Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Mothers to Childhood Immunization in Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria

This study was carried out to determine the knowledge, attitude and practice of mothers in Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State, Nigeria, on childhood immunization. Descriptive cross sectional study method was employed. A multistage sampling was used to select two hundred mothers who participated in the study. Data was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Mothers who were still in their reproductive age and whose children are under the age of 5 years were interviewed after they had been duly briefed about the study and informed consent was obtained. Results showed that awareness on various childhood immunizations was quite high in majority of the respondents. Out of the mothers interviewed, 89.5%, 85.5%, 78.5%, 71.0%, 73.5%, 42.0% and 6.5% of them knew about Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG), oral polio, dipthteria, pertusis and tetanus (DPT), yellow fever, measles, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and meningococcal vaccinations respectively. However, not more than 54.5% of these respondents actually knew the diseases that these vaccinations prevent in their children even though almost all (95.5%) of them perceived immunization to be beneficial and showed good attitude. Although majority of the mothers demonstrated appreciable knowledge, attitude and practice on childhood immunization, more awareness programmes in developing countries are required.Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Childhood immunization

Model uncertainty in characterizing recreation demand

A Bayesian variable selection procedure is used to control for uncertainty in the specification of a recreational demand model. Specifically, we propose a model that draws on the Bayesian paradigm to integrate the variable selection process into the model and reflect the accompanying uncertainty about which is the best specification used for counterfactual predictions. The advantage of this procedure over previous non-Bayesian approaches is that overcomes the problem of pre-testing in specification searches

Hypercholesterolaemia in pregnancy as a predictor of adverse pregnancy outcome

Background: Prevention of viable spontaneous preterm birth and low birth weight through screening is one of the key aims of antenatal care as these have implications for the child, mother and society. If women can be identified to be at high risk of these adverse birth outcomes in early pregnancy, they can be targeted for more intensive antenatal surveillance and prophylactic interventions.Objectives: This study is therefore aimed to determine the association between elevated maternal serum cholesterol level in pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcome.Methods: It was a prospective observational cohort study in which eligible participants were enrolled at gestational age of 14 to 20 weeks. Blood samples were obtained to measure total serum cholesterol concentrations and the sera were then analyzed enzymatically by the cholesterol oxidase: p-aminophenazone (CHOD PAP) method. Pregnancy outcomes were obtained by extraction from medical records and the labour ward register.Results: The incidences of the two adverse pregnancy outcomes examined in the study (preterm births and low birth weight (LBW) in term neonates) were 8.0% and 14.4% respectively. Preterm birth was 6.89-times more common in mothers with high cholesterol than in control mothers with normal total cholesterol level (38.5% versus 5.4%, P=0.029) while LBW was 7.99-times more common in mothers with high total maternal cholesterol than in mothers with normal cholesterol (87.5% versus 10.5%, P=0.019).Conclusion: We can infer that the high maternal serum cholesterol hypercholesterolaemia) is associated with preterm delivery/ low birth weight (LBW) in term infants. However, further validation of these findings with more robust prospective and longitudinal characterization of maternal serum cholesterol profiles is required in subsequent investigations.Keywords: Adverse birth outcome, cholesterol, hypercholesterolaemia, LBW, preterm birth

Development of a Test Statistic for Testing Equality of Two Means under Unequal Population Variances

In this paper, we propose a test statistic for testing equality of two independent sample means for unequal variances. When group variances differ, the pooled sample variance (  ) is inadequate as a single value for the variances. This problem is commonly known as the Behrens – Fisher problem. Instead, the sample harmonic mean of variances (  ) is proposed, examined and found to better represent the unequal variances. The distribution of  which is known to be generalized Beta is further approximated by the chi – square distribution with the degrees of freedom related to that of degrees of freedom of the chi – square distribution of   . Consequently, it is used to replace the pooled sample variance in the resulting proposed t – test. An example of application is provided. Keywords: Harmonic mean of variances, chi- square distribution, modified t – test statisti

Controlling for observed and unobserved site characteristics in RUM models of recreation demand

