bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Aflatoxin-Producing Fungi in Indoor Air of Warehouses and Houses of Farmers in Giwa, Kaduna State Nigeria
Authors: Abdurrazaq, M.  , Tijjani, M.B  , Atta, H.I.  
Published: August 2023

The health risks associated with ingesting food contaminated with mycotoxins, particularly aflatoxin-contaminated staple foods like maize and other cereals, have been widely studied. However, there is little knowledge about the role of inhalation of pathogenic fungi as bioaerosols in contaminated air from handling crops as an occupational health risk. This paper presents a study aimed at determining the level of airborne aflatoxin-producing fungi in the indoor air of grain stores in the Giwa community of Kaduna State. Indoor air was sampled using the settling plate technique from grain stores, warehouses and living rooms. Metrological data of the studied area were collected from the Institute of Agricultural Research, ABU, Zaria. Airborne mycofloral concentrations were determined, and colonies of Aspergillus flavus were identified. The isolates were screened for aflatoxin production on Neutral Red Desiccated Coconut Agar (NRDCA). Selected aflatoxin-producing fungal isolates were screened for the presence of aflD (nor-1), aflM (ver-1) and AflR genes by PCR. Sampling was done once every month from October to December 2020. Mycofloral concentrations were in the range of 2.77x103−4.05x103 and 1.55x103−2.17x103CFUm-3for grain stores and living rooms respectively. A total of twelve (12) strains of A. flavus were isolated from the indoor air of the grain stores and warehouses while none was obtained from the living room. Eleven (11) isolates were confirmed to be aflatoxigenic on NRDCA, presenting 30 CFUm-3 of the indoor air mycofloral composition. The aflD, aflM and aflR were amplified with aflD being the most detected gene from all the aflatoxin-producing mould isolates of Aspergillus species. The mycofloral concentrations in the grain stores were higher than those in the living room and, in all the sampling sites, exceeded the limit of the total mycofloral concentration of 500 CFUm-3 for agricultural and industrial environments. There were significant differences (p<0.05) in the indoor mycofloral concentrations between the grain stores/warehouses and the living room. The presence of aflatoxigenic strains of A. flavus in the stores indicates that grain handlers and traders are at risk of occupational exposure to aflatoxigenic fungi and aflatoxins. Hence, they should wear protective materials for their safety while working in such stores.
Evaluation of the Antimicrobial Activity of Ficus sycomorus and Hyphaene theibaica leaf Extracts against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans
Authors: Bristone James Pola  , Emmanuel Ijabani  , Joyce Briska  
Published: August 2023

The effective use of Ficus sycomorus and Hyphaene theibaica traditionally in treatment of variety of illnesses has been widely reported. The aim of the study was to determine the antimicrobial activities of the leaf extracts of Ficus sycomorus and Hyphaene theibaica on Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus and Candida albicans. Fresh leaves of Ficus sycomorus and Hyphaene theibaica were collected, dried and subjected to ethanolic extraction, and screened for phytochemicals. Five different concentrations of each extract was prepared viz: 200, 160, 120, 80 and 40 mg/mL using distilled water as solvent and tested against Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Candida albicans using agar well diffusion method. Qualitative phytochemical screening revealed that F. sycomorus contained phenol saponins, tannins, flavonoids and steroids while H. theibaica contains Saponin, flavonoids, alkaloid, phenol and steroids. Antimicrobial activity of ethanolic leaf extracts of Ficus sycomorus was observed only against Escherichia coli at 200 mg/mL. While no zones of inhibition were observed against any of the test isolates for ethanolic leaf extracts of Hyphaene theibaica. The minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of F. sycomorus extracts on E. coli was 100 mg/mL and the minimum bactericidal concentration (MBC) was 200 mg/mL. The activity of F. sycomorus leaf extract on E. coli being an enteric bacteria, could justify the traditional claims of its use in effective treatment of diarrhea and other stomach complications.
Prevalence and Antibiotics resistance profile of Staphylococcus aureus isolated from post-operative wounds in secondary health facilities of Ilorin metropolis, Kwara State, Nigeria
Authors: Oba, A.N.  , Nuhu, A.  
Published: August 2023

