Information Needs and Information Seeking Behavior of Rural Women in Borno State, Nigeria

Women constitute the greater percentage of the rural population in Nigeria and form an important part of the labour force by engaging in subsistence trade. However, this role is grossly hindered as a result of lack of information on problems such as healthcare, literacy, early marriages, poverty, and lack of education. This study is an investigation of the information needs and information seeking behavior of rural women in Nigeria. Questionnaire and oral Interviews were the main instruments used for data collection. The analysis revealed varying information needs, sources, channels, and seeking behavior. Barriers to information needs are identified and suggestions provided

Curriculum reform in higher education : a humanities case study.

This study explores the nature of curriculum change in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand. In particular, it focuses on the relationship between the new socio-economic and political context and curriculum reform trends. While the literature indicates that trends throughout the world tend to privilege particular curriculum discourses informed by global and market pressures at the expense of institutional driving forces, neglecting the role of agency or local and institutional discourses rooted in the particular histories and cultures of institutions (Kishun, 1998), there is some indication that there could be room for institutionally informed choices at the curriculum level (Slaughter & Lesley, 1999). Using a qualitative approach, this study explores curriculum responses of the faculty within the context of global and national pressures in order to better understand the nature of contextuallybased challenges, strategies, practices and emerging curriculum trends. University curriculum across the globe is experiencing significant pressure to transform from its ‘insular’, distant and abstract form to one that is more responsive to the direct needs of society. This increased focus on responsiveness results in a shift toward mode 2 knowledge approaches (Gibbons, Limoges, Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott & Trow, 1994) which prioritise curricula that focus on skills, application and problem solving. This shift is particularly challenging for programmes in the Humanities and Social Sciences, which have prided themselves on opportunities to step back, reflect and explore knowledge from a position of reasonable distance from everyday occurrences. This study embarks on a journey to explore what the implications of the emerging utilitarian discourses are for curriculum in the Humanities. This study argues that the dominant global-speak evident in the literature is not sufficient to account for the nature of curriculum change. While utilitarian discourses dominate curriculum transformation efforts in the faculty, there are various strategies for achieving responsiveness or usefulness, which has various implications for traditional liberal curriculum practices. In fact, the study suggests that responses differ by discipline, programme and even department, and range from radical to conservative curriculum transformation. Thus sweeping generalisations do not sufficiently and accurately account for the complexity of responses and outcomes at the institutional or faculty level. Curriculum reform therefore results from the interplay of a number of external and internal factors that occur within very specific contextual conditions

Detection of Offensive and Threatening Online Content in a Low Resource Language

Hausa is a major Chadic language, spoken by over 100 million people in Africa. However, from a computational linguistic perspective, it is considered a low-resource language, with limited resources to support Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. Online platforms often facilitate social interactions that can lead to the use of offensive and threatening language, which can go undetected due to the lack of detection systems designed for Hausa. This study aimed to address this issue by (1) conducting two user studies (n=308) to investigate cyberbullying-related issues, (2) collecting and annotating the first set of offensive and threatening datasets to support relevant downstream tasks in Hausa, (3) developing a detection system to flag offensive and threatening content, and (4) evaluating the detection system and the efficacy of the Google-based translation engine in detecting offensive and threatening terms in Hausa. We found that offensive and threatening content is quite common, particularly when discussing religion and politics. Our detection system was able to detect more than 70% of offensive and threatening content, although many of these were mistranslated by Google's translation engine. We attribute this to the subtle relationship between offensive and threatening content and idiomatic expressions in the Hausa language. We recommend that diverse stakeholders participate in understanding local conventions and demographics in order to develop a more effective detection system. These insights are essential for implementing targeted moderation strategies to create a safe and inclusive online environment.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figures, 8 table

