Design and development of a permanent mould for crucible production

This study aimed at development of a permanent mould for crucible production. Solid-Works was used as the computer aided design (CAD) tool for design and structural analysis of the parts, with necessary design considerations put in place. The fabrication of the mould was carried out at Federal Institute for Industrial Research Oshodi (FIIRO), selecting Mild steel as the parent material. The mould basically consisted of the male and female parts made up of medium carbon steel because of the required strength. It was discovered from the structural analysis that the application of 1.0783 MN/m2 to produce the crucible from the mould is safe because it is not up to the vonmises maximum pressure of similar load of 5.584 MN/m2 , this is lesser than the yield strength of the material which is given to be 2.481 MN/mm2 . This shows that the material and its specification is safe and will not fail for the purpose for which it is designed for. Results showing the displacement and strain analysis revealed that the displacement in the mould is in the rate of 0.001 MN/mm and 0.00173 mm. This displacement is insignificant to cause failure in the part. And the strain is seen to be in the range 2.176 X 10-8 and 2.232 X 10 -5 , the results therefore give confidence in the design to meet requirement. Keywords: Casting, Development, Foundry, Crucible, Mould, SolidWork

Determination of work index of graphite from Samanburkono (Nigeria) using modified bond's method

This report covers the work index determination of Saman-Burkono graphite. The test sample was obtained from Saman-Burkono in Ningi Local Government Area of Bauchi state, while reference material (coal) was sourced from Okaba coal mine, Ankpa Local Government Area of Kogi State. A known weight of graphite sample and coal were crushed, pulverized and ground using the laboratory milling machine. The two samples were grinded with two cells of diameter 3.5cm and 222g weight. The analysis of the feed size fort the two samples was found graphically to be 180μm and 175μm, and ball mill discharge was 130μm and 140μm respectively. The work index of a coal as reference material was 7.65 kWh/ short ton, this was used to calculate the work index of the graphite which was found to be 11.047 kWh/short ton, being the required energy to comminute one ton of graphite.Keywords: Comminution, Graphite, Saman-Burkono, Nigeria, Modified Bonds metho

Gender analysis of land use for urban agriculture and sustainability of livelihoods in Freetown, Sierra Leone

This paper examined the gender analysis of land use for urban agriculture and sustainability of Livelihoods in Freetown, Sierra Leone. This is predicated on the fact that despite the stated contribution of urban agriculture (UA) to household food security, employment generation and poverty reduction, it has not received due recognition and policy support. The study was carried out in Freetown, Sierra Leone using a cluster sampling approach. From a list of 20 clusters, 6 were randomly selected and 10% of members in each cluster selected randomly (nmale = 30; nfemale = 61; n = 91) were interviewed. A survey research design was adopted in this study and the respondents for the study were stratified in terms of gender and UA enterprises. The majority of producers were female with the gross margin on male and female managed farms were 15130 and 23895 Leones per farm/ season respectively. Also, female managed farm had a higher return than male managed farms. Significant determinants of contribution of the UA income to household income are household size (t = -5.13), access to credit (t = 4.09), membership of farmers' association (t = 4.23), gender (t = -2.40), age (t = 1.78) and farm size (t = -4.97). As household size and the number of male producers increases, income from UA decreases

NON-FARM INCOME DIVERSIFICATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION IN NIGERIA: A PROPENSITY-SCORE MATCHING ANALYSIS

In this paper, we investigate the impact of non-farm employment (disaggregated by wage- and self-employment) on household income and poverty. Using a propensity score matching model, we evaluate the differences in outcomes between households who participate in the non-farm employment and those who do not. The results from the study show that non-farm wage-employed households in rural Nigeria have a significantly higher income than self-employed households. Second, we show that non-farm wage-employment impacts more on household welfare than non-farm self-employment. Third, we show that the benefits to non-farm wage-employment are much higher among the non-poor than among the poor

Compliance to use of surgical checklist among private medical practitioners

Surgery put patients at appreciable risk of adverse outcomes and death. Operative Surgical Checklists serves as an aid-memoire to ensure patients’ and health care personnel safety during the perioperative period. A cross-sectional survey of private medical practitioners (PMP) was conducted to find out about the awareness and compliance of general medical practitioners in Nigeria on the use of WHO Surgical Checklists. Relevant data were obtained through a pre-tested paper based questionnaire. One hundred and nineteen questionnaires were analysed. The mean age of the respondents was 58.20 (±4.761) years. The mean duration of time from post qualification was 31.083 (±4.387) years. Twenty-four (20.16%) of the respondents have additional qualifications in various clinical and non clinical specialties. Forty-seven (39.49%) of the respondents had heard about surgical checklist mainly from the internet. Only 5 (10.63%) of them use it, and in less than 25% of the occasions. Use of checklist shows no significant statistical difference between those with additional qualifications to those without (p= .6970).  About 96% of the respondents believed that surgical checklist is beneficial. The most barrier to use of surgical checklist was unavailability of the checklists. Surgical checklist is poorly utilized by the private medical practitioners.  We suggest the need to further emphasize the use of surgical checklists at various levels of our practices.Keywords: Surgical checklist, World health organization, private medical practitioners and Operatio

Ureteric injuries following pelvic operations

(East African Medical Journal: 2002 79 (11): 611-613