Healthcare-associated infections are of different forms, with Surgical Site Infections (SSI) being the second most common type, they continue to be a relatively common postoperative complications and the most frequent reason for re-admission following surgery. Several data from around the world revealed Staphylococcus aureus to be the leading cause of surgical site infection. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the occurrence and drug resistance profile of Staphylococcus aureus and Methicilin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolated from post-operative wounds in secondary health facilities within the Ilorin metropolis. With the aid of sterile cotton swabs, a total of hundred and thirty-two (132) wound swab samples were obtained from patients who had been clinically diagnosed with surgical site infection. These samples were processed as per standard microbiological techniques. Staphylococcus aureus was isolated at an occurrence rate of 15.2%. Chi-square analysis showed that there was a significant difference in the number of isolates in relation to both hospitals (GHI and CHO) (p<0.05), the highest occurrence of Staphylococcus aureus (12.6%) was seen in GHI, while an occurrence rate of (24.1%) was recorded at CHO. The antimicrobial susceptibility profile revealed that 8(40%) of the S.aureus isolates were Methicilin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). S.aureus showed 100% susceptibility to Tigecycline and it was 100% resistant to Cefoxitin. Therefore, these findings affirmed that there is significant resistance in Staphylococcus aureus isolated from post-operative wounds in health facilities of the Ilorin metropolis.
Microbial Source Tracking: An Emerging Technology for Microbial Water Quality Assessment: A Review
Authors: Job, O.S.  , Bala, J.D.  , Abdulraham, A.A.  , Friday, N.N.  , Ibekie, S.A.  , Tsebam, C.J  , Abudullahi, D.  
Published: August 2023

Microbial Source Tracking is a scientific approach that primarily aims to identify the sources of faecal contamination in water bodies. Microbial Source Tracking (MST) is a set of techniques employed to identify the origins of faecal contamination in water. The capacity to track faecal bacteria to their source is a crucial aspect of both public health and water quality management. The utilisation of information obtained from the method of MST would provide water quality managers with an enhanced comprehension of the origins of contamination, thus facilitating the implementation of remedial measures to impede transmission. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the gut-associated bacteria of the order Bacteroidales, specifically the Bacteroides genus, has a tendency to undergo co-evolution with the host, making it a highly viable option for MST applications. However, it is noteworthy that MST is also facilitating the scientific community with effective techniques for tracing faecal bacteria and pathogens in water sources. The methodologies utilised in MST are frequently categorised as either Library-Dependent Methods (LDMs) or Library-Independent Methods (LIMs). Microbial source tracking has been employed for diverse objectives, such as ensuring adherence to regulations, remediating pollution, and evaluating risk. The implementation of MST is expected to mitigate the prevalence of waterborne illnesses resulting from contamination. The implementation of MST has facilitated the ability to anticipate the probable origins of faecal contamination and the associated health hazards linked to compromised water systems. In addition to conventional faecal indicators, these methodologies are suggested as means to furnish supplementary insights into the origins of pollution, as well as the ecological and public health ramifications of animal-derived water contamination.
Statistical Study of Bisection Method for Cubic Equations with Random Coefficients
Authors: Kumari Shikha , Chakraborty Soubhik 
Published: August 2023

The bisection method is an iterative approach used in numerical analysis to find solutions to nonlinear equations. The main purpose of this paper is to study how the parameters of a probability distribution characterizing the coefficients of a cubic polynomial can influence the convergence of the bisection method. The study covers discrete and continuous distributions, including discrete uniform, continuous uniform, and normal distributions. It was found that for both types of uniform distribution inputs, a second-degree polynomial equation can predict the average iteration for a given parameter r, where r indicates the distribution interval [−r, r]. Interestingly, the coefficients of the second-degree polynomial are nearly identical for discrete and continuous uniform distributions. For normal distribution input, the average iteration does not depend upon the standard deviation when the mean is fixed and the standard deviation is varying. But when the standard deviation is fixed and the mean is varying, the second-degree polynomial is still the best fit. This means the average iteration depends upon the mean of the normal distribution. Overall, our paper concludes that: I. For uniform distribution input, the average iteration does not depend on whether the distribution is discrete or continuous but rather depends on the range of the distribution which is its parameter. II. For non-uniform distribution input, the average iteration depends on the mean of the distribution (location parameter) but not on the standard deviation (scale parameter). Finally, a curtain is raised in the future direction of research in which we propose to combine the bisection method with the regula falsi and Newton-Raphson methods to increase the rate of convergence.

Received: 5 July 2023 | Revised: 9 August 2023 | Accepted: 11 August 2023

Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement
Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study.
Attention Enhanced Siamese Neural Network for Face Validation
Authors: Yu Hong Qing 
Published: August 2023

Few-shot computer vision algorithms have enormous potential to produce promised results for innovative applications which only have a small volume of example data for training. Currently, the few-shot algorithm research focuses on applying transfer learning on deep neural networks that are pre-trained on big datasets. However, adapting the transformers requires highly cost computation resources. In addition, the overfitting or underfitting problems and low accuracy on large classes in the face validation domain are identified in our research. Thus, this paper proposed an alternative enhancement solution by adding contrasted attention to the negative face pairs and positive pairs to the training process. Extra attention is created through clustering-based face pair creation algorithms. The evaluation results show that the proposed approach sufficiently addressed the problems without requiring high-cost resources.

