The Challenges of Human Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Way Forward

The increased interaction of societies on a global dimension evidently provides for the overall need for human security especially in the African continent where the number of conflicts is still overwhelming. This paper examined the challenges of human security in Sub-Saharan Africa with a view to suggesting the way forward. Anchored on a qualitative method and with reliance on secondary sources of data, it argued that there is need to better understand the nature of the rapidly evolving large-scale challenges that can have a major impact on individuals and populations. The paper further observed that it is imperative to strengthen the mobilization of wide range of actors involved in policy formulation that affects the unfolding dangers of human security in order to curtail them. It recommended the promotion of human capacity building in African states, assistance to states in the region to tackle HIV/AIDs and other contagious diseases, promoting the active participation of communities and representatives of civil society in the planning and implementation of development programs among others and concluded that though the challenges of human security in the continent are overwhelming, a proper implementation of these measures could ensure security for the vulnerable populations in the region

The Power of an Infant\u27s Smile: Maternal Physiological Responses to Infant Emotional Expressions

Infant emotional expressions, such as distress cries, evoke maternal physiological reactions. Most of which involve accelerated sympathetic nervous activity. Comparatively little is known about effects of positive infant expressions, such as happy smiles, on maternal physiological responses. This study investigated how physiological and psychological maternal states change in response to infants\u27 emotional expressions. Thirty first-time mothers viewed films of their own 6- to 7-month-old infants\u27 affective behavior. Each observed a video of a distress cry followed by a video showing one of two expressions (randomly assigned): a happy smiling face (smile condition) or a calm neutral face (neutral condition). Both before and after the session, participants completed a self-report inventory assessing their emotional states. The results of the self-report inventory revealed no effects of exposure to the infant videos. However, the mothers in the smile condition, but not in the neutral condition, showed deceleration of skin conductance. These findings demonstrate that the mothers who observed their infants smiling showed decreased sympathetic activity. We propose that an infant\u27s positive emotional expression may affect the branch of the maternal stress-response system that modulates the homeostatic balance of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems

Eight-month-old infants’ behavioural responses to peers’ emotions as related to the asymmetric frontal cortex activity

Infants are sensitive to and converge emotionally with peers’ distress. It is unclear whether these responses extend to positive affect and whether observing peer emotions motivates infants’ behaviors. This study investigates 8-month-olds’ asymmetric frontal EEG during peers’ cry and laughter, and its relation to approach and withdrawal behaviors. Participants observed videos of infant crying or laughing during two separate sessions. Frontal EEG alpha power was recorded during the first, while infants’ behaviors and emotional expressions were recorded during the second session. Facial and vocal expressions of affect suggest that infants converge emotionally with their peers’ distress, and, to a certain extent, with their happiness. At group level, the crying peer elicited right lateralized frontal activity. However, those infants with reduced right and increased left frontal activity in this situation, were more likely to approach their peer. Overall, 8-month-olds did not show asymmetric frontal activity in response to peer laughter. But, those infants who tended to look longer at their happy peer were more likely to respond with left lateralized frontal activity. The link between variations in left frontal activity and simple approach behaviors indicates the presence of a motivational dimension to infants’ responses to distressed peers

Parallel file access on workstation clusters

Efficient parallel file access requires both an interface capable of expressing parallel semantics and a network capable of supporting the communication primitives used by file systems. On workstation clusters, these are both difficult to obtain. Efficient communication primitives are difficult to build because common cluster interconnects do not provide direct support for many parallel file system operations. Moreover, cluster nodes typically run UNIX, requiring the use of the UNIX I/O interface which does not lend itself easily to parallel operations. The common approach of parallel file system implementations on clusters has been to build user-level libraries on top of either NFS or a node-located sequential file system. This approach, however, not only results in unnecessary system call overhead because the parallel libraries frequently have to make multiple system calls to implement single parallel operations, but furthermore does not allow system-level file management utilities to be used to manage files. This thesis presents new techniques that improve the efficiency of parallel file systems on clusters by addressing two key areas: kernel integration and communication efficiency. Kernel integration is achieved by using inode tunneling to allow the standard UNIX I/O interface to be used for parallel file access, and using segment trees to integrate a parallel file namespace with VFS. Communication efficiency is improved by using an Aggregate Function Network (AFN) as the cluster interconnect, which is better suited to parallel file system operations. To demonstrate these methods, a prototype file system was implemented under Linux, which shows that the techniques presented in this thesis allow for significant performance improvement over existing parallel file systems on clusters

Competitive intelligence and marketing effectiveness in

corporate organizations in Nigeri

Microbial profile of wound infections in A Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Background: This study set out to investigate the aerobic and facultative anaerobic microbial profile of wound infections in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Methods: A total of 202 wound swabs samples were randomly collected from both in and out-patients presenting at the facility. One hundred and thirteen(55.9%) of the samples were collected from males while 89(44.6%) were from females. The age of the patients ranged from 32 days to 80 years. Samples were processed following standard operating protocols in the microbiology laboratory. Results: Of the 202 samples examined, 164(81.2%) had microbial isolates while 38(18.8%) yielded no growth. Among the 164 samples with positive microbial growth, 124(75.6%) had single isolates while 40(24.4%) had polymicrobial growth. Of the 113 males studied, 90(79.7%) had microbial growth while 23(20.4%) had no growth. Similarly, of the 89 females studied, 74(83.2%) had microbial growth while 15(16.9%) had no growth. Furthermore, the total microbial isolates from the study was 206. Gram-negative bacterial organisms accounted for 124(60.1%) as against 82(39.9%) from the Gram-positive′s (p<0.05). Staphylococcus aureus was the most frequently isolated organism 64(31.3%) followed by the Pseudomonads 28(23.3%) and Klebsiella spp 25(12.1). Organisms were more frequently isolated from patients within the age bracket 21-30 years, 93(45.2%) and least within age bracket 71 - 80 years, (0.5%). Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of the bacterial isolates revealed that ceftazidime was the most effective with 143(70.1%) of the isolates being susceptible. Cotrimoxazole 23(11.3%) and tetracycline 17(8.3%) were less effective against the isolates. Conclusions: Constant bacteriological monitoring of the pathogens isolated in special disease conditions, and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern are necessary for best practices in wound management