Assessment of Productivity Status Using Carlson’s TSI and Fish Diversity of Goronyo Dam, Sokoto State, Nigeria

Goronyo Dam is the largest lentic waterbody in Sokoto, it was constructed to serve as flood control and used for irrigation activities. The study was conducted to evaluate productivity status and fish diversity of Goronyo Dam in 2016. Water samples were collected monthly from the Dam at two sampling sites (Upstream and Downstream). Water samples were collected using sterilized sampling bottles and analyzed in the Laboratory for physicochemical variables and the diversity of fish was evaluated through the use of a structured questionnaire. Depth and transparency were the only variables that did not show any statistically significant difference between the months. Productivity status of the dam was evaluated using Carlson’s Trophic State Index. The downstream has high TSI value of 16.54 compared to upstream with 13.00. A diversity of fishes from the shows that 3 species were more abundant in the dam, these were; Mormyrops species, Alestes species and Clupeid species. Factors contributed to the survival of fish species were an abundance of water and plankton in the dam. While factors affecting the distribution of fish species were pollution and predation

Market Size and Export-Led Growth Hypotheses: New Evidence from Malaysia

Exploring the causal relationship among exports, FDI and economic growth is of enormous importance for the policy implications the causal process among the variables assume. The relevance of investigating the causal relationship between inward FDI and exports borders on the implications of the choice between outward oriented policy and inward looking policy. Utilizing data on Malaysia spanning 1970 – 2012, this study explores the relationships as well as causal interactions among economic growth, exports and FDI employing Vector Autoregression (VAR) model and Toda and Yamamoto (1995) augmented causality test. Results from impulse response function (IRF) analysis shows that both real GDP and real FDI have increasing trend of percentage shocks in them causing fluctuations in the real exports over the period of 5 years. However, real exports was found to have dominance of own shock over the period of analysis. Similarly IRF of real FDI shows that flections in the variable are dominated by variations in its own values. However, both real exports and real FDI were found to have significant effect in determining fluctuation in real FDI with real GDP having stronger effect. Finally, we observe very significant effect on fluctuations in real GDP of real FDI and exports. Over the course of five years, it was observed that real FDI and exports dominate fluctuations in the real GDP more than its own shock. Results from the study indicate presence of bi-directional causality between exports and inward FDI. On the causal link between exports and GDP, the study finds evidence of uni-directional causality running from GDP to exports, affirming Growth-Led Exports (GLE) hypothesis. The study also provides evidence that market size hypothesis holds for Malaysia, as evident by one-way causality from GDP to FDI. Keywords: Growth-led exports hypothesis, Market size hypothesis, y, exports, FDI, real GDP, Malaysia JEL Classifications: F4, O4

The role of domestic private investment in promoting per capita income convergence amongst ASEAN-5 economies

Using data spanning 1980-2014, this study investigates the phenomena of per capita income convergence across a panel of ASEAN-5 economies. The study also delves on the role of domestic private investment in facilitating per capita income convergence amongst the economies.Employing SURADF test to investigate per capita income convergence of the countries to the group average, it was observed that, as opposed to Malaysia and Singapore, economies of Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand tend convergence to the group average. On the impact of gross domestic investment on per capita income convergence, results from system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) indicate that GDP gap ratio between a pair of economies tend to diminish with a reduction in the gross domestic investment gap ratio between the economies

The Role of Domestic Private Investment in Promoting Per Capita Income Convergence amongst Association of Southeast Asian Nations-5 Economies

Using data spanning 1980-2014, this study investigates the phenomena of per capita income convergence across a panel of ASEAN-5 economies. The study also delves on the role of domestic private investment in facilitating per capita income convergence amongst the economies. Employing SURADF test to investigate per capita income convergence of the countries to the group average, it was observed that, as opposed to Malaysia and Singapore, economies of Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand tend convergence to the group average. On the impact of gross domestic investment on per capita income convergence, results from system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) indicate that GDP gap ratio between a pair of economies tend to diminish with a reduction in the gross domestic investment gap ratio between the economies. Keywords: Convergence; Domestic capital formation; SURADF; Generalized Method of Moments; ASEAN-5. JEL Classifications: E31, E52, E5

Evaluation of Physico-Chemical and Fungal Species Associated with Oil Contaminated Soil from Selected Automobile Garage in Sokoto Metropolis

This study was conducted with a view to evaluating the physicochemical and mycological properties of different oil contaminated soils collected from three different automobile garages in Sokoto Metropolis, and uncontaminated soil from the temporary site, Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS) was used as the control. The pH was determined using pH meter model Hanna (H1991301), quantity of mineral elements was evaluated in accordance with Murphy and Fungi were isolated from the three oil contaminated samples (A, B. and C) and the uncontaminated (sample D) as control, this was done by standard procedure using the method of P. Ren, T. Jankun & B. Leaderer. The physical, chemical, and mineral elements from the oil-contaminated soils of the three automobile garages and control. The results of particle soil analysis revealed the high content of sandy soil (96.2 to 87.3) and silt is the lowest with (2.5–0.6). Magnesium had the highest concentration of studied minerals, ranging from 193 to 649.2 mg/kg. while PH result revealed that the soil samples were pH value ranged from (16.85–16.20) in oil Contaminated samples, while the control had 15.90, and electrical conductivity ranged from 12.8–13.8 % and 28 % in control, four fungal isolates Aspergillus sp., Penicillum sp., Mucor sp. and Sporobolomyces sp. were identified based on colonial, sexual and morphological characteristics. These fungal strains can be used in bioremediation process and oil pollution reduction in aquatic ecosystems

