The Roles of Library and Librarian in Information Resource Sharing in the Emerging Information Society

This study is an attempt to look at the roles which library and librarian stand to play in the emerging information society where information resource sharing is requires to ensure there is wider access to information resources on the platform of ICT. The study was conducted in three selected academic libraries in Kogi State to ascertain their readiness to engage in effective information resources sharing. The study observed selected three libraries have state of the art ICT facilities required for information resource. The study made some recommendations that can improve upon the success achieved in the deployment of ICT for information resources sharing. Key words: ICT, ICT Information Resources, Information Resource Sharin

Comparative Study of Job Stress among Teaching Staff of Library and Information Science in Higher Institutions in Nigeria.

The research is on comparative study of job stress among teaching staff of library and information science in higher institutions in Nigeria. Concept of job stress has been of great debate among employers in different organizations and higher institutions since the last decades. Causal-comparative research design was adopted in the study and population comprised of lecturers in library and information science department in four higher institutions in Nigeria. From the research hypotheses and questionnaires used as research instrument showed that there is significant difference between level of job stress in Federal, State and Private Higher Institutions in Nigeria. Percentage count table and Chi- square statistics was used to analyzed the questionnaire and hypotheses. The findings showed that there is a very high job stress in the four institutions under stud. It was also found out that job stress has lots of negative effects on health and family of academic staff. It also found out that the  cause  of job stress among teachers in higher institutions include: too much courses allocation , fear of being laid off , overtime working hours , too much administrative duties(100%), too many number of students to supervise for  projects or thesis works and  frequent meetings(66.67%) as well as lack of information to work with. Therefore, the researchers made recommendations to the aforementioned negative effects and causes of excessive job stress among academic staff in higher institutions in Nigeria. Keywords: Job stress, workplace, education, higher institutions and library school staf

A Comparative Study in the Level of Environmental Attitude of Students Regarding their Parental Educational Level and Occupation

Environmental attitude is the mental disposition of an individual regarding the environment. It is the attitude of individual towards the environment that guarantees his well-being of that environment. This attitude can be discriminated against the individuals and society via the school system. The present study was conducted to assess the attitude of secondary school students towards the environment. It also studied the differences in the level of the environmental attitude of students based on parental educational level and parental occupation. Moreover, it aimed to find whether age and parental educational level can predict environmental attitude of students. The survey was conducted on 600 respondents from secondary school students who were in Form Four in Terengganu, Malaysia. Simple random sampling was the technique applied in the selection of respondents. Environmental Attitude Questionnaire consisting of 10 items adapted from Hassan Taj Environmental Attitude Scale was employed for the present study. The collected data was analyzed using SPSS version 20. Descriptive and inferential (independents-sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Multiple Linear Regressions) statistics were applied to analyze the collected data. The results revealed that the secondary school students have a moderate positive attitude towards the environment. No significant differences were found in the level of the environmental attitude of students based on their parental educational level and parental occupation. The results of regression analyses revealed that the environmental attitude level of students is not associated with their age and their parental educational level

Molecular Detection, Identification and Differentiation of Burkholderia pseudomallei

Burkholderia pseudomallei are Gram negative highly pathogenic bacteria of humans and animals causing a multisystemic disease called melioidosis. They have recently gained a lot of interest from the research community and public health organisations because of their great potential to be used as an agent of bioterrorism. This has made the search for simple, rapid, accurate and the most definitive means of their detection, identification and discrimination very critical and necessary. This article aimed to review the molecular techniques used for detection, identification and differentiation of B. pseudomallei. Although, culture and isolation techniques maintained their usefulness in confirming cases of melioidosis, their time limitation (can take up to a week for confirming diagnosis) leads to the search for rapid and simple techniques. Consequently, serology-based tests have been developed which are both faster and less sophisticated. However, the presence of high background titre levels and cross-reaction with other organisms make it less reliable. Thus, efforts have been directed to explore rapid and accurate molecular techniques and resulting in the development and validation of various PCR-based identification techniques targeting either single or multiple genes. Although requiring some level of instrumentation and expertise, PCR-based techniques have been reported to be very useful in diagnosis of melioidosis. We recommend the 16S rRNA PCR (especially augmented with other molecular methods such as gene sequencing and analysis) and MLST techniques for timely detection, identification and differentiation of B. pseudomallei for routine diagnosis and epidemiological studies respectively

Energy consumption and manufacturing performance in sub-Saharan Africa: does income group matters?

This paper investigates the link connecting energy consumption with manufacturing performance using panel data for sampled low-income Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and middle-income SSA during the period 1995-2013. The panel cointegration test provides evidence of cointegration among the variables for both the low-income and the middle-income group in SSA. The result of the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square indicates that in the long run, increase in energy consumption leads to increase in manufacturing performance for both the sampled low-income and middle-income SSA countries. This implied that both the low-income and middle-income SSA countries are energy dependent countries. In this regard, this study shows that energy is a relevant factor in socio-economic development for both the low-income and the middle-income SSA countries. Thus, policies on energy that will ensure lower negative impact on manufacturing performance are recommended

Energy Consumption and Manufacturing Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa: Does Income Group Matters?