Random Utility Maximization (RUM) models of recreation demand are typically plagued by limited information on environmental and other attributes characterizing the available sites in the choice set. To the extent that these unobserved site attributes are correlated with the observed characteristics and/or the key travel cost variable, the resulting parameter estimates and subsequent welfare calculations are likely to be biased. In this paper we develop a Bayesian approach to estimating a RUM model that incorporates a full set of alternative specific constants, insulating the key travel cost parameter from the influence of the unobserved site attributes. In contrast to estimation procedures recently outlined in Murdock (2006), the posterior simulator we propose (combining data augmentation and Gibbs sampling techniques) can be used in the more general mixed logit framework in which some parameters of the conditional utility function are random. Following a series of generated data experiments to illustrate the performance of the simulator, we apply the estimation procedures to data from the Iowa Lakes Project. In contrast to an earlier study using the same data (Egan et al. [7]), we find that, with the addition of a full set of alternative specific constants, water quality attributes no longer appear to influence the choice of where to recreate

ANCAEE: A Novel Clustering Algorithm for Energy Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Networks

One of the major constraints of wireless sensor networks is limited energy available to sensor nodes because of the small size of the batteries they use as source of power. Clustering is one of the routing techniques that have been using to minimize sensor nodes’ energy consumption during operation. In this paper, A Novel Clustering Algorithm for Energy Efficiency in Wireless Sensor Networks (ANCAEE) has been proposed. The algorithm achieves good performance in terms of minimizing energy consumption during data transmission and energy consumptions are distributed uniformly among all nodes. ANCAEE uses a new method of clusters formation and election of cluster heads. The algorithm ensures that a node transmits its data to the cluster head with a single hop transmission and cluster heads forward their data to the base station with multi-hop transmissions. Simulation results show that our approach consumes less energy and effectively extends network utilization

Democratizing Service Deliveries in Exceeding Customers’ Expectations in the Hospitality & Food Industry

Satisfying and keeping loyal customers is becoming complex. To remain competitive in the 21st century and beyond, where technology is fast gaining acceptance in all aspect of human and business endeavours, organizations no longer rely on traditional ways of satisfying customers as companies with the most knowledge of their clients, are automating, streamlining, and democratizing their business functions to improve their ability to not only please customers but exceeding their expectations. The materials presented here is based on surveys, academic investigations, and extensive professional work in studying exceptional manufacturing, aviation, hospitality and food companies from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa to gain an insight into their customer satisfaction strategies, in arriving at ways to achieve a unique customer expectations strategy. Keywords: Hospitality, Food, Management, Nigeria, Service Delivery, Customer Expectations

The Potential of Bioethanol as a Viable Alternative to Fossil Fuels

Environmental challenges from fossil fuel emission have global issues and have contributed immensely to climate change. Bioethanol has experienced unprecedented level of attention due to its value as substitute to fossil fuel. Besides being a renewable and sustainable source of energy, it is also efficient, available and environmentally friendly. Global production of bioethanol continues to increase and will probably continue to dominate the alternative fuels market in the next decade. It is important to emphasize that for bioethanol to be a viable alternative, it must have ecological benefits, be economically competitive and its production must be in commercial scales without affecting the food production. This paper explains the problems and possible solutions in the production of bioethanol; since biofuel produces clean energy which can reduce the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere

Attitude and Usage of Blog as a Determinant to Pre-Service Teachers’ Academic Achievement

Blogs are popular form of easy-to-use personal publishing that has attracted millions of bloggers to share their personal thoughts, opinions, and knowledge on the web. The versatility of blogs as a communication medium has attracted interests from educators. Blog service offered to learners and teachers through Internet is an important instrument to provide learners with effective activities and social interaction. Blog technology provides the users with opportunities to create web pages without any design knowledge, write their ideas on these pages, and add comments on the pages. This paper investigates the attitude and use of blog by pre-service teachers as a determinant of their academic performance. The result shows a significant relationship between pre-service teachers’ academic performance and the usage of blog. It is therefore pertinent that educator begins to introduce blogging to their classroom activities. Keywords: Blog, Academic Performance, Attitude, Pre-Service Teachers