Access to credit facilities among arable crop farmers in Ido Local Government Area, Oyo State

Many farmers have hardly been able to meet the farm expenditure due to lack of financial command and potential. Therefore, access to credit facilities among arable crop farmers in Ido Local Government Area of Oyo State was investigated. Multi- stage sampling procedure was used to select 104 respondents for the study. Data were collected through the use of questionnaire on socio-economic characteristics, means of credit awareness, access to credit facilities, utilization of credit and constraint facing in getting access to credit facilities. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency count, percentage, mean and charts and multiple linear regression for the objectives while Spearman correlation were used to analyzed the hypothesis. The results revealed that most of the respondents 81.7% was male, 54.8% were between the ages of 41-50 years, majority of the farmers were married and 33.7% had adult education. The results also revealed that the major means of credit facilities on awareness obtained from the study area was from friends, 92.3% heard about the credit awareness, 81.7% had their source of credit facilities by personal saving and majority of the farmers utilized their credit through planting materials. Spearman correlation coefficient showed that there were significant differences at p<0.05 by the respondents in the study area. Some problems hindering the access to credit facilities in the study area were amount required, period of payment, lack of collateral etc. The study recommends that government should set up financial institutions to provide fund to interested farmers at subsidized rate and easy period of payment.Keywords: Access, Credit Facilities, Credit awareness, Utilization of Credit, Arable Crop Farmer

CARCASS CHARACTERISTICS OF BROILER CHICKENS FED DIETS OF DIFFERENTLY PROCESSED CASSAVA-SOYA BLENDS

This study was conducted to evaluate the carcass characteristics of broiler chickens fed diets of differently processed cassava-soya blends (CSB). Two differently dried blends of cassava pulp and soya beans (dry and wet heated), mixed at four (4) different ratios were subjected to two types of dehydration methods to obtain 12 types of blends. These blends were subsequently included in the diets of broiler chickens at 15% in a 2×2×3 factorial arrangement to obtain 12 dietary treatments. 360 one-day-old Cobb-500 broiler chicks used for this study were assigned to the 12 dietary treatment groups which were replicated three times with ten birds each. Eight weeks of feeding trials (starter and finisher phases) were observed. The blends were chemically analysed to determine their proximate, hydrocyanide (HCN) and trypsin inhibition unit (TIU) compositions. Carcass characteristics of the birds were evaluated at the end of the experiment. Results of the carcass characteristics shows that liver mass (2.03%) was higher (p<0.05) in birds fed diets containing wet heated soya bean, compared to those fed diets containing dry heated soyabean. Dehydration by frying of CSB resulted in a higher (p<0.05) dressing percentage (65.9%) and drumstick weight (10.0%). Birds fed diets containing CSB mixed in ratio 50:50 had higher liveweight (2170 g). It can be concluded that replacing 15% of maize in diets of broiler chickens with CSB of 50:50 mixing ratio resulted in higher live weight when compared to other mixing ratios.   &nbsp

The COVID-19 pandemic and health workforce brain drain in Nigeria

Over the years, the Nigerian healthcare workforce, including doctors, nurses, and pharmacists have always been known to emigrate to developed countries to practice. However, the recent dramatic increase in this trend is worrisome. There has been a mass emigration of Nigerian healthcare workers to developed countries during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the push factors have been found to include the inadequate provision of personal protective equipment, low monthly hazard allowance, and inconsistent payment of COVID-19 inducement allowance on top of worsening insecurity, the pull factors are higher salaries as well as a safe and healthy working environment. We also discuss how healthcare workers can be retained in Nigeria through increment in remunerations and prompt payment of allowances, and how the brain drain can be turned into a brain gain via the use of electronic data collection tools for Nigerian health workers abroad, implementation of the Bhagwati’s tax system, and establishment of a global skill partnership with developed countries

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction

Measurement of the cross section for isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

The dynamics of isolated-photon production in association with a jet in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1. Photons are required to have transverse energies above 125 GeV. Jets are identified using the anti- algorithm with radius parameter and required to have transverse momenta above 100 GeV. Measurements of isolated-photon plus jet cross sections are presented as functions of the leading-photon transverse energy, the leading-jet transverse momentum, the azimuthal angular separation between the photon and the jet, the photon–jet invariant mass and the scattering angle in the photon–jet centre-of-mass system. Tree-level plus parton-shower predictions from Sherpa and Pythia as well as next-to-leading-order QCD predictions from Jetphox and Sherpa are compared to the measurements

Measurement of the View the tt production cross-section using eμ events with b-tagged jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper describes a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross-section (σtt¯) with a data sample of 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV, collected in 2015 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This measurement uses events with an opposite-charge electron–muon pair in the final state. Jets containing b-quarks are tagged using an algorithm based on track impact parameters and reconstructed secondary vertices. The numbers of events with exactly one and exactly two b-tagged jets are counted and used to determine simultaneously σtt¯ and the efficiency to reconstruct and b-tag a jet from a top quark decay, thereby minimising the associated systematic uncertainties. The cross-section is measured to be: σtt¯ = 818 ± 8 (stat) ± 27 (syst) ± 19 (lumi) ± 12 (beam) pb, where the four uncertainties arise from data statistics, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, the integrated luminosity and the LHC beam energy, giving a total relative uncertainty of 4.4%. The result is consistent with theoretical QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order. A fiducial measurement corresponding to the experimental acceptance of the leptons is also presented

A search for resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a new particle X in the XH → qqbb final state with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson (H) and a new particle (X) is reported, utilizing 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at collected during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle X is assumed to decay to a pair of light quarks, and the fully hadronic final state is analysed. The search considers the regime of high XH resonance masses, where the X and H bosons are both highly Lorentz-boosted and are each reconstructed using a single jet with large radius parameter. A two-dimensional phase space of XH mass versus X mass is scanned for evidence of a signal, over a range of XH resonance mass values between 1 TeV and 4 TeV, and for X particles with masses from 50 GeV to 1000 GeV. All search results are consistent with the expectations for the background due to Standard Model processes, and 95% CL upper limits are set, as a function of XH and X masses, on the production cross-section of the resonance

Search for strong gravity in multijet final states produced in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector at the LHC

A search is conducted for new physics in multijet final states using 3.6 inverse femtobarns of data from proton-proton collisions at √s = 13TeV taken at the CERN Large Hadron Collider with the ATLAS detector. Events are selected containing at least three jets with scalar sum of jet transverse momenta (HT) greater than 1TeV. No excess is seen at large HT and limits are presented on new physics: models which produce final states containing at least three jets and having cross sections larger than 1.6 fb with HT > 5.8 TeV are excluded. Limits are also given in terms of new physics models of strong gravity that hypothesize additional space-time dimensions

Search for TeV-scale gravity signatures in high-mass final states with leptons and jets with the ATLAS detector at sqrt [ s ] = 13TeV

A search for physics beyond the Standard Model, in final states with at least one high transverse momentum charged lepton (electron or muon) and two additional high transverse momentum leptons or jets, is performed using 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider in 2015 at √s = 13 TeV. The upper end of the distribution of the scalar sum of the transverse momenta of leptons and jets is sensitive to the production of high-mass objects. No excess of events beyond Standard Model predictions is observed. Exclusion limits are set for models of microscopic black holes with two to six extra dimensions