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Abstract This study hypothesized that SCFA, acetate impacts positively on hypothalamic pyroptosis and its related abnormalities in experimentally induced PCOS rat model, possibly through NrF2/HIF1-α modulation. Eight-week-old female Wister rats were divided into groups (n = 5), namely control, PCOS, acetate and PCOS + acetate groups. Induction of PCOS was performed by administering 1 mg/kg body weight of letrozole for 21 days. After PCOS confirmation, the animals were treated with 200 mg/kg of acetate for 6 weeks. Rats with PCOS were characterized with insulin resistance, leptin resistance, increased plasma testosterone as well as degenerated ovarian follicles. There was also a significant increase in hypothalamic triglyceride level, triglyceride-glucose index, inflammatory biomarkers (SDF-1 and NF-kB) and caspase-6 as well as plasma LH and triglyceride. A decrease was observed in plasma adiponectin, GnRH, FSH, and hypothalamic GABA with severe inflammasome expression in PCOS rats. These were accompanied by decreased level of NrF2/HIF1-α, and the alterations were reversed when treated with acetate. Collectively, the present results suggest the therapeutic impact of acetate on hypothalamic pyroptosis and its related comorbidity in PCOS, a beneficial effect that is accompanied by modulation of NrF2/HIF1-α.

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects all facets of life. In Nigeria, the rate of industrialization and urbanization has increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the last decade. These changes are observable in temperatures and rainfall regimes which have affected food production in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Agriculture, which used to be the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, has reduced drastically and this may be caused by heat waves, irregular rainfall patterns, encroachment, and government policies leading to food shortage. The terrestrial environment has been faced with human and wildlife conflict issues on land usage and wildfires. Aquatic ecosystems are not left out of these effects as their surface area is shrinking and the water temperature has fluctuated irrationally thereby reducing aquatic biodiversity. The life processes in fish species and wildlife are impaired when the environmental conditions are unfavorable. In view of sustainability, economic, environmental and social strategies can be employed in the terrestrial environments. In the case of aquatic ecosystems, measures such as ecosystem approach to fisheries, forecasting of weather, good governance in fisheries related activities and reduction of conflicts between stakeholders in fisheries are suggested. To this end, this paper reviews the effects of climate change on both terrestrial (agricultural and wildlife) and aquatic ecosystems to eliminate hunger (Goal 2), preserving life underwater (Goal 14) and on land (Goal 15) through climate resilience (Goal 13) as elaborated by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

BackgroundAsthma is one of the leading chronic illnesses among children in the United States. Asthma prevalence is higher among African Americans (11.2%) compared to European Americans (7.7%). Bronchodilator medications are part of the first-line therapy, and the rescue medication, for acute asthma symptoms. Bronchodilator drug response (BDR) varies substantially among different racial/ethnic groups. Asthma prevalence in African Americans is only 3.5% higher than that of European Americans, however, asthma mortality among African Americans is four times that of European Americans; variation in BDR may play an important role in explaining this health disparity. To improve our understanding of disparate health outcomes in complex phenotypes such as BDR, it is important to consider interactions between environmental and biological variables.ResultsWe evaluated the impact of pairwise and three-variable interactions between environmental, social, and biological variables on BDR in 233 African American youth with asthma using Visualization of Statistical Epistasis Networks (ViSEN). ViSEN is a non-parametric entropy-based approach able to quantify interaction effects using an information-theory metric known as Information Gain (IG). We performed analyses in the full dataset and in sex-stratified subsets. Our analyses identified several interaction models significantly, and suggestively, associated with BDR. The strongest interaction significantly associated with BDR was a pairwise interaction between pre-natal smoke exposure and socioeconomic status (full dataset IG: 2.78%, p = 0.001; female IG: 7.27%, p = 0.004)). Sex-stratified analyses yielded divergent results for females and males, indicating the presence of sex-specific effects.ConclusionsOur study identified novel interaction effects significantly, and suggestively, associated with BDR in African American children with asthma. Notably, we found that all of the interactions identified by ViSEN were "pure" interaction effects, in that they were not the result of strong main effects on BDR, highlighting the complexity of the network of biological and environmental factors impacting this phenotype. Several associations uncovered by ViSEN would not have been detected using regression-based methods, thus emphasizing the importance of employing statistical methods optimized to detect both additive and non-additive interaction effects when studying complex phenotypes such as BDR. The information gained in this study increases our understanding and appreciation of the complex nature of the interactions between environmental and health-related factors that influence BDR and will be invaluable to biomedical researchers designing future studies.

