Introduction: Bacterial skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are a cause of frequent inpatient and outpatient care visits whose causative agents are associated with a high antimicrobial resistance burden. For insig...Introduction: Bacterial skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are a cause of frequent inpatient and outpatient care visits whose causative agents are associated with a high antimicrobial resistance burden. For insights on antimicrobial susceptibilities in a rural setting, we examined specimens from suspected SSTIs from two public health facilities in Kenya. We additionally assessed antibiotic use, appropriateness of empiric therapy and risk factors for SSTI. Methodology: Between 2021 and 2023, 265 patients at Kisii and Nyamira County Referral hospitals were enrolled. Wound swabs/aspirates were collected and processed following standard microbiological procedures. Identification and antimicrobial susceptibility were performed using the VITEK 2 Compact platform. Demographic, clinical, and microbiological data were analyzed with R Statistical software. Results: S. aureus was isolated in 16.2% (43/265) of patients with a methicillin resistance (MRSA) proportion of 14% (6/43). While 13/15 drugs elicited susceptibilities ranging from 84% - 100%, penicillin (16%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole [TMP-SXT] (23%) yielded the lowest susceptibilities. Escherichia coli (n = 33), Klebsiella pneumoniae (n = 8), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 8), and Citrobacter species (n = 4) were the most commonly isolated gram-negative species. Gram-negative strains showed high susceptibilities to most of the tested drugs (71% - 100%) with the exception of ampicillin (18%), TMP-SXT (33%), and first and second generation cephalosporins. Conclusions: The low MRSA prevalence and generally high antibiotic susceptibilities for S. aureus and gram-negative bacteria present opportunities for antibiotic stewardship in the study setting. Diminished susceptibilities against penicillin/ampicillin and TMP-SXT accord with prevailing local data and add a layer of evidence for their cautious empiric use.展开更多
The impact of a Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)attack on Soft-ware Defined Networks(SDN)is briefly analyzed.Many approaches to detecting DDoS attacks exist,varying on the feature being considered and the method us...The impact of a Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)attack on Soft-ware Defined Networks(SDN)is briefly analyzed.Many approaches to detecting DDoS attacks exist,varying on the feature being considered and the method used.Still,the methods have a deficiency in the performance of detecting DDoS attacks and mitigating them.To improve the performance of SDN,an efficient Real-time Multi-Constrained Adaptive Replication and Traffic Approximation Model(RMCARTAM)is sketched in this article.The RMCARTAM considers different parameters or constraints in running different controllers responsible for handling incoming packets.The model is designed with multiple controllers to handle net-work traffic but can turn the controllers according to requirements.The multi-con-straint adaptive replication model monitors different features of network traffic like rate of packet reception,class-based packet reception and target-specific reception.According to these features,the method estimates the Replication Turn-ing Weight(RTW)based on which triggering controllers are performed.Similarly,the method applies Traffic Approximation(TA)in the detection of DDoS attacks.The detection of a DDoS attack is performed by approximating the incoming traf-fic to any service and using various features like hop count,payload,service fre-quency,and malformed frequency to compute various support measures on bandwidth access,data support,frequency support,malformed support,route sup-port,and so on.Using all these support measures,the method computes the value of legitimate weight to conclude the behavior of any source in identifying the mal-icious node.Identified node details are used in the mitigation of DDoS attacks.The method stimulates the network performance by reducing the power factor by switching the controller according to different factors,which also reduces the cost.In the same way,the proposed model improves the accuracy of detecting DDoS attacks by estimating the features of incoming traffic in different corners.展开更多
Cloud computing involves remote server deployments with public net-work infrastructures that allow clients to access computational resources.Virtual Machines(VMs)are supplied on requests and launched without interacti...Cloud computing involves remote server deployments with public net-work infrastructures that allow clients to access computational resources.Virtual Machines(VMs)are supplied on requests and launched without interactions from service providers.Intruders can target these servers and establish malicious con-nections on VMs for carrying out attacks on other clustered VMs.The existing system has issues with execution time and false-positive rates.Hence,the overall system performance is degraded considerably.The proposed approach is designed to eliminate Cross-VM side attacks and VM escape and hide the server’s position so that the opponent cannot track the target server beyond a certain point.Every request is passed from source to destination via one broadcast domain to confuse the opponent and avoid them from tracking the server’s position.Allocation of SECURITY Resources accepts a safety game in a simple format as input andfinds the best coverage vector for the opponent using a Stackelberg Equilibrium(SSE)technique.A Mixed Integer Linear Programming(MILP)framework is used in the algorithm.The VM challenge is reduced by afirewall-based controlling mechanism combining behavior-based detection and signature-based virus detection.The pro-posed method is focused on detecting malware attacks effectively and providing better security for the VMs.Finally,the experimental results indicate that the pro-posed security method is efficient.It consumes minimum execution time,better false positive rate,accuracy,and memory usage than the conventional approach.展开更多
An ad-hoc sensor network(ASN)is a group of sensing nodes that transmit data over a wireless link to a target node,direct or indirect,through a series of nodes.ASN becomes a high-risk group for several security exploit...An ad-hoc sensor network(ASN)is a group of sensing nodes that transmit data over a wireless link to a target node,direct or indirect,through a series of nodes.ASN becomes a high-risk group for several security exploits due to the sensor node’s limited resources.Internal threats are more challenging to protect against than external attacks.The nodes are grouped,and calculate each node’s trust level.The trust level is the result of combining internal and external trust degrees.Cluster heads(CH)are chosen based on the anticipated trust levels.The communications are then digitally signed by the source,encoded using a key pair given by a trustworthy CH,decoded by the recipient,and supervised by verifications.It authenticates the technique by identifying the presence of both the transmitter and the recipient.Our approach looks for a trustworthy neighboring node that meets the trust threshold condition to authenticate the key produced.The companion node reaffirms the node’s reliability by getting the public-key certification.The seeking sensor node and the certification issuer node must have a close and trusting relationship.The results of the proposed hybrid authentication using a node trustworthy(HANT)system are modeled and tested,and the suggested approach outperforms conventional trust-based approaches in throughput,latency,lifetime,and vulnerability methods.展开更多
This paper investigates the experimental results on the effect of nano silica fume on compressive strength development of concretes containing high volume fly ash (HVFA). The effect of various silica fumes contents su...This paper investigates the experimental results on the effect of nano silica fume on compressive strength development of concretes containing high volume fly ash (HVFA). The effect of various silica fumes contents such as 1%, 2% & 3% (wt. %) as partial replacement of cement on the compressive strength of cements is evaluated in the first part. The nano silica fume content which exhibits the highest compressive strength above is used in high volume fly ash concretes containing 30% and 50% class F fly ash. The results show that among three different silica fumes contents, the addition of 1% increases the compressive strength of concretes. The addition of 1% silica fume also increases the early age and 28 days compressive strengths of HVFA concretes.展开更多
