AN ASSESSMENT OF NIGERIA’S PREPAREDNESS TO ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTERS FROM ITS COMMITMENT TO INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL TREATIES

Environmental disasters are events that do not give notice to it's occurrence but are tackled through careful planning and execution of contingency measures. The flood disaster of 2012 in Nigeria have revealed several challenges regarding the nations disaster preparedness, the need to strengthen Nigeria's Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) mechanism is therefore particularly timely. This paper was an attempt to review the Nigeria's disaster preparedness through assessment of the country's commitment to the international instruments of environmental management as contained in several treaties and agreements. The review has indicated a general trend of accepting such instrument through the country's ratification of them, but with little efforts at it's domestications and setting of the necessary structures for its implementation. The research found out that this administrative setback is hampering Nigeria from being fully prepared for eventualities of extreme environmental events; especially as occasioned by climate change. Many recommendations were made for institutional, policy and attitudinal adjustments to forestall calamities and quantum destructions resulting from environmental disasters

Wind reduction patterns around isolated biomass for wind erosion control in a desertified area of Central Sudan

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of sparse vegetation, feature common in arid zone, to reduce wind force (velocity) and hence protect the surface and regions downwind from drifting sand and their consequences. Respectively 4 (with heights h of 4, 3.2, 2 and 1.66 m), 2 (with h of 3 and 2.5 m) and 3 (with h of 1.04, 0.9 and 0.8 m ) well established single biomass configurations of Leptadenia pyrotechnica trees, Prosopis juliflora trees and Panicum turgidum grass, were selected in the field. Solar powered cup anemometer wind measurements with a data logger system were taken at heights of 0.25 and 0.5 h, at distances 0.5 and 1 h, at four sides of the tree in the prevailing wind direction and perpendicular to it, and additionally at 2, 4 and 6 h windward and leeward. The protection effectiveness of the biomass was calculated as a wind reduction ratio and in terms of objects protection, which was evaluated using the dimensionless protection index (É). The study showed that windward protection provided by Leptadenia and Prosopis at level 0.25h and distance 0.5 h was similar, w ith a wind reduction ratio R0.8, while Panicum showed comparably higher R-values. Even at the 0.5 h level, Panicum showed an R of 0.65 at 0.5 h distance. Leew ard, at 0.25 h level differences were small, R increasing from 0.6/0.7 to 0.8/1 with distance, Leptadenia protecting best. At higher level (0.5 h) at distances 0.5 and 1 h Prosopis gave better protection than the other two at distances 0.5, 1 and 2 h. The research is an exam ple of simple experimental work under difficult environmental conditions in Africa. It was part of studies in which additional attention was paid to quantification aspects under such conditions as well as to the problems it helped solve in the African societies concerned as agrometeorological service

Urban Vegetation Study of Kaduna Metropolis using GIS and Remotely sensed Data

Kaduna metropolis is an example a careful urban planning by the colonialists in 1920’s which gradually deteriorated in quality due to poor development control and city management. This study on urban vegetation using Remote Sensing and GIS technique was a follow up on Al-Amin 2005 which used quadrant urban vegetation was studied by the quadrant method. The use of GIS technique has revealed several minute details that were not exposed by the quadrant study of 2005. The analysis shows that only 1.267km2 out of the total study area segmentation of 11.832km2 are covered with a regular pattern vegetation distribution. This only constituted about 10.72% vegetation area while 89.28% Lack vegetation. The study also shows that part of the study area that are without vegetation was (89.28%) equivalent to 10.56km2 is densely populated with high commercial activities and high traffic, while the area classified with vegetation cover (10.72%), equivalent to only 1.267km2 has scarcity population with very low commercial activities and low traffic. This situation is attributed to people’s adaptation to a city without vegetation and seems to lack or ignore its consequences. Keywords: Vegetation, Kaduna, GIS, Segmentation, classification, Satellit

