THE ROLE OF WOOD IN NIGERIAN HOME INTERIORDECORATIONS (A CASE STUDY OF OGUN STATE AND LAGOS STATE, NIGERIA, SOUTH-WEST)

Home is the base for each family member; it is, therefore, important to make it as comfortable and attractive for proper development and relaxation of the family members.  Wood is one of the interior materials, that gives elegance and warmth ambiance to the room decorated.  Many people prefer to use wood for interior design and often times, outdoors design.  A wide range of modern interiors are more preferred in many contemporary homes in recent times. This paper covers the level of interest of consistent users of wooden materials in home interior design in Abeokuta, Ogun State and Surulere, Lagos State and also writes on the role of wood in Nigerian home interior decorations.  The study was carried out in Abeokuta South local government of Ogun state and Surulere local government areas of Lagos state.  Five wards were selected from each local government.  From each ward selected, ten homes were selected randomly.  Questionnaire was used for data collection based on the role and usage of wood in interior decorations.  The data collected were analyzed using percentage, frequency distribution and barchart.  The result of finding shows that 74% of the respondents are interested in the use of wooden materials for their interior decoration articles and 40% of the respondents have quality of wooden furniture as the highest factor that influence the usage in home interior design.  The study recommends that families should be well informed about the care and maintenance of wooden furniture and users of wooden furniture should consider the comfort of the furniture before purchase.  The visual analysis describes the variety of the wood end use design, interior fitting, high classical joinery and veneers.  Various spaces of teak woods are used in making furniture such as afara, mahogany, sida, ebony.  These unveil interesting designs in home interior.  A majority, about 75%, of teak woods are good as interior materials.Â

STATE OF TRADITIONAL ATTIRES USAGE AMONG THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY IN SOUTH-WEST NIGERIA

Adire and Aso-oke are important dress-items in many traditional ceremonies and social events amongst the Yoruba people.  There is a noticeable decline in the use of Yoruba cultural dresses such as aran, etc during outing.  This is aside from aso-oke and adire. A lot of factors are responsible for this.  This study is aimed at creating awareness on the use of the adire and aso-oke among youth.  The study was carried out in both Lagos and Abeokuta.  At Mainland local government area in Lagos, a total of 70 youths were randomly selected and four elderly men and women were purposely selected to know the elderly peoples view of aso-oke and adire usage in the recent times and in the past. Both interview and questionnaire methods were used to collect data: interview guide were used to collect information in order to achieve a better objective, while other means such as visuals and fabric materials are also employed to gather pieces of information on the current use of adire and aso-oke among the youths.  Results indicate that the usage of adire and aso-oke among the youth is limited to ceremonial occasion only.  The paper also reveals that aso-oke is not popularly used among the youth in both Abeokuta and Lagos, but adire is faintly given prominence.  Both adire and aso-oke are old standing craft that have more than a century of longstanding tradition in Yorubaland.  There is a probability that if both attires can be redesigned with price reduction, public enlightenment and encouragement from parents and guardians will make the youth of today would a second thought in reconsidering adire and aso-oke as their best attire for fashionÂ

Multiscale and multimodal imaging for three-dimensional vascular and histomorphological organ structure analysis of the pancreas

Exocrine and endocrine pancreas are interconnected anatomically and functionally, with vasculature facilitating bidirectional communication. Our understanding of this network remains limited, largely due to two-dimensional histology and missing combination with three-dimensional imaging. In this study, a multiscale 3D-imaging process was used to analyze a porcine pancreas. Clinical computed tomography, digital volume tomography, micro-computed tomography and Synchrotron-based propagation-based imaging were applied consecutively. Fields of view correlated inversely with attainable resolution from a whole organism level down to capillary structures with a voxel edge length of 2.0 µm. Segmented vascular networks from 3D-imaging data were correlated with tissue sections stained by immunohistochemistry and revealed highly vascularized regions to be intra-islet capillaries of islets of Langerhans. Generated 3D-datasets allowed for three-dimensional qualitative and quantitative organ and vessel structure analysis. Beyond this study, the method shows potential for application across a wide range of patho-morphology analyses and might possibly provide microstructural blueprints for biotissue engineering