<b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Background:</span></b><span style="font-family:""> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter&...<b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Background:</span></b><span style="font-family:""> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> is the most common cause of chronic human infections worldwide with the highest reported prevalence in Africa. It is associated with numerous upper gastrointestinal diseases such as gastritis, peptic ulcers, and gastric cancer. Endoscopic findings in the stomach usually associated with </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infections include gastritis and gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), however, these findings are suggestive but not diagnostic of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infection. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Methods:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> This was a prospective study conducted between January 2018 and February 2019 at the Aga Khan University Hospital where dyspeptic patients scheduled for gastroduodenoscopy were enrolled. These patients were evaluated for </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infection by rapid urease test, culture and histopathology. Diagnostic findings and patient history collected from medical files w</span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ere</span><span style="font-family:""><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> documented and data analyzed. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Results:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> A total of 487 dyspeptic patients undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) were enrolled in the study and 199 dyspeptic patients were positive for </span><i><span style="font-family:Verd展开更多
Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is one of the most frequent causes of bacterial infection in children and is a leading cause of otitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and meningitis worldwide. Nasopharyngea...Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is one of the most frequent causes of bacterial infection in children and is a leading cause of otitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and meningitis worldwide. Nasopharyngeal colonization is a risk factor for pneumococcal disease, a leading cause of complications and death in infants. HIV-infected persons are at high risk of invasive pneumococcal disease. Method: Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 296 HIV infected children below five years recruited from Gertrude’s Children hospital and Nazareth Hospital Nairobi, Kenya. The nasopharyngeal swabs were processed to isolate S. pneumoniae, which were serotyped and tested for drug susceptibility. Results: The carriage prevalence of S. pneumoniae in the study was 30.4% while the isolated serotypes were (in order of decreasing frequency): 35B, 19F, 3, 13, 15A, 11A, 16F, 7C and 23A. Most of the serotypes were resistant to the commonly used antibiotics but all were susceptible to vancomycin and chloramphenicol. Conclusion: Carriage prevalence of nasopharyngeal S. pneumonia in HIV infected children was lower than that of similar prevalence studies in children. Most of the S. pneumoniae isolates were however non pneumococcal vaccine isolates.展开更多
In Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the mobile nodes are communicating trough wireless medium. The protocol designs of MANETs are based on a traditional approach which has been found ineffective to deal congestion rel...In Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the mobile nodes are communicating trough wireless medium. The protocol designs of MANETs are based on a traditional approach which has been found ineffective to deal congestion related problems. Hence, it is affecting properties of physical layer, the network layer and transport layer. This paper proposes a novel design approach, deviating from the traditional network design, towards enhancing the cross-layer interaction among different layers, namely physical, MAC and network. The novel approach for congestion control is to solve congestion and mobility related problems with a cross layer interaction. The significance of CLCC is that it has used two mechanisms: (i) Dynamic Transmission Power Control algorithm that predicts a link breakage if it is likely to happen, (ii) Dynamic Congestion Estimation Technique, which analyzes traffic fluctuation and categorize congestion status perfectly. The proposed protocol reduces the route breakage and network congestion, hence reduces the control overhead and latency, and increases the packet delivery ratio. Through simulation, it is shown that the proposed protocol is simple, robust and effective.展开更多
The participation of ordinary devices in networking has created a world of connected devices rapidly.The Internet of Things(IoT)includes heterogeneous devices from every field.There are no definite protocols or standa...The participation of ordinary devices in networking has created a world of connected devices rapidly.The Internet of Things(IoT)includes heterogeneous devices from every field.There are no definite protocols or standards for IoT communication,and most of the IoT devices have limited resources.Enabling a complete security measure for such devices is a challenging task,yet necessary.Many lightweight security solutions have surfaced lately for IoT.The lightweight security protocols are unable to provide an optimum protection against prevailing powerful threats in cyber world.It is also hard to deploy any traditional security protocol on resource-constrained IoT devices.Software-defined networking introduces a centralized control in computer networks.SDN has a programmable approach towards networking that decouples control and data planes.An SDN-based intrusion detection system is proposed which uses deep learning classifier for detection of anomalies in IoT.The proposed intrusion detection system does not burden the IoT devices with security profiles.The proposed work is executed on the simulated environment.The results of the simulation test are evaluated using various matrices and compared with other relevant methods.展开更多
<i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Staphylococcus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <i>aureus</i></span><span style="font-fami...<i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Staphylococcus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <i>aureus</i></span><span style="font-family:""><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> has maintained its clinical relevance as a major cause of hospital and community acquired infections globally with a high burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Though reported, the burden of infection, antimicrobial resistance and molecular epidemiology of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> are not well defined in Kenya. This descriptive review evaluated reported data on the detection and characterization of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infections in Kenya. Published data between 2000 and 2020 were evaluated. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> isolation frequencies varied from 1% in blood specimens to 52.6% among skin and soft tissues infections while MRSA rates ranged from 1% to 84.1%. While penicillin resistance has consistently been high, last line and recent antibiotics such as vancomycin, linezolid, teicoplanin and daptomycin have retained their efficacy. Data on MRSA carriage in the community, among HCWs and inpatients is limited. Global clones (CC1, CC5, CC8, CC22, CC30, CC45 and CC239) alongside a few novel MRSA strains have been reported with staphylococcal protein A (</span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">spa</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">) sequence based clustering yielding four major clusters (</span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">spa</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> CC359, </span><i><span style="font-family:V展开更多
