Smart city technology based architecture for refuse disposal management

Many modern cities are currently encumbered with various challenges among which is the need to promote the culture of environmental sanitation for healthy living. However, advances in information communications technology have given birth to the concept of smart city, which is rapidly being applied to address some of the challenges being faced in such cities. This paper presents the development of an architecture based on smart city technology, for refuse disposal management in communities. A proof of concept prototype was implemented for the proposed architecture using Arduino UNO microcontroller board, proximity sensor, breadboard, refuse bin and a personal computer. The proximity sensor was interfaced with the Arduino board to capture dataset that correspond to the five different positions calibrated on a refuse bin. The dataset was shown to be of good quality since the graph of the mean voltages against the distances is similar to the proximity sensor characteristic graph. To determine the appropriate classifier for realizing the pattern classification unit of the prototype, an experiment was performed using the acquired dataset to train five different variants of the K-NN classifier. The 1-NN classifier was nominated for the prototype because it is simple and it gave higher values of accuracy, precision and recal

The Menace of Domestic Violence: Improving the Lives of Women in Nigeria

The scourge of domestic violence as well as other forms of violence against women has eaten deep into the fabric of our society creating a lopsided gender balance with the female gender being the greatest victim. Violence has taken different forms ranging from sexual to physical and psychological as well as other forms. This degrades the humanity of the woman in our society. Abusive partners and perpetrators base their actions on superior nature of the male sex, religion, law, custom, economic situation, family pressure, and their behavioural pattern. It is believed that lack of a legal framework universally enforced as well as lack of trained law enforcement officers promotes the violence of women in Nigeria. A proactive legal framework, establishment of confidential and well equipped family courts, training of law enforcement officers, shelters and counselling centres can reduce the abuse of women in Nigeria and across the globe. The physical, sociological and psychological effect of violence against women is unquantifiable. To achieve a fair and balanced society, women must be valued, respected and supported and not battered either by stick or word of mouth

Assessing Local Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development in Erin-Ijesha Waterfall Osun State, Nigeria

The basic element of tourism planning and development is to encourage the local communities’ participation as it is central to the sustainability of tourism industry. Many literatures have suggested a number of roles local communities could play in tourism development but failed as to how the locals themselves feel about this. This paper therefore focuses on Erin-Ijesha community participation in tourism development by examining their views on their role in the planning and development of Erin-Ijesha Waterfall resort. Data were gathered by reviewing office records and academic books, administration of 205 questionnaire and field observation. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data collected for the study. Findings revealed that local communities want to be involved when tourism policies are being made to enable policy makers to prepare a policy that meets stakeholders’ needs and addresses  their concerns. The locals also want to be actively involved on decisions bothered on tourism development to ensure their needs are incorporated. Also, they equally want to a voice in development issues generally to enable them protect their community’s norms, values and interests and increase transparency and equity. The findings also revealed that the locals are against the prevailing ‘top-down’ approach in decision making when it comes to tourism development in their areas. Keywords: Erin-Ijesha, local community, Tourism planning, sustainabilit

Response of African Giant Snail (Archachatina Marginata) in Captivity to Deifferent Feed Items

Thirty six (36) one-week old hatchling of giant snail were randomly selected and grouped into 4 batches on the basis of body weight. Each group was fed in captivity with either of the following feed items: water leaf, cocoyam leaf, potato leaf or compound feed (24.43% crude protein). Diets were fed ad libitum for 20 weeks. The result showed that snails raised on compounded feed had the highest body weight gain which was not significantly different (P>0.05) from those fed cocoyam and water leaves. Snail fed potato leaf had significantly lowest (P>0.05) body weight gain. Mean flesh weight of snails fed compounded diets and cocoyam leaf were 158±5.31 and 153± 4.04g respectively, these were significantly different(P>0.05) from those fed water leaf (148± 1.00g) and sweet potato leaf (139±1.10g). It was concluded that African giant snail can be raised successfully in captivity on cocoyam without any adversely response. Keywords: Giant Land Snail, Cocoyam, Potato leaf, water leaf, compounded feed, captive rearing

Mass communication undergraduates’ perception of their communication competence for employability