Received: 26 April 2023 | Revised: 4 July 2023 | Accepted: 26 July 2023

Conflicts of Interest
Hong Qing Yu is an Associate Editor for Artificial Intelligence and Applications, and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article. The author declares that he has no conflicts of interest to this work.

Data Availability Statement
The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Kaggle: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/olgabelitskaya/yale-face-database and https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/jessicali9530/lfw-dataset.
Social attention to the scientific publications on mHealth research during Covid-19 outbreak: An altmetric study
Authors: Basumatary Bwsrang , Gul Sumeer , Verma Manoj Kumar 
Published: August 2023

Objective. This study aimed to assess the social attention received by the top 100 highly cited scientific publications focusing on mHealth (mobile health) research during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Design/Methodology/Approach. This study employed altmetric tools to assess the social attention received by mHealth research publications. The study collected bibliographical data of the top 100 highly cited articles published between 2019 and 2022 from the Scopus database. Altmetric data was collected from the Dimensions.ai database and analyzed using MS Excel, Tableau, and SPSS software.
Results/Discussion. The study found that mHealth research has received significant social attention from various social media, mass media and reference manager platforms. However, it needs to be dissemination and promotion to reach wider audiences. Twitter was the leading channel for disseminating research highlights on mHealth, and articles have a significant number of readers on the Mendeley platform. However, correlation analysis revealed a weak positive correlation between citation and AAS of mHealth research publications.
Conclusions. The study contributes to understanding the societal impact of mHealth research during the COVID-19 outbreak and emphasizes the role of Altmetric tools in assessing social attention in scientific publications. The study concludes by suggesting future research directions in the field.
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF BREWERY EFFLUENT ON THE GROWTH OF TWO MARINE MICROALGAE
Authors: Akhere M. A. , Ngbonyebi E. C. 
Published: August 2023

A growing global trend is the use of microalgae for the treatment of industrial effluents due to their capacity to consume contaminants, sequester carbon, and provide biomass for high-value products. Thalassiosira sp. and Chaetoceros gracilis, two marine microalgae, are the subjects of this study, which seeks to ascertain the effect of brewery effluent on their growth. The test microalgae were grown in seven culture vessels which were in triplicates and different concentrations; control (without effluent), 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30% of brewery effluent. On a visible spectrophotometer, optical density at 750 nm was used to quantify growth responses, and several physicochemical variables were studied at the start and end using standard methods. Using Microsoft Excel 2010 and the social sciences statistical tool SPSS20, descriptive statistics, inferential (one way analysis of variance) ANOVA repeated measures, paired t-tests, and Tukey tests were performed. The findings revealed a significant difference in Thalassiosira sp. and Chaetoceros gracilis with growth response (p < 0.05). The growth of Thalassiosira sp. was stimulated by different concentrations of brewery effluent, Tukey test showed that 20, 25 and 30 % concentrations had higher mean differences, followed by 15 and 10% concentrations while, there was no mean difference between the control and 5% concentration. While the results for Thalassiosira sp. showed that, 25 and 30 % concentrations had higher mean differences, followed by 10, 15 and 20% concentrations. There was no mean difference between the control and 5% concentration. The results of physicochemical variables indicated that only TOC and COD of brewery effluent fell at lower concentrations and stayed constant at higher concentraions, a decrease in temperature was seen across all concentrations. Thalassiosira sp. had more stimulatory effect than Chaetoceros gracilis making it a better option in the bioremediation of brewery wastewater when applied in higher concentrations.
Efficiency of two-stage extensive resection interventions in the surgical treatment of patients with disseminated echinococcosis of the liver
Authors: Krasnov A. O. , Krasnov K. A. , Peltz V. A. , Krasnov O. A. , Pavlenko V. V. 
Published: August 2023

Introduction. Surgical operations are the main and effective option for treatment of hepatic echinococcosis. The problem of the choice of the type of surgical intervention in the advanced form of hepatic echinococcosis in the conditions of supposed deficiency of the organ functional reserves and development of post-resection hepatic insufficiency remains topical.The aim of the study was to present and analyze the effectiveness of two-stage extensive resection interventions in patients with advanced liver echinococcosis.Materials and methods. The paper presents the results of surgical treatment of 22 patients, 8 male (36.4%) and 14 female (63.6%) operated in the surgical department № 2 of Kuzbass Clinical Emergency Hospital named after M.A. Podgorbunskiy in Kemerovo. The criterion for inclusion in the study was to use of a two-stage extensive resection protocol.Results. The surgical staging methods used in our study to prevent post-resection liver failure showed efficacy in the following parameters: CT volumetry (p < 0.05), residual concentration of indocyanine green at 15 minutes (p < 0.05), statistical predictive model value (p < 0.05) and allowed to prepare patients for resection extensive intervention with a sufficient level of safety. Specific postoperative complications after extensive resection were identified in nine patients (40.1 %) and non-specific complication in three patients (13.6 %). Specific complications are mainly represented by manifestations of PPN manifistations − six cases (66.7 %), including 5 cases (83.3%) with “A” category according to ISGLS, with “B” category − one case (16.7 %). There were no fatalities or relapses in any of the study groups. Discussion When analysing the literature, there is a tendency to search for effective and safe methods of stopping the blood flow of the liver portal system in order to achieve vicarious hypertrophy of the remnant. A common technique for obtaining vicarious hypertrophy of the future liver remnant is radiopaque endosurgical embolization of the portal blood flow. However, there are technical limitations to the availability of the procedure. Laparoscopic clipping of the right portal vein branch is an alternative surgical option.Conclusion. Techniques to achieve vicarious hypertrophy of the liver remnant have proven effective and have prepared patients for extensive liver resections. Two-stage extensive resection interventions for advanced liver echinococcosis are effective and sufficiently safe when performed in specialised hepatology centres.
Identification of risk zones according to the rate of total mortality and lifestyle factors at the regional level
Authors: Bobkova E. V. , Efimova N. V. 
Published: August 2023

