The development and validation of a shortened version of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q)

Aims: The aim of this study was to develop and validate a short version of the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire (EDE-Q) for sessional outcome assessment, which is sensitive to clinical change. Method: A principal component analysis was conducted to determine the factor structure of 489 EDE-Qs completed by individuals with a range of eating disorders. Rasch analysis was carried out on each identified factor. The statistical information and expert ratings (N=10) informed the inclusion/exclusion criteria for each EDE-Q item. The EDE-Q's response scale properties were also investigated using the Rasch model. Data from people with (N=54) and without eating disorders (N=503) were collected through an online survey to assess the reliability, validity and sensitivity of the new measure. Results: A 12-item short version, the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire Short (EDE-QS) was developed. Initial psychometric evaluation showed that the EDE-QS is a reliable, valid and sensitive questionnaire. Conclusions: The EDE-QS appears suitable for the use as a brief and user-friendly sessional outcome measure

IMPACT OF ECONOMIC CRISIS ON EDUCATION: CASE STUDY OF SOUTHWEST NIGERIA

The national politics determines the quality of education policies, programs and processes and eventually the products (results or outcomes). Government underfunding and commoditisation of education is likely to worsen the crisis in education. The current economic crisis confronting many governments is creating severe conflicts in educational sector of many nations. On the one hand they had to reduce, their budget deficits to avoid excess indebtedness. On the other hand, they had to promote education firstly to alleviate unemployment as a short run crisis measure and secondly to avoid the deterioration of human capital in the long run. High percentage of national budgets focuses on the public funding, which greatly affect the education sector. Some governments carried out overall budget cuts. These had negative effects on teachers, students and families. This research studies the impact of economic crises on education in the South-West part of Nigeria. The collected survey data shows that the current economic crisis in Nigeria had an observable impact on the education sector as many State Governments proceeded to drastic budget cuts on education. Only few State Governments, however, acknowledged the importance of the educational sector in overcoming the current economic crisis. These few States see the need of increased spending on education, supporting students, families and education providers as a way to enhance productivity and efficiency of State economy. The result of this research shows a great difference between the States cutting budget on education because of economy, economic downturn and those pumping more fund into education sector in the mist of economic crises. This research concludes that adequately funded educational system, if genuinely promoted and honestly managed is capable of creating mass-fully developed human talents whose creative thinking would get any nation out of the economic crisis and permanently shut the door to its future occurrenc

Controlled Local Properties in the Same Part with Sintaflex A New Elastomer Powder Material for the SLS Process

A new powder material for the SLS (Selective Laser Sintering) process was recently released. The material is a result of fruitful research programs involving industry and university. The well known and widely used DuraFom™ (PA12) and theCastForm™ (PS) SLS-materials were developed by the same team. In the search for new powder materials many properties of the candidate polymer, e.g. the pulverization, the laser absorption and sintering parameters have to be tuned carefully. Previous Elastomer options materials were poor in strength, detailing, and long-term use. The new product overcomes most of the known deficits. It open completely new practices in many branches like: automotive, house appliances, office equipment, foot ware, medical, and many more. The Sintaflex has a Shore hardness variability 45-75 A and Elongation up to around 300%. The attainable yield strength range is 1.3 - 4.2 MPa. The resolution on the SLS part is up to 0.6 mm. It is positioned in good agreement compared with other commonly used injection plastics. Furthermore, the appeal of all SFF process beside geometry and complexity is thought in varying locally the mechanical properties. Some published patents make suggestions in this direction. The new material, due to the particular properties range in function of the sintering parameter, allows first time to realize this wish. The generated part has controlled variable local properties; a new and unique opportunity opens for the SLS process. The paper describes the basic material properties. Further the main sintering parameters are describes and indications on machine settings are given. RP (Rapid Prototyping) applications and the recent practical experience are illustrated. Distinctive examples of local variable properties in the same part and given limits are shown. Some conclusions are stated.Mechanical Engineerin

A POISSON-AKASH INRAR(1) MODEL FOR OVER DISPERSED COUNT TIME SERIES

In this paper, a Poisson-Akash INAR(1) model was proposed in order to improve on the modelling of overdispersed stationary count time series. The estimators of the parameters of the model were derived using the Yule-Walker (YW) method and the conditional least squares (CLS) method. An expression for the conditional log-likelihood and the r-step ahead forecast were obtained for the model. Three overdispersed nonseasonal stationary count time series were modelled to illustrate the applicability of the proposed model as well as its capacity to outperform the competing INAR (1) models in modelling overdispersed stationary count time series and the result showed that the proposed model is a strong competitor in the analysis of overdispersed stationary count time series and can perform better than the competing INAR(1) models for some data sets

A critical appraisal of the legal regime for biodiversity conservation in Nigeria

Nigeria harbours a peculiar and an uncertain environmental situation taking into cognizance the desert encroachment in the North and the rise of sea level leading to flooding in the South, which calls for a well articulated, accelerated, and organized remedial action plan on the conservation of Biodiversity. Several species of fauna and flora which the country is naturally endowed with have been rendered extinct or are in danger of extinction as a consequence of economic growth and development. On the international scene the situation is not better with current trends like climate change which has greatly affected the distribution and extinction of species of flora and fauna, ecosystems as well as man and his environment. The earth surface which is full of a diversity of plants and animals currently estimated at about 1.7 million known species are yet greatly threatened by biodiversity loss, erosion, depletion of genes and global species constitute an important concern to national and international authorities. The objective of this paper is to examine the legal regimes on the conservation of biodiversity at the global level, equally Nigeria as a global player has domesticated these regimes into its national laws in a bid to ensure the conservation of biodiversity within the country. We are also going to examine the causes and effects of the loss of biodiversity, the relationship between biodiversity conservation and the fight against climate change. In this paper, judicial decisions, statutes, international treaties as well as official records on the conservation of biodiversity form the primary sources while secondary sources such as textbooks, journals, official proceedings, specialized publications and conference papers were equally utilized. The paper will be crowned with some recommendations proffered from the writers’ perspective and a conclusion.Key words: Biodiversity; Conservation; Legal regime; Nigeri

