COMPARATIVE EVALUATION OF VARIETIES OF COWPEA AND ITS EFFECT ON FERTILTY STATUS OF LATERITIC SOIL OF LANDMARK UNIVERSITY

Identification of cowpea varieties with superior grain yield and high soil fertility enhancing potential is crucial to increasing productivity of the crop among small-scale farmers in Omu-Aran, Kwara State. A field experiment was carried out during the 2014 growing season to evaluate two cowpea varieties for their grain yield and their effect on fertility status of Lateritic soils of Landmark University Teaching and Research Farm. The varieties evaluated were IAR 48 and IAR 2.5.6. Variety IAR 2.5.6 produced the highest grain yield compared to variety IAR 2.5.6. The study also revealed the potential of cowpea in improving the fertility status of Lateritic soils as there was significant difference observed in some of the chemical properties analyzed including available Phosphorus, Exchangeable Calcium, Magnesium, Potassium and Sodium

Knowledge and awareness of orthodontics among Nigerian school children in selected private and public schools in Lagos

Objective: This study sought to assess the knowledge and awareness of Nigerian adolescents concerning orthodontics, to determine possible factors influencing their knowledge of orthodontics as well as to find out if socioeconomic status has any effect on their knowledge and awareness. Method: This cross-sectional descriptive questionnaire based study was conducted in two secondary schools (one private and one public) in Lagos State. Result: A total of 408 students, participated in the study of which only 98 (24.0%) had ever heard the term ‘orthodontics’, and of this number only 16 could correctly explain the meaning of the term orthodontics. Majority of the respondents with correct responses attended a private school. Significantly more of the private school students correctly identified that orthodontists are involved in rearranging the teeth (p=0.006) and not involved in cleaning the teeth (p=0.008). There was a significant difference in the knowledge of the students from the public and private school concerning the impact of malocclusion on speech (p=0.002) and appearance (p=0.000). The overall orthodontic knowledge is deficient. However knowledge was better among the children from the private school compared to those from the public school. The results obtained from this study, clearly show that there is need to provide oral health education especially to improve the orthodontic knowledge of these adolescents especially about malocclusion and its consequences. It is expected that this would improve their knowledge and consequently increase the demand for and the uptake of the available orthodontic services

A Co-Integration Analysis of Interest Rate Spread and Corporate Bond Market Development in Selected African Economies

This paper examines the relationship between interest rate spread and corporate bond market development in thirteen African economies comprising of Botswana, Egypt Mauritius Nigeria, Tunisia, Cameroon, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Cote d’Ivorie, Ghana Namibia, Tanzania from 2004 and 2014 using fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) in an autoregressive distributive lag (ARDL) framework. Subsisting literature suggests that in bank-based economies, interest rate spread could adversely affect the potency of corporate bond market development; and thus limits the financial market competitiveness. The result provides evidence that corporate bond issue, as a proxy for financial development is negatively influenced by interest rate gap in the short and long term. The result affirms the ‘group interest' theorem in these African economies leading to a deterrent in competitive financial development. The ECM coefficient satisfies a priori expectation, affirms the short run dynamic relationship, which implies long run equilibrium from the annual speed of adjustment, which is about 100 percent. The paper suggests policy recommendations for the reduction in interest rate, and thus the spread to encourage the growth of corporate bond issues for a market-led financial development

Corporate social responsibility as obligated internalisation of social costs

We propose that corporations should be subject to a legal obligation to identify and internalise their social costs or negative externalities. Our proposal reframes corporate social responsibility (CSR) as obligated internalisation of social costs, and relies on reflexive governance through mandated hybrid fora. We argue that our approach advances theory, as well as practice and policy, by building on and going beyond prior attempts to address social costs, such as prescriptive government regulation, Coasian bargaining and political CSR

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF INCOME AND POVERTY STATUS OF WOMEN IN KOKORO (CORN SNACK) PRODUCTION AND ARABLE CROPS PRODUCTION IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

