Depleting forest resources of Nigeria and its impact on climate

Nigeria is well endowed with forest resources but the excessive exploitation of these forest resources is a source of concern and threat to the economic, social and environmental importance. The forest, apart from providing a large proportion of the global supply of timber and fuel, also provide a wide range of non – wood products and environmental functions. These products include bush meat, medicine, watershed protection, stabilisation of the hydrological regime and carbon sequestration. Forests regulate global climate and act as a major agents of carbon exchange in atmosphere. The rate of destruction of forest resources has now become a global issue. In Nigeria, natural forests have reduced drastically and its impacts on climate change are increasing. Measures for minimizing deforestation and managing climate change need to be developed urgently. This paper examined the deteriorating forest resources of Nigeria and its impact on climate change.Key words: Forest Resources, Deforestation, Forest Status, Climate Chang

Markovian Study of Maintenance Practice in a Production Firm – A Case Study

There are several reasons why maintenance managers need to ascertain, from time to time, the reliability profile of their production machines that are subject to constant use. This study furnishes the justifications by analyzing a 12-year maintenance data classified under machine time, downtime, idle time, running time, among others. Markov chain model as well as some reliability models – availability, mean time to failure, mean time between failures, hazard rate (λ) – were used to analyze the bulky data obtained from a soft drink bottling company based in Lagos, Nigeria. Our results suggest that the long run maintenance practice of the organization has caused between 87-94% of the machines/equipment to be in idle state while between 6-13% to be due for retirement. It is our candid opinion that if urgent action is not taken to whittle down the lingering trend the company will get to the brink of collapse.Keywords: Transition matrix, Absorbing state, Catastrophic Failure, Matrix Utilization FactorsNigerian Journal of Technological Researc

Haemorheological Changes in African Breast Cancer Patients

Several Studies have indicated the existence of thrombo-embolic complications in cancer patients and that this could be associated with changes in heamorheological parameters. Packed cell volume (PCV), heamoglobin (Hb), relative plasma viscosity (RPV) and plasma Fibrinogen concentration (PFC) were measured in 50 healthy control women, 50 age-matched women with breast cancer, and 10 women with histophathologically proven benign breast tumour. There were significant differences between the controls and breast cancer patients in all the parameters measured (