Faith-Based Activities and Tourism: Exploiting the Possibilities for Religious Tourism Development in Anaocha Local Government Area, Nigeria

Over the years, people have travelled for various motivations, giving birth to various types of specific interest tourism. The result is that various scholars have devoted their research to these specific areas of tourism. One such area of tourism that has grown exponentially is religious tourism (which some scholars also called spiritual tourism). This type of tourism explores travels motivated by the desire to visit places that inspire an individual’s belief system and to meet with people that share the same faith. Our study aims to understand the faith-based activities and religious centres in Anaocha Local Government Area (LGA) of Anambra State, Nigeria that could be harnessed for tourism development. Four months of ethnographic fieldwork was conducted in the area to identify the important religious and cultural sites. Shrines/deities, groves, cultural centres and mythical lakes were identified as places of religious worship which could be harnessed for tourism development. Unfortunately, these sites are still not harnessed for tourism, though tourists still visit them for various religious purposes. The study concludes that the local people should be sensitised to the tourism potential of these sites, while government and other stakeholders should create an enabling environment for tourism development to thrive in the area

Traditional Methods of Preserving Dead Human Bodies in Southeastern Nigeria

Traditional methods of preserving dead human bodies have been of immense importance in many societies. This practice has been sustained for thousands of years for cultural, religious and socio-environmental reasons. Although there is dearth of literature on the preservation of dead bodies in Nigeria, ethnographic evidences revealed that the tradition is still practised in parts of Igboland. This paper examines the traditional methods employed by the people of Southeast Nigeria in preserving dead human bodies and argues that the tradition can be harnessed for cultural tourism, while promoting the culture of the people. Key Words: Traditional preservation, Dead human bodies, Embalmment, Southeastern Nigeria

Pilgrimage Circuit of Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove and Shrine, Osun State, Nigeria

One religious tourism destination site of note in Southwestern Nigeria is the Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove and Shrine, located along the banks of the Osun River in the city of Oshogbo, Osun State, Nigeria. The sacred grove and shrine was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2005. This paper examines the routes and trails people take to get to Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove and Shrine with a view to evaluating access to the destination site as well as the factors impacting on the sacred grove. The study uses ethnographic methods to elicit information from respondents and data collected were analysed descriptively. The paper argues that Osun Osogbo Sacred Grove and Shrine can improve the living standard of the host community and create job opportunities if its access routes, facilities and trails are improved upon by government

Passivity-Based Trajectory Tracking Control with Adaptive Sampling Over a Wireless Network

Abstract — Uncertainty in wireless networks, such as timevarying delays and packet loss, often leads to instability and degraded performance in Networked Control Systems (NCS). Further, limited network resources impose constraints on communication between plants and controllers. In this paper, we use passivity combined with adaptive sampling to design a control architecture for trajectory tracking. The proposed architecture can tolerate time-varying delays and packet loss while efficiently utilizing network bandwidth. We provide analytical results to show passivity of the proposed networked control architecture and trajectory tracking. We demonstrate our approach using a case study on the trajectory tracking control of a robotic manipulator over a wireless network. The simulation results show the efficient utilization of network resources as well as robustness to network uncertainties. I

Multi-Rate Networked Control of Conic (Dissipative) Systems

Abstract — This paper presents a novel multi-rate digitalcontrol system which preserves stability while providing robustness to time-delay and data loss. In addition, this architecture allows for high-order anti-aliasing filters to be included which do not adversely affect system stability. Therefore, it allows for improved noise-rejection and system performance as compared to traditional digital control systems. It is shown that this framework, based on passivity-based networked control principles, can be used to control not only passive-(dissipative) systems (systems inside the sector [0,∞]) but conic-(dissipative) systems which are inside the sector [a,b] in which |a | < b, 0 < b ≤ ∞. We demonstrate the applicability of our result through the direct position control of a single-degree of freedom haptic paddle which is inside the sector [−τ,∞] in which 0 < τ < ∞. I