Assessment of heavy metals in urban highway runoff from Ikorodu expressway Lagos, Nigeria

The distribution of heavy metals in the urban high way run off from Ikorodu expressway of Lagos was studied between March to May, 2004.The heavy metals studied include Pb, Cu, Cr, Zn and Cd. The levels of these selected heavy metals were determined using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (Mscientific 200 Model). Trends in the heavy metal from the runoff showed significant variations between the months were values recorded in the month of April showed high values. Statistical analyses showed different mean levels of these heavy metals assessed at the five collecting points. The distribution shows Zn > Pb > Cu > Cr > Cd. Zn recorded the highest concentration levels between (53.4 ± 35.5 - 107.5 ± 80.4 μg/l), while Cd levels (ND - 6.00 μg/L) were the lowest. However, the results obtained falls within the permissible limits of FMENV effluents limits, FHWA and WHO standards of water for domestic use

Writing with our limbs: bodies and tongues

Performing Arts Dance, Music and Poetry are expressions of human feelings; methods for communicating and telling stories of myths, legends, genealogies and histories that are the collective memories and conscience of Pacific Culture. Despite vast research that supports the significance of the Performing Arts; dance, music and poetry, in education and human development among other things, little institutional level, is evident in the Pacific island countries. The overall images that emerge from literature are seen to be the kinds of activities strictly relegated to the realm of culture (with the exception of film), entertainment (for tourism, for example) or the privileged west and those with access to it. This panel presentation will show how Performing Arts – Dance, Music & Poetry today not only reflect people’s history and culture, but also explore society. They provide opportunity for critical examination of complex islander identities, modernity and development in the struggles against 1: tensions; 2: misinterpretations; and 3: globalization and climate change. First, tensions will highlight the notions of cultural and spiritual silence concerning taboos surrounding sex education and the effect that has on the spread of the HIV virus that is threatening entire Pacific cultures. Second, the fa’afafine journey has been recorded extensively in numerous ways by anthropologists, religious practitioners, psychologists, and film-makers with few attempts to appreciate how fa’afafine themselves understand their lives and identities hence, misinterpretations and misconstrued information about sexuality and fa’afafine phenomenology has been the norm in western constructs. Third, Globalization and climate change have had devastating impacts on Pacific island nations

The Properties of Soil Under the Canopy of the Locust Bean Tree (Parkia biglobosa), in Relation to Tree Biomass, in Farmland in Oyo Area, South Western Nigeria

The African locust bean (Parkia biglobosa) is a multi-purpose tree that is commonly retained on small-holder farms in the savanna region of West Africa. Studies that examined the effects of the tree on soils underneath its crown did not examine the biomass parameters of the tree while those that studied the biomass parameters of the tree species did not consider the soil. This study examines the properties of soil under the locust bean tree canopy in farmland in the derived savanna of Oyo area, south-western Nigeria. It also quantitatively characterized the girth, height and crown diameter of locust bean trees in the peasant farms and correlated them with the properties of soils underneath the trees. The soil was sampled at two depths of 0- 10 and 10- 20 cm under and outside Parkia canopies. The t-test was used to compare the means of soil properties under and outside Parkia canopy in order to ascertain whether statistically significant differences exist between them. Organic matter was slightly higher (18- 19%) under Parkia canopy. Exchangeable magnesium, calcium and cation exchange capacity were significantly higher in soil under the tree canopy. This is due to the slightly higher organic matter, reduced leaching under the tree canopy as a result of rainfall interception, the trapping of dust and aerosols by tree crowns and the greater concentration of earthworm casts under Parkia canopy. The properties of the 0- 10 cm layer were more strongly correlated with Parkia biomass parameters than those of the 10- 20 cm layer. Tree height was strongly and positively correlated with soil clay (0.70), organic matter (0.73), total nitrogen (0.69) but negatively correlated with sand content (-0.80) of the 0-10 cm layer. The growth of Parkia trees and seedlings will be enhanced in the more clayey sites but would be retarded in areas with predominantly sandy soils and this should be taken into consideration in afforestation, community forestry and shelterbelt projects involving the establishment of Parkia trees. Keywords: Parkia biglobosa, tree canopy, tree biomass, soil physical properties, soil chemical properties, soil-plant correlatio

Modelling inspection and replacement quality for a protection system

An inspection and replacement policy for a protection system is described by a mathematical model that incorporates multiple aspects of maintenance quality. A three-state component failure model is assumed, with a defective state preceding failure. The quality of maintenance intervention is modelled by supposing that inspections may misclassify defects (false positives and false negatives) and further that an inspection may induce a defect. The quality of replacement is modelled by supposing that a component arises from a heterogeneous population, composed of weak and strong items and with the mixing parameter determining quality. Isolation valves used in water distribution systems motivate the model development, and a case study is considered in this context. We evaluate the impact of these aspects of the quality of maintenance upon cost and production losses. Defect induction is found to be a key determinant of the cost-optimal policy. The proposed model allows us to verify conditions that justify investment in higher quality maintenance, and thus to provide guidance for prioritization of this investment

Assessment of Levee Erosion using Image Processing and Contextual Cueing

Soil erosion is one of the most severe land degradation problems afflicting many parts of the world where topography of the land is relatively steep. Due to inaccessibility to steep terrain, such as slopes in levees and forested mountains, advanced data processing techniques can be used to identify and assess high risk erosion zones. Unlike existing methods that require human observations, which can be expensive and error-prone, the proposed approach uses a fully automated algorithm to indicate when an area is at risk of erosion; this is accomplished by processing Landsat and aerial images taken using drones. In this paper the image processing algorithm is presented, which can be used to identify the scene of an image by classifying it in one of six categories: levee, mountain, forest, degraded forest, cropland, grassland or orchard. This paper focuses on automatic scene detection using global features with local representations to show the gradient structure of an image. The output of this work counts as a contextual cueing and can be used in erosion assessment, which can be used to predict erosion risks in levees. We also discuss the environmental implications of deferred erosion control in levees

