Epidemiological Analysis and Time Prediction Models of Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) Spread in Selected Epicentres around the World: Nigeria as a Case Study

The spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) in Nigeria from index to community cases is becoming alarming that what the future holds should be brought to bear. An analytical study and time prediction model have been conducted on the epidemiological spread of coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) with data collected from records of selected epicentres in Nigeria. The data was collected between March 1 and May 31, 2020. It can be shown that the highest daily infection in March was recorded on the 28th with 32 infections while the highest fatality rate was recorded on 24th with a rate of 2.3% and recorded daily infection of 10. As at the 31st, a total number of 139 confirmed cases were recorded in Nigeria with a fatality and discharge rates of 1.4 and 6.5% respectively. It can be deduced that the highest daily infection in Nigeria in April was recorded on 30th, with daily infection of 204 confirmed cases. The highest discharge rate of 34.4% was recorded on 16th, with a fatality rate of 2.9% while the highest fatality rate of April was 3.5% recorded on 18th, which has a discharge rate of 30.6% and a daily infection record of 49. As of April 30, 2020, Nigeria had recorded a total of 1932 confirmed cases with 58 deaths. It can also be deduced that the highest daily infection in Nigeria in May was recorded on 30th, with daily infection of 553 confirmed cases. It can also be observed that the highest discharge and fatality rates for May 2020 are 29.6% and 3.6% recorded on 31st and 2nd respectively. As of May 31, 2020, the total infection stood at 10162 confirmed cases and there seems to be a continuing upward trajectory for the situation under investigation. It can also be observed that the rate of discharged cases continued to surpass those of the fatality for the months of investigation. No doubts that the COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 was first recorded in the Ogun State of Nigeria, but Lagos state has surpassed both the daily infections and the cumulative infections for the country. With collected data, MLR simple linear regression extension was used to estimate an outcome or target variable based on two or more independent variables. The variables which are the three months data collected from daily infections, totally confirmed case, total deaths and total discharged cases between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020, were used to propose regression equations for the prediction of the cases under study for anytime period

Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) Conditions Relationship in Diabetic and SCA Patients: a Review

Cardiovascular Disease (CVD), which is also known as Heart Disease has been the most common cause of death among diabetic and sickle cell anemia (SCA) patients around the world. CVD includes coronary artery disease, stroke, and peripheral artery disease while SCA includes hemolysis. These are the main types of CVD, which is similar to hypertension because of the common risk factors they have, such as obesity, arterial remodeling, abnormal cholesterol levels, etc. Diabetes and SCA belong to the largest health emergencies of the 21st century. With the high rate of people with diabetes and SCA, the rate of Cardiovascular Disease increases rapidly. The rates of CVD in high-income countries generally have low CVD because of the monitoring systems for non-communicable diseases like CVD. However, the appearance of the novel COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 has changed the narrative. With COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 attacking more on people with previous health conditions associated to cardiovascular conditions, the backbone of high-income nations is broken and those leaving with high immune conditions are at less risk whether in the high income or low-income environments. The objective of this research is to review the Cardiovascular Disease conditions to the novel COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 in Diabetic and SCA patients. This is due to the prevalence of this medical situation in the developing world or low income and densely populated countries

Local Nanostructured Ashes Synthesized by Incineration, Pulverization and Spectrophotometric Characterization of Solid Wastes Ashes for Use as Admixtures in Soil Stabilization

Nanostructured ash materials were locally synthesized by the spectrophotometric characterization method and applied in the stabilization of lateritic soils to evaluate the effect of the ashes on the strength properties of the lateritic soil. The ashes are products of the incineration and complete pulverization of some selected biodegerable solid waste materials. Results showed that the ashes were nanomaterials by size, reactive surface, absorbance and texture. And the studied soil was found to be an A-2-7 soil, according to AASHTO classification method. These ash materials were mixed with the soil in varying proportions of 3%, 6%, 9%, 12% and 15% by weight of dry soil and their respective effects on the soil evaluated. The California bearing ratio and unconfined compressive strength results improved remarkably. The results showed that the ash materials are good admixtures in the stabilization of lateritic soils in pavement sub-grade and sub-base construction and other civil engineering works. These materials are secured free of cost and by implication reduced the cost of stabilizing the lateritic soils hence a cost effective stabilization was achieved

Constrained Vertex Optimization and Simulation of the Unconfined Compressive Strength of Geotextile Reinforced Soil for Flexible Foundation Construction

