Ethnic fragmentation and police spending

Using a Two-Stage Least Squares procedure, we estimate the relationship between ethnic fragmentation and police spending using a cross-section of United States counties. Our results show that, when controlling for community characteristics and accounting for simultaneity bias, ethnic fragmentation is positively related to police spending. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the stylized fact that public spending on police increased over a period in which the incidence of crime decreased

Ethnic fragmentation and police spending

Using a Two-Stage Least Squares procedure, we estimate the relationship between ethnic fragmentation and police spending using a cross-section of United States counties. Our results show that, when controlling for community characteristics and accounting for simultaneity bias, ethnic fragmentation is positively related to police spending. Our paper contributes to the understanding of the stylized fact that public spending on police increased over a period in which the incidence of crime decreased.ethnic fragmentation, police spending, police, crime, fragmentation

Formulation and proximate evaluation of complementary diets from locally available foods in southwestern Nigeria

Objective: Complementary foods in Nigeria among low-income households are based on staple cereals. Malnutrition among the affected infants could be attributed to unfortified or poorly-fortified cereal-based complementary foods. The present study was conducted to formulate composite blends using locally available but cheap cereals and legumes, chemically evaluate their respective nutritive values, compare them with most traditionally used sieved maize pap ('ogi'), and also evaluate the acceptability of the composite blends.Methods: Four composite blends were formulated from common white bean, soya bean, groundnut, fluted pumpkin, bitter leaf, crayfish, dried tomato and palm oil with unsieved yellow maize and guinea corn as the project food base. Standard procedures of Association of Official Analytical Chemists were used to determine the proximate chemical composition while atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used to determine the mineral element composition. Sensory evaluation to test their acceptability was assessed with 25 panelists using four organoleptic attributes with a five point hedonic scale. Results: The results showed that protein, fat, ash, calcium, iron and zinc contents of the four composite blends were higher than in the traditionally most-used sieved maize pap. The results further showed that formulation with UYM + GC + GT + UG + BL + CF + O was the most acceptable composite blend by the panelists.Conclusion: We concluded that nursing mothers do not have to spend so much money to take care of the nutritional status of their infants by adopting these new formulations of complementary foods.Keywords: Complementary foods, malnutrition, proximate chemical composition, composite blends, sensory evaluation, organoleptic attributes

An analysis of employment intensity of sectoral output growth in Botswana

3Despite an impressive macroeconomic growth record in Botswanaover the past four decades, high unemployment and poverty incidences remain persistent and an intractable challenge of macroeconomic management in the country. The study explores the employment intensity of sectoral output growth in Botswana with a view to identifying key sectors of the Botswana economy that are employment intensive. To achieve this objective, the study used both simple elasticities and econometric procedures to provide empirical evidence concerning the extent to which economic growth that has occurred in Botswana is employment intensive and in which sectors. The fi ndings confi rmed the low labour absorptivecapacity of the Botswana economy at the aggregate and at sectoraldecompositions, suggesting the notion that growth performance inthe country is, after all, ’jobless growth’. With respect to policy, thestudy recommends a successful mineral-led economy that is able todiversify into sectors and activities that are by nature relatively morelabour-intensive

National Speeches on Notable Political Figures

This study highlighted the value and appropriateness of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) in the examination of national speeches of political leaders for policy pronouncements. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interplay among power, ideology, and language and the mechanisms deployed in the national discourses of some notable political leaders to capture reality, manipulate, persuade and shape the audience (citizenry) to action. This study underscored the capability of Critical discourse analysis (CDA) to investigate the manner by which social power abuse, dominance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and resisted by text and talk in the social and political contexts. The study revealed attempts at ideology legitimization and power dominance through the use of cognitive discourses. We are taken through the empowerment ability of discourse in diverse socio-political contexts and how power relies on discourse for multidisciplinary actions that convince the citizenry to acknowledge, sustain and advocate their leaders’ ideologies. The study adopted a conceptual framework and relied on secondary and tertiary sources. The study also made recommendations to scholars on how to adopt discourse-related methodologies to enhance knowledge creation in political addresses. Lastly, the study acknowledged the limitations of the CDA approach

Investigating ESL Learners’ Socioeconomic Environment on Their Writing Competence in Lagos, Nigeria: Implications for Pedagogy

This study investigated the influence of Junior Secondary School (JSS) students’ socioeconomic environment on their competence in writing in English. Ten schools from randomly selected private and public schools in Lagos State, Nigeria were used. A total of 300 randomly selected students constituted the sample. Data were collected through structured questionnaire and adapted essay writing tests. Students’ tests were marked by considering content, organisation, expression, and mechanical accuracy (COEMA) as criteria and scored on 10 points: thus, 6-10 points was regarded as competent; while 1-5 points = incompetent. Information on students’ socioeconomic environment was collected through the questionnaire. Results revealed 66% of the respondents demonstrated writing incompetence and 34% demonstrated writing competence. Of the 66% of incompetence, 45% was from the public schools while 21% was from the private schools. Of all the socioeconomic factors examined, language of communication at home was established as a determining factor. All stake holders, especially, teachers must focus on grammar for the improvement of students’ writing skill.Key words: Socioeconomic environment; English Writing Competence; Private school; Public schoo

