Assessment of National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS) Curriculum on Implementation of Qur'anic Memorization in North-West, Nigeria

This study assessed the relationship between availability of resources and the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content of NBAIS in North West, Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to: find out the availability of learning resources and the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content of NBAIS in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools; examine the availability of Qur’anic teachers used in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools. Two research questions and hypotheses in line with the objectives guided the study. The study was survey design. The instruments were validated by the experts. Mann Whitney u test was used to test the hypotheses. The finding revealed that: there was a significant difference between the availability of learning resources in senior Tahfeez and Islamic secondary schools and that of senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content. There was no significant difference between the availability of teachers in senior Tahfeez and Islamic secondary schools and that of Senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content. The study concludes among others that; available Qur’anic memorization teachers must be provided for effective implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content more especially in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools. The study recommended among others that; there is need for to providing more human and material resources especially in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools, for qualitative Qur’anic memorizers in the schools

Patient‑doctor relationship: The practice orientation of doctors in Kano

Background and Objectives: Attitude and orientation of doctors to the doctor‑patient relationship has a direct influence on delivery of high quality health‑ care. No study to the knowledge of these researchers has so far examined the practice orientation of doctors in Nigeria to this phenomenon. The aims of this study were to determine the orientation of Kano doctors to the practice of doctor‑patient relationship and physicians’ related‑factors.Materials and Methods: Participants were doctors working in four major hospitals (i.e., two federal‑owned and two state‑owned) servicing Kano State and its environs. The Patient‑Practitioner Orientation Scale (PPOS) and a socio‑demographic questionnaire were completed by the 214 participants. The PPOS has 18 items and measures three parameters of a total score and two dimension of “sharing” and “caring”.Results: The mean age of participants was 31.72 years (standard deviation = 0.87), with 22% being females, 40.7% have been practicing for ≥6 years and about two‑third working in federal‑owned health institution. The Cronbach’s alpha of total PPOS scores was 0.733 and that of two sub‑scale scores of “sharing” and “caring” were 0.659 and 0.546 respectively. Most of the doctors’ orientation (92.5%) was towards doctor‑centered (i.e., paternalistic) care, majority (75.2%) upheld the view of not sharing much information and control with patients, and showing little interest in psychosocial concerns of patients (i.e., ‘caring’=93.0%). Respondents’ characteristics that were significantly associated with high doctor ‘caring’ relationship orientation were being ≥30‑year‑old and practicing for ≥6 years. Working in State‑owned hospitals was also significantly associated with high doctor “sharing” orientation.Conclusion: This paper demonstrated why patient‑centered medical interviewing should be given top priority in medical training in Nigeria, and particularly for federal health institutions saddled with production of new doctors and further training for practicing doctors.Key words: Doctor‑patient relationship, Kano doctors, practice orientation, patient‑centered car

Volatile fatty acids production in ruminants and the role of monocarboxylate transporters: A review

Monocarboxylates commonly referred to as short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) are metabolized to different extents by the epithelium of the gastrointestinal tract. They are absorbed along different segments of the gastrointestinal tract and constitute a significant amount of energy in ruminants. Monocarboxylates play a central role in cellular metabolism and metabolic communication between tissues. Essential to these roles is their rapid transport across the plasma membrane, which is catalyzed by a recently identified family of proton-linked monocarboxylate transporters (MCTs). Monocarboxylate transporter-1 and 4 have been shown to interact specifically with OX-47 (CD147), a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily with a single transmembrane helix. This interaction appears to assist MCT expression at the cell surface. Despite the importance of short-chain fatty acids in being the main energy source in ruminant animals, the mechanism of SCFAs transport and absorption is still not fully studied. The aim of this review is to critically discuss short-chain fatty acids production and the functional role of monocarboxylate transporters in relation to the transport and absorption of these nutrients along the gastrointestinal tract of ruminants. Two major functions of monocarboxylate transporter proteins, namely the facilitation of the absorption of SCFAs in the gastrointestinal tract and the regulation of cell pH in skeletal muscles, are clearly very important for physiological homeostasis, animal welfare and productivity.Key words: Ruminants, monocarboxylates, monocarboxylate transporters, CD147

Perceptions of People Towards Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability in North Eastern Nigeria