Few layer graphene （FLG）, multi-walled carbon nanotubes （CNTs） and a nanotube-graphene composite （CNT-FLG） were used as supports for palladium nanoparticles. The catalysts, which were characterized by transmissi...Few layer graphene （FLG）, multi-walled carbon nanotubes （CNTs） and a nanotube-graphene composite （CNT-FLG） were used as supports for palladium nanoparticles. The catalysts, which were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, were used as anodes in the electrooxidation of ethanol, ethylene glycol and glycerol in half cells and in passive direct ethanol fuel cells. Upon Pd deposition, a stronger interaction was found to occur between the metal and the nanotube-graphene composite and the particle size was significantly smaller in this material （6.3 nm）, comparing with nanotubes and graphene alone （8 and 8.4 nm, respectively）. Cyclic voltammetry experiments conducted with Pd/CNT, Pd/FLG and Pd/CNT-FLG in 10 wt% ethanol and 2 M KOH solution, showed high specific currents of 1.48, 2.29 and 2.51 mA-/zgp-d, respectively. Moreover, the results obtained for ethylene glycol and glycerol oxidation highlighted the excellent electrocatalytic activity of Pd/CNT-FLG in terms of peak current density （up to 3.70 mAgd for ethylene glycol and 1.84 mAfor glycerol, respectively）. Accordingly, Pd/CNT-FLG can be considered as the best performing one among the electrocatalysts ever reported for ethylene glycol oxidation, especially considering the low metal loading used in this work. Direct ethanol fuel cells at room temperature were studied by obtaining power density curves and undertaking galvanostatic experiments. The power density outputs using Pd/CNT, Pd/FLG and Pd/CNT-FLG were 12.1, 16.3 and 18.4 mW.cm-2, respectively. A remarkable activity for ethanol electrooxidation was shown by Pd/CNT-FLG anode catalyst. In a constant current experiment, the direct ethanol fuel cell containing Pd/CNT-FLG could continuously deliver 20 mA.cm-2 for 9.5 h during the conversion of ethanol into acetate of 30%, and the energy released from the cell was about 574 J.展开更多
Wastewater treatment plants and solid dump sites act as potential reservoirs of highly resistant bacterial strains. This study presents information on the patterns of antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria...Wastewater treatment plants and solid dump sites act as potential reservoirs of highly resistant bacterial strains. This study presents information on the patterns of antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria in the sewage treatment plants and solid dump site in Nairobi County, Kenya. We employed standard microbiological methods to isolate and identify bacteria from these selected sites. Members of Escherichia, Klebsiella, Serratia, Shigella, Pseudomonas, Citrobacter spp, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Yersinia, Vibro cholera, Providencia, Morganella and Proteus spp were isolated. Escherichia and Klebsiella recorded the highest occurrence at 13.9% and 10.3% in wastewater. Shigella, Serratia Citrobacterfreundii, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, Escherichia and Klebsiella recorded the highest level of occurrence at 15.1%, 14.1%, 12%, 11%, 10.4%, 10.3%, and 8.3% in dumpsite respectively. Drug sensitivity using the Disc diffusion method showed that Ampicillin, Ceftazidime, Cefotaxime, Amoxicillin, and Cefepime had the highest levels of inactivity at (68.5%, 89.5%), (64.2%, 87%), (54.5%, 80.2%), (52%, 74%) and (49.1%, 72.4%) respectively while Levofloxacin and Gentamicin showed the smallest level of antibiotic resistance at (4.8%, 4.7%) and (4.2%, 2.6%) in both sites. Members of Escherichia, Klebsiella, Proteus vulgaris, Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Shigella and Serratia showed the highest level of ESBLs production at 28.9%, 18.4%, 15.8%, 10.5%, 7.9%, 7.9%, 7.9% and 7.9% in the wastewater whereas Shigella, Escherichia, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, and Proteus vulgaris showed the highest level ESBLs production at 45.5%, 10.9%, 9.1%, 9.1%, 7.3% and 7.3% from the dump site. All the antibiotics tested except for Gentamicin, Chloramphenicol and Ciprofloxacin differed significantly in terms of resistance levels (p < 0.05). The study concluded that, wastewater treatment plant and dump sites bear heavy burdens of potentially virulent resistant bacterial strains which may constitute major public hea展开更多
Recently medical image classification plays a vital role in medical image retrieval and computer-aided diagnosis system.Despite deep learning has proved to be superior to previous approaches that depend on handcrafted...Recently medical image classification plays a vital role in medical image retrieval and computer-aided diagnosis system.Despite deep learning has proved to be superior to previous approaches that depend on handcrafted features;it remains difficult to implement because of the high intra-class variance and inter-class similarity generated by the wide range of imaging modalities and clinical diseases.The Internet of Things(IoT)in healthcare systems is quickly becoming a viable alternative for delivering high-quality medical treatment in today’s e-healthcare systems.In recent years,the Internet of Things(IoT)has been identified as one of the most interesting research subjects in the field of health care,notably in the field of medical image processing.For medical picture analysis,researchers used a combination of machine and deep learning techniques as well as artificial intelligence.These newly discovered approaches are employed to determine diseases,which may aid medical specialists in disease diagnosis at an earlier stage,giving precise,reliable,efficient,and timely results,and lowering death rates.Based on this insight,a novel optimal IoT-based improved deep learning model named optimization-driven deep belief neural network(ODBNN)is proposed in this article.In context,primarily image quality enhancement procedures like noise removal and contrast normalization are employed.Then the preprocessed image is subjected to feature extraction techniques in which intensity histogram,an average pixel of RGB channels,first-order statistics,Grey Level Co-Occurrence Matrix,Discrete Wavelet Transform,and Local Binary Pattern measures are extracted.After extracting these sets of features,the May Fly optimization technique is adopted to select the most relevant features.The selected features are fed into the proposed classification algorithm in terms of classifying similar input images into similar classes.The proposed model is evaluated in terms of accuracy,precision,recall,and f-measure.The investigation evident the performa展开更多
Socially disadvantaged individuals with HIV experience unacceptably high rates of AIDS and death. The authors developed an adversity index to quantify the impact of demographic and psychosocial factors on HIV care. Th...Socially disadvantaged individuals with HIV experience unacceptably high rates of AIDS and death. The authors developed an adversity index to quantify the impact of demographic and psychosocial factors on HIV care. This retrospective cohort study included 431 participants with HIV on combined antiretroviral therapy between 2000 and 2005. Poor outcome was defined as progression to AIDS, death, virologic failure, or CD4 < 200 cells/μl at six months. The index utilized eight demographic and psychosocial variables independently associated with poor outcome. Exposure to higher numbers of variables in the adversity index significantly increased the rates of poor outcome from 14% (exposure to no variables) to 100% (exposure to seven variables). The odds of poor outcome decreased but remained significant after adjusting for adherence-defining variables, indicating a possible mediating effect of poor adherence. Durably effective therapeutic strategies must include addressing adverse demographic and psychosocial factors affecting people living with HIV.展开更多