The facilitation of critical thinking in a Technology Education classroom

The teacher’s role in facilitating learning and thinking in Technology Education classrooms is crucial to creating an environment conducive to the promotion and development of thinking. The aim of this study was to   determine how teacher facilitation can promote and develop thinking in Technology Education lessons. A single case study using a qualitative research approach with convenience sampling and involving grade eight Technology Education learners was used to conduct the study. Data collection was by means of direct non-participant observation of both teacher-learner and learnerlearner interaction. Transcripts of video tapes, audio tapes, field notes and   instructional aids were analysed and recommendations for the facilitation of co-operative learning and critical thinking in the Technology Education classroom were made

Risk Stratification and Early Oncologic Outcomes Following Robotic Prostatectomy

Results of this study suggest that robotic prostatectomy provides good cancer outcomes for clinically localized disease

Non-fiction prose as one of the trends in the literary process of the North Caucasus

The non-fiction literature phenomenon is one of the most interesting, unique for the North Caucasus and the least studied phenomena of intellectual, spiritual, artistic culture located at the intersection of literature, journalism, and humanitarian knowledge, which determines the relevance and feasibility of studying this problem. The aim of the article is to consider the leading trends in the development of non-fiction literature of the North Caucasus, taking into account the uniqueness of the historical and literary, ethnocultural, multi-confessional state of the region, as well as the variety of national and predetermined Russian and world literature folklore traditions and relations. The article has developed the question of the basic prerequisites for the emergence and development of non-fiction literature in the works of enlightenment writers at its most important stages.The leading approach to the study of the problem is the analysis of the interaction of the worldview and the method of non-fiction authors in the North Caucasus and the correlation of documentary and artistic typification in their works. The close relationship of national documentary prose with journalism is revealed, the interaction in them of the theory and practice of intercultural communication in the unity of its form (genres) and analytical content is justified, the productivity of this type of creativity for the modern sociocultural situation in a particular region is proved. The significance of the article both theoretically and practically is due to the fact that its results can be used as elements of a methodological base for further research on the issues identified

The Effect Of Psycho-Education Program On Increase The Tendency To Forgive and Five Factor Personality Properties Of Forgiveness Tendency

The basic aim of this study is to examine the effect of psycho-education program for gaining the tendency to forgive on Big five personality traits. The study was carried out via experimental design to determine the cause and effect relationship between the independent variable (big five personality traits) and the dependent variable (tendency to forgive). The study was conducted with Pretest- Posttest Control Group Design. 24 university students who attended to the study were randomly assigned to the experimental and the control group each of which consisted of 12 university students. The data was collected through Big Five Personality Traits Scale and Heartland Forgiveness Scale. Within the scope of the study, experimental group was given10-week psycho-education program to gain positive personality traits and to gaining forgiveness tendency while control group was not given any intervention. The effectiveness of the group counseling process was tested by the same scale in pre-experimental, post-experimental and follow up processes. According to the findings of the study, it was found that all of the personality traits were effective in order to help to increase the tendency of forgiveness of individuals with high scores for neuroticism, one of the big five personality traits, and low scores for forgiveness, that is people with less forgiveness competency. The findings were discussed in the light of the literature and recommendations were made accordingly

Removal of Malachite Green Dye from Aqueous Solution by Catalytic Wet Oxidation Technique Using Ni/Kaolin as Catalyst

In this study, natural Algerian kaolin was used as a support and impregnated with nickel at different loading amounts (2 wt.%, 5 wt.%, and 7 wt.%) in order to prepare a supported catalyst. The wet impregnation technique was used in this preparation; nickel oxide (NiO) was the active phase precursor of the catalyst, and the catalysts were designated as follows: 2%, 5%, and 7% Ni/kaolin. These catalysts were put to the test in catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO) for degrading the organic contaminant malachite green dye (MG). Analytical techniques such as FTIR spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, BET, and X-fluorescence were used to examine the structure, morphology, and chemical composition of the support and the produced catalysts. Several parameters, including temperature, catalytic dose, metal loading, hydrogen peroxide volume, and kinetic model were systematically investigated. The combination of improved parameters resulted in a significant increase in the catalytic activity, achieving a high removal rate of MG dye of 98.87%