Discourse Framing of Nigeria’s Developmental Issues and Government’s Interventionist Policies in Selected Televised National Addresses of President Muhammadu Buhari (2015 -2021)

Public addresses constitute potent platforms through which public figures review their policies and articulate their plans. They provide insights to the priorities of the government, elicit public sympathy and support for the government. Contrarily, there has been a seeming dissonance between the national addresses of President Muhammadu Buhari and the reality of the Nigerian citizenry. To this effect, this research purposed to conduct a critical discourse analysis of President Buhari’s national addresses against the backdrop of development in Nigeria between 2015 and 2021. The research explicated the interplay between the concepts of language and ideology in text, for the enactment of human development. The general population of this research comprised all the 27 televised speeches delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari in Nigeria from 2015-2021. The targeted population of 20 national addresses were adopted using a purposive sampling technique. The addresses are the Inaugural Day address of 2015, all New Year’s Day addresses, Democracy Day addresses and all Independence Day addresses. Coding sheet was used to gather data directly from the original full text discourses of the President, as presented to the citizenry. The research findings show that the President’s discourses framed national development issues as direct and key responsibilities of the government which require strategic, sincere and effective interventionist policies. They also revealed nine recurrent themes in the President’s discourses to depict the President’s intense focus on national development in tandem with his pre-election campaign slogan of Security, Economy and Anti-corruption (SEA). The research uncovered linguistic frames comprising pragmatic speech acts of locution, illocution and perlocution in the President’s discourses, to highly and frequently reiterate his ideologies in ensuring national growth and development. The findings also revealed that the President’s discourses framed and propagated ideologies, dissimilar to his military antecedents, for the advancement of his national development interventionist policies. The research concluded that the interplay among President Muhammadu Buhari’s ideology and human development policies in the text of his national addresses between 2015 and 2021, consciously construed his administration’s interventionist policies for the enactment of socio political development against the excruciating challenges in the Nigerian nation. Thus, this research recommended that political leaders should ensure that subsisting problems and those envisaged as the foundation of social order in their societies; the value systems appropriate for social justice, wealth creation and distribution, social efficiency with moral sensitivity and concern for the common good, as deduced from the knowledge of shared values with their citizenry, are pragmatically tackled not only in the discourses, but as well experientially. This research also recommended that politicians and their speech writers should effectively and positively adopt the use of discourse framing to promote societal progressive growth

TempoCave: Visualizing Dynamic Connectome Datasets to Support Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

We introduce TempoCave, a novel visualization application for analyzing dynamic brain networks, or connectomes. TempoCave provides a range of functionality to explore metrics related to the activity patterns and modular affiliations of different regions in the brain. These patterns are calculated by processing raw data retrieved functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, which creates a network of weighted edges between each brain region, where the weight indicates how likely these regions are to activate synchronously. In particular, we support the analysis needs of clinical psychologists, who examine these modular affiliations and weighted edges and their temporal dynamics, utilizing them to understand relationships between neurological disorders and brain activity, which could have a significant impact on the way in which patients are diagnosed and treated. We summarize the core functionality of TempoCave, which supports a range of comparative tasks, and runs both in a desktop mode and in an immersive mode. Furthermore, we present a real-world use case that analyzes pre- and post-treatment connectome datasets from 27 subjects in a clinical study investigating the use of cognitive behavior therapy to treat major depression disorder, indicating that TempoCave can provide new insight into the dynamic behavior of the human brain

Effect of Pyrus communis (Common Pear) Seeds on Selected Parameters of Liver Function in Rats Treated with Cadmium

The study investigated possible hepatoprotective potentials of Pyrus communis (PC) seeds in rats treated with cadmium. Twenty Wistar rats weighing 150 g - 180 g were divided into 4 groups (A, B, C and D) of 5 rats each. Group A received distilled water only. 5mg/kg bwt cadmium was given to group B orally while group C were pre-administered with 500mg/kg bwt PC extract orally. Group D received 500mg/kg bwt PC. After two weeks of treatment, serum and liver homogenate were evaluated for haptoglobin, (Hp) total protein (TP), albumin, alanine transaminase, (ALT) and aspartate transaminase, (AST). The results showed significant (p<0.05) reduction in liver and serum Hp concentrations in rats treated with cadmium. There was also significant (p<0.05) decrease in liver TP, ALT and AST levels and significant (p<0.05) increase in serum TP, ALT and AST levels in rats treated with cadmium. However, treatment with PC restored Hp, TP, ALT and AST levels back to near normal. We concluded that 5mg/kg bwt cadmium caused liver damage and depressed Hp synthesis, and PC protected the liver