Food Poverty in Nigeria: Implications for Life Expectancy

Food poverty and its effect on life expectancy has over the years attracted greater research attention from many researchers given the attendant negative effects it has on the growth of an economy.This present study investigated the implications of food poverty on life expectancy in Nigeria between 1985 and 2018. It employed the multivariate ordinary least squares, stationarity and cointegration techniques which minimize the possibility of estimating spurious regressions while at the same time, retaining long run information. The independent variables used in the study were total labour force, capital formation, agricultural output (proxy for food poverty) and food items importation. Research findings show that while total labour force, capital formation and food items importation had positive effects on life expectancy in Nigeria, food poverty exerted a negative impact on life expectancy in Nigeria within the period under study. The study recommends, among other things, that the government should through the ministry of agriculture map out policies that will help to further improve the performance of the sector. This will help increase the availability of food items in Nigeria and therefore reduce the incidence of food poverty which will further improve life expectancy in Nigeria. Keywords: food poverty, life expectancy, poverty, food security. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-2-11 Publication date: January 31st 202

Development of a Patient-Specific Multi-Scale Model to Understand Atherosclerosis and Calcification Locations: Comparison with In vivo Data in an Aortic Dissection

Vascular calcification results in stiffening of the aorta and is associated with hypertension and atherosclerosis. Atherogenesis is a complex, multifactorial, and systemic process; the result of a number of factors, each operating simultaneously at several spatial and temporal scales. The ability to predict sites of atherogenesis would be of great use to clinicians in order to improve diagnostic and treatment planning. In this paper, we present a mathematical model as a tool to understand why atherosclerotic plaque and calcifications occur in specific locations. This model is then used to analyze vascular calcification and atherosclerotic areas in an aortic dissection patient using a mechanistic, multi-scale modeling approach, coupling patient-specific, fluid-structure interaction simulations with a model of endothelial mechanotransduction. A number of hemodynamic factors based on state-of-the-art literature are used as inputs to the endothelial permeability model, in order to investigate plaque and calcification distributions, which are compared with clinical imaging data. A significantly improved correlation between elevated hydraulic conductivity or volume flux and the presence of calcification and plaques was achieved by using a shear index comprising both mean and oscillatory shear components (HOLMES) and a non-Newtonian viscosity model as inputs, as compared to widely used hemodynamic indicators. The proposed approach shows promise as a predictive tool. The improvements obtained using the combined biomechanical/biochemical modeling approach highlight the benefits of mechanistic modeling as a powerful tool to understand complex phenomena and provides insight into the relative importance of key hemodynamic parameters

Masking Kernel for Learning Energy-Efficient Representations for Speaker Recognition and Mobile Health

Modern smartphones possess hardware for audio acquisition and to perform speech processing tasks such as speaker recognition and health assessment. However, energy consumption remains a concern, especially for resource-intensive DNNs. Prior work has improved the DNN energy efficiency by utilizing a compact model or reducing the dimensions of speech features. Both approaches reduced energy consumption during DNN inference but not during speech acquisition. This paper proposes using a masking kernel integrated into gradient descent during DNN training to learn the most energy-efficient speech length and sampling rate for windowing, a common step for sample construction. To determine the most energy-optimal parameters, a masking function with non-zero derivatives was combined with a low-pass filter. The proposed approach minimizes the energy consumption of both data collection and inference by 57%, and is competitive with speaker recognition and traumatic brain injury detection baselines

EFFLUX MEDIATED MULTIDRUG RESISTANT PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA ISOLATED FROM DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTAL SOURCES

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an important opportunistic pathogen and one of the leading causes of multi-drug resistant nosocomial infections. This study was therefore carried out to determine the resistance nature, and the role of efflux pump in multidrug resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolated from different environmental sources using the efflux pump inhibitor, Carbonyl Cyanide 3-Chlorophenylhydrazone (CCCP). A total of 220 environmental samples were collected and processed following standard techniques. Susceptibility to antibiotics was performed using disc diffusion methods as described by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. Activity of the efflux pump system was carried out using the efflux pump inhibitor, CCCP. Results obtained identified 100 (45.5%) Pseudomonas aeruginosa and 72 (32.7%) other strains of Pseudomonas spp. The susceptibility testing revealed that all the identified strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa that were subjected to susceptibility test were significantly resistant to ampicillin and cefotaxime, But the  resistance profile of isolates to tetracycline, chloramphenicol, ceftriaxone, cefuroxime and perfloxacin were 93%, 72.1%, 79.1%, 58.1% and 51.2% respectively. However, imipenem was the most sensitive (100%), followed by cefepime (65%) and gentamicin (44%). Carbonyl Cyanide 3-Chlorophenylhydrazone decreased the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of the isolates by 2 folds. Results obtained have shown the ubiquitous presence of multi-drug resistant P. aeruginosa from the environmental samples examined. Furthermore, it indicated the role of efflux pump in antibiotics resistance in P. aeruginosa isolates which indicate that P. aeruginosa strains from environmental sources could resist antibiotics by the efflux mechanism.     &nbsp

The Challenges of Enforcing Intellectual Property Rights across the Economic Community of West African States: The Nigerian Experience

Intellectual property rights are those rights that protect the result of creativity, inventiveness and the result of the human intellect. Generally speaking intellectual property is broadly divided into industrial property and copyrights. The first include such intangible but significant properties such as patents, trademarks, industrial designs, trade names as well as goodwill, which are often referred to as incorporeal hereditaments. The second is a separate and distinct head of law (ownership right) known as copyright. There are challenges of enforcing intellectual property rights in West African States and these have its attendant devastating effect on the economy in the region. It is obvious that consequent upon the emergence of industrialization in West Africa many people have resorted to infringing works of other people in order to reap where they did not sow thereby depriving the owners of such work of their labour, time and expense. It is for this reason that the law frowns at it by seeing that the owners of these work are not unjustifiable expropriated or reaped by people who are not the producers of such labour. This has rooted deep in our society today thereby reducing the pace of development in West Africa. In this paper we shall substantially highlight the meaning of the concept of intellectual property rights; the meaning of intellectual property, the nature and scope of intellectual property  and the challenges of enforcing intellectual property rights in West Africa and recommendations on ways to tackle these challenges. Keywords: Intellectual property rights, challenges, recommendations.