The study analyzed the poverty status of women producing Kokoro (Corn snack) and women producing arable crops in Ogun State, Nigeria. A total of 208 respondents made up of 106 women producing Kokoro (Corn snack) and 102 women producing arable crops to serve as control group were selected. The respondents were selected based on non- probability method. Purposive sampling technique with Snowball method was used. Data were obtained by structured interview schedule. Data collected were analysed using FGT poverty index, costs and return and t-test statistics. The results indicated that 34.9kg of maize were processed into 128 dozens of Kokoro (Corn snack) per production run over an average of five (5) days, with six (6) production runs per month for nine months for the period of the research. The mean Kokoro (Corn snack) production cost was N42, 769.41/ respondent/ month with average revenue of N92, 253.60/ respondent/ month and net income of N49, 484.19/ respondent/ month. Income from Kokoro (Corn snack) production accounted for 53.4% of the total household income of N721,323.67 of an average woman engaged in Kokoro (Corn snack) production while farm income  accounted for 67.9% of the total household income of N418, 935.10 of an average woman producing arable crops. The study also revealed that households of Kokoro (Corn snack) producers had mean per capita household income of N282.32 per person per day which was significantly higher (p<0.01) than those of women producing arable crops, N191.29 per person per day. Thus Kokoro (Corn snack) production has the potentials to enhance income and reduce poverty among households of rural women. The study thus recommends promotion of value- adding activities, such as maize processing into Kokoro as a means of enhancing income and reduces poverty among the rural folks.     &nbsp

A time-domain control signal detection technique for OFDM

Transmission of system-critical control information plays a key role in efficient management of limited wireless network resources and successful reception of payload data information. This paper uses an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) architecture to investigate the detection performance of a time-domain approach used to detect deterministic control signalling information. It considers a type of control information chosen from a finite set of information, which is known at both transmitting and receiving wireless terminals. Unlike the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation method, which is often used, the time-domain detection technique requires no channel estimation and no pilots as it uses a form of time-domain correlation as the means of detection. Results show that when compared with the ML method, the time-domain approach improves detection performance even in the presence of synchronisation error caused by carrier frequency offset

Social integration and financial inclusion of forcibly displaced persons in Sub-Saharan African countries

Most government and international financial institutions worldwide have adopted financial inclusion as a veritable platform for achieving the Social Development Goals of hunger and poverty eradication, inequality reduction, and employment creation. Their efforts will not yield much dividend if a sizeable part of the populace are constrained from social and formal financial inclusion due to social disorder. This study examined the relationship between social seclusion of forcibly displaced persons from formal financial inclusion in twenty-seven Sub-Saharan African countries. Granger Error Correction Method (ECM) with Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) was used to analyze the short panel data obtained from the World Bank database. The study found a negative long-run relationship between social seclusion and financial inclusion. That is, an increase in social menace overtime will result in more people being financially excluded from formal financial transactions. It, therefore, recommends, amongst others, that government should encourage forcibly displaced persons to become gainfully employed and productive. Specifically, persons in refugee and internally displaced persons camps should be trained to acquire skills that will enable them to become self-employed, create wealth for themselves, and contribute actively to the sustainable economic growth of their host country rather than just provide food and other welfare packages as a temporal palliative for surviva

Baseline fertility status of a gravelly Alfisol in a derived savannah agro-ecological zone of Nigeria

