Effect of Community Based Sensitization Campaign on Inclusive Education Policy for the Visually Impaired in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State

Conventionally, the blind children need braille literacy. This is why there are special education centres across the country to cater for them. However, the 21st century visually impaired persons need more than braille literacy. This is why the Federal Ministry of Education launched Inclusive Education Policy for the visually impaired in 2015. This study investigated the effect of sensitization campaign on both the experimental and control groups prior to and after sensitization campaign.Quasi-experimental research design was adopted for the study. Stratified random sampling method was used to select schools in the categorized areas of Egi, Ndoni, Egbema and Omoku in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area of Rivers State. The sample of the study comprised eight hundred and sixty-six parents and two hundred and forty teachers purposively selected. The Community Sensitization Campaign on Inclusive Education Policy for the Visually Impaired Questionnaire (CSCIEPVIQ) was used to collect data from the 1126 participants. Collected data were analyzed with IBM SPSS. The research question raised was answered using descriptive statistics while the formulated hypothesis was tested at 0.05 alpha level with a multivariate test statistic Analysis of Covariance - ANCOVA. Findings revealed that parents and teachers who were exposed to the sensitization campaign on inclusive education policy for visually impaired gained much knowledge than those who were not exposed. The effect size of the intervention was found to be very high. It was recommended that there should be sensitization campaign for all visually impaired persons in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area. The parents and family members of the visually impaired should be specially acquainted with the prevailing policy too to encourage positive feelings in the family in particular and community at large. Keywords: Parents, Teachers, sensitization campaign, inclusive education policy, treatment group, control group, visual impairment DOI: 10.7176/JEP/13-30-13 Publication date:October 31st 202

aVsIs: An Analytical-Solution-Based Solver for Model-Predictive Control With Hexagonal Constraints in Voltage-Source Inverter Applications

The theory of a new analytical-solution-based algorithm for calculating the optimal solution in model-predictive control applications with hexagonal constraints is discussed in this article. Three-phase voltage-source inverters for power electronic and electric motor drive applications are the target of the proposed method. The indirect model-predictive control requires a constrained quadratic programming (QP) solver to calculate the optimal solution. Most of the QP solvers use numerical algorithms, which may result in unbearable computational burdens. However, the optimal constrained solution can be calculated in an analytical way when the control horizon is limited to the first step. A computationally efficient algorithm with a certain maximum number of operations is proposed in this article. A thorough mathematical description of the solver in both the stationary and rotating reference frames is provided. Experimental results on real test rigs featuring either an electricmotor or a resistive-inductive load are reported to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solver, thus smoothing theway for its implementation in industrial applications. The name of the proposed solver is aVsIs, which is released under Apache License 2.0 in GitHub, and a free example is available in Code Ocean

The competing impacts of climate change and nutrient reductions on dissolved oxygen in Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay region is projected to experience changes in temperature, sea level, and precipitation as a result of climate change. This research uses an estuarine-watershed hydrodynamic-biogeochemical modeling system along with projected mid-21st-century changes in temperature, freshwater flow, and sea level rise to explore the impact climate change may have on future Chesapeake Bay dissolved-oxygen (DO) concentrations and the potential success of nutrient reductions in attaining mandated estuarine water quality improvements. Results indicate that warming bay waters will decrease oxygen solubility year-round, while also increasing oxygen utilization via respiration and remineralization, primarily impacting bottom oxygen in the spring. Rising sea level will increase estuarine circulation, reducing residence time in bottom waters and increasing stratification. As a result, oxygen concentrations in bottom waters are projected to increase, while oxygen concentrations at mid-depths (3 \u3c DO \u3c 5 mg L-1) will typically decrease. Changes in precipitation are projected to deliver higher winter and spring freshwater flow and nutrient loads, fueling increased primary production. Together, these multiple climate impacts will lower DO throughout the Chesapeake Bay and negatively impact progress towards meeting water quality standards associated with the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load. However, this research also shows that the potential impacts of climate change will be significantly smaller than improvements in DO expected in response to the required nutrient reductions, especially at the anoxic and hypoxic levels. Overall, increased temperature exhibits the strongest control on the change in future DO concentrations, primarily due to decreased solubility, while sea level rise is expected to exert a small positive impact and increased winter river flow is anticipated to exert a small negative impact