Extreme vertex design (EVD) provides an efficient approach to mixture experiment design whereby the factor level possesses multiple dependencies expressed through component constraints formulation. Consequently, the derived experimental points are within the center edges and vertices of the feasible constrained region. EVD was deployed for the modeling of the mechanical properties of the problematic clayey soil-geogrid blends. Geogrids are geosynthetic materials that possess an open mesh-like structure and are mostly used for soil stabilization. The geotextile materials present a geosynthetic and permeable layer to support the soil and foundation by improvement of its stiffness characteristics and at a cheaper cost to procure compared to other construction materials and possess unique lightweight properties with greater strength improvement on the soil layer when used. Minitab 18 and Design Expert statistical software was utilized for the mixture design experiment computation; to fully explore the constrained region of the simplex, I-optimal designs with a special cubic design model were utilized to formulate the mixture component ratios at ten experimental runs. I-optimality and D-optimality of 0.39093 and 1747.474, respectively, were obtained with a G-efficiency of 64.8%. The generated laboratory responses were taken together with the mixture ingredients’ ratio and taken as the system database for the model development. Statistical influence and diagnostics tests carried out on the generated EVD model indicate a good correlation with the experimental results. Graphical and numerical optimizations were incorporated using a desirability function that ranged from 0 to 1, which helped to arrive at the optimal combination of the mixture components. 0.2% of geogrid, 9.8% of water, and 90 % of soil yielded the optimal solution with a response of 41.270kN/m2 and a desirability score of 1.0. The model simulation was further carried out to test the model’s applicability with the results compared with the actual results using student’s t-test and analysis of variance. The statistical results showed a p-value>0.05 which indicates a good correlation

Identifying Failure Factors in the Implementation of Residential Complex Projects in Iraq

Residential complexes have witnessed a great demand in most countries worldwide, as they are one of the main infrastructure elements, in addition to achieving a developed urban landscape. However, complex residential projects in developing countries face various factors that could be improved in their implementation, especially in Iraq. Sixty-two experts in residential complex projects were interviewed and surveyed to verify these projects' failure factors,. Fifty-one factors were the main failure factors, divided into four main components (leadership, management system, external forces, and project resources). The Relatively Important Index (RII) is used to determine the relative importance factors and obtain the top twelve factors that cause the optimal failure factors, correspondingly: political interference (87.7%), change in governments (86.5%), partisan politics available (85.6%), Unclear strategic planning (84.3%), inadequate planning (84.3%), lack of materials and equipment (83.3%), the poor obligation for project leaders (82.6%), work suspension due to demonstrations (82.3%), lack of human capacity (81.8%), bureaucracy (81.7%), corruption (81.4%), and misalignment in culture or ethics (81.3%). The achieved RII readings were high for leadership (73.1%), followed by project resources (71.3%), management systems (70.5%), and external forces (69.9%). The study recommended addressing the problems of implementing complex residential projects and solving the crisis to start the state's economic growth phase according to new foundations and standards.

Predicting the Behaviour of Stabilized Lateritic Soils Treated with Green Crude Oil (GCO) by Analysis of Variance Approaches

The behaviour of the stabilized lateritic soil obtained from Amaoba, Nigeria treated with green crude oil was statistically studied using analysis of variance with interaction, Kruskal-Wallis test, and expected mean square methods to validate the effect of the additive on the strength properties of the stabilized soil. First a preliminary test was conducted on the soil to classify the soil as an A-2-6 soil according to the AASHTO classification system. The soil was treated with varying percentages of crude oil; 0, 2, 4, and 6% by weight of the soil. The results obtained showed that the GCO improved the strength properties of the treated soil. Finally the prediction model was used to validate the reaction that brought about strength gain, flocculation, carbonation, cation exchange and densification of the stabilized soil matrix. The three analyses of variance approaches agreed on the hypotheses tests conducted, which rejected the null hypotheses and showed that, to achieve soil stabilization, there must be interaction between the additives and the treated lateritic soil and different percentage by weight of treatment affect the treated soil in different ways

Developing new models for flyrock distance assessment in open-pit mines

Peer ReviewedObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i InfraestructuraPostprint (published version

Optimization of Green Concrete Containing Fly Ash and Rice Husk Ash Based on Hydro-Mechanical Properties and Life Cycle Assessment Considerations

The development of sustainable concrete in achieving the developmental goals of the United Nations in terms of sustainable infrastructure and innovative technology forms part of the focus of this research paper. In order to move towards sustainability, the utilization of the by-products of agro-industrial operations, which are fly ash (FA) and rice husk ash (RHA), in the production of concrete has been studied. Considering the environmental impact of concrete constituents, multiple mechanical and hydraulic properties of fly ash (FA) and rice husk ash (RHA) concrete have been proposed using intelligent techniques; artificial neural network (ANN) and evolutionary polynomial regressions (EPR). Also, an intelligent mix design tool/chart for this case under study is proposed. Multiple data points of concrete materials, which were further reduced to ratios as follows; cement to binder ratio (C/B), aggregate to binder ratio (Ag/B), and plasticizer to binder ratio (PL/B) were used in this exercise. At the end of the protocol, it is observed that the constituents’ ratios are dependent on the behavior of the whole, which can be solved by using the proposed model equations and mix design charts. The models performed optimally, as none showed any performance below 80%. However, ANN, which predicted Fc03, Fc07, Fc28, Fc60, Fc90, Ft28, Ff28 & Fb28, S, Ec28 & K28, and P with an accuracy of greater than 95% each with average error of less than 9.4% each, is considered the decisive technique in predicting all the studied concrete properties, including the life cycle assessment potential of the concrete materials. Doi: 10.28991/CEJ-2022-08-12-018 Full Text: PD