Perspectives in Provisions for Science and Technology Education in Nigeria: The Way Forward

The promotion of science and technology education is a warmly embraced venture. Nigerian educational system prioritized science and technology with policies that are favorably disposed to science and technology education. The national policy on education and the national policy on science and technology made good provisions for science and technology education. Government through the education policy empowered the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE), the Basic Education, the senior secondary education, technical and scientific education and tertiary education with robust plan for science and technology education in the programmes. (FGN, 2004). The policy came into existence in 1977 and education was conceived as an instrument “par excellence” in achieving national unity, objectives and goals

An Overview of the Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater Resources

Climate change has been consistently observed over the past decades to be associated with changes and/or modifications of components of the hydrological systems. Observational records and global and regional climate projections indicate that both surface-water and groundwater resources are vulnerable to climate change and variability. Thus, understanding the impacts of climate change and variability on groundwater systems is integral to better planning and efficient management of groundwater resources. However, assessing and predicting the effects of climate change on groundwater systems is relatively difficult due to the uncertainties associated with the spatial and temporal prediction of future climates. This review provides an overview of the key components of groundwater hydrology in relation to climate change. The effects of changes in climate on groundwater in soil, deep vadose and saturated zones are assessed. The responses of groundwater recharge, discharge, quality and changes in storage to climate change are assessed on inter-annual to multi-decadal or longer geologic time scale

Bi-Modal System Using SVM (Support Vector Machine) and MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) -Proposed

In this era of high technological advancement, the need to identify an individual especially in the developing countries has long been an attractive goal. The necessity to secure an environments, devices and resources due to the increasing rate of crime has led to the proposal of this research. Iris modality has become interesting as an alternative approach to reliable visual recognition of persons due to its distinctive characteristics, as well as fingerprint modality for its innumerable advantages. Therefore a bi-modal biometric system using Qualitative SVM (Support Vector Machine) and MLP (Multilayer Perceptron) for classification has been proposed in this research. Performance analysis of these modalities will be carried out with each model. The designed models will be duly implemented using JAVA programming Language as a frontend and Access database as a backend respectively. Keywords: Biometric, Bimodal system, Iris modality, fingerprint modality, Support Vector Machine and Multilayer Perceptron

Evaluation of Antidiarrheal Activity of the Ethanolic Stem Bark Extract of Vernonia amygdalina in Experimental Animals

Locally, Vernonia amygdalina has been recommended for treatment of a number of ailments including stomach ache, skin infections, diabetes, insomnia, toothache, pneumonia, stroke and diarrhea. Despite its traditional usage as an anti-diarrheal agent, there is limited documented information on its effectiveness for the treatment of diarrhea.  In this study, the anti-diarrheal activity of the ethanol extract of the stem bark of Vernonia amygdalina was evaluated in castor oil induced diarrheal rats. The anti-diarrheal effect of the extract at 100, 200 and 400mg/kg body weight was evaluated in female rats using gastro intestinal transit, diarrheal and enteropooling induced by castor oil models. Loperamide and Atropine sulphate were used as standard drugs for diarrheal. In castor oil induced diarrheal model, the ethanol stem bark extract of Vernonia amygdalina at 100, 200 and 400mg/kg and the standard drug Loperamide (3mg/kg) significantly reduced the time of onset of diarrhea and the frequency of defecation (total number faecal output and weight of faeces). The extract (100, 200 and 400mg/kg) also significantly reduced the intestinal transit time in charcoal meal and castor oil induced enteropooling when compared with Atropine sulphate (5mg/kg). The result showed that the ethanol extract of V. amygdalina stem bark have significant anti-diarrheal activity which support the traditional use of the plant for the treatment of diarrhea. Keywords：Vernonia amygdalina, antidiarrheal, castor oil, ethanol extract

Spatio-temporal analysis of childhood vaccine uptake in Nigeria : a hierarchical Bayesian Zero-inflated Poisson approach

Funding Information: The authors are grateful to ICF Macro, USA, for granting the authors the request to use the Demographic and Health Survey data. Publisher Copyright: © 2023, BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

In Vitro Cytotoxicity and Antioxidant Activities of Pestalotiopsis microspora Culture Filtrate

Endophytic fungi have been studied to provide protection and survival conditions to their host plant by producing a plethora of substances which, once isolated and characterized, may also have potential for use in industry, agriculture, and medicine. In this study, the culture filtrate of an endophytic fungus (Pestalotiopsis microspora (PM)) was evaluated for its cytotoxic and antioxidant activities in vitro. The cytotoxic activity of PM was determined using brine shrimp lethality assay (BSLA), while its antioxidant effect was investigated against DPPH, reducing power and hydroxyl radicals. Judging by the LC50 value of 2.71 mgmL-1 for the BSLA, the culture filtrate could be considered highly potent. The PM also significantly scavenged free radicals and the effects elicited could be attributed to its phenolics and other phytoconstituents as revealed by the GC-MS results.  It is thereby evident from the data presented that PM is endowed with chemotherapeutic constituents that could be potentially useful for the development of new lead anticancer agents

Laboratory Evaluation of Insecticidal Activities of Some Botanicals against Four Insect Pests of Honey Bees (Apis mellifera L.)