This paper investigates the link connecting energy consumption with manufacturing performance using panel data for sampled low-income Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and middle-income SSA during the period 1995-2013. The panel cointegration test provides evidence of cointegration among the variables for both the low-income and the middle-income group in SSA. The result of the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Square indicates that in the long run, increase in energy consumption leads to increase in manufacturing performance for both the sampled low-income and middle-income SSA countries. This implied that both the low-income and middle-income SSA countries are energy dependent countries. In this regard, this study shows that energy is a relevant factor in socio-economic development for both the low-income and the middle-income SSA countries. Thus, policies on energy that will ensure lower negative impact on manufacturing performance are recommended. Keywords: Energy Consumption, Manufacturing Performance, Sub-Sahara Africa. JEL Classifications: Q430, Q47

HausaNLP at SemEval-2023 Task 12: Leveraging African Low Resource TweetData for Sentiment Analysis

We present the findings of SemEval-2023 Task 12, a shared task on sentiment analysis for low-resource African languages using Twitter dataset. The task featured three subtasks; subtask A is monolingual sentiment classification with 12 tracks which are all monolingual languages, subtask B is multilingual sentiment classification using the tracks in subtask A and subtask C is a zero-shot sentiment classification. We present the results and findings of subtask A, subtask B and subtask C. We also release the code on github. Our goal is to leverage low-resource tweet data using pre-trained Afro-xlmr-large, AfriBERTa-Large, Bert-base-arabic-camelbert-da-sentiment (Arabic-camelbert), Multilingual-BERT (mBERT) and BERT models for sentiment analysis of 14 African languages. The datasets for these subtasks consists of a gold standard multi-class labeled Twitter datasets from these languages. Our results demonstrate that Afro-xlmr-large model performed better compared to the other models in most of the languages datasets. Similarly, Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba achieved better performance compared to other languages and this can be attributed to the higher volume of data present in the languages

mHealth for Self-Management in Pregnancy: Perceptions of Women in Low-Resource Settings

Mobile health (mHealth) has shown to be effective for self-management. While most studies point to mHealth as a tool to support healthcare in low-resource settings, it is not clear how women in low-resource settings perceive mHealth for self-management during pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of women in low-resource settings on the use of mHealth for self-management during pregnancy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten women in low-resource settings who owned mobile phones, understood English and were above eighteen years of age. The interviews were analysed and several themes emerged after analysing the findings from interviews: awareness of mHealth for self-management, perceived benefits, barriers to adoption, improving adoption and the preferred approach for mHealth in low-resource settings. The findings of this study extended existing knowledge on the perception, design considerations, challenges and methods for improving adoption in terms of using mHealth technologies for self-management during pregnancy. The findings of this study provide researchers, mHealth app designers and developers, healthcare providers and practitioners with information on how to improve the design of mHealth solutions and interventions for women in low-resource settings to support self-management during pregnancy

Insilico analysis of binding interactions and evaluation of mode of action of hydroxy tyrosol on candida albicans I, ii and parapsilosis

This work was aimed at purifying the most potent antibiofilm principle from Acalypha wilkesiana leaves against Candida species, analyzing its binding interactions with the molecular targets and evaluating its mode of action. Bioassay guided fractionation was carried and purification of the most potent fraction was achieved by Preparative -TLC. Proton NMR -spectroscopy was used to elucidate the structure of the most potent fraction which was hydroxy tyrosol (HT). There was significant (p < 0.05) increase in the IC50 of HT and caspafungin in the presence of sorbitol. In the presence of ergosterol, there was no significant (p > 0.05) increase in the IC50 of HT but there was significant (p < 0.05) increase in the IC50 of voriconazole. Insilico molecular studies revealed a good docking score (-7.7 and 4 hydogen bonds) with glucan synthase and (7.0 and 1 hydrogen bond) with lanosterole-14α- demethylase. The mode of action of HT is most likely by inhibiting the activities of β-1,3-D glucan synthase. The Significant increase in IC50 of HT in the presence of sorbitol showed that its inhibition leads to depletion of cell wall glucan and subsequent lysis of fungal cells

Perception and acceptability of bilateral tubal ligation among women attending antenatal clinic at Usmanu Danfodiyo university teaching hospital Sokoto

Background: Contraception can be defined as all temporary or permanent measures designed to prevent pregnancy. Bilateral tubal ligation is a surgical and permanent form of contraception offered to women who completed their family size or for limitation of family size due to medical condition. The practices of bilateral tubal ligation is limited in Sub-Saharan African countries, Nigeria inclusive because of great desire for a large family size, cultural and religious factors, misunderstanding and fear of the procedure. The aim of the study was to determine the perception and acceptability of bilateral tubal ligation as a form of contraception among women attending Antenatal clinic at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital Sokoto.Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted among women attending antenatal clinic between 1st of May to 31st of July, 2018. The information was obtained using a structured questionnaire to obtain the respondent’s socio-demographic characteristics, questions on perception and acceptability of bilateral tubal ligation. Data analysis was done with statistical package for social sciences version 22 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, IL, USA).Results: The study revealed that 73% of the respondents were aware of bilateral tubal ligation, but only 44% of them have good perception towards it. Majority of the respondents (63.8%) reject BTL for contraception. Most of their reasons were cultural believe (33.3%), regret (31.6%), religious believe (26.6%) and fear of surgery (8.5%).Conclusions: There was poor perception and low acceptability toward bilateral tubal ligation among the study population, mostly due to cultural and religious believes, as well as fear of regret, despite awareness of BTL among majority of the respondents