Acinetobacter baumannii is among the common nosocomial infections microorganisms in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major significant concerns in developing nations due to e...Acinetobacter baumannii is among the common nosocomial infections microorganisms in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major significant concerns in developing nations due to either over-use or inadequate use of antimicrobial agents. The purpose of this study was to emphasize the potential antimicrobial activity of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba against nosocomial diseases caused by Acinetobacter baumannii. Nepeta cataria and Basella alba leaves were collected from Oldonyo Sabuk National Park and Botanical garden JKUAT respectively. The leaves were dried under shade at room temperature for thirty days. After methanolic and aqueous plant extraction, the percentage yield was determined, and the extracts were subjected to toxicity testing using brine shrimp eggs and preliminary phytochemical screening. The results recorded from this study demonstrated that 70% methanolic extract of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba had greater antimicrobial effect against Acinetobacter baumannii than aqueous extracts. Nepeta cataria extracts showed greater antimicrobial effect than Basella alba extracts. The methanolic plant extracts had MIC values 60 mg/ml when tested against Acinetobacter baumannii. The phytochemical screening showed the presence of various phytochemical constituents from the methanolic and aqueous extraction of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba. The methanolic plant extracts revealed more phytochemicals as compared to aqueous extracts. More phytochemicals were detected from Nepeta cataria than Basella alba plant extracts.展开更多
Background: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease with an estimated 1.45 million deaths every year. Many patients get infected as a result of ignorance of the risk factors that contribute to disease transmission. Meth...Background: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease with an estimated 1.45 million deaths every year. Many patients get infected as a result of ignorance of the risk factors that contribute to disease transmission. Methodology: A descriptive epidemiological study was conducted on 258 patients presenting with pulmonary tuberculosis. Patients’ sputa were collected for laboratory analysis and patients were required to respond to a structured questionnaire on risk factors for transmission. Data among stratified groups were compared using bivariate analysis. Statistical significance was considered at p Results: There were significantly more males than females associated with pulmonary tuberculosis infection (χ2 = 0.963;df = 1;p (64.3%) patients were living in single rooms with 110 (42.6%) living with more than two people with a maximum of 10 people in a single room. Only 73 (28.3%) were living alone in a single room and only 7 families (2.7%) were living in houses with five or more rooms. Alcohol consumers and smokers were 102 (39.5%) and 93 (36%) respectively. Half of the patients (137 (53.3%)) had not completed secondary education with only 16 (6.2%) having completed tertiary education. Recurrent cases were 54 (21%) while those exposed to the disease either at home or working place were 75 (29.2%). Out of 171 patients who agreed to test for HIV, 46 (26.9%) were positive. Marital status had no effect on incidence of disease. Conclusion: Emphasis should be given to creating awareness of the risk factors associated with transmission of tuberculosis in order to reduce the rate of infection.展开更多
Background: Molecular typing allows a rapid and precise species differentiation and is essential in investigating the spread of specific genotypes and any relationship with drug resistance. Methodology: To compare the...Background: Molecular typing allows a rapid and precise species differentiation and is essential in investigating the spread of specific genotypes and any relationship with drug resistance. Methodology: To compare the discrimination power of 24-loci Mycobacteria interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) to spoligotyping in determining the circulating genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in isolates from pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Kenya, a total of 204 isolates were typed. Results: Spoligotyping identified 22 spoligo lineages;while 36(17.6%) isolates were not determined. MIRU-VNTR typing identified 12 genotypes;Kenya H37_Rv_ like, S-like that had never been reported before and which were not identified by spoligotyping were identified. Others were Uganda I and II, LAM, Beijing, TUR, EAI, Delhi/C, S and Haarlem. Only 8 (3.9%) were not defined by MIRU-VNTR. Delhi/CAS, EAI, S, S-like, LAM and Beijing had strains that showed resistance to all the five drugs tested. Two strains of EAI and 2 of S genotypes were resistant to all the five drugs tested. Beijing genotype commonly associated with drug resistance was found to be third in drug resistance (14.7%) after Delhi/CAS (28.9%) and LAM (17.6%) with the highest resistance towards isoniazid and pyrazinamide (3.9% each). MIRU-VNTR typing was more discriminative than spoligotyping;identifying 10 unique H37_Rv-like isolates designated KeniaH37_Rv_like genotype and 14 S-like genotype. Conclusion: MIRU-VNTR typing has not been reported in any other study in Kenya and its higher discrimination can help identify genotypes that cannot be determined by spoligotyping. Association of Beijing genotype drug resistance particularly isoniazid should be of concern since it may result in multidrug resistance in the patients.展开更多
The Fourier Transform Infrared(FTIR)and Fourier transform Raman(FT-Raman)spectra of 1,3-Diphenyl Propenone were recorded in the regions 4000~400 and 4000~100 cm^-1,respectively,in the solid phase.Molecular electronic ...The Fourier Transform Infrared(FTIR)and Fourier transform Raman(FT-Raman)spectra of 1,3-Diphenyl Propenone were recorded in the regions 4000~400 and 4000~100 cm^-1,respectively,in the solid phase.Molecular electronic energy,geometrical structure,harmonic vibrational spectra was computed at the DFT/6-31G(d,p)and three parameter hybrid functional Lee-Yang-Parr/6-31G(d,p)levels of theory.The vibrational studies were interpreted in terms of potential energy distribution(PED).The results were compared with experimental values with the help of scaling procedures.Most of the modes have wave numbers in the expected range and are in good agreement with computed values and also the molecular properties of Mulliken population analysis have been calculated.Besides,thermodynamic properties were performed.展开更多
The 12-lead ECG aids in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction and is helpful in the prediction of cardiovascular disease complications.It does,though,have certain drawbacks.For other electrocardiographic anomalies su...The 12-lead ECG aids in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction and is helpful in the prediction of cardiovascular disease complications.It does,though,have certain drawbacks.For other electrocardiographic anomalies such as Left Bundle Branch Block and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy syndrome,the ECG signal withMyocardial Infarction is difficult to interpret.These diseases cause variations in the ST portion of the ECG signal.It reduces the clarity of ECG signals,making itmore difficult to diagnose these diseases.As a result,the specialist is misled into making an erroneous diagnosis by using the incorrect therapeutic technique.Based on these concepts,this article reviews the different procedures involved in ECG signal pre-processing,feature extraction,feature selection,and classification techniques to diagnose heart disorders such as LeftVentricularHypertrophy,Bundle Branch Block,andMyocardial Infarction.It reveals the flaws and benefits in each segment,as well as recommendations for developing more advanced and robustmethods for diagnosing these diseases,which will increase the system’s accuracy.The current issues and prospective research directions are also addressed.展开更多
