ABSTRACT Majority of Kenyans lack access to clean water due to increased population growth, high rate of industrialisation and poor waste management. The situation may worsen if immediate measures are not taken. Lead and cadmium are the main heavy metals in contaminated water and their harmful effects such as lung cancer, mental retardation and nerve disorder cannot be underestimated. Available methods for removing these metal ions from water such as use of activated carbon are very expensive...
ABSTRACT Every year millions of tones of industrial wastes and municipal sewage are dumped into the world oceans as rivers carrying agricultural wastes discharge their waters into the ocean. The Mombasa inshore (Kilindini and Portreiz) waters and Sabaki/Malindi bay complex are characterized by rapid urbanization, industrial activities including shipping, agriculture and tourism. As a result, the coastal fauna, sediments and sea water are polluted with heavy metals, raw sewage and organochlori...
ABSTRACT The prevailing tuberculosis (TB) situation in the world demands the re-engineering and repositioning of some old drug families to achieve effective control of the spread and effects of TB. One such drug that is targeted for re-engineering is isoniazid which is also known as isonicotinohydrazide (INH). In this study, theoretical studies have been carried out to investigate twenty eight structural analogues of the isoniazid (INH) for their reactivity and some drug-likeness. The density...
ABSTRACT Primordial radionuclides in building materials are one of the major sources of radiation hazard in dwellings. Clay bricks are mainly used for the construction of dwellings in Bomet district, Bomet County, Kenya. Therefore, knowledge of the presence of natural radioactivity in these materials is of great importance in order to assess the radiological hazards associated with them. In this context, specific activities of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K were measured in brick samples collected from...
ABSTRACT The Avian family has been a significant source of human epidemic. Over the last three decades, reports on yeast infections in humans have increased especially with respect to immunocompromised individuals. This is associated with increased morbidity and mortality especially in HIV/AIDS immunocompromised individuals. The purpose of this study was to isolate and characterize pathogenic yeasts from domestic Chicken (Gallus gallus) dropping. The droppings were collected from Kabigeriet ...
ABSTRACT Sanitary materials (pads and diapers) are mainly made of cellulose and non-degradable synthetic elements including superabsorbent gel which collects fluids. These materials are disposed of in the open together with other domestic waste in the low-income urban settlements in Kenya. The waste remains uncollected for long, thus posing health risk to street children and the neighborhood especially when scattered by stray dogs, cats and chicken. The scattered sanitary materials are a nuis...
ABSTRACT Schistosomiasis is considered one of the neglected tropical diseases caused by blood flukes. The disease kills 200,000 people annually in Sub Saharan Africa and stunts cognitive and physical growth. In Kenya, the total population requiring preventive chemotherapy in the year 2015 was estimated at 2.5 million out of which 1.8 million were school aged children. Fresh water snails of genus Biomphalaria are the intermediate hosts of S. mansoni. Chemical molluscicides used to control snai...
ABSTRACT Prolonged use of synthetic chemical pesticides is environmentally undesirable, results in rapid development of resistance among insect pests and is economically unmanageable by small-scale farmers. Kenya has unexplored potential in controlling lepidopteran pests using proteinous delta-endotoxins sourced from local isolates of a naturally occurring bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis Berliner (Bt). This study attempted to identify the insecticidal proteins, present in some Kenyan Bt is...
ABSTRACT Electronic weighing technology presents management with rapid, timely and accurate information that provides quick turnaround times for customers. Its popularity can be attested by its use in all the sectors of the industry. In fact, its spectrum of use spans from the traditional retail industry, to manufacturing and warehousing, to postal, health and transport industry. Ordinary microprocessor based weighing systems that utilize single point load cells, have a huge circuitry and he...
ABSTRACT The global prevalence of overweight and obesity has increased from 6.4% in 1980, 12% in 2008 to 39% in 2014. These statistics show rising prevalence of overweight among women of reproductive age in many regions including Sub-Sahara Africa. Studies indicate sub-optimal dietary intake, body dissatisfaction, less physical activity levels and increase of body weight at postpartum period as the main contributors. It is also emerging from research done mainly in western countries that Afr...
ABSTRACT Amoebiasis is a common life-threatening parasitic disease affecting 12% of the world population. It is the third leading cause of mortality due to parasitic infections worldwide, after malaria and schistosomiasis. It is estimated that about 500 million people are at risk of infection with amoebiasis yearly. In developed countries infection occurs among travelers, recent immigrants from endemic regions, homosexual males, immune-compromised persons and institutionalized individuals. In...
ABSTRACT Biomagnifications of toxic heavy metals to man through aquatic life occurs via industrial, runoff, agricultural, municipal and urban waste. Heavy metals such as lead (Pb), nickel (Ni) manganese (Mn) and cadmium (Cd) have World Health Organization (WHO) limits above which they are toxic. Some of the toxic effects include; reduced growth and development, cancer, damage to the nervous system, and in extreme cases death. Athi River,the second largest river in Kenya has its source in a de...
ABSTRACT During the last few decades analytical chemists and nutrition scientists have increasingly realized that total concentrations of chemical elements cannot give, in general, information about mobility, bioavailability, and the eventual impact of elements on biological organisms. Only the knowledge of the chemical species of the elements can provide an understanding of chemical and biochemical reactions, bioavailability, and subsequent paths of metabolism, thus leading to more informati...
Abstract Platonic solids are 3-dimensional regular, convex polyhedrons. Each of the faces are equidistant and equiangular to each other in any of the solids. They derive their name from the ancient Greek philosopher, Plato who wrote about them in his dialogue, the Timaeus as reported by Cornford (2014). The solids features have fascinated mathematicians for decades including the renown geometer, Euclid: In his Book XIII of the Elements, as rewrote by Heath et al. (1956), he successfully�...
Abstract The action of the symmetric group S5 on the cosets of its non-maximal subgroups is an aspect that seems to have received less attention for sometime. Most studies have infact looked on the action of symmetric group S5 on the cosets of its maximal subgroups leaving many properties about its action on non-maximal subgroups unknown. This project has therefore looked at the action of the symmetric group S5, on the cosets of some of its non-maximal subgroups. Namely; the cyclic grou...