Analysis of the State Universal Basic Education Board's Execution of Strategic Capacity Building and Teachers' Job Satisfaction in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between the State Universal Basic Education Board's execution of strategic capacity building and teachers' job satisfaction in Akwa Ibom State. One objective, research question and null hypothesis were formulated to guide the study.  The correlational design was adopted. The population of the study consisted of 12,566 public primary school teachers in Akwa Ibom State. A multi-stage approach was used to select a sample size of 1,750 teachers. Two researcher-developed instruments namely ‘Executing Strategic Capacity Building Questionnaire (ESCBQ) and ‘Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Questionnaire (TJSQ)’ were both completed by teachers and used for data collection. The instruments were validated by three experts from the University of Uyo. The Cronbach’s Alpha Statistic was used to ascertain the reliability coefficients of .832 and .790 respectively. Correlation (r) was used to answer research question while the PPMC analysis was used to test hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed that strategic capacity building has a significant relationship with teachers’ job satisfaction. It is therefore recommended that SUBEB management should strategically design and carryout capacity building programmes for teachers based on needs assessment that leads to successful implementation of educational strategies. Keywords: Strategy execution, capacity building, job satisfaction DOI: 10.7176/JEP/10-5-0

Investigation of Thermal Properties of Plantain (Musa paradisiaca ) and Mfang Aya (Thaumatococcus daniellii) as Thermal Radiation Insulator

Thermal properties of Plantain (Musa paradisiaca) and Mfang Aya (Thaumatococcus daniellii)) were determined using the steady state method. In this study the mean thermal conductivity of Musa paradisiaca was found to be 0.0374 Wm-1K-1 with a mean bulk density of 200.0 kg/m3 while Thaumatococcus daniellii shows a mean thermal conductivity of 0.0427Wm-1K-1with a mean bulk density of 287.0 kgm-3. The mean specific heat capacity of Musa paradisiaca was obtained as 2606.5 Jkg-1K -1 for density range of 0.146-0.237kg/m3 while mean specific heat capacity of Thaumatococcus daniellii is 1041.9 Jkg-1K-1for density 0.211-0.365kg/m3 and the heat transfer models for the material are also obtained. The thermal properties values obtained show similarities with other local materials which previously have been observed to be good thermal insulators, hence Musa paradisiaca and Thaumatococcus daniellii are encouraged to be seen as potential thermal insulators. Keywords: Thermal properties , Musa Paradisiaca, Thaumatococcus daniellii, Thermal conductivity, specific heat capacity and bulk density

The influence of salt on rancidity development in salted-dried fish

Preservation of fish by salting or drying, or a combination of both, has been used for many centuries in many countries. These methods have developed over the years largely to suit local conditions e.g. availability of salt and climate. In general, rapid drying occurs under low humidity and high temperature conditions, although in practice fish drying is viable provided either the humidity is relatively low or the temperature relatively high. For example, fish drying at low humidities and low temperature is carried out in Canada, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands, whereas drying of fish at relatively high humidity and high temperature is carried out in many tropical countries, However, dried fish products keep less well in a hot humid tropical climate than in a cool, dry temperate climate. [Continues.

HANDOVER MANAGEABILITY AND PERFORMANCE MODELING IN MOBILE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS

In cellular Networks, a mobile station (MS’s) move from one cell region to another on seamless Communicationscheduling.. Handoff or Handover is an essential issue for the seamless communication. Several approaches havebeen proposed for handoff performance analysis in mobile communication systems. In Code-Division Multiple-Access (CDMA) systems with soft handoff, mobile stations (MS’s) within a soft-handoff region (SR) use multipleradio channels and receive their signals from multiple base stations (BS’s) simultaneously. Consequently, SR’sshould be investigated for handoff analysis in CDMA systems. In this paper, a model for soft handoff in CDMAnetworks is developed by initiating an overlap region between adjacent cells facilitating the derivation of handoffmanageability performance model. We employed an empirical modelling approach to support our analyticalfindings, measure and investigated the performance characteristics of typical communication network over a specificperiod from March to June, 2013 in an established cellular communication network operator in Nigeria. Theobserved data parameters were used as model predictors during the simulation phase. Simulation results revealedthat increased system capacity degrades the performance of the network due to congestion, dropping and callblocking, which the system is most likely to experience, but the rate of those factors could be minimized by properlyconsidering the handoff probabilities level. Comparing our results, we determined the effective and efficientperformance model and recommend it to network operators for an enhanced Quality of Service (QoS), which willpotentially improve the cost-value ratio for mobile users and thus confirmed that Soft Handoff (SH) performancemodel should be carefully implemented to minimize cellular communication system defects.Keywords: CDMA, QoS, optimization, Handoff Manageability, Congestion, Call Blocking and Call Dropping,

