Urban Development And Housing Demolition In Abuja City: The Benefits Of Adopting The Principles Of Sustainability

In the last thirty years, Abuja the Federal Capital of Nigeria has experienced rapid urbanisation in a formerly agrarian community. The city has been developing prior to the emergence of the master plan, which is influenced by the rapid rate of construction. The critical need of vital infrastructure for the ever-increasing population in Nigeria’s capital has led to an increase in informal settlement and demand for more housing and other associated services. The present city differs from its initial master plan so far, as there is a real spatial segregation between low and high-income groups. And it’s relegates the low income earners to informal settlements which do not meet people’s basic needs. This journal paper critically analyses the impact of different planning policies and the schemes under which the city has been expanding, which includes housing demolitions to maintain the master plan. This result shows a clear demonstration that the policies regarding the demolition of informal settlements are not the best solution to the Abuja master plan and it is socially/economically unsustainable but rather there are potential benefits in the adaptation of sustainability principles in the urban development of Abuja city

Development of a semi-active car suspension control system using magneto-rheological damper model

In this paper, the development of a semi- active suspension control of quarter car model using fuzzy-based controller has been done. The quarter car model to be used here can be described as a nonlinear two degrees of freedom system which is subject to excitation from different road profile. The semi-active control is designed as the fuzzy control inferred by using two single input rule fuzzy modules, and the road model is used as the control force is released by actuating an electromagnetic shaker. To implement semi-active suspension system experimentally, the MR damper is used here as the adjustable damper. The MR damper is a control device that consists of a hydraulic cylinder filled with magnetically polarizable particles suspended in a liquid. MR dampers dissipate vibration by absorbing energy. Magnetorheological (MR) fluids dampers are very effective to control vibration, which use MR fluids to produce controllable damping force and provide both the reliability of passive systems and the facility of active control systems with small power supply. Due to their mechanical simplicity, high dynamic range, low power requirements, large force capacity, and robustness, offer an attractive means of vibration protection. The objectives of this are modeling of semi-active suspension system, developing controller and understanding the characteristics of the MR damper to provide effective damping for the purpose of suspension isolation or suppression car model. In this work pid, fuzzy logic and fuzzy-hybrid controller are used to control semi-active car suspension system

The Ångström Exponent and Turbidity of Soot Component in the Radiative Forcing of Urban Aerosols

In this work, we extracted data from Optical Properties of Aerosols and Clouds (OPAC) using FORTRAN program to model the effect of soot on optical depth, scattering coefficient, absorption coefficient, single scattering albedo, extinction coefficient and asymmetry parameter at spectral range of 0.25 to 1.00 ƒÝm for eight different relative humidities (RHs) (0, 50, 70, 80, 90, 95, 98 and 99%). The concentration of sootwas varied as 1.10 ¡Ñ 10.., 1.20 ¡Ñ 10..and 1.30 ¡Ñ 10.......... while the insoluble and water soluble were kept constant at 1.50 and 15,000 cm-3 respectively. The optical parameters were used to determine the Radiative forcing (RF).Origin 50 software was used to plot the graphs. SPSS 16.0 Software was used to determine the Angstrom exponent, ƒÑ and Curvature, ƒÑ2. The ƒÑ reflects the dominance of fine-mode particles while ƒÑ2 at 0% RH reflectsthe dominance of coarse-mode particles and at 50-99%RHs reflects the dominance of fine-mode particles, the turbidity, ƒÒ indicates a relatively hazy atmosphere, the Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) show a relatively highervalue indicating a polluted urban air, the asymmetry parameter, g falls between 0.64 and 0.77. However, from our graphs of Radiative forcing against wavelength, we report that addition of soot concentration reflectswarming effect; therefore soot has a relatively high absorption coefficient.Keywords: Soot, Angstrom exponent, Turbidity, Radiative forcing, Aerosol