Assessment of Natural Radionuclides in Powdered Milk Consumed in Iraq

The activity concentrations of 226Ra232Th, and 40K radionuclides were measured for 10 brands of powdered milk samples consumed in Iraq,which are imported from different countries.The main detected activity corresponding to 40K with average activity of 290.661 BqKg-1, while the average activities of 226Ra and232Th were below the detection level (B.D.L.).Results are compared with those of different countries worldwide.The total average annual effective doses due to intake of 40Kfrom the ingestion of the powdered milk for children (2-7, 7-12, 12-17)y and adults (≥ 17y) were estimated to be82.21, 50.90, 29.75 and 22.55 µSvy-1, respectively. These results indicate no significant radiation dose to the public. The resulting data may serve as base-line levels of activity concentration in powdered milk in the area of study. Keywords: Natural Radioactivity, Milk, Ingestion dose, Hazard quotient

Development of a double-pole double-throw radio frequency micro electro-mechanical systems switch using an ‘S’ shaped pivot

This paper investigates the design of a novel pivot for a seesaw, RF MEMS, double-pole double-throw (DPDT) switch, which has been developed to operate within mobile communication systems and devices. The pivot employs a unique ‘S’ structure at the nano scale, in the form of a, which helps to keep von-Mises stresses below 21 MPa. The pivot requires less pulling force than similar designs due to its flexibility which allows the beam and contacts a greater space of separation while the switch is off. This in turn results in improved contact isolation of greater than −77 dB at 5 GHz. The RF MEMS switch is an improvement over the previously published paper (Al-Amin et al. in International symposium on microelectronics, vol 2013, no 1, pp 000831–000835, 2013. doi:10.1109/ECS.2014.6892558), since the pulling force of the electrostatic plates can be generated with a voltage which is greatly reduced from 14 to 8 V using the same electrostatic plate area size. The switch is a progression from SPST and DPDT seesaw switching since it provides improved flexibility over the previously described devices. With the redesign of the pivot the switch attains a greater ‘air-gap’ between the contacts when open-circuited which therefore allows for improved isolation during the off-state

Analyzing Socio-Academic Factors and Predictive Modeling of Student Performance Using Machine Learning Techniques

Understanding the factors that influence student performance is crucial for improving educational outcomes. Thus, this study aims to examine the impact of socio-economic and psychological factors on student performance, less is known about how students' personal attitudes and behaviors across different departments and activities correlate with their academic success. This study employs exploratory data analysis (EDA) to identify trends and relationships within the dataset. Machine learning techniques, such as K-means clustering and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks, are utilized to model and predict student performance based on their reported behaviors and preferences. The dataset is reduced using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to enhance the clustering process. The findings suggest significant variations in academic performance based on departmental affiliation, gender, and engagement in certification courses. The LSTM model achieved an accuracy of 91% on the test set, demonstrating substantial predictive capability. However, the classification report reveals that while the model was highly effective in identifying the majority class (label 1), achieving a precision of 91% and a recall of 100%, it failed to correctly predict any instances of the minority class (label 0). The insights from this study could help educators tailor interventions to address the specific needs of students based on their behaviors and departmental affiliations, leading to more personalized education strategies and potentially improving academic outcomes. Doi: 10.28991/ESJ-2024-08-04-05 Full Text: PD

THE EFFECT OF HIGH TEMPERATURE ON SERUM ELECTROLYTES AND TRACE ELEMENTS FOR EMPLOYEES OF FURNACE IN RAMADI GLASS FACTORY

This study includes determination of the effect of high temperature on the serum electrolytes and trace elements in thirty workers of furnace in Ramadi glass factory (Anbar – Iraq). Thirty technicians and administrators for interior control and thirty volunteers as external control. From the results of this study we observed that: K and P decreased significantly (P< 0.01), Mg remained within the normal value,Fe increased significantly (p<0.01) and Cu decreased significantly (P < 0.01) , Zn/Cu ratio increased significantly (P < 0.01) . In conclusion, this study indicates that: the exposure to high temperature causes changes in the compositions of some constituents of blood