Introduction. Population mortality depends on a complex of man-made, social, and natural behavioral factors. Clustering of territories within large constituent entities of the Russian Federation according to the value of population losses makes it possible to determine the most significant of the controllable factors.The aim of the work was to identify the risk zones according to the level of total mortality rates of the population of municipalities of the Irkutsk region and the relationship of the index with lifestyle factors.Materials and methods. The data on 42 objects, including municipalities and cities of the Irkutsk region, in the dynamics from 2011 to 2021 were analyzed using linear regression analysis. Cluster analysis was used to identify the risk territories: the hierarchical Wards method and k-means method. The relationships between the studied attributes were evaluated using Spearman rank correlation analysis.Results. The mortality rate decreased in 2011−2019 and increased in 2020−2021, averaging 13.34 CI(13.22−14.81) ‰. Five clusters differing in mortality rate were identified: minimum in V − 11.7 CI(10.72−12.68)‰; maximum in IV − 18.5CI(17.91−19.09)‰. In these clusters the prevalence of drug addiction, tobacco smoking and alcoholism are statistically significantly different. Based on this classification, risk areas (with the highest proportion of the population above working age and a high prevalence of household intoxication) and “borderline areas” (clusters with an increased mortality rate) have been identified. Discussion In order to identify risk areas and priority factors, there remains a need to improve the information base, increasing the use of different statistical methods to identify the key factors influencing overall mortality at the regional level.Conclusion. The mortality rate is associated not only with an ageing population, but also with the prevalence of habitual domestic intoxications and low physical activity of the adult population.
Retrospective analysis of cases of transient global amnesia admitted to the hospital
Authors: Ryabchenko A. Yu. , Dolgov A. M. 
Published: August 2023

Introduction. Transient global amnesia (TGA) is a clinical syndrome, the main clinical manifestation of which is sudden development of anterograde and retrograde amnesia, lasting not more than 24 hours, without other general cerebral or focal neurological symptoms.The aim of the work was to reveal the peculiarities of clinical manifestations and data of additional methods of examination of patients with TGA syndrome referred to the primary vascular department with suspected acute cerebral circulation disorder (ACCD).Materials and methods. The study included 16 patients with transient global amnesia diagnosed according to the diagnostic criteria of Hodges and Warlow (1990). All patients underwent a detailed neurological and general medical examination. Electrocardiography, multispiral computer tomography of the head, echocardiography, ultrasound duplex scanning of the main arteries of the head and neck, laboratory examination (lipid spectrum) were performed. The Brief Mental Status Rating Scale was used to assess cognitive impairment.Results. The majority of patients had elevated blood pressure (BP). The leading trigger factor of transient global amnesia was stress. The duration of amnesia ranged from 1.5 to 5 hours. There was a significant impairment of short-term memory. On the first and second days of hospitalization, 50% of patients had normal cognitive functions on a brief mental status assessment scale, but by the 5th−7th day only 12.5 % of patients had abnormalities. Ultrasound markers of atherosclerosis in the form of intima-media complex thickening and dyslipidemia were found in 6 patients. Signs of left ventricular hypertrophy were found in the majority of patients. Discussion TGA is a relatively rare condition and an understudied syndrome. Due to its suddenness of clinical manifestation, TGA requires differential diagnostics with acute cerebral circulatory disorders, epilepsy, acute hypertensive encephalopathy and psychogenic amnesia.Conclusion. The clinical features of TGA identified in the patients were a history of arterial hypertension, elevated BP during an episode of TGA. The leading provoking factor was stress. TGA episode occurred predominantly in the first half of the day. The majority of patients had complaints of headache on admission. Cognitive disorders detected in patients on the first and second days of the disease quickly regressed to normal. Left ventricular hypertrophy was detected in most patients.