparticles. The enclosures are filled with a porous medium, and the local thermal nonequilibrium (LTNE) model between the hybrid nanofluids and the porous elements are considered. Influences of various types of the obstacles are examined, namely, horizontal cold elliptic, vertical elliptic and cross section ellipsis. The solution methodology is depending on the finite volume method with nonorthogonal grids. The major outcomes revealed that the location (0.75, 0.5) is better for the rate of the flow and temperature gradients. The higher values of H* causes that the solid phase temperature has a similar behavior of the fluid phase temperature indicating to the thermal equilibrium state. Also, the fluid-phase average Nusselt number is maximizing by increasing Cattaneo–Christov heat flux factor

Length Biased Burr- XII Distribution: Properties and Application

Burr XII distribution is widely applicable in reliability and life testing problems in engineering as well as in survival analysis. The concept of weighted and size- biased sampling and length biased&nbsp; distribution due to importance of this kind of distributions and it's application &nbsp;in many fields such as medicine, ecology, reliability and human populations. In this paper, length biased Burr XII&nbsp; distribution is proposed and studied. Different properties of this new distribution are discussed such as the density function and its behaviour , moments, hazard , survival functions and order statistics. The parameters of this new distribution are estimated by maximum likelihood method . The observed information matrix is derived. Finally, we provide a simulation and real data analysis to see how the new model is applicable in practice

Three-dimensional boundary layer flow of nanofluids due to an unsteady stretching surface

A numerical solution has been obtained for the unsteady three-dimensional stretching flow and heat transfer due to uncertainties of thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of nanofluids. The term of nanofluid refers to a solid–liquid mixture with a continuous phase which is a nanometer sized nanoparticle dispersed in conventional base fluids. The unsteadiness in the flow and temperature fields is caused by the time-dependent of the stretching velocity and the surface temperature.  Different water-based nanofluids containing Cu, Ag, and TiO2 are taken into consideration. The governing partial differential equations with the auxiliary conditions are converted to ordinary differential equations with the appropriate corresponding conditions via scaling transformations. Comparison with known results for steady state flow is presented and it found to be in excellent agreement