Evaluation of Radiation Dose to the Thyroid Gland on Infant Patients Undergoing Anteroposterior Chest X-Ray at a Tertiary Hospital in North-Western Nigeria

The study aims at measuring the entrance surface dose (ESD) of the thyroid gland of infant patients undergoing anterior-posterior (AP) chest x-ray in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital Sokoto (UDUTHS). The study further determines the effective dose to the thyroid on infant patients undergoing AP chest x-ray. Also, compare the entrance surface dose of infant patients obtained from the study with other similar studies and diagnostic reference levels (DRLs) recommended by the International Commission on Radiological Protection ICRP. This is a prospective cross-sectional study and the primary source of data was obtained. Pediatric patients used for the study who are referred to the radiology department for an anteroposterior chest x-ray, UDUTH, Sokoto state, Nigeria. A non-probability sampling technique was adopted for the patient who came in for a chest x-ray (AP) and as recommended by ICRP that a minimum of 10 patients should be used to determine the ESD for each projection, therefore 15 patients were adopted for this study. The result of the ESD obtained for the thyroid on infant patients undergoing chest x-ray (AP) was averaged and the mean of the ESD was 1.38 mGy. This result was compared to similar studies done within the country and outside the country and with the European Commission on radiological protection as seen in Table 6 and Figure 3. The ESD obtained in this study is much higher than those obtained in similar studies as well as the recommended Diagnostic Reference Levels (DRLs). The method adopted in the study was recommended by the international commission on radiological protection, as a result of this, comparisons were reliably made with the reference values and similar studies. The result has shown that entrance surface doses and radiation doses to the thyroid exceed the permissible value in Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital (UDUTH) Sokoto

Use of radiographic and histologic scores to evaluate cats with idiopathic megacolon grouped based on the duration of their clinical signs

Since the duration of clinical signs could be used to identify cases of chronic constipation, in addition, prolonged duration is often associated with irreversible changes. Thus, the main objective of this study was to determine whether the duration of clinical signs of idiopathic megacolon in cats affected their diagnosis and prognosis after treatment. Medical records of cats that either had confirmed megacolon for an unknown cause (cat patients) or with normal bowels (control cats) were reviewed. Cat patients were grouped based on the duration of their clinical signs (constipation/obstipation) to cats &lt;6 months and ≥6 months. For all feline patients, abdominal radiographs (for colonic indexes) and resected colon specimens (for histology) were assessed vs. control cats. Treatment applied to cat patients was also evaluated. Cat patients were older (p = 0.0138) and had a higher maximum colon diameter (MCD; mean 41.25 vs. 21.67 mm, p &lt; 0.0001) and MCD/L5L ratio (1.77 vs. 0.98, p &lt; 0.0001) than controls. Compared to cats with &lt;6 months, cats ≥6 months showed a higher MCD (43.78 vs. 37.12 mm, p &lt; 0.0001) and MCD/L5L ratio (1.98 vs. 1.67, p &lt; 0.0001). Histologically, increased thickness of the smooth muscularis mucosa (54.1 vs. 22.33 μm, p &lt; 0.05), and inner circular (743.65 vs. 482.67 μm, p &lt; 0.05) and outer longitudinal (570.68 vs. 330.33 μm, p &lt; 0.05) smooth muscular layers of the muscularis externa was noted only in cat patients with ≥6 months compared to controls. Similarly, fewer ganglion cells (0.93 vs. 2.87, p &lt; 0.005) and more necrotized myocytes (2.25 vs. 0.07, p &lt; 0.005) were observed in cats with ≥6 months. In contrast to &lt;6 months, the majority of cats (94.4%) with ≥6 months duration did not show any response to medical treatment and therefore underwent surgery with favorable results. In conclusion, this study suggests that the duration of clinical signs should be considered in conjunction with maximal colon scores to evaluate cats for idiopathic megacolon and determine the level of treatment. Functional abnormalities of the colonic smooth muscles may be a possible cause of idiopathic megacolon in cats