Altered serological and cellular reactivity to H-2 antigens after target cell infection with vaccinia virus

MICE generate cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) which are able to lyse virus infected target cells in vitro after infection with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV) and pox-viruses1−3. CTL kill syngeneic and semiallogenic infected cells but not allogenic infected targets. Target cell lysis in these systems seems to be restricted by H-2 antigens, especially by the K or D end of the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). In experiments where virus specific sensitised lymphocytes kill virus infected allogenic target cells4 the effector lymphocytes have not been characterised exactly. Recent investigations suggest that the active cell in this assay, at least in the measles infection, is a non-thymus derived cell (H. Kreth, personal communication). An H-2 restriction of cell mediated cytolysis (CMC) to trinitrophenol (TNP)-modified lymphocytes has also been described5. Zinkernagel and Doherty6 postulated that the CTL is directed against syngeneic H-2 antigens and viral antigens and they suggested an alteration of H-2 induced by the LCMV infection. Earlier7 we found a close topological relationship between H-2 antigens and the target antigen(s) responsible for CMC in the vaccinia system. Here we report experiments which were carried out to prove alteration of H-2 after infection of L-929 fibroblasts with vaccinia virus

Visual search in ecological and non-ecological displays: Evidence for a non-monotonic effect of complexity on performance

Copyright @ 2013 PLoSThis article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Considerable research has been carried out on visual search, with single or multiple targets. However, most studies have used artificial stimuli with low ecological validity. In addition, little is known about the effects of target complexity and expertise in visual search. Here, we investigate visual search in three conditions of complexity (detecting a king, detecting a check, and detecting a checkmate) with chess players of two levels of expertise (novices and club players). Results show that the influence of target complexity depends on level of structure of the visual display. Different functional relationships were found between artificial (random chess positions) and ecologically valid (game positions) stimuli: With artificial, but not with ecologically valid stimuli, a “pop out” effect was present when a target was visually more complex than distractors but could be captured by a memory chunk. This suggests that caution should be exercised when generalising from experiments using artificial stimuli with low ecological validity to real-life stimuli.This study is funded by Brunel University and the article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund

Level of blood pressure control among hypertensive patients receiving treatment at federal medical centre Nguru Yobe state North Eastern Nigeria

Hypertension remains the most readily identifiable and reversible risk factor for cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and is the leading cause of death worldwide. Despite the avalanche of medications for the management of elevated blood pressure, adequate control of systemic hypertension has largely remained enigmatic. Previous studies from African countries including Nigeria have shown that blood pressure (BP) control still remained poor. The objective of this study therefore was to determine the level of blood pressure control among hypertensive patients on treatment and identify associated factors Methodology: The study was an observational, cross-sectional study of consecutive hypertensive patients attending the general outpatient, cardiac, endocrine and renal clinics at the Federal Medical Centre Nguru, in northeastern Nigeria; conducted over a period of six months from June 2016 to December 2016. Result: A total of two hundred and ninety-one (291) consecutive subjects, comprising 134(46.1%) males and 157(53.9%) females were recruited. The mean age of the study population was 56.15±12.72. There was no difference in the mean age of subjects with controlled and uncontrolled hypertension 57.13±12.97 and 55.48±12.54 respectively with P = 0.275. One hundred and nineteen (40.9%) subjects had controlled hypertension while the remaining 172(59.1%) had uncontrolled hypertension. There was a significant difference in the mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure of subjects with controlled and uncontrolled hypertension (116.22± 12.14 and 153.14±18.17) P = 0.001 and (73.78±8.02 and 89.53±11.12) P = 0.001 respectively. The predominant pattern of uncontrolled hypertension among the study population was combined systolic and diastolic hypertension. Conclusion: Our study revealed that blood pressure control among hypertensive on medication was not optimal, decreased glomerular filtration rate, low anti-hypertensive medication adherence and use of NSAID were found to be responsible for the inadequate blood pressure control observed in this study. Poverty and ignorance were major contributing factors for low medication adherence