The study evaluated the effectiveness of methanol, n-hexane and aqueous leaf extracts of Ocimum gratissimum, Carica papaya, Tithonia diversifolia, Ageratum conyzoides and Azadirachta indica in the management of four insect pests of honeybees namely; acrobat ant (Crematogaster lineolata), small hive beetle (Aethina tumida), lesser wax moth (Achroia grisella) and greater wax moth (Galleria mellonella) in the laboratory. Test of contact toxicity of the extracts was conducted by topical application of 2 ml of treatments at 10% w/v on five insects using standard method. Repellency study of the extracts was conducted using an area of preference test. N-hexane extracts of all the plants caused 100% mortality of all the insects within 6 hour. Methanol extract caused between 90% and 100% mortality of all the insects except A. tumida. Aqueous extract of all the plants cause 100% mortality of C. lineolata, but induce no mortality of A. tumida. Mortality of other insects treated with aqueous extracts of the plants varied between 15% and 100%. The % repellence of A. grisella by plant extracts and cypermethrin varied between 45% and 90% and were not significantly (p>0.05) different from each other, while that of A. tumida varied between 35% and 78%. The n-hexane and methanol extracts of the five plants had repellence and insecticidal effects on the four insect pests of bees and could be considered as bioactive candidate for management of the insects

Use of Sustainable Materials in Self-Healing Concrete

Vulnerability to cracks is one of the major flaws of concrete infrastructure. The need to reduce the repair cost of this defect birthed the need for self-healing concrete. The incidence of cracks on concrete structures is a big threat to the stability of bridges, concrete roads, and other concrete infrastructures. This review assessed the use of self-healing technology on concrete using sustainable material as an active method of healing crack. This was done with the view of improving the stability, strength, and sustainability of infrastructure for national growth. The outcome of the review showed three prominent methods used in self-healing technology, which include autogenous healing, encapsulation of polymeric material, and microbial production of calcium-carbonate (biotechnological approaches). The review also revealed that calcium carbonate is a versatile material that can be used in crack healing for the filling of voids and improves the porosity of the concrete. The success of using the autogenous healing method depends on the diameter of the crack induced in the concrete structure. Additionally, this method can operate independently in different conditions regardless of the crack position. Correspondingly, lowering the water-cement ratio improves the autogenous healing process. The use of encapsulation of polymeric material and microbial production of calcium-carbonate methods showed that the presence of water and humidity is a critical factor to be considered. However, biotechnology using microbial action is prone to the production of ammonium ions (NH4+) through ureolytic activity, which results in nitrogen oxide emission into the atmosphere. Congruently, this may affect the durability of the concrete. Based on the uniqueness of this technology, it is recommended for the construction of sustainable infrastructure now and in the foreseeable future

Impact factors of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in education

This study reports the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on teaching and learning at a Nigerian University; the survey data were drawn from 593 respondents (students and lecturers) and was analyzed using factor analysis.Five factors are extracted named improved student learning, task enabler, psychosocial aid, collaborative assessment and lastly, improved learning output

Vancomycin intermediate resistant Staphylococcus aureus in the nasal cavity of asymptomatic individuals: a potential public health challenge

Background: The potential of transmitting multidrug resistant Staphylococcus aureus from asymptomatic individuals to healthy individuals could constitute a great challenge to antimicrobial therapy. Methods: The antibiograms of the S. aureus from asymptomatic individuals were determined by disk diffusion and agar dilution assay techniques with different antibiotics and vancomycin. Results: Of the 152 S. aureus isolated, (59)38.8% isolates were multi-drug resistant strains. Streptomycin was the most effective and inhibited (135)88.82% of the isolates while ceftazidime inhibited (24)15.8% of the isolates. While (82)54.0% of the isolates inhibited by cefuroxime had resistant colonies within their inhibition zones (Rc) and ofloxacin inhibited (100)65.8% of the isolates without having resistant colonies within the inhibition zones, ceftazidime inhibited (7)4.6% of the isolates with resistant colonies within the inhibition zones. Subjecting the isolates to vancomycin showed that (27)17.8% were resistant to 2 \u3bcg/ml, (43)28.3% were resistant to 4 \u3bcg/ml and (27)17.8% of the isolates were simultaneously resistant to both concentrations of vancomycin. Although (100)65.8% of the isolates had MARindex 650.2, (52)34.2% of the isolates had MARindex 64 0.2 and (65)428% of the isolates were considered multidrug resistant strains. Conclusion: The isolation of multi-drug and vancomycin intermediate resistant strains of S. aureus in high percentage, in this study, presents a great threat to clinicians and general populace. The vancomycin intermediate resistant S. aureus (VISA) in asymptomatic individuals could be a critical concern to the therapeutic dilemma to be added to the presence of multi-drug resistance. A more sustainable therapy must be in place to prevent its dissemination or the outbreak of its infection