Acculturation of Knowledge through Sustainable Language Engineering for National Development: The Case of Igbo

The aim of this study is to find out the possible ways of domesticating knowledge gained through western education by the Igbo through sustainable language development. It also aims to make the knowledge accessible in the Igbo language for empowerment at the grassroots and ultimately for societal and national development. The need for this work is born out of the observation that the Igbo, as well as other tribes in Nigeria are rich with internationally acclaimed learned personalities. These personalities have distinguished themselves in various fields of human endeavor. Also, these achievements are made in foreign languages. Subsequently, these achievements have led to an increase in the relevance of such languages to the relegation of the scholars’ own mother tongues and invariably their own people. By using the descriptive and inferential methods, the paper presents some neologism processes which non linguists can apply in their various academic fields. Also, they can come up with terminologies in the Igbo language for presenting relevant academic materials for use in teaching and learning the Igbo language. The use of these terminologies could be formal or informal as the need arises. Thus, these processes include extra-language borrowing, loan translations, intra-language borrowing, and specialization of dialectal phonological variants. Previously, metalanguage development efforts by governments had bypassed these professionals. Also, they have focused on developing the terminologies through linguists and selected professionals alone. This has resulted to the terminologies not being accessible to the intended end users. Among other things, this paper suggests that the call for the acculturation of knowledge and the processes of embarking on it should be made public in all institutions of higher education. This is carried out in the Igbo culture area and later extended to the Igbo in diaspora. However, the co-ordination of the process of the formalization of the terminologies should be left in the hands of the Igbo Studies Association (ISA). This official regulating body ensures the maintenance of professional standards and uniformity of usage

Multilingualism and the New Language Policy in South Africa: Innovation and Challenges

South Africa moved from two official languages - English and Afrikaans during apartheid to eleven official languages in the new democratic government. The new language policy also recognises South African Sign Language and encourages its development. This paper examines the apartheid and democratic language policies, their practicality and challenges with particular focus on political administration, education and the media, as they are important institutions in language policy implementation. The paper argues that there is still marginalisation of indigenous black South African languages even with new language policy

Determinants of Level of Engagement in Oil Palm Processing among Rural Households in Southeast Nigeria

The study provided empirical evidence of the determinants of level of engagement in oil palm processing among rural households in Southeast Nigeria. The specific objectives were to; describe the socioeconomic characteristics of the respondents, ascertain the level of household’s engagement in processing of oil palm produce, and estimate the costs and returns from processing oil palm produce. The study made use of multi-stage random sampling procedure in selecting 540 respondents. Data for the study were collected with the use of structured questionnaire and analyzed with the use of both descriptive (frequency, percentage, mean and gross margin) and inferential statistics (regression model). Results show evidence of high level engagement in the processing of oil palm (3.67). F–statistics was significant at 1% indicating goodness of fit of the model used. The coefficients of household size (5%), level of education (5%), processing experience (5%), income (1%) and labour cost (1%) significantly influenced level of engagement in the processing of oil palm in Southeast Nigeria. The study concludes that rural households in the study area were highly engaged in the processing of oil palm processing as a profitable livelihood activity. It was therefore recommended that young and educated youths should be encouraged by government at all levels to engage in oil palm processing since the enterprise was dominated by rural households who were relatively young, active, experienced and educated

Cellular Planning of GSM Network in Rivers State, Nigeria

Global system for mobile communication has witnessed tremendous growth. This is due largely to the fact that it enables people to make quality calls, send messages, browse the internet etc. at any time and for any period. The huge number of GSM subscribers has resulted in the system being over-loaded. This research work is aimed at optimizing Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) network in Rivers State. The behavior of GSM network under four different conditions were examined. The work also aimed to determine the number of base stations required to provide adequate GSM network coverage in Rivers State. Erlang B technique was employed to achieve the aim of this research work. This research work found that when the traffic load is greater than, or too close to, the voice channels (in magnitude), the system denied many callers access from making calls. However, when the voice channels are greater than traffic load, the system performed well. But voice channels must not be far greater than traffic load and should not be too close to it, to avoid under-utilization or over-utilization of the channels. The work also revealed that the number of base stations required in any given place varies inversely proportional to the square of the cell radius. Hence, for Rivers State, the number of base stations to provide 100% network coverage for a cell radius of 3km was found to be 474

Morphometric Observations of the tongue of the domestic duck (Anas platyrhynchos domestica).

