Nutritional properties of indigenous fermented condiment (ogiri) produced from partial substitution of castor oil bean (Ricinus communis) with soybean (Glycine max) seeds

Recently, in Nigeria, there has been a series of controversial publications and debates over the use of seasoning cubes and monosodium glutamate as cancer inducing agents. With this, the use of local condiments like Ogiri has become an option. Ogiri is traditionally produced from castor oil beans which is scarce in some communities. This study therefore explored the possibility of substituting castor oil bean with soybean to obtain an acceptable Ogiri. Proximate, mineral and vitamin composition and sensory characteristics of the substituted Ogiri samples produced were evaluated using standard methods. With increase in soybean substitution levels, proximate analysis showed an increase in crude protein (17.33%-31.68%), crude fibre (0.47-1.71%) and fat (13.76-20.23%) contents while ash (3.63-3.21%) and carbohydrate (48.13%-23.55%) contents decreased. Mineral contents increased from 46.11 - 80.21, 60.25 - 73.83, 80.33 - 99.42, 118.10 - 794.38, 1.63 - 6.32 and 0.49 - 1.48 mg/100g for calcium, magnesium, phosphorous, potassium, iron and zinc, respectively. Potassium was the most abundant mineral in the samples. Also, retinol (11.63-16.26 mg/100g), vitamin B1 (0.10-0.21 mg/100g), vitamin B2 (10.37-14.79 mg/100g), vitamin B3 (9.21-9.91 mg/100g), vitamin C (2.43-5.85 mg/100g) and vitamin E (6.43-11.25 mg/100g) increased significantly. Sensory analysis revealed that the Ogiri sample with 50% soybean inclusion and the control had the best organoleptic properties. Therefore, soybean substitution of up to 50% gave a better acceptable Ogiri with improved nutrient contents. Keywords: “ogiri”, castor oil bean, soybea

Acculturation of Knowledge through Sustainable Language Engineering for National Development: The Case of Igbo

The aim of this study is to find out the possible ways of domesticating knowledge gained through western education by the Igbo through sustainable language development. It also aims to make the knowledge accessible in the Igbo language for empowerment at the grassroots and ultimately for societal and national development. The need for this work is born out of the observation that the Igbo, as well as other tribes in Nigeria are rich with internationally acclaimed learned personalities. These personalities have distinguished themselves in various fields of human endeavor. Also, these achievements are made in foreign languages. Subsequently, these achievements have led to an increase in the relevance of such languages to the relegation of the scholars’ own mother tongues and invariably their own people. By using the descriptive and inferential methods, the paper presents some neologism processes which non linguists can apply in their various academic fields. Also, they can come up with terminologies in the Igbo language for presenting relevant academic materials for use in teaching and learning the Igbo language. The use of these terminologies could be formal or informal as the need arises. Thus, these processes include extra-language borrowing, loan translations, intra-language borrowing, and specialization of dialectal phonological variants. Previously, metalanguage development efforts by governments had bypassed these professionals. Also, they have focused on developing the terminologies through linguists and selected professionals alone. This has resulted to the terminologies not being accessible to the intended end users. Among other things, this paper suggests that the call for the acculturation of knowledge and the processes of embarking on it should be made public in all institutions of higher education. This is carried out in the Igbo culture area and later extended to the Igbo in diaspora. However, the co-ordination of the process of the formalization of the terminologies should be left in the hands of the Igbo Studies Association (ISA). This official regulating body ensures the maintenance of professional standards and uniformity of usage

Epitaxial Ge-rich silicon layers after dry oxidation of Ge implanted silicon

We report on formation of epi-layer of SixGe1-x by taking standard procedure in CMOS technology. The competitive process of solid solubility of Ge dopant into Si and SiO2 is the key to engineer atomically sharp, low defect very thin epitaxial layer at the interface of oxide-Si. Oxidation time process was used to control the distribution of the doped Ge ions at the interface of Si with oxide and in the oxide layer. Implanted samples (35 keV and 1 × 1016 Ge+/cm2) were oxidized at 1050 °C for 30–90 min. RBS-Channeling analysis shows two separate peaks of Ge corresponds to different depths after oxidation. Corroborate with high resolution microscopy and elemental analysis, we determined the first peak as enriched layer of SixGe1-x at the interface of SiO2single bondSi. Less than 10 nm epitaxially grown interfacial layer is very low in defects, and Ge ions are fully substituted into the host lattice. The second peak originated from diffusion of Ge into SiO2 resulted in a segregated layer containing Ge in oxide film. Technological demand on forming SixGe1-x layer for CMOS application through standard routes is what we address in this research.publishe