Farmers have not tested their soils for nutrient status and therefore are unaware of the fertility status of their soils. Therefore, a baseline fertility survey of 50 hectares of land of a gravelly Alfisol in the Teaching and Research Farm of Landmark University, Omu-Aran, Kwara State, Nigeria was carried out with a view to identifying soil health constraints and site-specific sustainable land management practices for optimizing crop production. Standard field protocols and laboratory analytical procedures were employed for all sample parameters measured. Results show that the soil textural classes vary from sand to loamy sand, exchangeable acidity, Ca, Mg, K, and Na and the effective cation exchange capacity has the surface and subsurface soil values of 0.0–0.92 and 0.00–0.89 cmol kg−1 , 1.6–7.7 and 2.0–5.8 cmol kg−1 , 1.2–11.5 and 0.7–8.0 cmol kg−1 , 0.09–0.33 and 0.09–0.43 cmol kg−1 , 0.0–0.16 and 0.04–0.16 cmol kg−1 , 7.2–12.10 and 0.9–12.5 cmol kg−1 , respectively. P values lie in the ranges of 2.5–68.9 mg kg−1 and 2.0–37.7 mg kg−1 in the surface and subsurface soils, respectively, organic C values were 0.86–2.81% and 0.68–3.49%, respectively, in the surface and subsurface soils while the values of N were 0.12–0.61% in the surface and 0.11–0.56% subsurface soils. Land evaluation shows that the soils of the project site are very fragile and poor in native fertility. Compound fertilizers low in nitrogen contents but high in phosphorus and potassium are recommended for gravelly Alfisol in a derived savannah ecological zone of the Kwara State, Nigeria to avoid a nutrient imbalance that may create artificial deficiencies of otherwise adequate nutrient elements

Methylation Defect in Imprinted Genes Detected in Patients with an Albright's Hereditary Osteodystrophy Like Phenotype and Platelet Gs Hypofunction

Pseudohypoparathyroidism (PHP) indicates a group of heterogeneous disorders whose common feature is represented by impaired signaling of hormones that activate Gsalpha, encoded by the imprinted GNAS gene. PHP-Ib patients have isolated Parathormone (PTH) resistance and GNAS epigenetic defects while PHP-Ia cases present with hormone resistance and characteristic features jointly termed as Albright's Hereditary Osteodystrophy (AHO) due to maternally inherited GNAS mutations or similar epigenetic defects as found for PHP-Ib. Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism (PPHP) patients with an AHO phenotype and no hormone resistance and progressive osseous heteroplasia (POH) cases have inactivating paternally inherited GNAS mutations.We here describe 17 subjects with an AHO-like phenotype that could be compatible with having PPHP but none of them carried Gsalpha mutations. Functional platelet studies however showed an obvious Gs hypofunction in the 13 patients that were available for testing. Methylation for the three differentially methylated GNAS regions was quantified via the Sequenom EpiTYPER. Patients showed significant hypermethylation of the XL amplicon compared to controls (36 ± 3 vs. 29 ± 3%; p<0.001); a pattern that is reversed to XL hypomethylation found in PHPIb. Interestingly, XL hypermethylation was associated with reduced XLalphaS protein levels in the patients' platelets. Methylation for NESP and ExonA/B was significantly different for some but not all patients, though most patients have site-specific CpG methylation abnormalities in these amplicons. Since some AHO features are present in other imprinting disorders, the methylation of IGF2, H19, SNURF and GRB10 was quantified. Surprisingly, significant IGF2 hypermethylation (20 ± 10 vs. 14 ± 7%; p<0.05) and SNURF hypomethylation (23 ± 6 vs. 32 6%; p<0.001) was found in patients vs. controls, while H19 and GRB10 methylation was normal.In conclusion, this is the first report of methylation defects including GNAS in patients with an AHO-like phenotype without endocrinological abnormalities. Additional studies are still needed to correlate the methylation defect with the clinical phenotype

Credit Information Sharing and Loan Default in Developing Countries: The Moderating Effect of Banking Market Concentration and National Governance Quality

Departing from the existing literature, which associates credit information sharing with improved access to credit in advanced economies, we examine whether credit information sharing can also reduce loan default rate for banks domiciled in developing countries. Using a large dataset covering 879 unique banks from 87 developing countries from every continent, over a nine-year period (i.e., over 6,300 observations), we uncover three new findings. First, we find that credit information sharing reduces loan default rate. Second, we show that the relationship between credit information sharing and loan default rate is conditional on banking market concentration. Third, our findings suggest that governance quality at the country level does not have a strong moderating role on the effect of credit information sharing on loan default rate