The present investigation was carried out in exfoliated buccal cells and saliva collected from pre-operative brain tumour patients. The DNA damage in these cells was assessed by alkaline comet assay and micronucleus (...The present investigation was carried out in exfoliated buccal cells and saliva collected from pre-operative brain tumour patients. The DNA damage in these cells was assessed by alkaline comet assay and micronucleus (MN) assay. Salivary flow rate, pH, osmolality, total antioxidant activity (AOA) and vitamin C levels were also assessed in unstimulated whole saliva of these patients. In the comet assay a significant increase in the tail length (P<0.02) was observed when control and malignant groups were compared. A significant (P<0.02) difference in tail length was also noted between benign and malignant groups. Non significant results were found when control and benign groups were compared. Further, a marked increase in % MN (P<0.002) was observed when control and benign groups were compared. A significant increase in % MN (P<0.029) was also observed in benign cases when compared to malignant tumours. No significance was obtained when % MN in control and malignant cases was compared. Moreover, salivary flow rate and pH was significantly decreased and osmolality was markedly increased in brain tumour patients. The AOA levels in saliva were markedly decreased in brain tumours and vitamin C levels exhibited no change when compared to controls. Thus, as noted above susceptibility to free radical induced DNA damage also exists in the exfoliated buccal cells conducive to the lowered salivary antioxidant status of brain tumour patients.展开更多
文摘Introduction: Bacterial skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are a cause of frequent inpatient and outpatient care visits whose causative agents are associated with a high antimicrobial resistance burden. For insights on antimicrobial susceptibilities in a rural setting, we examined specimens from suspected SSTIs from two public health facilities in Kenya. We additionally assessed antibiotic use, appropriateness of empiric therapy and risk factors for SSTI. Methodology: Between 2021 and 2023, 265 patients at Kisii and Nyamira County Referral hospitals were enrolled. Wound swabs/aspirates were collected and processed following standard microbiological procedures. Identification and antimicrobial susceptibility were performed using the VITEK 2 Compact platform. Demographic, clinical, and microbiological data were analyzed with R Statistical software. Results: S. aureus was isolated in 16.2% (43/265) of patients with a methicillin resistance (MRSA) proportion of 14% (6/43). While 13/15 drugs elicited susceptibilities ranging from 84% - 100%, penicillin (16%) and trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole [TMP-SXT] (23%) yielded the lowest susceptibilities. Escherichia coli (n = 33), Klebsiella pneumoniae (n = 8), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (n = 8), and Citrobacter species (n = 4) were the most commonly isolated gram-negative species. Gram-negative strains showed high susceptibilities to most of the tested drugs (71% - 100%) with the exception of ampicillin (18%), TMP-SXT (33%), and first and second generation cephalosporins. Conclusions: The low MRSA prevalence and generally high antibiotic susceptibilities for S. aureus and gram-negative bacteria present opportunities for antibiotic stewardship in the study setting. Diminished susceptibilities against penicillin/ampicillin and TMP-SXT accord with prevailing local data and add a layer of evidence for their cautious empiric use.
文摘The impact of a Distributed Denial of Service(DDoS)attack on Soft-ware Defined Networks(SDN)is briefly analyzed.Many approaches to detecting DDoS attacks exist,varying on the feature being considered and the method used.Still,the methods have a deficiency in the performance of detecting DDoS attacks and mitigating them.To improve the performance of SDN,an efficient Real-time Multi-Constrained Adaptive Replication and Traffic Approximation Model(RMCARTAM)is sketched in this article.The RMCARTAM considers different parameters or constraints in running different controllers responsible for handling incoming packets.The model is designed with multiple controllers to handle net-work traffic but can turn the controllers according to requirements.The multi-con-straint adaptive replication model monitors different features of network traffic like rate of packet reception,class-based packet reception and target-specific reception.According to these features,the method estimates the Replication Turn-ing Weight(RTW)based on which triggering controllers are performed.Similarly,the method applies Traffic Approximation(TA)in the detection of DDoS attacks.The detection of a DDoS attack is performed by approximating the incoming traf-fic to any service and using various features like hop count,payload,service fre-quency,and malformed frequency to compute various support measures on bandwidth access,data support,frequency support,malformed support,route sup-port,and so on.Using all these support measures,the method computes the value of legitimate weight to conclude the behavior of any source in identifying the mal-icious node.Identified node details are used in the mitigation of DDoS attacks.The method stimulates the network performance by reducing the power factor by switching the controller according to different factors,which also reduces the cost.In the same way,the proposed model improves the accuracy of detecting DDoS attacks by estimating the features of incoming traffic in different corners.
文摘Cloud computing involves remote server deployments with public net-work infrastructures that allow clients to access computational resources.Virtual Machines(VMs)are supplied on requests and launched without interactions from service providers.Intruders can target these servers and establish malicious con-nections on VMs for carrying out attacks on other clustered VMs.The existing system has issues with execution time and false-positive rates.Hence,the overall system performance is degraded considerably.The proposed approach is designed to eliminate Cross-VM side attacks and VM escape and hide the server’s position so that the opponent cannot track the target server beyond a certain point.Every request is passed from source to destination via one broadcast domain to confuse the opponent and avoid them from tracking the server’s position.Allocation of SECURITY Resources accepts a safety game in a simple format as input andfinds the best coverage vector for the opponent using a Stackelberg Equilibrium(SSE)technique.A Mixed Integer Linear Programming(MILP)framework is used in the algorithm.The VM challenge is reduced by afirewall-based controlling mechanism combining behavior-based detection and signature-based virus detection.The pro-posed method is focused on detecting malware attacks effectively and providing better security for the VMs.Finally,the experimental results indicate that the pro-posed security method is efficient.It consumes minimum execution time,better false positive rate,accuracy,and memory usage than the conventional approach.
文摘An ad-hoc sensor network(ASN)is a group of sensing nodes that transmit data over a wireless link to a target node,direct or indirect,through a series of nodes.ASN becomes a high-risk group for several security exploits due to the sensor node’s limited resources.Internal threats are more challenging to protect against than external attacks.The nodes are grouped,and calculate each node’s trust level.The trust level is the result of combining internal and external trust degrees.Cluster heads(CH)are chosen based on the anticipated trust levels.The communications are then digitally signed by the source,encoded using a key pair given by a trustworthy CH,decoded by the recipient,and supervised by verifications.It authenticates the technique by identifying the presence of both the transmitter and the recipient.Our approach looks for a trustworthy neighboring node that meets the trust threshold condition to authenticate the key produced.The companion node reaffirms the node’s reliability by getting the public-key certification.The seeking sensor node and the certification issuer node must have a close and trusting relationship.The results of the proposed hybrid authentication using a node trustworthy(HANT)system are modeled and tested,and the suggested approach outperforms conventional trust-based approaches in throughput,latency,lifetime,and vulnerability methods.