Vibration-Based Structural Health Monitoring: Theoretical Foundations and Experimental Validation on Reinforced Concrete Beams

Quick identification of damages in structures is of great importance to engineers. Among the various techniques available for the evaluation of reinforced concrete structural integrity, non-destructive tests method remain a viable one as its use can lead to speedy decisions that bring savings on repairs or replacement of damaged reinforced concrete structures. This research uses modal parameter-based non- destructive tests to assess damages in reinforced concrete beams under static load. Four-point static loadings were applied to the 3 RC beams to induce three damage scenarios. After each static loading, a dynamic test was performed to access the degree of stiffness degradation. Modal frequencies and mode shapes obtained depicts clearly the stiffness degradations of the beams as the severity of damages on the beams became more pronounced. Results obtained showed that the research procedure adopted is a smart approach for damage assessment in reinforced concrete element

Nigerian Failed Developmental Strides: Can Agriculture Break the Jinx?

All over the world, industrialization is the principal underpinning of sustainable economic growth. But the attainment of industrialization and the accompanying economic stability that guarantee wellbeing for the population have not been that easy for the developing nations. In the free-for all quest for economic advancement, each people, nation, and continent adopt strategies it deems appropriate to pursue its goal. Agriculture have been a common denominator for all nations of the earth, whether developed or under developed. That has been the starting point for the advanced nations through the primitive age to the industrial revolution age to the present information/knowledge worker’s age. As they transited from one age to the other, they made use of acquired knowledge and available resources to move forward. Africa also started with agriculture through the primitive age to the current information/knowledge worker’s age without much to show in terms of economic stability and wellbeing of it citizens. This can be traced to the various approaches they adopted towards industrialization. Before independence, most African countries experienced sustainable growth with agriculture as the core activity. After independence, the discovery and exploitation of various types of mineral resources made many African nations to loose focus in agriculture thereby turning them to major importers of food. Over the recent years, Nigeria being one of such nations is faced with the burden of increasing food importation bill which in the near future may become unsustainable, there by creating crises that will destabilize the nation

Assessment of Strength Characteristics of Concrete Made from Locally Sourced Gravel Aggregate from South-South Nigeria

Aims: The aim of this research is to verify the suitability of local gravel aggregates obtained from the Southern part of Akwa Ibom State for designed concrete production in place of crushed granite aggregate sourced from distance places at exorbitant cost. This paper assesses the strength characteristics of concrete made from two locally sourced gravel aggregates of 10 mm and 20 mm maximum sizes. Study Design: Three samples of gravels divided into washed and unwashed gravels were used for the research. Concrete mix design of 25 N/mm2 at 28 days of curing was the target mean strength of the research. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Civil Engineering, Covenant University, Ota – Nigeria, between September 2014 and July 2015. Methodology: Particle size distribution test, specific gravity test, water absorption test, aggregate crushing value test, flakiness and elongation tests, slump test, compressive strength test were performed on the samples. Concrete cubes150 mm were cast for each gravel size and three specimen tested for 3, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days compressive strength. Results: The washed gravels with 10 mm and 20 mm maximum size reached the target mean strength with 29.7 N/mm2 and 26.2 N/mm2 respectively while the unwashed gravel with 20 mm maximum size yielded a compressive strength of 24.5 N/mm2 at 28 days. Conclusion: The results prove that the size, grading, internal bonding and deleterious material contribute immensely to the strength of concrete made from gravel aggregat

IS KENYA’S CURRENT ACCOUNT SUSTAINABLE? A STATIONARITY AND COINTEGRATION APPROACH

The objective of this paper is to examine the sustainability of the current account deficits in Kenya. In this respect, stationarity and Cointegration test was employed to ascertain sustainability of the current account in Kenya between 1970 to 2012.The choice of the set of variables were motivated by the existing theories about the long-run intertemporal budget constraint. Results indicate that Current account is stationary at levels implying that its mean reverting and temporary and that external debt is finite and sustainable. The empirical results suggest that exports and imports are cointegrated with the cointegrating coefficient of 0.21989 which is significantly not equal to one, but equal to zero, implying that the current account was not on the sustainable path indicating a weak form of sustainability. The paper concludes that Current account deficit of Kenya may not be sustainable in the long-run

Superpotentials from variational derivatives rather than Lagrangians in relativistic theories of gravity

The prescription of Silva to derive superpotential equations from variational derivatives rather than from Lagrangian densities is applied to theories of gravity derived from Lovelock Lagrangians in the Palatini representation. Spacetimes are without torsion and isolated sources of gravity are minimally coupled. On a closed boundary of spacetime, the metric is given and the connection coefficients are those of Christoffel. We derive equations for the superpotentials in these conditions. The equations are easily integrated and we give the general expression for all superpotentials associated with Lovelock Lagrangians. We find, in particular, that in Einstein's theory, in any number of dimensions, the superpotential, valid at spatial and at null infinity, is that of Katz, Bicak and Lynden-Bell, the KBL superpotential. We also give explicitly the superpotential for Gauss-Bonnet theories of gravity. Finally, we find a simple expression for the superpotential of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theories with an anti-de Sitter background: it is minus the KBL superpotential, confirming, as it should, the calculation of the total mass-energy of spacetime at spatial infinity by Deser and Tekin.Comment: Scheduled to appear in Class. Quantum Grav. August 200