Archives-June... 

Hyperamylasemia caused by the ectopic production of amylase in multiple myeloma (MM) is rarely described in the literature. It may also correspond to a macroamylase, a complex immunoglobulin amylase. We report the rare case of a patient with MM with Kappa light chains, who developed an accidental discovery hyperamylaseemia without symptoms of pancreatic or salivary disease.We report the rare case of a 61 years old patient, who developed an advanced acute kidney injury, with hypercalcemia, normochromic anemia, associated with diffuse bone pain and accidental discovery of an important hyperamylaseemia without symptoms of pancreatic or salivary disease. Electrophoresis and immunofixation of serum proteins demonstrate a Kappa light chain monoclonal peak. The sternal puncture reveals the presence of dysmorphic plasma cells estimated at 48%. Radiography of the skeleton shows skull geodes at the skull and diffuse demineralization. Abdominal CT does not show signs of pancreatic involvement. The diagnosis is a Kappa light chain MM associated with macroamylase. The patient is treated with the Cyclophosphamide-Dexamethasone-Thalidomide protocol and died of his disease after two months. The interest of this observation is to emphasize this benign biochemical anomaly in order to avoid complementary and / or therapeutic invasive investigations.

Economic globalization has exposed the electric and electronic industrial sector to competition, which is intense and global in character. This situation subsequently influences the capability of firms to plan production based on a new perspective. Affected firms thus implement several strategies to upgrade their competitiveness at the global scale through product upgrading; and this is related to the capacity arising from the producer services sector. Following from the above, this paper aims to examine to what extent industrial upgrading in the manufacturing sector is possible via the integration of the capacity arising from local producer services component, which is in line with the ‘Manufacturing Plus Plus’ strategy of the IMP2. Using research methods such as face-to-face interviews and questionnaire survey and focussing on R&D and IT, this research on the electric and electronic firms in industrial areas in Penang (30 firms) indicates that industrial upgrading efforts in the manufacturing sector could be achieved through the integration of advanced producer services components in the production process. In this respect, this research contributes to current knowledge and understanding (from the perspective of theory and practice) on producer services?manufacturing sector relationship.

The study examined the moderating role of child personality factors in the relation between mothers’ parenting style and child maltreatment in a sample of 330 children aged 7-10 years in Kenya. We found out that mother’s parenting style was a predictor of child maltreatment ?=.25, (p=.01). Mothers who are highly demanding and controlling were more likely to maltreat their children. Extraversion personality factor moderated this relation ?=.29 (p=.04).Thus, children who scored high in extraversion were at a greater risk of child maltreatment by mothers who are highly demanding and controlling. The study highlights the need to train Kenyan parents on positive parenting.

This study considered a method of selecting discrete distributions based on the Katz criterion in fitting an appropriate probability distribution function to available crime data in Nigeria after reasonable transformation. The criterion selected the Negative Binomial distribution for the data under consideration. The adopted distribution provided good fit as evidenced by the Anderson Darling goodness of fit test. This study has therefore applied the Katz criterion to real life data.

In this paper, the application of the Taguchi method with fuzzy logic for optimizing the electrical discharge machining process with multiple performance characteristics has been reported. A multi-response performance index is used to solve the EDM process with multiple performance characteristics. The machining parameters (discharge current (IP), pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff) and down time) are optimized with considerations of the multiple performance characteristics (electrode wear rate and material removal rate). Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.

The present study is to investigate the effect of selective Synthetic feed like Zeepromin and Fishmin having some additive components for enhancing on certain metabolic profiles and yield parameters of the cultivable fish species like Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala. The fishes selected for the study are considered into two groups viz. control group and experimental group .The control group of fishes are fed with control feed i.e. Groundnut cake, rice bran. The experimental group of fishes shall further be divided into two groups, Zeepromin and Fishmin which are commercially available, have been selected for the study. The first group of experimental fish was fed with control feed mixed with Zeepromin . The second groups of experimental fish are being fed with control feed mixed with fishmin. Hence the feed i.e., control feed+ Zeepromin and Fishmin supplied to the two groups of experimental fishes shall be called as synthetic feed. Elevation of rate of fecundity and rate of fertilization was observed when fed with Zeepromin and Fishmin fed fish species. Zeepromin and Fishmin treatment enhanced the fertilization rate and all the changes were found to be statistically significant over their corresponding control values.

Sathe, Y. S. (1977) found a new set of sharp upper and lower bounds on the variance of the UMVUE in the case of inverse sampling motivated by the fact that a close-form expression to capture the actual variance is unavailable. Sahai, Ajit (1985) improved the variance upper bound in Sathe, Y. S. (1977). This note is motivated by their papers and by their inherent desire to capture that variance possibly more closely using their set of the sharp Sahai-Sathe’s upper-and-lower bounds. It was very heartening for the authors to realize that the same is possible. In fact the seminal result achieved by the authors in this note could be used for improving the sharpness of these bounds iteratively till it pleases the one using it for the purpose of being close to the actual variance of the UMVUE in the absence of its capture in the closed-form. The achievement is briefly illustrated through a modest empirical study to bring forth the power of the proposed iterative algorithm for the aforesaid purpose.

In this work, the Adomian decomposition (ADM) and Picards Iterative Methods were used to solve nonlinear ordinary differential equations analytically and numerically using the Trapezoidal rule approach, and the results are compared for accuracy and rate of convergence. Though a little modification by the use of contraction principle was made to the Picard Iteration Method in order to accelerate the convergence of the method it was found out that the ADM converges faster than the Picard’s method.

Pure tibiotalar and subtalar dislocations are uncommon, they are classically associated to fractures. Open pure total talus dislocation is exceptional and results from a high velocity traumatism, especially, in younger population. Reduction and stabilization of open dislocations should be performed promptly to avoid septic and vascular complications. We report the case of a young sportive patient who had sustained a pure open right ankle dislocation associated with vertebral injury after a mountain climbing accident. The results were interesting after reduction and stabilization of tibiotalar, subtalar, talonavicular and calcaneocuboid joints with Kirschner wires, associated to repair of medial capsular and ligamentous structures.

This work entails a palynostratigraphy and palynoclimatic study of Ochigbo – 1 well, offshore Niger Delta. A total of Sixty-two (62) ditch samples were composited at intervals at an average of 100ft. The well covered total depth of 3,405-10,640ft. These samples were subjected to standard procedure for palynological study. Recovered palynomorph were rich, diverse and well preserved. The recovered palynomorphs were used for identifying four main palynological zones. These are: Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni/P700 Zone characterized by the quantitative base occurrence of Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni and co-occurrence of Belskipollis elegans, Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni, Echiperiporites estalae, and Verrutricolporites rotundiporus; dated Middle Miocene; Magnastriatites howardii/P600 Zone characterized by quantitative base occurrence of Peregrinipollis nigericus and co-occurrence of Praedapollis flexibilis, Magnastriatites howardii and Monoporites annulatus; dated Early Miocene – Late Oligocene; Retibrevitricolporite obodoensis/protudens/P500 Zone characterized by the co-occurrence of Arecipitesexili muratus, Retibrevitricolporite obodoensis/protudens, Verrucatosporite susmensis and Gemmamonoporite ssp dated Late – Early Oligocene and Racemonocolpite shians/P400 Zone characterized by the base occurrence of Racemonocolpite shians. The palaeoclimatic investigation showed that the sediments were deposited predominantly under wet climate in a mangrove setting and the palaeoenvironment ranges from brackish to deep marine environments.