Symbolic Designs of Textile Art in African Fabrics

ABSTRAKT This paper examines the symbolic designs of expressive creativity on African fabrics in textile art. It highlights the variations on the theme, symbolic design, colour, and techniques used for the production of African fabrics. Data for the study rely on primary and secondary sources. The primary data were obtained from in-depth interview, samples of African fabrics drawn from exhibition catalogues as well as unstructured interview schedules with primary artists producing some of the textiles in Africa and users wearing clothes drawn from the African people in Nigeria, Mali, Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire and Tanzania. The illustration of the variations in symbols found in African textile, derived from exhibition catalogues, were used to express the cultural contextual meaning of design patterns on African fabrics. Cultural nationalism and identity dominate the printed geometric forms of flora and fauna as well as other patterns of symbolic designs found on the fabrics. The symbolic designs and variations in theme, colour and patterns on African textile represent rare artistic creativity and expression in the current development of textile art in Africa.</jats:p

Evaluation of classifications of the monopodial bronchopulmonary vasculature using clustering methods

Mammalian pulmonary arteries divide multiple times before reaching the vast capillary network of the alveoli. Morphological analyses of the arterial branches can be challenging because more proximal branches are likely biologically distinct from more peripheral parts. Thus, it is useful to group the arterial branches into groups of coherent biology. While the generational approach of dichotomous branching is straightforward, the grouping of arterial branches in the asymmetrically branching monopodial lung is less clear. Several established classification methods return highly dissimilar groupings when employed on the same organ. Here, we established a workflow allowing the quantification of grouping results for the monopodial lung and tested various methods to group the branches of the arterial tree into coherent groups. A mouse lung was imaged by synchrotron x-ray microcomputed tomography, and the arteries were digitally segmented. The arterial tree was divided into its individual segments, morphological properties were assessed from corresponding light microscopic scans, and different grouping methods were employed, such as (fractal) generation or (Strahler) order. The results were ranked by the morphological similarity within and dissimilarity between the resulting groups. Additionally, a method from the mathematical field of cluster analysis was employed for creating a reference classification. In conclusion, there were significant differences in method performance. The Strahler order was significantly superior to the generation system commonly used to classify human lung structure. Furthermore, a clustering approach indicated more precise ways to classify the monopodial lung vasculature exist

Lipoprotein(a) and risk of cognitive impairment in Black and White Americans: the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke cohort

Background: Cognitive impairment has a substantial vascular etiology. Higher lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)] is associated with cardiovascular disease risk, but its association with cognitive function is uncertain. We hypothesized that Lp(a) is a risk factor for cognitive impairment, a relationship that would be modified by race and sex. Objectives: To study the association of Lp(a) with cognitive impairment in a biracial cohort. Methods: The Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study recruited 30,239 Black and White Americans aged >45 years from 2003 to 2007. After 3.4 years, among participants with normal baseline cognition, baseline Lp(a) was measured in 434 cases of incident cognitive impairment and 557 controls. Cognitive impairment was defined as scores below the sixth percentile based on age, sex, race, and education norms on 2 or 3 components of a 3-test battery administered every 2 years. Results: Median Lp(a) was higher in Black than in White individuals. Among Black participants, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of cognitive impairment per SD higher increment Lp(a) was 1.39 (95% CI: 1.05, 1.84). The OR in White participants was 1.03 (95% CI: 0.87, 1.21; P for race difference = .03). The relationship of Lp(a) with cognitive trajectory differed by sex and race. Elevated Lp(a) was associated with worse baseline memory in Black men and a steeper trajectory of verbal fluency decline in Black men than in White men and women. Conclusion: Higher Lp(a) was associated with increased risk of cognitive impairment in Black but not White individuals. Future studies should evaluate the biological and social mechanisms through which race and Lp(a) interact to increase risk of cognitive impairment