文摘This paper investigates the experimental results on the effect of nano silica fume on compressive strength development of concretes containing high volume fly ash (HVFA). The effect of various silica fumes contents such as 1%, 2% & 3% (wt. %) as partial replacement of cement on the compressive strength of cements is evaluated in the first part. The nano silica fume content which exhibits the highest compressive strength above is used in high volume fly ash concretes containing 30% and 50% class F fly ash. The results show that among three different silica fumes contents, the addition of 1% increases the compressive strength of concretes. The addition of 1% silica fume also increases the early age and 28 days compressive strengths of HVFA concretes.
文摘<b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Background:</span></b><span style="font-family:""> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> is the most common cause of chronic human infections worldwide with the highest reported prevalence in Africa. It is associated with numerous upper gastrointestinal diseases such as gastritis, peptic ulcers, and gastric cancer. Endoscopic findings in the stomach usually associated with </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infections include gastritis and gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD), however, these findings are suggestive but not diagnostic of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infection. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Methods:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> This was a prospective study conducted between January 2018 and February 2019 at the Aga Khan University Hospital where dyspeptic patients scheduled for gastroduodenoscopy were enrolled. These patients were evaluated for </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Helicobacter</span></i> <i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">pylori</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infection by rapid urease test, culture and histopathology. Diagnostic findings and patient history collected from medical files w</span></span><span style="font-family:Verdana;">ere</span><span style="font-family:""><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> documented and data analyzed. </span><b><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Results:</span></b><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> A total of 487 dyspeptic patients undergoing esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD) were enrolled in the study and 199 dyspeptic patients were positive for </span><i><span style="font-family:Verd
文摘Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus) is one of the most frequent causes of bacterial infection in children and is a leading cause of otitis, sinusitis, pneumonia, and meningitis worldwide. Nasopharyngeal colonization is a risk factor for pneumococcal disease, a leading cause of complications and death in infants. HIV-infected persons are at high risk of invasive pneumococcal disease. Method: Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected from 296 HIV infected children below five years recruited from Gertrude’s Children hospital and Nazareth Hospital Nairobi, Kenya. The nasopharyngeal swabs were processed to isolate S. pneumoniae, which were serotyped and tested for drug susceptibility. Results: The carriage prevalence of S. pneumoniae in the study was 30.4% while the isolated serotypes were (in order of decreasing frequency): 35B, 19F, 3, 13, 15A, 11A, 16F, 7C and 23A. Most of the serotypes were resistant to the commonly used antibiotics but all were susceptible to vancomycin and chloramphenicol. Conclusion: Carriage prevalence of nasopharyngeal S. pneumonia in HIV infected children was lower than that of similar prevalence studies in children. Most of the S. pneumoniae isolates were however non pneumococcal vaccine isolates.
文摘In Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs), the mobile nodes are communicating trough wireless medium. The protocol designs of MANETs are based on a traditional approach which has been found ineffective to deal congestion related problems. Hence, it is affecting properties of physical layer, the network layer and transport layer. This paper proposes a novel design approach, deviating from the traditional network design, towards enhancing the cross-layer interaction among different layers, namely physical, MAC and network. The novel approach for congestion control is to solve congestion and mobility related problems with a cross layer interaction. The significance of CLCC is that it has used two mechanisms: (i) Dynamic Transmission Power Control algorithm that predicts a link breakage if it is likely to happen, (ii) Dynamic Congestion Estimation Technique, which analyzes traffic fluctuation and categorize congestion status perfectly. The proposed protocol reduces the route breakage and network congestion, hence reduces the control overhead and latency, and increases the packet delivery ratio. Through simulation, it is shown that the proposed protocol is simple, robust and effective.
基金The authors are grateful to MANF UGC,Government of India,for providing financial support under MANF-UGC(MANF-2015-17-JAM-60,506)programme to carry out this work.
文摘The participation of ordinary devices in networking has created a world of connected devices rapidly.The Internet of Things(IoT)includes heterogeneous devices from every field.There are no definite protocols or standards for IoT communication,and most of the IoT devices have limited resources.Enabling a complete security measure for such devices is a challenging task,yet necessary.Many lightweight security solutions have surfaced lately for IoT.The lightweight security protocols are unable to provide an optimum protection against prevailing powerful threats in cyber world.It is also hard to deploy any traditional security protocol on resource-constrained IoT devices.Software-defined networking introduces a centralized control in computer networks.SDN has a programmable approach towards networking that decouples control and data planes.An SDN-based intrusion detection system is proposed which uses deep learning classifier for detection of anomalies in IoT.The proposed intrusion detection system does not burden the IoT devices with security profiles.The proposed work is executed on the simulated environment.The results of the simulation test are evaluated using various matrices and compared with other relevant methods.
文摘<i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">Staphylococcus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> <i>aureus</i></span><span style="font-family:""><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> has maintained its clinical relevance as a major cause of hospital and community acquired infections globally with a high burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Though reported, the burden of infection, antimicrobial resistance and molecular epidemiology of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> are not well defined in Kenya. This descriptive review evaluated reported data on the detection and characterization of </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> infections in Kenya. Published data between 2000 and 2020 were evaluated. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">S</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">. </span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">aureus</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> isolation frequencies varied from 1% in blood specimens to 52.6% among skin and soft tissues infections while MRSA rates ranged from 1% to 84.1%. While penicillin resistance has consistently been high, last line and recent antibiotics such as vancomycin, linezolid, teicoplanin and daptomycin have retained their efficacy. Data on MRSA carriage in the community, among HCWs and inpatients is limited. Global clones (CC1, CC5, CC8, CC22, CC30, CC45 and CC239) alongside a few novel MRSA strains have been reported with staphylococcal protein A (</span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">spa</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">) sequence based clustering yielding four major clusters (</span><i><span style="font-family:Verdana;">spa</span></i><span style="font-family:Verdana;"> CC359, </span><i><span style="font-family:V
基金supported by the MATTM (Italy) for the PIRODE Project No 94the MSE for the PRIT Project Industria 2015the MIUR (Italy) for the FIRB 2010 Project RBFR10J4H7 002 and HYDROLAB2
文摘Few layer graphene （FLG）, multi-walled carbon nanotubes （CNTs） and a nanotube-graphene composite （CNT-FLG） were used as supports for palladium nanoparticles. The catalysts, which were characterized by transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, were used as anodes in the electrooxidation of ethanol, ethylene glycol and glycerol in half cells and in passive direct ethanol fuel cells. Upon Pd deposition, a stronger interaction was found to occur between the metal and the nanotube-graphene composite and the particle size was significantly smaller in this material （6.3 nm）, comparing with nanotubes and graphene alone （8 and 8.4 nm, respectively）. Cyclic voltammetry experiments conducted with Pd/CNT, Pd/FLG and Pd/CNT-FLG in 10 wt% ethanol and 2 M KOH solution, showed high specific currents of 1.48, 2.29 and 2.51 mA-/zgp-d, respectively. Moreover, the results obtained for ethylene glycol and glycerol oxidation highlighted the excellent electrocatalytic activity of Pd/CNT-FLG in terms of peak current density （up to 3.70 mAgd for ethylene glycol and 1.84 mAfor glycerol, respectively）. Accordingly, Pd/CNT-FLG can be considered as the best performing one among the electrocatalysts ever reported for ethylene glycol oxidation, especially considering the low metal loading used in this work. Direct ethanol fuel cells at room temperature were studied by obtaining power density curves and undertaking galvanostatic experiments. The power density outputs using Pd/CNT, Pd/FLG and Pd/CNT-FLG were 12.1, 16.3 and 18.4 mW.cm-2, respectively. A remarkable activity for ethanol electrooxidation was shown by Pd/CNT-FLG anode catalyst. In a constant current experiment, the direct ethanol fuel cell containing Pd/CNT-FLG could continuously deliver 20 mA.cm-2 for 9.5 h during the conversion of ethanol into acetate of 30%, and the energy released from the cell was about 574 J.
