On Strong Small Loop Transfer Spaces Relative to Subgroups of Fundamental Groups

Let $H$ be a subgroup of the fundamental group $\pi_{1}(X,x_{0})$. By extending the concept of strong SLT space to a relative version with respect to $H$, strong $H$-SLT space, first, we investigate the existence of a covering map for strong $H$-SLT spaces. Moreover, we show that a semicovering map is a covering map in the presence of strong $H$-SLT property. Second, we present conditions under which the whisker topology agrees with the lasso topology on $\widetilde{X}_{H}$. Also, we study the relationship between open subsets of $\pi_{1}^{wh}(X,x_{0})$ and $\pi_{1}^{l}(X,x_{0})$. Finally, we give some examples to justify the definition and study of strong $H$-SLT spaces.Comment: 16 page

Assessment of National Board for Arabic and Islamic Studies (NBAIS) Curriculum on Implementation of Qur'anic Memorization in North-West, Nigeria

This study assessed the relationship between availability of resources and the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content of NBAIS in North West, Nigeria. The objectives of the study are to: find out the availability of learning resources and the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content of NBAIS in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools; examine the availability of Qur’anic teachers used in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools. Two research questions and hypotheses in line with the objectives guided the study. The study was survey design. The instruments were validated by the experts. Mann Whitney u test was used to test the hypotheses. The finding revealed that: there was a significant difference between the availability of learning resources in senior Tahfeez and Islamic secondary schools and that of senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content. There was no significant difference between the availability of teachers in senior Tahfeez and Islamic secondary schools and that of Senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools in the implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content. The study concludes among others that; available Qur’anic memorization teachers must be provided for effective implementation of Qur’anic memorization curriculum content more especially in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools. The study recommended among others that; there is need for to providing more human and material resources especially in senior Arabic and Islamic secondary schools, for qualitative Qur’anic memorizers in the schools

Isolation of bacteria associated with diarrhoea among children attending some hospitals in Kano metropolis, Kano state, Nigeria

Bacteriological investigations of Diarrhoeal diseases were carried out among 300 children who were between the ages of 0 – 24 months using stool samples from five different hospitals in the metropolitan Kano. The organisms were isolated and identified using cultural, serological biochemical test. Sensitivity testing of the isolates to some antimicrobial agents was carried out. Out of those number only a total of 122(40.7%) of children were found to have Diarrhoea associated with bacteria in which 34(27.9%) and 88(72.1%) were from breast-fed and bottle-fed children respectively. The Bacteria isolated were Escherichia coli which were the most predominant, followed by Salmonella species and then Shigella species. As at the time of the study, there was significance difference between breast-fed and bottle-fed in the incidence at P> 0.05. Among the antimicrobials used cotrimoxazole was found to be more effective than the others. Also, most of the children tested were found to have a common illness of diarrhoea followed by dysentery, abdominal pain and fever/vomiting

Gamma Ray Spectrometric Analysis of Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORMS) in Gold Bearing Soil using NaI (Tl) Technique

In this work, the radioactivity in the gold bearing samples collected from the artisanal mining sites in Birnin Gwari Local Government Area, Kaduna State have been determined, experimental measurements of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K activities concentration in the gold bearing samples have been carried out using a NaI(Ti) gamma ray spectrometer. The measured activity concentration for 226Ra have been found to lie in the specific ranges from 1.0545±0.4983Bq/Kg to 3.8355± 0.3476Bq/Kg while the  mean concentration is 2.383±0.4415Bq/Kg for 232Th, the activity concentration ranges from 9.3501±1.0260Bq/Kg to 66.7047±0.5700Bq/Kg, while the mean activity concentration of 232Th is 32.3644±9.3440Bq/Kg, for 40K,the activity concentration ranges from 120.9953±6.5319Bq/Kg to 815.8631±10.504Bq/Kg, while the mean activity concentration is 383.7924±72.5436Bq/Kg. The mean absorbed dose rate in the study area is 35.7334nGy/hr; while the mean annual effective dose rate is 0.032mSv/year which is lower when compared with tolerable limits of 1mSv/year. Keywords; Natural Radionuclides,Aactivity Concentrations, Absorbed Dose

Modified water-cement ratio law for compressive strength of rice husk ash concrete

This work examines the modification of age long water – cement ratio law of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concrete to cater for concrete with Rice Husk Ash (RHA). Chemical analysis of RHA produced under controlled temperature of 600°C was carried out. A total of one hundred and fifty (150) RHA concrete cubes at five different water/binder ratios and at six replacement levels of RHA (5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, 30%) were produced with specific attention given to cement/water (c/w) content and RHA/water (r/w) content. The cubes were subjected to compressive strength test at 56 days of curing producing a compressive strength in the range of 3.77 N/mm² to 34.04N/mm². A linear polynomial model was fitted into the experimental data using Minitab Package and was found adequate with an adjusted coefficient of determination of 73.0%.Test results show that the compressive strength of hardened RHA concrete depends on cement/water content by weight on one part and RHA/water content by weight on the other part. This indicates that the model equation is suitable to evaluate the compressive strength of RHA concrete at 95% confidence interval and the linear model has the capability of explaining the variability in the data by 73%.Keywords: water-cement ratio, compressive strength, rice husk ash, model

