Background: Despite the scaling-up of Insecticidal Treated Nets (ITNs) distribution in Ethiopia, its use among net owning households has not been satisfactory. Hence, in addition to scaling up of net distribution, periodic assessment of the use and barriers against the use of bed nets among high risk population is necessary. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the ITNs use and its barriers among under-five children in Adami Tullu District, Ethiopia. Methodology: A small-scale qualitative approach was used. Purposive sampling was employed to get mothers with under-five children in all kebeles. Semi-structured discussion guide was used for focus group discussions which was conducted in Afaan Oromo (local language of the study area). Open code computer program was used for the analysis of the data. The data was coded; categorized and appropriate themes were developed. The data was summarized and presented along the main themes.

Ability to locate a specific object in a dynamic environment has several practical applications including security surveillance, navigation and search and rescue operations. The objective of this paper is to develop an object-tracking algorithm using a combination of fuzzy logic and neural networks. The aim is to originate an algorithm that matches the history locations of an object and predicts its location when it goes offline. Determining the location of an object on specific trajectory becomes difficult if the mobile object stopped reporting its location and goes offline. Therefore, in this analytical article, a proposed approach relies on estimations from sensor data of historical movement patterns and geometric models, is fed into special Neural Network to get best accurate present or future object locations. Fuzzy logic application is used to overcome the challenge of imprecision in data. Although this approach is complex; but it can be one of the ways to be applied on large area applications with acceptable accuracy (80%) as shown by experiments.

We have previously reported that patients with chronic illness frequently had a history of prior exposure to water damaged buildings (WDB) and mold. These patients were found to have elevated levels of mycotoxins in the urine. We postulated that the mycotoxin producing molds colonize the sinuses of these patients and lead to chronic symptoms. In a recent observational analysis of patients treated with intranasal antifungal agents, either amphotericin B (AMB) or itraconazole (ITR), we showed that 94% of these patients improved clinically (AMB group). We also found that the urine mycotoxin levels decreased substantially in patients that improved on therapy. However, AMB was associated with local (nasal irritation) adverse effects (AE) in 34% of the cases, which resulted in discontinuation of therapy. The present study expands these treatment observations in which patients intolerant to AMB were treated with intranasal nystatin (NYS). We found very promising improvements with this agent as well. No local (nasal) AE were seen with NYS.

Intellectual capital represents the efforts of workers towards the growth of an organization. The inability of firms to measure and quantify intellectual capital has posed fundamental problems overtime in the value measurement of firms. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of IC in the value creation of insurance firms in Nigeria using their ROA. Expost facto research design was adopted in the selection of data. Primary and secondary data were employed. The target population consisted of 150 workers in the 3 strategic departments of human resources, accounts and marketing of 18 insurance companies using the purposive sampling technique. 150 questionnaires were distributed and a response rate of 74% was recorded. Face validity, content validity and pilot test were used to validate the instruments. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test gave a result of (r=0.806) and (r=0.800) respectively. Regression was used for data analyses at 5% level of significance.

Adulteration of meat with cheaper ambiguous meats of different origin during preparation of meat products is a common practice in many countries. Because meat adulteration and mislabeling are illegal and raise many health, religious, cultural and economic issues. In this study, 500 ready to eat raw meat samples (minced meat, lahmacun ingredients, kebap, stew and meatball samples / 100 samples for each type) were collected from different types of plants that were located in Istanbul. The samples were explored if they had different animal originated DNA residues (pork, chicken, cattle, sheep, horse, donkey, cat, dog, mouse, cockroach and house fly) by PCR procedures. According to the results, total of 52 samples were determined as adulterated and different originated animal DNA samples were found (chicken, horse and sheep DNA residues). It was concluded that to apply total quality management and food security systems are very important to decrease the risk factors for both products and the public health.

This paper focuses on the factors that can affect the movement of stock market index, which creates volatility in the prices of companies listed in the stock market. Stock Market Efficiency Theory focuses on the market news, information, economic conditions, etc. Good or bad news also impact on the market behavior. Initial Public Offering (IPO) is considered as convenient way to raise funds from market. Therefore, important econometric advantages in examining the role of stock markets in the relationship between financial development and growth using time series methods. Summing up the test indicates that the consumer price index and political stability have no relation with the fluctuation in Karachi stock exchange kse100. Secondly the test shows one variable associates with other variable.

A single slope solar still, integrated with latent heat thermal energy storage system coupled to a parabolic concentrator was designed with the aim of improving productivity. 14 kg of beeswax was used as phase change material (PCM) beneath the absorber plate to keep the operating temperature of the still high enough to produce distilled water even during the sunset hours. The underside of the still is covered by 0.2 m aluminum sheet painted black on the side facing the parabolic concentrator to help in absorbing solar radiation reflected from the parabolic concentrator and conducting same to the PCM. To determine the performance of single slope solar still, it was tested without the PCM effect and then with the PCM effect. The temperature of water, température of PCM, air température, inner surface glass temperature and outer surface glass temperature were measured. Experimental results show that the effect of thermal storage in the parabolic concentrator-coupled single slope solar still increased the productivity by 62%.

Let A denote the class of functions of the form which are analytic in the open unit disk In this paper, the new subclasses and of A which are de.ned by using generalized Bessel Function are introduced. Certain properties of neighborhood for functions belonging to these classes are studied.

Perceive risk is an important factor that influences the adoption intention. Perceived risk associated with the use of microfinance institutions lending model may adversely affect borrowers. Researchers had applied the concept of perceived risk with Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to measure the use of information technology, but overlooked the use of TAM on microfinance institutions lending models. This study integrates TAM with the adoption of joint vs. individual liability. To address these challenges, a study was conducted from four ethnic groups namely, Gogo, Zaramo, Chagga and Kinga borrowed from PRIDE (T) and FINCA (T). Questionnaires were used to collect information. The Structural Equation Modeling was used to perform the analysis.

The main objectives of this study are twofold. The first objective is to examine the volatility spillover between the GCC stock markets and Oil prices, over the period 2005-2012, in a multivariate setting, using the VAR (1)-GARCH (1,1) model which allows for transmission in returns and volatility. The second is to investigate the dependence structure and to test the degree of the dependence between financial returns using copula functions. Five candidates, the Gaussian, the Student’s t, the Frank, the Clayton and the Gumbel copulas, are compared. Our empirical results for the first objective suggest that there exist moderate cross market volatility transmission and shocks between the markets, indicating that the past innovation in stock market have great effect on future volatility in oil market and vice versa. 0