文摘Wastewater treatment plants and solid dump sites act as potential reservoirs of highly resistant bacterial strains. This study presents information on the patterns of antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria in the sewage treatment plants and solid dump site in Nairobi County, Kenya. We employed standard microbiological methods to isolate and identify bacteria from these selected sites. Members of Escherichia, Klebsiella, Serratia, Shigella, Pseudomonas, Citrobacter spp, Enterobacter, Salmonella, Staphylococcus, Bacillus, Yersinia, Vibro cholera, Providencia, Morganella and Proteus spp were isolated. Escherichia and Klebsiella recorded the highest occurrence at 13.9% and 10.3% in wastewater. Shigella, Serratia Citrobacterfreundii, Pseudomonas, Staphylococcus, Escherichia and Klebsiella recorded the highest level of occurrence at 15.1%, 14.1%, 12%, 11%, 10.4%, 10.3%, and 8.3% in dumpsite respectively. Drug sensitivity using the Disc diffusion method showed that Ampicillin, Ceftazidime, Cefotaxime, Amoxicillin, and Cefepime had the highest levels of inactivity at (68.5%, 89.5%), (64.2%, 87%), (54.5%, 80.2%), (52%, 74%) and (49.1%, 72.4%) respectively while Levofloxacin and Gentamicin showed the smallest level of antibiotic resistance at (4.8%, 4.7%) and (4.2%, 2.6%) in both sites. Members of Escherichia, Klebsiella, Proteus vulgaris, Salmonella, Pseudomonas, Shigella and Serratia showed the highest level of ESBLs production at 28.9%, 18.4%, 15.8%, 10.5%, 7.9%, 7.9%, 7.9% and 7.9% in the wastewater whereas Shigella, Escherichia, Serratia, Pseudomonas, Klebsiella, and Proteus vulgaris showed the highest level ESBLs production at 45.5%, 10.9%, 9.1%, 9.1%, 7.3% and 7.3% from the dump site. All the antibiotics tested except for Gentamicin, Chloramphenicol and Ciprofloxacin differed significantly in terms of resistance levels (p < 0.05). The study concluded that, wastewater treatment plant and dump sites bear heavy burdens of potentially virulent resistant bacterial strains which may constitute major public hea
基金This research is financially supported by the Deanship of Scientific Research at King Khalid University under research grant number(RGP.2/202/43).
文摘Recently medical image classification plays a vital role in medical image retrieval and computer-aided diagnosis system.Despite deep learning has proved to be superior to previous approaches that depend on handcrafted features;it remains difficult to implement because of the high intra-class variance and inter-class similarity generated by the wide range of imaging modalities and clinical diseases.The Internet of Things(IoT)in healthcare systems is quickly becoming a viable alternative for delivering high-quality medical treatment in today’s e-healthcare systems.In recent years,the Internet of Things(IoT)has been identified as one of the most interesting research subjects in the field of health care,notably in the field of medical image processing.For medical picture analysis,researchers used a combination of machine and deep learning techniques as well as artificial intelligence.These newly discovered approaches are employed to determine diseases,which may aid medical specialists in disease diagnosis at an earlier stage,giving precise,reliable,efficient,and timely results,and lowering death rates.Based on this insight,a novel optimal IoT-based improved deep learning model named optimization-driven deep belief neural network(ODBNN)is proposed in this article.In context,primarily image quality enhancement procedures like noise removal and contrast normalization are employed.Then the preprocessed image is subjected to feature extraction techniques in which intensity histogram,an average pixel of RGB channels,first-order statistics,Grey Level Co-Occurrence Matrix,Discrete Wavelet Transform,and Local Binary Pattern measures are extracted.After extracting these sets of features,the May Fly optimization technique is adopted to select the most relevant features.The selected features are fed into the proposed classification algorithm in terms of classifying similar input images into similar classes.The proposed model is evaluated in terms of accuracy,precision,recall,and f-measure.The investigation evident the performa
文摘Socially disadvantaged individuals with HIV experience unacceptably high rates of AIDS and death. The authors developed an adversity index to quantify the impact of demographic and psychosocial factors on HIV care. This retrospective cohort study included 431 participants with HIV on combined antiretroviral therapy between 2000 and 2005. Poor outcome was defined as progression to AIDS, death, virologic failure, or CD4 < 200 cells/μl at six months. The index utilized eight demographic and psychosocial variables independently associated with poor outcome. Exposure to higher numbers of variables in the adversity index significantly increased the rates of poor outcome from 14% (exposure to no variables) to 100% (exposure to seven variables). The odds of poor outcome decreased but remained significant after adjusting for adherence-defining variables, indicating a possible mediating effect of poor adherence. Durably effective therapeutic strategies must include addressing adverse demographic and psychosocial factors affecting people living with HIV.