Introduction: Infertility may have a variety of causes that can affect both the male and female reproductive systems. Cyclophosphamide is a drug used in chemotherapy and immune system suppression. Leaf extracts of Mangifera indica exhibit a wide spectrum of pharmacological properties which have been shown in studies, including antioxidant and protective advantages. This study evaluate the antagonistic implications of leaf extracts of Mangifera indica on the testis following the exposure to cyclophosphamide. Methods: 25 male Wistar rats were assigned to five groups with five rats in each. Group A (Control), Group B (administered 150 mg of cyclophosphamide only), Group C (administered 50 mg of extracts of leaf extracts of Mangifera indica only), Group D (administered 150 mg of cyclophosphamide and 50 mg of leaf extracts of Mangifera indica) and Group E (administered 150 mg of cyclophosphamide and 100 mg of leaf extracts of Mangifera indica) for two weeks. The rats were euthanized under the anesthetic of ketamine (30 mg/kg IP). Blood was taken by cardiac puncture for biochemical examination. Testes were excised, preserved in 10% Neutral Buffered Formalin for histological investigation. One-way analysis of variance was used to examine the data, and then the Student Newman-Keul post-hoc analysis was performed. The significance of the result was assessed using p

This study hypothesized that SCFA, acetate impacts positively on hypothalamic pyroptosis and its related abnormalities in experimentally induced PCOS rat model, possibly through NrF2/HIF1-α modulation. Eight-week-old female Wister rats were divided into groups (n = 5), namely control, PCOS, acetate and PCOS + acetate groups. Induction of PCOS was performed by administering 1 mg/kg body weight of letrozole for 21 days. After PCOS confirmation, the animals were treated with 200 mg/kg of acetate for 6 weeks. Rats with PCOS were characterized with insulin resistance, leptin resistance, increased plasma testosterone as well as degenerated ovarian follicles. There was also a significant increase in hypothalamic triglyceride level, triglyceride-glucose index, inflammatory biomarkers (SDF-1 and NF-kB) and caspase-6 as well as plasma LH and triglyceride. A decrease was observed in plasma adiponectin, GnRH, FSH, and hypothalamic GABA with severe inflammasome expression in PCOS rats. These were accompanied by decreased level of NrF2/HIF1-α, and the alterations were reversed when treated with acetate. Collectively, the present results suggest the therapeutic impact of acetate on hypothalamic pyroptosis and its related comorbidity in PCOS, a beneficial effect that is accompanied by modulation of NrF2/HIF1-α. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increased human activities resulting from industrialization and urbanization around the Ondo section of the coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean have significantly affected the environment. To this end, the water quality, fish abundance and target status of fish species were identified, not-withstanding the influence of human activities on the water quality and its effects on fish abundance. Four fishing communities were purposively selected based on geographical location and accessibility along the coast; Ayetoro and Idi-Ogba communities on the eastern side and Eruna-Ero and Igbokoda on the western side. A total of 120 structured questionnaires were randomly administered using snowball technique at 30 per site. Erunna-Ero community measured the highest mean temperature, dissolved oxygen, salinity and conductivity with 29.39 0.30 oC, 4.48 0.06 mg/L,10.68 0.39ppt and 40.70 0.18 S/cmrespectively, while pH was highest in Idi-Ogba community (6.47 0.00). A total of 61.67% were within 21-40 age brackets; 69.17% were males, and 75% of the males engaged in fishing activities. Agricultural activities were high (97%) with most wastes emptying into the river (85.83%). A total of 27,622 fish individuals were identified across the fishing communities with Igbokoda having the highest abundance (38.13%) and Cynoglossus browni (75.18%) was the highest fish species. In the past, three (3) economically important fish species were of major target but a reduction to two (2) species was observed at the time of study which indicated a reduction in target fish species in Igbokoda community. An increase from three (3) to four (4) target species were observed in Ayetoro, Erunna-Ero, and Idi-ogba communities which indicated an increase in target fish species. The study showed the activities around the coastal water dictated the abundance of fish species and therefore essential to monitor the water quality parameters for the sustainability of fish species in the coastal water.