This paper examined people’s perception towards youth with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and intellectual disability. In-depth interviews were conducted separately with a with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), Intellectual disabilities (ID) While their mothers were thoroughly investigated in order to ascertain the level of victimization in the form of bullying on these categories of youth constructs from the interview were utilized to compare groups on the frequency type and impact of victimization. The outcomes of the interview conducted reveals that youth with ASD are being victimized more frequently than their ID peers and that the form of bullying being subdued differs from each group to another. In view of submission our findings show that higher internalizing problem and conflicts in relationship are found to be a significant predictor of victimization. The paper, therefore, recommends among others that observation of extrinsic and intrinsic behaviors for proper adjustment in a classroom setting should be taken care off

Unlocking Rural and Remote Coverage with Small Cells and Satellite

According to the Global System for Mobile Alliance (GSMA), in 2017, there were around 3.3 billion people connected to the mobile Internet. This represented an upward surge in global coverage compared to previous years. However, more than one billion people are still not covered by mobile broadband networks, representing what is termed “the coverage gap”. Uncovered populations typically live in rural locations with low population densities, low per-capita income levels and weak or non-existent enabling infrastructure, and thus, closing the mobile coverage gap seems to be more of an economic challenge, than a pure technical one. This paper presents an overview of the need for rural and remote coverage, both from an operator and consumer as well as government perspective. It then presents the major challenges, and necessary actions to be taken by industry, Government and other stake-holders to drive rural and remote coverage by significantly lowering the cost of network roll-out and increase incentives for such deployments. The paper therefore, presents a technical and business case for the use of “Small Cells” in conjunction with satellites with a view to opening up huge markets via collaboration between the mobile operators and satellite system owners, while offering significant improvements in the coverage and capacity needs of remote, rural or underserved end-users in a cost-effective and scalable manner. Detailed insights to these two technologies are presented, including the innovations to overcome technical and regulatory challenges. Lastly, some real-life deployments are given and the paper concludes with some recommendations for Government and network operators presente

Deforestation, desert encroachment, climate change and agricultural production in the Sudano-Sahelian Region of Nigeria

This work presents a systematic review of relevant literatures centered on the deforestation, desertification climate change hazards and agriculture related problems caused as a result of these natural and human activities with the hope of understanding the situation for better way out. Findings revealed that desertification affects about one sixth of the world’s population, 70% of all dry lands, amounting to 3.6 billion ha, and one quarter of the total land area of the world. The worsening problem of desertification is quite glaring that an estimate of between 50 % and 75 % of Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Sokoto, Yobe, and Zamfara states in Nigeria are affected by desertification and are particularly vulnerable to wind erosion due to land clearing for agricultural purposes such as grazing, planting of crops, demand for woods, mining, growth of urbanization and development of infrastructures. Desert encroachment as a degradation of land in arid, semi-arid and sub-humid dry areas caused mainly by climatic changes and human activities; In Nigeria, the dry land parts of the country are more prone to desertification. However, climate change causes uncertainties and variation in the pattern of rainfalls, high temperatures, floods and farmlands destruction, pests and diseases. Leading to irregular and unpredictable rains and increase in sunshine hours, crops and livestock failures as well as food insecurity in general. It was suggested therefore that effective policy and planning measures should be put in place in order to overcome these problems.Keywords: Deforestation, desert encroachment, climate change, agricultur

Outcome of instrumental vaginal delivery in university of Abuja teaching hospital: a five-year review

Background: Most women will achieve spontaneous vaginal delivery; however, a few will need assistance in form of Instrumental vaginal delivery (IVD). These are employed to shorten the second stage on labour and to minimize the incidence of cesarean section. The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence and outcomes of instrumental vaginal delivery at the University of Abuja teaching hospital.Methods: This was a retrospective study of women who had instrumental vaginal delivery over a 5-year period at the University of Abuja teaching hospital. Data on socio-demographic variables, type of instrumental delivery performed, Apgar scores of neonates delivered, indications and complication were obtained from the labour ward registers and case notes of patients and entered into a proforma and analysed using SPSS software for Windows version 23.Results: Instrumental vaginal delivery (IVD) rate performed for both Vacuum or Forceps) was 0.99%, Forceps delivery was 0.30% and vacuum accounted for 0.69% of all deliveries. The mean maternal age was 27.53±5.5 years and 51 (54.8%) of the parturient were primigravidae, 55 (59.1%) were booked patients.  Delayed second stage of labour (38.7%) was the most common indications for IVD. Maternal complications noted were genital tract laceration 17 (18.3%) and primary post-partum haemorrhage 10 (10.8%). The mean APGAR scores was 6 and 8 in the first and fifth minutes respectively, live births were 85 (91.4%), stillbirths were 7 (7.5%) and one early neonatal death was recorded (1.1%) due to asphyxia as a result of difficult forceps delivery.Conclusions: The IVD rate at UATH is low with good maternal and fetal outcome and preference for vacuum delivery