文摘Acinetobacter baumannii is among the common nosocomial infections microorganisms in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major significant concerns in developing nations due to either over-use or inadequate use of antimicrobial agents. The purpose of this study was to emphasize the potential antimicrobial activity of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba against nosocomial diseases caused by Acinetobacter baumannii. Nepeta cataria and Basella alba leaves were collected from Oldonyo Sabuk National Park and Botanical garden JKUAT respectively. The leaves were dried under shade at room temperature for thirty days. After methanolic and aqueous plant extraction, the percentage yield was determined, and the extracts were subjected to toxicity testing using brine shrimp eggs and preliminary phytochemical screening. The results recorded from this study demonstrated that 70% methanolic extract of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba had greater antimicrobial effect against Acinetobacter baumannii than aqueous extracts. Nepeta cataria extracts showed greater antimicrobial effect than Basella alba extracts. The methanolic plant extracts had MIC values 60 mg/ml when tested against Acinetobacter baumannii. The phytochemical screening showed the presence of various phytochemical constituents from the methanolic and aqueous extraction of Nepeta cataria and Basella alba. The methanolic plant extracts revealed more phytochemicals as compared to aqueous extracts. More phytochemicals were detected from Nepeta cataria than Basella alba plant extracts.
文摘Background: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease with an estimated 1.45 million deaths every year. Many patients get infected as a result of ignorance of the risk factors that contribute to disease transmission. Methodology: A descriptive epidemiological study was conducted on 258 patients presenting with pulmonary tuberculosis. Patients’ sputa were collected for laboratory analysis and patients were required to respond to a structured questionnaire on risk factors for transmission. Data among stratified groups were compared using bivariate analysis. Statistical significance was considered at p Results: There were significantly more males than females associated with pulmonary tuberculosis infection (χ2 = 0.963;df = 1;p (64.3%) patients were living in single rooms with 110 (42.6%) living with more than two people with a maximum of 10 people in a single room. Only 73 (28.3%) were living alone in a single room and only 7 families (2.7%) were living in houses with five or more rooms. Alcohol consumers and smokers were 102 (39.5%) and 93 (36%) respectively. Half of the patients (137 (53.3%)) had not completed secondary education with only 16 (6.2%) having completed tertiary education. Recurrent cases were 54 (21%) while those exposed to the disease either at home or working place were 75 (29.2%). Out of 171 patients who agreed to test for HIV, 46 (26.9%) were positive. Marital status had no effect on incidence of disease. Conclusion: Emphasis should be given to creating awareness of the risk factors associated with transmission of tuberculosis in order to reduce the rate of infection.
文摘Background: Molecular typing allows a rapid and precise species differentiation and is essential in investigating the spread of specific genotypes and any relationship with drug resistance. Methodology: To compare the discrimination power of 24-loci Mycobacteria interspersed repetitive units-variable number of tandem repeat (MIRU-VNTR) to spoligotyping in determining the circulating genotypes of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in isolates from pulmonary tuberculosis patients in Kenya, a total of 204 isolates were typed. Results: Spoligotyping identified 22 spoligo lineages;while 36(17.6%) isolates were not determined. MIRU-VNTR typing identified 12 genotypes;Kenya H37_Rv_ like, S-like that had never been reported before and which were not identified by spoligotyping were identified. Others were Uganda I and II, LAM, Beijing, TUR, EAI, Delhi/C, S and Haarlem. Only 8 (3.9%) were not defined by MIRU-VNTR. Delhi/CAS, EAI, S, S-like, LAM and Beijing had strains that showed resistance to all the five drugs tested. Two strains of EAI and 2 of S genotypes were resistant to all the five drugs tested. Beijing genotype commonly associated with drug resistance was found to be third in drug resistance (14.7%) after Delhi/CAS (28.9%) and LAM (17.6%) with the highest resistance towards isoniazid and pyrazinamide (3.9% each). MIRU-VNTR typing was more discriminative than spoligotyping;identifying 10 unique H37_Rv-like isolates designated KeniaH37_Rv_like genotype and 14 S-like genotype. Conclusion: MIRU-VNTR typing has not been reported in any other study in Kenya and its higher discrimination can help identify genotypes that cannot be determined by spoligotyping. Association of Beijing genotype drug resistance particularly isoniazid should be of concern since it may result in multidrug resistance in the patients.
文摘The Fourier Transform Infrared(FTIR)and Fourier transform Raman(FT-Raman)spectra of 1,3-Diphenyl Propenone were recorded in the regions 4000~400 and 4000~100 cm^-1,respectively,in the solid phase.Molecular electronic energy,geometrical structure,harmonic vibrational spectra was computed at the DFT/6-31G(d,p)and three parameter hybrid functional Lee-Yang-Parr/6-31G(d,p)levels of theory.The vibrational studies were interpreted in terms of potential energy distribution(PED).The results were compared with experimental values with the help of scaling procedures.Most of the modes have wave numbers in the expected range and are in good agreement with computed values and also the molecular properties of Mulliken population analysis have been calculated.Besides,thermodynamic properties were performed.
文摘The 12-lead ECG aids in the diagnosis of myocardial infarction and is helpful in the prediction of cardiovascular disease complications.It does,though,have certain drawbacks.For other electrocardiographic anomalies such as Left Bundle Branch Block and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy syndrome,the ECG signal withMyocardial Infarction is difficult to interpret.These diseases cause variations in the ST portion of the ECG signal.It reduces the clarity of ECG signals,making itmore difficult to diagnose these diseases.As a result,the specialist is misled into making an erroneous diagnosis by using the incorrect therapeutic technique.Based on these concepts,this article reviews the different procedures involved in ECG signal pre-processing,feature extraction,feature selection,and classification techniques to diagnose heart disorders such as LeftVentricularHypertrophy,Bundle Branch Block,andMyocardial Infarction.It reveals the flaws and benefits in each segment,as well as recommendations for developing more advanced and robustmethods for diagnosing these diseases,which will increase the system’s accuracy.The current issues and prospective research directions are also addressed.
文摘The present investigation was carried out in exfoliated buccal cells and saliva collected from pre-operative brain tumour patients. The DNA damage in these cells was assessed by alkaline comet assay and micronucleus (MN) assay. Salivary flow rate, pH, osmolality, total antioxidant activity (AOA) and vitamin C levels were also assessed in unstimulated whole saliva of these patients. In the comet assay a significant increase in the tail length (P<0.02) was observed when control and malignant groups were compared. A significant (P<0.02) difference in tail length was also noted between benign and malignant groups. Non significant results were found when control and benign groups were compared. Further, a marked increase in % MN (P<0.002) was observed when control and benign groups were compared. A significant increase in % MN (P<0.029) was also observed in benign cases when compared to malignant tumours. No significance was obtained when % MN in control and malignant cases was compared. Moreover, salivary flow rate and pH was significantly decreased and osmolality was markedly increased in brain tumour patients. The AOA levels in saliva were markedly decreased in brain tumours and vitamin C levels exhibited no change when compared to controls. Thus, as noted above susceptibility to free radical induced DNA damage also exists in the exfoliated buccal cells conducive to the lowered salivary antioxidant status of brain tumour patients.