Nurturing students’ spiritual development in secular contexts: a case study of Evangelical theological education in Australia

The awareness of secularisation may not have served as a focus for curricula development in theological education, yet it critically shapes the entire educational process influencing values and practices. Australian theological colleges need to be aware of, and alert to their secular, westernised culture that places a high premium on individual rights, personal liberty, and freedom. This article reports on an Australian study discussing the nature of secularised contexts and the relevance of evangelical theological education to these contexts, especially the role of spiritual formation as a key component to better equip theological students to deal with their secular context. The article argues for stronger awareness of, and preparedness for robust engagement with secularised contexts. It highlights the importance of engaging the influence of secularisation values in theological education

Effect of Thermal Pretreatment on the Yield of Biogas from Microcoleous Vaginatus

Biomass is being looked upon as one of the promising renewable energy sources for the future, with growing interest in microalgae conversion into biogas through anaerobic digestion. Recently, the ability of microalgae to treat waste water has doubled its potentials material today. However, in spite of the progress made in that regards, there are still challenges of algae conversion to biofuel, due to the presence of complex cell wall in some algae. Cell wall inhibits bacteria growth during degradation. In this research work 10 grams of Microcoleous vaginatus was treated in an oven at varying temperatures of 70, 75 and 80 oC for an hour, out of which 4 g was measured into 250 ml serum bottle for digestion at mesophilic temperature of 37 oC. Based on the results of proximate analysis, 69%increase in carbohydrate was attained with 72.7 – 148% reduction in moisture content. The biogas yield of untreated sample was 4.36 mLg−1 VS, while, pretreated samples at 70, 75 and 80 ℃ produced 8.39, 9.07 and 9.38 mLg−1VS (volatile solid) of biogas. This  corresponds to 92, 108 and 115% higher than that of untreated samples. However, thermal treatment of M. vaginatus prior to digestion show positive effect on carbohydrate extraction and enhanced biogas and methane yield as well. Therefore, this makes the substrate a good feedstock for biogas production. Keywords: Biomass, pretreatment, thermal, anaerobic digestion, degradation, Microcoleous vaginatus

Fuzzy antiwindup schemes for NCTF control of Point-Topoint (PTP) positioning systems

The positioning systems generally need a controller to achieve high accuracy, fast response and robustness. In addition, ease of controller design and simplicity of controller structure are very important for practical application. For satisfying these requirements, NCTF (nominal characteristic trajectory following) controller has been proposed as a practical PTP positioning control. However, the effect of actuator saturation can not be completely compensated due to integrator windup because of plant parameter variations. This study presents a method to improve the NCTF controller for overcoming the problem of integrator windup by adopting fuzzy anti-windup schemes. Two fuzzy antiwindup schemes based on Mamdani and Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy system are developed and evaluated their effectiveness. The improved NCTF controller with the proposed fuzzy anti-windup schemes is evaluated through simulation using dynamic model of a rotary positioning system. The results show that the improved NCTF controller with Takagi-Sugeno-based fuzzy windup is the best scheme to compensate for the effect of integrator windup

Application of intelligent technique for development of Colpitts oscillator

In this paper, new method of Colpitts oscillator designing through combination of Genetic Algorithm and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been suggested. The Thevenin's resistors for the common base Colpitts oscillator are optimized through application of GA and ANN. The developed common base Colpitts oscillator has shortest transient time response and stable Direct Current (DC) stability in the long term operation. Involvement of GA and ANN successfully optimize between transient time response and steady state response of common base oscillator. Application of these two artificial intelligent techniques assist faster selection of optimizes components values such as resistance values during circuit development rather than conventional method which used intuition techniques to develop the circuit

Genetic parameters of growth, body, and egg traits in Japanese quails (Cotournix cotournix japonica) reared in southern guinea savannah of Nigeria