Disease Outbreaks: Tuning Predictive Machine Learning

Climate change is expected to exacerbate diarrhoea outbreaks in developing nations, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in such regions. The development of predictive models with the ability to capture complex relationships between climate factors and diarrhoea may be effective for diarrhoea outbreak control. Various supervised Machine Learning (ML) algorithms and Deep Learning (DL) methods have been used in developing predictive models for various disease. Despite their advances in a range of healthcare applications, overall method task performance still largely depends on available training data and parameter settings which is a significant challenge for most predictive machine learning methods. This study investigates the impact of Relevance Estimation and Value Calibration (REVAC), an evolutionary parameter optimization method applied to predictive task performance of various ML and DL methods applied to ranges of real-world and synthetic data-sets (diarrhoea and climate based) for daily diarrhoea outbreak prediction in a regional case-study (South African provinces). Preliminary results indicate that REVAC is better suited for the DL models regardless of the data-set used for making predictions

Predicting Disease Outbreaks with Climate Data

The incidence of most diseases varies greatly with seasons, and global climate change is expected to increase its risk. Predictive models that automatically capture trends between climate and diseases are likely to be beneficial in minimizing disease outbreaks. Machine learning (ML) predictive analytic tools have been popularized across many health-care applications, however the optimal task performance of such ML tools largely depends on manual parameter tuning and calibration. Such manual tuning significantly limits the full potential of ML methods, especially for high-dimensional and complex task domains, as typified by real-world health-care application data-sets. Additionally, the inaccessibility of many health-care data-sets compounds innate problems of method comparison, predictive accuracy and the overall advancement of ML based health-care applications. In this study we investigate the impact of Relevance Estimation and Value Calibration, an evolutionary parameter optimization method applied to automate parameter tuning for comparative ML methods (Deep learning and Support Vector Machines) applied to predict daily diarrhoea cases across various geographic regions. Data-augmentation is also used to complement real-world noisy, sparse and incomplete data-sets with synthetic data-sets for training, validation and testing. Results support the efficacy of evolutionary parameter optimization and data synthesis to boost predictive accuracy in the given task, indicating a significant prediction accuracy boost for the deep-learning models across all data-sets

Effects of Tyre Derived Aggregate (TDA) as Partial Replacement of Coarse Aggregate in Concrete

The usage and reuse of waste tyre rubber in concrete production can cut down the use of raw materials which contributes to economic efficiency and sustainable development of the construction industry. This study is directed at assessing the effects of using the Tyre Derived Aggregate (TDA) as a substitute for coarse aggregate in concrete. A sum of eighty-six square cubes of 100 mm was cast and cured in fresh water for up to 28 days. Setting times, consistency and soundness tests were carried out on cement paste. However, slump, compressive strength and durability (i.e. water absorption) tests were carried out on the concrete. The results unveiled that the physical characteristics of cement considered fulfilled BS EN 196-3 (1995), and the slump of fresh concrete decreased as the percentage of TDA content stepped up. The water absorption raised, while the density of concrete made with TDA decreased as the percentage of TDA content stepped up. However, the strength of TDA-concrete increased as the curing age increased, and it decreased as the portion of TDA content raised. Nevertheless, the strength at 0%, 5% and 10% were 23, 21.67 and 18.33 N/mm2 respectively. However, the strength of TDA-concrete made with 0 % TDA and 5 % TDA subjected to different temperatures decreased as the temperature increased, however, even at 500C the strength of concrete made with 5% TDA was found to be 20.5 N/mm2 which is within the target compressive strength. It was concluded that the usage of TDA content in the production of concrete should not be greater than 5 % for better performance