A Biometric study was conducted on the tongue of twenty-five (25) adult domestic duck collected from the Sokoto metropolitan poultry and fish modern market, over a period of seven days . A pair of scissors, a scalpel and a blade was used to incise, excise, separate or debride various parts of the oral cavity to expose the organ for research. Results showed that the tongue is characterized by an elongated triangular format. At a point, approximately 2/3 the length of the lingual corpus there is a distinct depression, separating the caudal one-third of the lingual corpus from its rostral two-third. On the dorsal surface of the apex and body of the tongue, a median groove is found. A unique feature of the tongue in domestic Duck is the presence of many fine overlapping needle-shaped processes at both lateral sides of the caudal lingual apex. A single row of large conical papillae is observed symmetrically in the marginal region between the body and root of the tongue. Biometrically the mean dimensio

PPLICATION OF TRICKLING FILTER WITH HYBRID BIOFILM SUPPORT MEDIA IN THE TREATMENT OF PETROLEUM EFFLUENT

The use of biological trickling filter (TF) system in the treatment of petroleum effluent using Luffa cylindrica-polystyrene hybrid as biofilm support medium for microbiological growth was evaluated. The efficiency of the treatment process was measured in terms of turbidity, chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD5). The TF was set up with Luffa cylindrica-polystyrene hybrid biofilm support. The pilot scale trickling system was performed at an ambient temperature and the effluent from the system was measured for turbidity, COD and BOD5. The result showed that the turbidity of the effluent was reduced to 94 % at a hydraulic retention time of 6 hrs. The COD was also reduced from 327-26 mg/l at 6 hrs. representing 92 % reduction in the COD value. The results obtained also showed that the TF achieved 78 % reduction in BOD5.Therefore, the biological trickling filter treatment process appears to be a promising wastewater treatment method for petroleum effluent with respect to the turbidity, COD and BOD5 remova

Assessment of Micro Flora, Deoxynivalenol (Don) and Fumonisin Contamination of Grains sold in Local Markets, Nigeria

Fusarium the major deoxynivalenol (DON) and fumonisin producing species of fungi grow as a corn endophyte often without causing disease symptoms in plant. Climate changes resulting in appropriate weather conditions helps in Fusarium growth causing seedling blight, stalk rot and ear rot. Thus most grain contamination of Fusarium comes from the farm. This study was carried out to assess the micro flora and level of DON and fumonisin contamination in Zea mays, Sorghum bicolor, Triticum aestivum and Pennisetum americanum sold in Ota. Forty samples comprising ten of each grain type was analyzed, Fumonisin at concentration ≥4.0 mg/kg (ppm) was detected in eight samples of Zea mays and two samples of Triticum aestivum while DON at concentrations ≥1.25mg/kg (ppm) was detected in all the wheat samples using the Rida® Quick Fumonisin and DON test kits. The total aerobic plate count for the samples ranged from 2.0×104 to 8.4×106 cfu/g, fungal count ranged from 1.0×104 to 6.0×106 cfu/g while coliform count ranged from < 10 to 2.0×103 cfu/g. The predominant microbial isolates from the grains included species of Fusarium, Aspergillus, Mucor, Penicillium, Bacillus, Klebsiella, and Pseudomonas. Infection of grains by fungal species and contamination with mycotoxins can generally be influenced by favourable weather conditions. Measures to address climate changes, effective hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP) and good storage system are advocated to prevent mould contamination and deleterious mycotoxin production in grains

Productivity and Technical Efficiency of Family Poultry Production in Kurmi local Government Area of Taraba State, Nigeria

This study assessed the socio "“ economic characteristics and technical efficiency of family poultry production in Kurmi Local Government Area of Taraba state, Nigeria. The result of the study reveals that the respondents are relatively young with mean age of 44 years. Findings from the study showed that female constitutes 60% of the family poultry producers in the study area. The result also reveals that the main reason for rearing family poultry is for sales.The technical efficiency estimate showed that the technical efficiency of family poultry ranges between 0.29 and 0.84, with a mean of 0.63. This indicates that on the average, the respondents are 63% efficient in the use of combination of their inputs. Return on investment (ROI) is 0.76 meaning that family poultry is highly profitable. This high profitability should attract financing by lending institutions. The elasticity estimate of 3.18 indicates that the family poultry production is taking place at stage 1 (inefficient stage) in production curve. This study concludes that the output and technical efficiency of the family poultry production can be increased by the use of more feed, capital, medicine/vaccine and adoption of more innovations