APRIORI ALGORITHM APPROACH FOR AUTOMATIC TEXT PROCESSING AND GENERIC-BASED SUMMARIZATION SYSTEM

Text Processing has always existed in various forms. It makes voluminous text easily digestible, offers brief and quick overview of the subject contents and may provide critical context analysis to the reader. With the growth of digital articles in forms of news, blogs, wikis etc., there is serious need for a text processor which can adequately summarized an article or documents for the reader. This redirected and takes away the effort needed to read, assimilate and create summaries manually. This research paper proposed a system which provides unique opportunity for developing a core set text summarization system using Apriori Algorithm techniques to perform Binary Associated Rule on Data Mining. The system makes available a means of storing the automatic Generic-based summaries for future references and requirements

Determining the Performance of Procurement Methods against Selection Criteria using Outranking - Satisfying Methodology

The need to develop a decision support system to determine the most appropriate procurement route for a building project led to the development of various theoretical models. One of the foremost techniques was the multi-attribute utility approach (MAUA). In this technique, the arithmetic mean (averaging) method was used to fix the utility factors relating the procurement routes to each criterion. In this paper, the averaging method was subjected to further analysis using the outranking-satisfying technique to determine the correctness of the results derived from the averaging method used to fix the utility factors in the use of MAUA. The results showed that there is a significant difference between the rank-order of procurement methods against selection criteria by averaging and outranking-satisfying techniques. The use of outranking-satisfying analysis revealed that, the use of arithmetic mean to determine the utility factors can lead to inappropriate association of procurement routes with differing utility coefficients

SMALL AND LIGHT WEAPONS PROLIFERATION, VIOLENT CRIMES, AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Small arms and light weapons are becoming endemic in Nigeria, and the rate of accumulation is increasing with their concomitant destabilizing effect. The thesis of this paper is to examine the role small and light weapons proliferation play in promoting violent crime and how it affects national security in Nigeria. Small and light weapons of various shapes, sizes, and colours has featured predominantly in most violent crime in Nigeria. These weapons have been used by unpatriotic elements to maim, harm, and destroy lives and properties in the country. Presently, Nigeria is undergoing series of violent crime such as armed robbery, cultism, kidnapping, vandalism, armed conflict, drug trafficking, cattle rustling, arson, rampaging killer herdsmen, etc., in which small and light weapons play a decisive role. These security breaches have resulted to loss of lives, destruction of peoples’ homes, vandalization of business premises, and an increase in the number of displaced persons in the country. To check these problems, the paper recommended among other things that government should actively erect barriers to stem the flow of small arms into the country. Also, border surveillance should be strengthened, and sophisticated ICT and detective devices should be made available to law enforcement officers at the border. In addition, transparency and accountability should be taken into cognizance in the production and transfer of small arms, as well as weapons registration, to help stem the massive inflow and circulation of small arms throughout the country.  Article visualizations

A Machine Learning Framework for Length of Stay Minimization in Healthcare Emergency Department

The emergency departments (EDs) in most hospitals, especially in middle-and-low-income countries, need techniques for minimizing the waiting time of patients. The application and utilization of appropriate methods can enhance the number of patients treated, improve patients’ satisfaction, reduce healthcare costs, and lower morbidity and mortality rates which are often associated with poor healthcare facilities, overcrowding, and low availability of healthcare professionals.  Modeling the length of stay (LOS) of patients in healthcare systems is a challenge that must be addressed for sound decision-making regarding capacity planning and resource allocation. This paper presents a machine learning (ML) framework for predicting a patient’s LOS within the ED. A study of the services in the ED of a tertiary healthcare facility in Uyo, Nigeria was conducted to gain insights into its operational procedures and evaluate the impact of certain parameters on LOS. Then, a computer simulation of the system was performed in R programming language using data obtained from records in the hospital. Finally, the performance of four ML classifiers involved in patients’ LOS prediction: Classification and Regression Tree (CART), Random Forest (RF), K-Nearest Neighbour (K-NN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM), were evaluated and results indicate that SVM outperforms others with the highest coefficient of determination (R2) score of 0.986984 and least mean square error (MSE) value of 0.358594. The result demonstrates the capability of ML techniques to effectively assess the performance of healthcare systems and accurately predict patients’ LOS to mitigate the low physician-patient ratio and improve throughput

Thermal Properties of Clay Soil from Uruan River Bank in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

Clay soils are widely used in Akwa Ibom State for various purposes that require cooling. It is made into pots for storage of drinking water and as walling material. Clay soils are used as a potential thermal insulator for shelters and there is need for the thermal properties of the clay sample to be investigated. The thermal properties of clay soils from selected parts of Akwa Ibom State have previously been investigated but clay from other parts are yet to be investigated; hence this study investigates the thermal properties of clay soil from Uruan local government area of the state. The result shows that the clay has a mean thermal conductivity of 0.393 Wm-1K-1; mean bulk density of 1.69 ×10-3 kg/m3; mean thermal diffusivity of 1.98m2s-1 and mean thermal resistivity is 2.55 mkW-1. The results show that the clay from Uruan, Nigeria has the lowest absorptivity compared to the clay samples from the areas studied so far.  The temperature predictor model also shows that the clay presents the least temperature value during the highest daytime of between 13 hours and 14 hours. The resistivity and thermal conductivity compares better with the values for kaolin obtained elsewhere showing that the clay sample from Uruan local government area, Nigeria contains kaolin. Keywords: Clay, thermal properties, Uruan, conductivity, resistivity