Women Involvement in Rural Community Development in Enugu North Senatorial Zone of Enugu State, Nigeria

The study ascertained the involvement of women in rural community development (RCD). The study was carried out in Enugu north senatorial zone, Enugu State, Nigeria, with a total of 4 communities randomly selected from 2 randomly selected LGAs. The total sample size of 60 women was used. Data were collected using an interview schedule and analysed using percentages and mean scores. The findings reveal that agricultural related projects (96.7 %), social projects (91.7 %), educational projects (81.7 %) and health projects (81.7%) were areas of RCD women were involved in. The agricultural related projects of interest included: animal rearing and sales (96.7 %), corn processing outfits (91.7%), seasonal crop processing and production (90%) among others. Traders association (x=2.45) and market women association   (x=2.45) were RCD groups women were mostly part of, while women empowerment programs (M=2.45), education (M=2.42), urbanization (M=2.42) among others were the factors that enabled women involvement in RCD. Women were involved and played a crucial role in RCD.  A more conducive environment such as the provision of soft loans and jobs should be created by government authorities to sustain women’s motivation and encourage them to delve into other areas of RCD like Information and Communication Technologies that their presence is not so pronounced

Robust Block Coordinate Descent

In this paper we present a novel randomized block coordinate descent method for the minimization of a convex composite objective function. The method uses (approximate) partial second-order (curvature) information, so that the algorithm performance is more robust when applied to highly nonseparable or ill conditioned problems. We call the method Robust Coordinate Descent (RCD). At each iteration of RCD, a block of coordinates is sampled randomly, a quadratic model is formed about that block and the model is minimized approximately/inexactly to determine the search direction. An inexpensive line search is then employed to ensure a monotonic decrease in the objective function and acceptance of large step sizes. We prove global convergence of the RCD algorithm, and we also present several results on the local convergence of RCD for strongly convex functions. Finally, we present numerical results on large-scale problems to demonstrate the practical performance of the method.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Loss of Foveal Cone Structure Precedes Loss of Visual Acuity in Patients With Rod-Cone Degeneration.

PurposeTo assess the relationship between cone spacing and visual acuity in eyes with rod-cone degeneration (RCD) followed longitudinally.MethodsHigh-resolution images of the retina were obtained using adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy from 13 eyes of nine RCD patients and 13 eyes of eight healthy subjects at two sessions separated by 10 or more months (mean 765 days, range 311-1935 days). Cone spacing Z-score measured as close as possible (average <0.25°) to the preferred retinal locus was compared with visual acuity (letters read on the Early Treatment of Diabetic Retinopathy Study [ETDRS] chart and logMAR) and foveal sensitivity.ResultsCone spacing was significantly correlated with ETDRS letters read (ρ = -0.47, 95%CI -0.67 to -0.24), logMAR (ρ = 0.46, 95%CI 0.24 to 0.66), and foveal sensitivity (ρ = -0.30, 95%CI -0.52 to -0.018). There was a small but significant increase in mean cone spacing Z-score during follow-up of +0.97 (95%CI 0.57 to 1.4) in RCD patients, but not in healthy eyes, and there was no significant change in any measure of visual acuity.ConclusionsCone spacing was correlated with visual acuity and foveal sensitivity. In RCD patients, cone spacing increased during follow-up, while visual acuity did not change significantly. Cone spacing Z-score may be a more sensitive measure of cone loss at the fovea than visual acuity in patients with RCD