Cardiopulmonary adaptation to 6-weeks skin traction and isometric exercise among Nigerian subjects with lumbar spondylosis

Traction is widely use for the treatment of spinal conditions in orthopaedics, but its effects on pain relief and cardiopulmonary functions has not fully been investigated. The purpose of this study was to determine the cardiopulmonary adaptation to 6- weeks skin traction and isometric exercise in patients presenting with lumbar spondylosis. The study was a pretest-posttest experimental design. A total of 27 subjects (21 males and 6 females) clinically diagnosed with lumbar spondylosis were recruited for the study. Subjects received skin traction 5 kg on each lower limb with the 'head' of the bed lowered by five degree and isometric exercise for a period of 6 weeks. Subjects' pre and post treatment systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), pulse rate (PR), vital capacity (VC), peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) and pain level was assessed, while the collected data was analysed using students' t-test. Findings of the study revealed significant difference in DBP, PR, VC, PEFR (p < 0.05), but no significant difference in SBP (p > 0.05). 6-weeks skin traction resulted in a significant change in DBP, PR, VC and PEFR in patients with chronic lumbar spondylosis.Keywords: Skin traction, isometric exercise, lumbar spondylosis, cardiopulmonary functions

Quenched large deviations for multidimensional random walk in random environment with holding times

We consider a random walk in random environment with random holding times, that is, the random walk jumping to one of its nearest neighbors with some transition probability after a random holding time. Both the transition probabilities and the laws of the holding times are randomly distributed over the integer lattice. Our main result is a quenched large deviation principle for the position of the random walk. The rate function is given by the Legendre transform of the so-called Lyapunov exponents for the Laplace transform of the first passage time. By using this representation, we derive some asymptotics of the rate function in some special cases.Comment: This is the corrected version of the paper. 24 page

Concurrent Computing with Shared Replicated Memory

The behavioural theory of concurrent systems states that any concurrent system can be captured by a behaviourally equivalent concurrent Abstract State Machine (cASM). While the theory in general assumes shared locations, it remains valid, if different agents can only interact via messages, i.e. sharing is restricted to mailboxes. There may even be a strict separation between memory managing agents and other agents that can only access the shared memory by sending query and update requests to the memory agents. This article is dedicated to an investigation of replicated data that is maintained by a memory management subsystem, whereas the replication neither appears in the requests nor in the corresponding answers. We show how the behaviour of a concurrent system with such a memory management can be specified using concurrent communicating ASMs. We provide several refinements of a high-level ground model addressing different replication policies and internal messaging between data centres. For all these refinements we analyse their effects on the runs such that decisions concerning the degree of consistency can be consciously made.Comment: 23 page

Evaluating Scenarios That Can Startle and Surprise Pilots

Startle and surprise in the cockpit have contributed to multiple aviation accidents. The aviation safety boards of France, the United States, and Holland have concluded that startle and surprise pose a serious threat to pilots. This study identified the effects startle and surprise had on multi-engine rated pilots. Surprise is defined here as something unexpected (e.g., engine failure). Startle is the associated exaggerated effect of an unexpected condition (e.g., loud bang). At this point, data has been collected on 15 pilots. Pilots were tested in an aviation training device configured to a Cessna 172 and a Beechcraft Baron 58. Each pilot flew the single and multi-engine aircraft in a scenario that induced an informed emergency condition, a surprise uninformed emergency condition, and a startle and surprise uninformed emergency condition for each aircraft. During each condition heart and respiration rate, flight performance, and workload were collected. The startle and surprise condition showed highest respiration for both planes. However, there was no difference for heart rate between the two aircraft for the informed condition, but heart rate was highest in the startle and surprise condition for the twin-engine aircraft when compared to the single-engine aircraft. The temporal demand workload was higher for the twin-engine when compared to the single-engine for the surprise condition only. Performance differences were found, which we think will show significance differences after more data is collected. Potential application of this study will help us understand how pilots will react in various unexpected conditions of different aircraft