Assessment of remediation Potentials of maize (Zea mays) on sites co-contaminated with Pb and antracene

Phytoremediation is a promising technology for the remediation of sites co-contaminated with inorganic and organic pollutants. A pot experiment was conducted to evaluate the remediation potential of Z.mays in soil co- contaminated with Pb and antracene. Pristine sandy loam soils were polluted with Pb chloride salt and antracene at three different levels (50mg/kg of Pb, 100mg/kg of Pb, and 100mg/kg of Pb+100mg/kg of antracene) and laid out in completely randomized design with 3 replicates. Shoot dry matter weight was significantly reduced (p≤0.05) when compared with control treatments by 40% when exposed to100mg kg-1 of Pb. There was a 48% inhibition of shoot dry matter of Z.mays relative to control treatments when 100 mg Pb kg-1 was mixed with 100 mgkg-1 antracene. Root and shoot metal concentration in Zea mays increased with increasing concentration of Pb. The average Translocation Factor (TF < 1 (0.69) obtained suggests that Zea mays predominantly retains Pb in the root portion of the plant. There was a 5% increase in shoot Pb concentration when soil was contaminated with Pb and antracene. The extractable antracene decreased significantly (p≤0.05) in soil planted with Z.mays as well as in pots without maize plant. This accounted for 65 and 72% of antracene dissipation in planted soil and 40-46% dissipation in unplanted soil. This result suggested that Zeamays is a promising candidate for uptake Pb and dissipation of antracene in co-contaminated soils

A Survey of Studies on Money Demand and Inflation Amidst Banking Crisis

The paper is borne out of the necessity to create a repository of information on monetary effects of banking crisis with a focus on money demand and inflation. To this end, the paper selectively reviews some empirical studies on money demand and inflation in the face of banking crisis. Overwhelming evidence reveals that money demand does not only increase during banking crisis but is also largely stable. The studies also suggest that long-run cointegrating relationship exists between money demand and its determining variables during banking crisis. However, evidence indicates that banking crisis makes inflation to decline or increase. These pattern of results were evident in developed and developing countries and from different methodologies applied. One policy implication from the survey is that during banking crisis monetary policy would be ineffective. The policy recommendation that can make monetary policy effective is to expand money supply and reduce interest rate for the productive sectors, particularly agricultural and manufacturing sectors

Assessment and Modeling of Drawbar Power Necessities of Disc Plough in Sandy-clay Soil in South-East Nigeria

The incongruities between agro-ecological soil states demand statistical records of the performance of tillage equipment under various soil classifications for proper choice of implements to minimize charge, curtail energy wastage, and upsurge agricultural output. This research was carried out to assess and model the drawbar power requirements of disc plough on sandy-clay soil in South – East Nigeria that will help farmers predict the power requirements and detect the optimum value of power demand of the plough in orderto select apposite plough subject to the soil type for proficient and bravura productions. Results showed that the highest drawbar power of 5.42kW was achieved when the plough was engaged at full working width of 180 cm, at tillage depth of 15 cm and least operational speed of 6km/hr. The statistical analyses revealed that tillage depth and operational speed have a significant effect (p˂ 0.05) on the drawbar power of the disc plough compared to the effective working width of the plough.The quadratic model was statistically significant for the response (P ˂ 0.05). Results also pointed out that the coefficient of determination; R2 was 0.9759 for drawbar power, which indicated high correlations amid the factors. The adequacy Precision of 19.912 obtained indicated decorous indicator and that the models could navigate the design space. The optimum drawbar power of 4.95kW was achieved with the desirability of 1.000 at optimal effective working width of 119.06 cm, ploughing depth of 13.71 cm and operational speed of 7.74kmh-1. Farmers can henceforth, appraise and select the disc plough implements with the developed model equation

PREVALENCE OF DIARRHOEA AGENTS AND THE IN-VITRO EFFECTS OF THREE PLANT EXTRACTS ON THE GROWTH OF THE ISOLATES

ABSTRACT Isolation of bacteria associated with diarrhoea in young children below the age of five years and the antibacterial efficacy of Dioscorea dumetorum, Oscimum suave, and Ancistracarpus densispinosus were investigated. Leaves of these plants were dried and powdered before being soaked in 70% ethanol for 3 days. The stools were cultured and isolates were identified according to standard bacteriological methods . Agar diffusion method was employed in determining the inhibitory effects of the extracts on growth of the bacterial isolates. Out of 100 samples collected, 97% showed growth of different bacterial species. These include Escherichia coli (28%), Salmonella (21%), Klebsiella (16%), Shigella (15%), Proteus mirabilis (1%), and Staphylococcus aureus (7%). Klebsiella, Proteus and Escherichia coli were susceptible to the inhibitory effect of the three extracts at varying concentrations except for Proteus mirabilis which did not respond at all to Ancistracarpus densispinosus. Statistically, Dioscorea dumetorum proved to be more effective than Oscimum suave (p&lt;o.o5). . Hence, Dioscorea dumetorum and Ocimum suave could serves as an alternative to orthodox drugs in the treatment of diseases due to Klebsiella, Escherichia coli, and Proteus mirabilis