COVID-19 Vaccine: Examining Nurses Attitude and Willingness to accept the inoculation in North Western Nigeria

Background: Healthcare providers are the first line of information in pandemics and the last line of support during infections spread.Objective: The study was conducted to examine Nurses Attitude and Willingness to accept COVID-19 vaccine in Northern Nigeria.Methods: Cross-sectional design and systematic sampling technique were used for the study where 300 pretested structured questionnaires were distributed to nurses attending Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria’s Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Programme in Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna and Katsina states of Northwestern Nigeria. 89.3% of the questionnaires were successfully retrieved and analysed using frequency tables and spearman’s correlation coefficient.Result: The result revealed that majority (67.3%) had a positive attitude towards vaccines in general but 89.6% of the respondents were not willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Spearman’s correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between Knowledge of COVID-19 (ρ =0.402, p0.01), having long term medical condition (ρ =0.492, p0.01), highest educational qualification (ρ =0.291, p0.01), female gender (ρ =0.160, p0.01) and willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine among the respondents. Significant positive correlation was also observed between age (ρ =0.186, p0.01) and refusing a recommended vaccine in the past. Significant negative correlations were observed between refusing a recommended vaccine in the past (ρ =-0.661, p0.05) and willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine, knowledge of COVID-19 (ρ = - 0.132, p0.01), refusing a recommended vaccine in the past (ρ = - 0.132, p0.01) and years of working experience.Conclusion: It was recommended that awareness campaigns needs to be instituted targeting the eradication of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among all healthcare providers

Prediction of Compressive Strength in High Strength Concrete with Steel Fiber Addition using Support Vector Machine Algorithm

In this study, a support vector machine model available in Weka Algorithms, was utilized to test the predictive capacity of compressive strength in high performance concrete (HSC) with steel fiber addition. To test the performance of the algorithm, a certain percentage were allocated for training of the algorithm, and the rest for test. This was done from 60-40 percent split up to 90-10 percent split for training and testing respectively. Results generated from the model include mean absolute error, root mean squared error, and relative absolute error for each model. It was observed that there was a good correlation between the actual and predicted values, and that errors were relatively low. Utilization of free algorithms in civil engineering construction will enhance the optimization of concrete mixtures. &nbsp

Evaluation of Emergency Obstetric Care Services in Primary Health Care Facilities in Niger State: A Mixed Methods Study

Background: Primary health care (PHC) is built on the principles of equity in the distribution of quality health care, active community participation in health care programmes and emphasis on prevention of illnesses rather than cure. The main objectives of maternal health services in the primary health care programme are to ensure that every expectant mother maintains good health throughout the maternity cycle. Aim: The main aim of this study is to evaluate the provision of emergency obstetrics care (EmOC) in Primary Health Care facilities. Materials and Methods: Utilizing the mixed research design, data were collected from 887 women, 69 male participants and 24 healthcare providers across 24 PHC facilities in Niger State selected through the multistage sampling technique using the questionnaire, focus group discussion, indepth interview and facility assessment. Ethical approval and all necessary permission were obtained from the Niger State Primary Health Care Agency, stakeholders and the participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and transcription. Results: Findings from the study revealed that prolonged/obstructed labour, hypertension in pregnancy, bleeding in pregnancy, anaemia, retained placenta and breech presentation of the baby during childbirth were among the maternal health problems occurring in the study locations. Also, there were no facilities for the provision of EmOC services in the PHC facilities. Conclusion: Although prolonged/obstructed labour, hypertension in pregnancy, bleeding in pregnancy, anaemia, postpartum haemorrhage and retained placenta were among the frequently occurring maternal health problems, EmOC services were not provided in almost all the PHC facilities visited. It is therefore recommended that efforts should be made to improve the state of the PHC facilities.&nbsp

HERDPhobia: A Dataset for Hate Speech against Fulani in Nigeria

Social media platforms allow users to freely share their opinions about issues or anything they feel like. However, they also make it easier to spread hate and abusive content. The Fulani ethnic group has been the victim of this unfortunate phenomenon. This paper introduces the HERDPhobia - the first annotated hate speech dataset on Fulani herders in Nigeria - in three languages: English, Nigerian-Pidgin, and Hausa. We present a benchmark experiment using pre-trained languages models to classify the tweets as either hateful or non-hateful. Our experiment shows that the XML-T model provides better performance with 99.83% weighted F1. We released the dataset at https://github.com/hausanlp/HERDPhobia for further research.Comment: To appear in the Proceedings of the Sixth Workshop on Widening Natural Language Processing at EMNLP202