This study evaluated the perception of mass communication undergraduates with regard to their communication competence for employability.The population sample includes 2015/16 final year mass communication undergraduates of four Nigerian tertiary institutions, namely; Lagos State University (LASU), University of Lagos (Unilag), Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech) and Lagos state Polytechnic (LASPOTECH).The method of research was survey.A five point Likert scale was adopted.A total of 452 questionnaires were administered but only 405 were usable.Descriptive analysis shows that more than half of the respondents were in moderate range in their general communication competence.The result shows that majority are mostly moderate in the four communication competence contexts (public, meeting, group and dyad) as well as receivers (stranger, acquaintance and friend) contexts. The paper includes; introduction, literature review, methodology, results and discussion as well as, implication and conclusion and recommendation for further studies.The study also discovered that communication apprehension affect communication competence.Therefore, the finding has unlocked the prospect of further studies in this area among mass communication undergraduates in Nigeria for the purpose of assessing their level of communication competence vis-a-vis communication apprehension with implication for employability. However, this paper is limited to the communication competence of the respondents

Effect of Dietary Biscuit Waste on Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Broilers

A study was conducted for 8 weeks to investigate the effect of dietary biscuit waste (BW) replacing maize (M) on performance and carcass characteristic of broilers. A total of 175 day old marshal broiler chicks were used for this study. They were completely randomized and divided into five treatments. Each treatment had five replicates of seven birds per replicate. Five experimental diets were formulated as follows; A: (100%M : 0%BW), B: (75% M: 25%BW), C: (50%M: 50%BW), D: (25%M: 75%BW), E: (0%M: 100%BW) at both starter and finisher phases. Performance indices measured were feed intake, weight gain and feed conversion ratio.  The feed intake (F.I.) was affected with increasing level of biscuit waste. There were significant differences (p<0.05) across the treatments with treatment A having the highest value of 2.92kg for F.I  and treatment E having the least value of 2.51kg while treatments B, C and D followed the same trend having the following values of 2.73kg, 2.70kg and 2.61kg respectively. Average weight gain showed that there were no significant differences (p>0.05) across the treatments, the values obtained were 1.13kg, 1.09kg, 1.10kg, 1.12kg and 1.10kg for treatments A, B, C, D and E respectively. Feed conversion ratio showed significant differences (p?0.05) as birds in treatments C, D and E recorded lower values of 2.47%, 2.37% and 2.33% respectively while birds on treatment A had highest value of 2.60%. The carcass weights expressed as percentages of live weights (LW) did not show any significant differences (p>0.05). The result for breast weights showed significant differences (p?0.05) as birds on treatments four (25% M: 75% (BW) and five (0%M: 100% BW) had lower values of 10.05% (LW) and 11.20% (LW) respectively. Surprisingly, birds on treatment two (75% M 25% BW) had the highest breast meat value of 16.75%. The percentage organ weights showed no significant differences (p>0.05) between liver, heart and spleen but the gizzard weights were significantly different among the treatments with the control having the highest value of 2.88% (LW). It was concluded that biscuit waste could be used as feed for broilers up to 50% replacement levels for maize at the starter and finisher phases without compromising performance and carcass value of broilers. Keywords: Biscuit waste (BW), Maize (M), Broiler Performance and Carcass Characteristics

Newspapers Coverage of Internally Displaced Persons in Nigeria: May - July 2018

The objective of the study is to examine the extent to which newspapers reported the issue of internally displaced persons IDPs in Nigeria The agenda-setting theory and the social responsibility theory formed the theoretical foundation to this study The study adopted content analysis and the survey method through interview to scrutinize six 6 Nigerian national newspapers- Daily Sun Daily Times Leadership The Nation Punch and Vanguard for a period of 3 months May 1 2018 to July 31 2018 Coding sheet was used to code 552 editions of the newspapers within the 3-months period where 182 contents on IDPs were found and analyzed Also interview guide was employed to garner the view of six 6 communications and media experts Findings presented through descriptive and inferential statistics revealed that the selected national newspapers mainly accorded low prominence to issue of IDPs through page placement stories The coverage of major issues the selected newspapers reported about the IDPs was about the vulnerability of the IDPs It was shown that coverage of selected newspapers as shown to have been varied geographically where North-East garnered the highest coverage while the South-West had no coverage on IDPs situation Results showed that the most dominant tone used by the selected newspapers was the positive Also findings revealed that Nigerian newspapers need understand more about the issue of IDPs editors of newspapers need assign their reporters to intensively cover the IDPs situation and report it frequently on their publications security agencies NEMA SEMA INGOs and NGOs need to corporate and collaborate with newspapers organizations for them to be further strengthened as a communication tool in proffering solution to the issue of internal displacements in Nigeria The study recommended among other things that the Nigerian press should be more intentional in increasing coverage on IDPs and give prominence to the coverage of IDPs by way of positioning of reports on the front pag