Preliminary studies of the dual role of cotton-seed cake as fish feed and fish pond fertilizer in aquaculture

Many locally available fish feeds have been tried in fish culture. These include guinea corn, soya bean, groundnut cake and rice bran. Cotton seed cake has been successfully used as a fishpond organic fertilizer at Ado-Ekiti Government fish farm. Three fishponds stocked respectively with common carps, Heterotis, Tilapia spp., Clarias lazera and Heterobranchus were fed with cotton seed cake. Carps, Tilapia and Heterotis increased rapidly in weight and length while the catifishes did not gro

Awareness and knowledge about diabetes mellitus and hypertension amongst adolescents in secondary schools, Oyo State, Nigeria – an interventional study by the SIDCAIN Research Group

Background: Epidemic of obesity has propelled type 2 diabetes into an emerging health problem. Alongside hypertension, diabetes is now a foremost non communicable disease (NCD) in Nigeria. Aims & Objectives: This paper reports the outcome of school health club awareness program amongst school children in Oyo State. Methods: Health clubs were formed with the aim of making adolescents aware of NCDs, and their risk factors through health educational programs over a three year period (2010 – 2013). Data was obtained on awareness, knowledge, and traditional beliefs amongst club members and compared to responses from non-club members. SPSS version 17 was used for data analysis, and the level of statistical significance was set at (

Evaluation of the chemical laboratory safety awareness, attitudes and practices of undergraduate pharmacy students in a Nigerian tertiary education institution

Chemical safety is the handling of chemical substances in a manner that guarantees the health and safety of humans in addition to preventing environmental damage. Pharmaceutical chemistry is a core course in the pharmacy curriculum and pharmacy students are exposed to potential hazards from carrying out experiments in the pharmaceutical chemistry laboratory. The current study was carried out to investigate the present state of chemical laboratory safety awareness, attitudes and practices among undergraduate pharmacy students in a tertiary education institution in Jos, Nigeria. The study was conducted using a cross sectional survey method with a sample size of 291 students. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data about knowledge, attitude and practices of chemical safety which were analysed using descriptive statistics. Out of 320 questionnaires administered, 291 were returned giving a response rate of 90.94 %. About 70 % of the respondents showed high awareness of hazard identification and emergency responses employed in the laboratory. Majority of the students also showed positive attitudes towards the safe use of chemicals but however showed inadequate knowledge of safe ways of disposing chemical waste. Furthermore, 66.20 % of the students indicated that they always wear personal protective equipment in the laboratory. The study found that the knowledge and compliance of the students with chemical safety measures is generally high but they exhibited deficiencies in certain areas like waste disposal and identification of certain chemical hazard symbols. There is therefore the need for additional training and education to prevent the occurrence of chemical accidents. Keywords: Laboratory safety, Pharmacy, Chemicals, Undergraduate, Knowledg

Reliability and power loss analysis: A case study of a power plant in Nigeria

The consequence of electric power outage goes beyond the frustration experienced. Electric power outage could lead to injuries and sometimes deaths especially when it interferes with the elements of daily utility like the powered elevators in towers and life-saving equipment in the hospitals. In this study, an assessment of the reliability of a power generating plant was carried out to provide an opportunity to checkmate frequent fault occurrence and prolonged outages. Historical data were obtained from a generating plant in Nigeria. The data were used to evaluate the overall performance of the plant and its generating units. The results showed reliability results of the six units of the plant as 0.00%, 82.39%, 8.25%, 18.60%, 45.98% and 83.41% for units 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, respectively, while the overall reliability was 55.73%. The plant’s availability and capacity factor were 50% and 35%, respectively. The generation loss analysis indicated that gas restriction, grid constraints and plant unavailability prevented the plant from running at maximum continuous ratings (MCR). It was recommended that to have an optimum operation of the entire system, further study should be extended to the transmission and distribution arms of the power system. Keywords: reliability, availability, performance evaluation, power loss, capacity facto