Objective: This study on Japanese quails was undertaken to estimate heritability values for growth, body and egg traits as well as genetic and phenotypic relationships between these traits in Japanese quails reared in the Southern Guinea Savannah Zone of Nigeria. Methodology and Results: One hundred and sixty nine (169) pedigree-hatched day-old Japanese quail chicks from 10 sires were used for this study. The data obtained were subjected to variance and correlation analyses as appropriate. Results showed that heritability estimates of body weight at various ages ranged from 0.10±0.02 to 0.82±0.14 while those of body weight gain were mostly moderate (0.19±0.05 - 0.42±0.02). Linear body parameters had moderate to high (0.23±0.13 - 0.49±0.16) heritability estimates except body length which was 0.08±0.15 heritable. Age at first egg (AFE), Body weight at first egg (BWFE) and weight of first egg (WFE) had heritability estimates of 0.48±0.17, 0.56±0.21 and 0.38±0.18, respectively. Phenotypic correlations between body weights at various ages and egg traits were mostly positive and significant (p<0.01) while that of linear body traits were all positive and mostly significant (p<0.01). Genetic relationships between body weights at various ages were all high and positive. AFE correlated negatively with BWFE while WFE had positive correlation with AFE and BWF. Conclusion and application of findings: The moderate to high heritability estimates obtained for body weight at ages 1-3 weeks indicates that response to selection for body weight at these ages could be rapid while the low heritability estimates of body weight at week 5 and 6 imply that response to selection for body weight at the 5th and 6th week could be slow. It is recommended that selection for body weight or growth rate in Japanese quails should be carried out at early stages of growth, preferably 2-3 weeks of age.Keywords: Heritability, Genetic correlation, phenotypic correlation, selection, Body measurement

A SVD-based transient error method for analyzing noisy multicomponent exponential signals

The problem of estimating the parameters of noisy multicomponent signals using parametric modeling technique is considered in this paper. The multicomponent signal of interest is formed by a superposition of basic functions having the same location in time but different widths and amplitudes. Based on the modified Gardner transformation, some samples of deconvolved data are derived from the multicomponent signals. The deconvolved data are then modeled using a special nonstationary autoregressive moving average (ARMA) process in which the parameters of the ARMA model are obtained by linear least-squares procedure. The least-squares procedure is based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) to overcome the limitations of the transient error method (TEM) of analysis that uses cholesky decomposition to determine its AR coefficients. The moving average (MA) coefficients corresponds to the initial residual error sequences so as to account for the nonstationary noise in the deconvolved data. This new method of analysis, termed the SVD-based transient error method, produces high resolution estimates of the exponents of multicomponent signals at both low and high signal to noise (SNR) ratios

Evaluating the effectiveness of time-domain features for motor imagery movements using SVM

Motor imagery electroencephalogram signals are the only bio-signals that enable locked-in patients, who have lost control over every motor output, to communicate with and control their surroundings. Brain Machine Interface is collaboration between a human and machines, which translates brain waves to desired, understandable commands for a machine. Classification of motor imagery tasks for BMIs is the crucial part. Classification accuracy not only depends on how accurate and robust the classifier is; it is also about data. For well separated data, classifiers such as kernel SVM can handle classification and deliver acceptable results. If a feature provides large interclass difference for different classes, immunity to random noise and chaotic behavior of EEG signal is rationally conformed, which means the applied feature is suitable for classifying EEG signals. In this work, in order to have less computational complexity, time-domain algorithms are employed to motor imagery signals. Extracted features are: Mean Absolute Value, Maximum peak value, Simple Square Integral, Willison Amplitude, and Waveform Length. Support Vector Machine with polynomial kernel is applied for classification of four different classes of data. The obtained results show that these features have acceptable, distinct values for different these four motor imagery tasks. Maximum classification accuracy belongs to contribution of Willison amplitude as feature and SVM as classifier, with 95.1 percentages accuracy. Where, the lowest is the contribution of Waveform Length and SVM with 31.67 percentages classification accuracy