Changes in Precipitation Seasonality in West Africa Predicted by RegCM3 and the Impact of Dynamic Vegetation Feedback

Using a regional climate model asynchronously coupled to a dynamic vegetation model, this study examines future climate predictions for the West Africa region and how dynamic vegetation feedback may influence such predictions. Without accounting for the impact of vegetation dynamics, the model predicts a future decrease of annual rainfall over Sahel. Dynamic vegetation feedback reverses this trend, leading to a substantial increase of annual rainfall. Regardless of how vegetation is treated, the predicted future trend of precipitation in the Sahel region follows a specific seasonal pattern, with a decrease during the pre- and early-monsoon season (May-June and early July) due to the warming-induced enhancement of spring convective barrier and an increase after the monsoon is fully established (typically in July-August-September) due to enhanced moisture import from a warmer ocean. Dynamic vegetation feedback reduces the magnitude of the predicted rainfall reduction in the early season and increases the magnitude of the predicted rainfall increase later in the rainy season. The future decrease of early-season rainfall has significant agronomic implications

Comparative Analysis of Pre and Post-migration Livelihood Outcomes of Households with Absentee Heads in Osun State, Nigeria

Migration is often linked with a deleterious impact on rural area production and development. Although, the change of location for better opportunities also affect the lives and livelihoods of the migrant households’ in the rural communities. The study was a comparative analysis of the pre and post-migration living outcomes of absentee households’ heads in Osun State, Nigeria. A multistage sampling procedure involving the simple random sampling was used to select 120 absentee household heads. Data collected with interview schedule was subjected to descriptive statistics, t-test and correlation analyses. Findings showed that more men (76.7%) migrated, leaving women to become the interim household heads. It was found that migrants have a higher average monthly income level (₦44,400). Prior to migration, most families were in the lower financial well-being category (83.3%), while only 55% remained in that category after migration. This follows the result of the t-test which revealed that a significant difference (t=0.00; p<0.05) exists between the well-being of migrant’s household before and after migration. Thus, it was concluded that unless the rural push factors are removed, rural-urban migration will continue at an increasing rate because benefits and opportunities acquired in the process influence the well-being of the rural households. The study recommends that enabling environment, facilities and opportunities should be created in the rural communities to transform livelihoods and improve the wellbeing of the people via interventions by national and international agencies

Device-transparent personal storage

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-87).Users increasingly store data collections such as digital photographs on multiple personal devices, each of which typically presents the user with a storage management interface isolated from the contents of all other devices. The result is that collections easily become disorganized and drift out of sync. This thesis presents Eyo, a novel personal storage system that provides device transparency: a user can think in terms of "file X", rather than "file X on device Y", and will see the same set of files on all personal devices. Eyo allows a user to view and manage the entire collection of objects from any of their devices, even from disconnected devices and devices with too little storage to hold all the object content. Eyo separates metadata (application-specific attributes of objects) from the content of objects, allowing even storage-limited devices to store all metadata and thus provide device transparency. Fully replicated metadata allows any set of Eyo devices to efficiently synchronize updates. Applications can specify flexible placement rules to guide Eyo's partial replication of object contents across devices. Eyo's application interface provides first-class access to object version history. If multiple disconnected devices update an object concurrently, Eyo preserves each resulting divergent version of that object. Applications can then examine the history and either coalesce the conflicting versions without user direction, or incorporate these versions naturally into their existing user interfaces. Experiments using Eyo for storage in several example applications-media players, a photo editor, podcast manager, and an email interface-show that device transparency can be had with minor application changes, and within the storage and bandwidth capabilities of typical portable devices.by Jacob Alo Strauss.Ph.D

The prevalence of domestic violence among pregnant women in Nigeria: a systematic review.

To identify, appraise, and synthesize research evidence on the prevalence of domestic violence (DV) among pregnant women in Nigeria. We conducted a systematic review of all published studies between April 2004 and June 2016. Comprehensive searches were conducted on electronic databases such as PubMed, CINAHL, Global Health, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Directory of Open Access Journals, Google Scholar, and electronic libraries of the authors' institution. Identified articles were screened in two stages against the inclusion criteria with titles and abstract screened first followed by full-text screening. Selected articles were assessed using the "guidelines for evaluating prevalence studies," and findings were synthesized narratively. Among 19 studies that met the inclusion criteria, two articles were excluded due to low methodological quality and 17 articles were included in the review. The prevalence of DV during pregnancy in Nigeria ranged between 2.3% and 44.6% with lifetime prevalence rates ranging between 33.1% and 63.2%. Physical, sexual, psychological, and verbal abuses were the most frequent types of DV reported in this review. The most common perpetrators were husbands, as reported in 11 of the 17 studies. Pregnant women between the ages of 20 and 30 years were the most common victims of DV. Our review suggests high prevalence of DV in pregnancy among women in Nigeria and higher lifetime prevalence. However, determining an overall, synthesized accurate prevalence rate of DV within this population based on existing evidence presents a challenge. The findings have important implications for stakeholders such as planners, policy makers, maternity care providers, and researchers in public health and social policy at national, regional, and international levels toward combating the issue. OBJECTIVE METHOD RESULTS CONCLUSIO