The paper investigated the effect of teacher self-efficacy enhancement and school location on students' achievement in Economics in Senior Secondary School in Ibadan Metropolis of Oyo State, Nigeria. Three hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. Multi-stage sampling technique was adopted in the study. Four Local Government Areas (two urban and two rural) out of the eleven Local Government Area Councils in Ibadan were randomly selected. Sixty schools (30 in urban and 30 in rural) were randomly chosen from the Local Govts selected, subsequently 60 SS Economics teachers (30 in urban and 30 in rural) whose classes were used as intact class were involved in the study. Two instruments namely: Teachers Self-Efficacy Enhancement Scale (TSES) and Economics Achievement Test (EAT) were used to generate data for the study. The Reliability coefficients of the instruments were 0.79 and 0.74 respectively. One treatment package (Teacher Self-efficacy Enhancement Package) was developed and used to enhance the self-efficacy of the teachers. Some of the findings were: teacher self-efficacy enhancement had significant main effect on students' achievement in Economics, school location also had significant main effect on students' achievement in Economics, while teacher self-efficacy enhancement and school location had no significant interaction effects on students' achievement in Economics. It was recommended that teachers should be exposed to self-efficacy enhancement program to enable them imbibe the spirit of self-efficacy in carrying out their assignments. Furthermore, teachers should be made to understand and accept the fact that their students can perform excellently in their academic work regardless of their school location if they develop in themselves a high level of self-efficacy.

Introduction: Peripheral arterial disease (PAD) indicates generalised atherosclerotic disease but is often asymptomatic. The prevalence and potential risk factors of PAD were studied in ECHORN cohort study participants. Methods: Representative samples of community-dwelling people ≥40 years of age residing in Barbados, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the USVI were recruited. The survey included questions on diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and smoking status. Body Mass Index, HbA1c, blood glucose and lipids were determined. Ankle brachial index (ABI) was evaluated in one leg. An oscillometric device measured arm and leg systolic BP simultaneously. ABI classifications were PAD ≤0.90, borderline 0.91 to 0.99, normal 1.00 to 1.40, and non-compressible >0.40. Multivariable logistic regression tested associations of potential risk factors with PAD. Results: Of 2772 participants (mean age 57.3, 65.2% female), 35.8% were overweight, 38.1% obese, 32.4% had diabetes, 60% hypertension, and 15.4% reported heart. ABI prevalence (95% CI) by category was PAD 4.4% (3.6%, 5.1%), borderline 5.2% (4.4%, 6.1%), normal 87.0% (85.8%, 88.3%) and noncompressible 3.4% (2.7%, 4.0%). Female sex (OR 1.72, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.77), diabetes (OR 2.23, 95% CI 1.47 to 3.4), heart disease history (OR 1.74, 95% CI 1.07 to 2.83) and less than high school education vs having a university degree (OR 2.49, 95% CI 1.19 to 5.22) were independently associated with PAD. Conclusions: Testing one leg only would underestimate PAD prevalence. Increasing the ABI cutoff for identifying PAD to <1.0 when using oscillometric devices is suggested by some studies but would more than double the estimated prevalence. Guidelines need to address this issue. Female sex and lower educational attainment are important considerations when screening. While diabetes and a history of heart disease were confirmed as risk factors, the lack of association of increasing age and cigarette smoking with PAD was unexpected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The acute toxicity of Calcium Hypochlorite was investigated on the water quality and histopathology of liver, brain and gill of Clarias gariepinus fingerlings. Fish with average weight and length of 5.5 ± 0.8g and 7.8 ± 0.5cm were stocked at 10 fish per tank and fed with 45% crude protein diets. The experimental fish was exposed to a photoperiod of 12 hours daylight and 12 hours darkness. After the range finding test, the fingerlings were exposed to test concentrations of treatments 0.000 mg/L (A), 0.011 mg/L (B), 0.033 mg/L (C), 0.055 mg/L (D) and 0.077 mg/L (E) and was replicated trice. The Lethal Concentration value (LC50) for the disinfectant was 0.033mg/L. Behavioural changes such as erratic swimming, frequent jumping and gasping for air at the surface was observed in the exposed fish. Histopathology of the brain showed different stages of spongiosis and necrosis; gills showed thickening of the lamellae and necrosis while the liver showed varying congestion in the exposed fish. The observed changes in behaviour and histopathology were normal in the control fish and increased with increase in concentration of disinfectant to the exposed fish. It is therefore essential to adhere to recommended doses so if exposed to the environment can not cause any harm

Asthma, an inflammatory disorder of the airways, is the most common chronic disease of children worldwide. There are significant racial/ethnic disparities in asthma prevalence, morbidity, and mortality among US children. This trend is mirrored in obesity, which may share genetic and environmental risk factors with asthma. The majority of asthma biomedical research has been performed in populations of European decent. We sought to identify genetic risk factors for asthma in African American children. We also assessed the generalizability of genetic variants associated with asthma in European and Asian populations to African American children. Our study population consisted of 1227 (812 asthma cases, 415 controls) African American children with genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. Logistic regression was used to identify associations between SNP genotype and asthma status. We identified a novel variant in the PTCHD3 gene that is significantly associated with asthma (rs660498, p = 2.2 × 10(-7)) independent of obesity status. Approximately 5 % of previously reported asthma genetic associations identified in European populations replicated in African Americans. Our identification of novel variants associated with asthma in African American children, coupled with our inability to replicate the majority of findings reported in European Americans, underscores the necessity for including diverse populations in biomedical studies of asthma.

