Playground design for Kayayo Day Care Centre

Capstone Project submitted to the Department of Engineering, Ashesi University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, May 2021Playgrounds are easily the most common and important forms of entertainment for young children. They provide a means for children to develop physically, through the movements made during play, and socially, through their interactions with other children while they play. These activities are all done within a safe environment that has been engineered to look aesthetically pleasing to children and ensure their safety while they have fun. However, despite their apparent benefits, the playgrounds available in Accra and other West African cities are very few, lack design creativity, and are often poorly maintained. This paper showcases a creative design for a set of playground structures for young children and the analysis done to ensure its safety. The playground was designed for the Kayayo day-care centre.Ashesi Universit

Pattern of Spread of Medical Schools in Nigeria

The pattern of spread of medical schools in Nigeria has an effect on the general availability of doctors nationwide and their retention in their primary area of training. Using statistics from the National Population Commission and the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, we determined the pattern of distribution in the geo-political zones in Nigeria. There were 25 fully accredited and 6 partially accredited medical schools. There were 15 Federal, 12 State and four privately owned medical schools, nine in the South South zone with a population of 21,044,081, seven in the South East zone with a population of 16,395,555 and seven in the South West with 27,722,432. In the North Central zone, there were 4 medical schools with a population of 20,369,956, three in the North West with 35,915,467 and only one in the North East with a population of 18,984,299. In each geo-political zone, the mean distribution was 5 medical schools, 3 federal owned, 2 states owned. Medical schools are not evenly distributed in Nigeria. While the North East, North West and North Central zones have below the National average of the total medical schools, the South East, South West and South South zones have above the National average. Also, the number of medical schools in each zone had a linear relationship to the percentage population that completed secondary school education. The Governments especially States should develop more medical training institutions especially in the geo-political zones below the National average of medical schools (Northern part of the country). In addition, secondary school completion rate should be improved so also creation of more medical schools and expanding of current capacity of existing medical schools to increase doctors in North East, North West and North central geopolitical zones. Keywords: Medical schools, Nigeria, geopolitical zone

Effect of education and training on patient referral by public primary health care workers in Mushin Local Government Area to state general hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria

Background: Poor referral linkages had been noted and documented by various researchers on the health care delivery system in Nigeria.This study is designed to find out the situation of referral practices and make recommendations on how to improve the situation.A quasi-experimental study was carried out to determine the effect of health education and training on the Knowledge,attitude and practices of patient referral by primary health care workers in Mushin and Surulere Local Government Areas of Lagos State of Nigeria.Material and method: A total sample of 170 primary health care workers was involved in the study:85 in each of the Local Government Areas.The study involved three stages, the pre-intervention, the intervention phase,and a post intervention phase of the study.Analysis of the responses of the two groups showed that there was no statistically significant difference in the responses in the areas concerning their attitude towards,and knowledge of patient referral at the pre-intervention phase.Results: In the post-intervention phase the differences in the responses between the two groups in the area of practice of patient referral were statistically significant.In the control group 18.8% of the workers used the two-way referral form in the pre-intervention phase.This rose to 27.1% in the post intervention phase.In the experimental group, 17.5% used the two-way referral form in the pre intervention phase, and this rose to 69.4% in the post intervention phase.Conclusion: The conclusion was that education and training on patient referral could improve the patient referral activities of primary health care workers.Keywords: Health education,Training,Patients,Referral

Strengthening and underpinning of a sinking two storey building in lagos state nigeria

Many existing foundations, particularly those that are old and dilapidated, are no longer strong enough to support the pressures they bear or support new loads applied to them. In order to boost the load bearing capacity, a unique underpinning technique is required. Underpinning technique provides secure, efficient, and reliable solutions to foundation and geotechnical problems affecting the foundations of buildings. However, the practice of underpinning is not common in Nigeria. This paper presents a case study on the settlement failure of a two-storey residential building in Lagos, Nigeria. The residential building encountered excessive differential settlement due to the variation in the soil strata in in 06°26'12“N Long: 3°30'44”E area of Lagos state. Some portion of the building was laid on weak and loose clayey sand which showed signs of foundation distress and led to the eventual choice of an underpinning technique adopted to extend the foundation depth to a stable stratum, to salvage the failed areas of the foundation in order to strengthen the bearing capacity and to minimize settlement. Underpinning was done because the original raft foundation was inadequate for vertical and lateral loads. The procedure used for underpinning was summarized. The measured settlement points of the underpinned foundations after six-year service life were less than 0.333 mm. This result meant that every point (from points 1-10) measurements were below the settlement limit which guaranteed the bearing resistance of the building. The result showed that the underpinning technique salvaged the areas that initially settled and showed distress signs

Chlamydia trachomatis Strains Show Specific Clustering for Men Who Have Sex with Men Compared to Heterosexual Populations in Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States

High-resolution genotyping of Chlamydia trachomatis improves the characterization of strains infecting different patient groups and sexual networks. In this study, multilocus sequence typing (MLST) and ompA sequence determination were used for an analysis of C. trachomatis strains from 203 men who have sex with men (MSM) from Sweden, the Netherlands, and the United States. The results obtained were compared with data from 153 heterosexual women from Sweden and the Netherlands. The overlap in MLST/ompA profiles between MSM from Sweden and the Netherlands was 68%, while the overlap between heterosexual populations from these countries was only 18%. The distribution of genotypes in MSM from the United States was less similar to that in MSM from the European countries, with 45% and 46% overlaps for MSM in Sweden and the Netherlands, respectively. Minimum-spanning-tree analysis of MLST/ompA sequence types identified two large clusters that contained almost exclusively samples from MSM and comprised 74% of all MSM samples. Three other clusters were predominated by samples from women but also contained MSM specimens. Of 19 detected variants of the MLST target CT144, three variants were highly associated with MSM. Our study supports the hypotheses of both tissue tropism as well as epidemiological network structures as explanations for the linkage between specific genetic variants and sexual orientation

Our Stories and Visions: Gender in Black Immigrant Communities

Because this report discusses topics that some may find triggering, we have broad content warnings for the whole report which include: racism, displacement, civil war, misogynoir, xenophobia, sexual assault, police brutality, immigration enforcement (ICE), deportation as well as mental and physical health. At the beginning of each chapter, section-specific content warnings are also provided. Below each graph and image, we include descriptive captions for accessibility.Our report is story-driven, which means that we center the voices and experiences of the individuals that we interviewed. We include quotes from them throughout the report. While we may not necessarily agree with all of the content or the language used in each quote, we include them because we believe they help paint a holistic picture of the stories and visions of Black immigrants.For confidentiality reasons, we have removed most personal identifiers and only refer to participants by their location and age. Towards the end of the report, we have a works cited page where you can see some of the articles, projects, and stories that inspired our research.