Assessment of Radiological Hazards Indices in Vegetables Grown Around Ririwai Tin Mines, Kano State, North Western Nigeria

Mining industry in Nigeria provides economic benefits of wealth creation and employment opportunities. Presently there are numbers of artisanal and large scale mining activities going on across Nigeria and most of these artisanal miners currently under take only surface mining. The process produced large volumes of tailings and waste that may contain naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORMs). Some of the NORMs are soluble in water and have the tendency to leach into water bodies and farm lands.    This work assessed the radiological hazard indices in vegetable grown around Ririwai Tin Mine Kano State North Western Nigeria using Direct Gamma Spectroscopy (NaI (Tl)), The results shows that the mean activity concentration in vegetable samples were 259.25±4.77, 28.05±4.97 and 54.56±2.58Bq/kg respectively for 40K, 226Ra and 232Th, the mean absorbed dose rate was 45.043±1.98nGyh-1 the mean committed effective dose for 40K is 0.091±0.002mSv/year, 226Ra has a mean committed effective dose of 0.471±0.083mSv/year while 232Th has a mean committed effective dose of 0.753±0.036mSv/year. The total committed effective dose in vegetable has a mean value of 1.320±0.125mSv/year. The risk estimated for fatality cancer, lifetime  fatality cancer risk, severe hereditary effect and life time hereditary effect in vegetable were 7.26 x 10-5, 5.29 x 10-3, 2.60 x 10-6 and 1.84 x 10-4 respectively. The values obtained in this study are relatively high such that consumption of vegetable grown in the area could pose  radiological health hazards. Keywords: Activity Concentrations, Absorbed dose, Committed effective dose, Risk

Assessment of Crop Farmers Indigenous Knowledge on the Use of Climate Change Adaptation Strategies in Lavun Local Government Area of Niger State, Nigeria

This study examined the crop farmers’ indigenous knowledge on the use of climate change adaptation strategies in Lavun Local Government Area of Niger State. A multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 85 respondents. Data were collected using questionnaire and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results reveal that majority (87.1%) were male with a mean age of 41years. Majority (69%) of the respondents were married and most (78%) had formal education and most (73%) of the them had no contact with extension agent with an average annual household income was ₦125,000. The result also depicts that most (91.8%) of the respondents were aware of climate change mostly on increase in temperature (85.9%), early/late cessation of rain and draught (64.7%). Among the indigenous knowledge used by the respondents as climate change adaptation strategies were changes in dates of planting (74.0%), mixed farming (55.0%) and diversification in crop production (49.0%). The result of the relationships between socio-economic characteristics and awareness to climate change indicates that; marital status, level of education and extension contact are significant respectively at p≤0.05 level of significance. The major constraints to the use of indigenous knowledge as climate change adaptation strategies were inadequate knowledge on how to cope (77.6%), poor response to adverse effect (61.2%), identified high cost of improved crop variety (57.6%) and low income level (48.2%). It was concluded that, respondents were able to develop indigenous adaptation strategies and marital status, level of education and extension contact were significantly related with climate change awareness. The study recommended that extension service should be increase for a successful adaptation programme, relevant information on climate change adaptation practices should reach the farmers through radio stations, news-papers, public lectures, seminars as well as other mass media means and provision of improved crop varieties at affordable price to the farmers

A Class of Three Stage Implicit Rational Runge-Kutta Schemes for Approximation of Second Order Ordinary Differential Equations

In this paper, 3 – stage Implicit Rational Runge – Kutta methods are derived using Taylor and Binomial series expansion for the direct solution of general second order initial value problems of ordinary differential equations with constant step length. The basic properties of the developed method were investigated and found to be consistent and convergent. The efficiency of the method were tested on some numerical examples and found to give better approximations than the existing methods. Keywords: Java Programming Language, Implicit Rational Runge Kutta scheme, Second order equations

Effects of crude ethanol extract of Tapinanthus globiferus a. Rich on functional and structural integrity of the rats kidney

The present study was carried out to investigate the effects of crude ethanol extract of Tapinanthus globiferuson rat kidney. The toxic effects of the extract on rats kidney after 28 days of oral administration were evaluated on serum levels of urea, creatinine, sodium (Na+), potassium (K+), chloride (Cl-) and bicarbonate (HCO3-) while histopathology was evaluated on sections of the kidney. Results from the acute toxicity studies on the extract were found to be greater than 5,000 mg/kg body weight in rats after oral administration. The biochemical analysis of the extract showed significant (p<0.05) decrease in serum urea, creatinine and sodium levels, and significant (p<0.05) increase in serum potassium and chloride levels at doses of 175 and 350 mg/kg, while serum bicarbonate remained insignificant at tested doses. However, histological observations showed no significant structural changes in the kidney architecture at doses of 87.5 and 175 mg/kg extract compared to control, but at 350 mg/kg dose of extract showed areas of degeneration of Bowman’s capsule.The present work has revealed the non-toxicity of the ethanol extracts of Tapinanthus globiferus at low dose but suggests that its prolonged usage at higher dose should be monitored.Keywords: Tapinanthus globiferus, Creatinine, Electrolytes, nephrotoxic, Bowman’s capsul