The food habit and ecological balance of fish species in Osun River were investigated for a period of 12 months (November 2017 to October 2018) with monthly sampling of water and fish species in the river. Fish were sampled using monofilament gill nets of mesh size between 25mm and 101mm. A total of 4544 individuals belonging to 19 species and 10 families were captured. They were grouped based on their feeding habits into herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Carnivores dominated the River (38.63%) with Cichlids being the most abundant family (95.10%) and Oreochromis niloticus the most abundant fish species (14.10%). The Forage - Carnivore ratio (F/C) for the dry, wet and combined season was 0.64, 0.34 and 0.48 respectively. T-test showed significant differences (P < 0.05) between all the trophic groupings in relation to seasons. The mean values recorded across the sampling months were Temperature (18.70 oC ± 2.69), pH (7.10 ± 0.25) and Dissolved Oxygen (3.20 mg/L ± 0.54) while Ammonia (1.20 mg/L ± 0.18) was significantly different (P < 0.05) across the months of study. For the sampling points, mean values recorded were Temperature (17.90 oC ± 0.31), pH (7.20 ± 0.12), Dissolved Oxygen (3.20 mg/L ± 0.27 mg/L) and Ammonia (0.10 mg/L ± 0.21). The abundance of carnivores is not desirable, and it is therefore essential to maintain the ratio of forage and carnivorous fish species in the river for conservation of fish species.

That research is a veritable tool for rapid social and economic development is undoubtedly well known globally. That educational researching is fraught with multi-dimensional challenges cannot be over-stressed. That multi-disciplinary approach and public-private, public-public, private-private partnership in educational researching for better and more rapid developmental oriented research results can be taken as given. This paper, therefore, examined the role of partnering for effective educational-developmental oriented researching, highlighting its challenges, and how a collaborative or partnership in educational researching can assist in overcoming these challenges and thus facilitate rapid development of any economy in the world particular emphasis on the sub-region. The paper posits that collaboration in educational researching would engender effective, meaningful and applicable educational research findings that would lift up the quality of education in Nigeria with the concomitant social and economic development in and of Nigeria. It outlines some of the challenges as inadequate level of institutional collaboration and low level of public-private partnership with respect to educational researching, low level of motivation for educational research, low quality of educational researchers due to low level of their training. The paper concludes that collaboration (partnership) is needed in the areas of funding, designing/planning the research, adequate training, institutionalization of partnership in researching, and a concerted effort to encourage educational inter-disciplinary researching as well as the creation of educational research niche and trans-border educational partnership to engender effective educational researching for rapid social and economic development of West African sub-region.

This study obtained basic information from teachers and students on the challenges and prospects of implementing continuous assessment (CA) in the Nigerian school system. Secondary Schools in Ilorin, the capital city of Kwara State, located in the central region of Nigeria were sampled for use in the study. It employed survey research design executed through the collection of ex post facto data. Two hundred and forty respondents comprising one hundred and twenty teachers and one hundred and twenty students were respectively sampled and used as subjects in the study. Two questionnaires, one for teachers and one for students, were developed and used to collect data which were analyzed using mainly percentages. Findings show that the greatest challenges of implementing CA in Nigerian secondary schools include poor level of preparedness for tests on the part of students, poor test administration procedures, poor handling of scores and feedback to students, poor coverage of instructional contents by test contents, large classes, inadequate time for tests and lack of knowledge and skills of the appropriate evaluation techniques. Respondents suggested that time should be given to implementing CA, teachers should be adequately trained in the techniques of evaluation, relevant modern technology for its conduct and recording should be provided for teachers. It was discovered that Nigerians know that CA possesses some prospects if properly implemented. These include reducing examination malpractices, engendering quality study habit in the student, improving educational and learning outcomes attainment among others. It was thus recommended that teachers should be given relevant training on modern evaluation techniques and schools provided the enabling environment for CA to work.