Implication of Leadership Change on Poverty Trends in Nigeria

Nigeria has a great potential for economic growth ranging from enormous rich natural resources to a large population size significant for both domestic and foreign investments. However, the poverty rate in the country has grown beyond the imaginable threshold since the 1980s, despite high revenues from exports of crude oil. This study takes a descriptive overview of the poverty rate in Nigeria with reference to leadership change between 1980 and 2011. The results show a continuously increasing poverty rate within the period with the highest poverty rate estimated at 71.5%. The slide drop in the poverty rate to an average of  56.1% between 1999 and 2007 could be attributed to the measures taken by the government against administrative corruption, increased domestic and foreign investments, as well as some implemented agricultural policies. From the results, it can be inferred that the increase in the poverty rate in Nigeria, among other factors, could be attributed to inadequate and poorly implemented agricultural policies, political crisis and deep rooted administrative corruption worsened by high population growth and insecurity in the country. This study, therefore, recommends that the government should design a more transparent framework to help eradicate corruption among leaders in different sectors of the economy and focus more on agricultural development which has been the foundation of economic development and major means of livelihood of the majority of people in the country before the discovery of crude oil. It is also recommended that stakeholders in politics and the entire people of Nigeria should assist the government to maintain a secure, politically stable and safe economic environment to attract robust investments that would help improve the income and wellbeing of the people. Keywords: Leadership change, poverty, poverty trends, poverty rate, Nigeri

Assessment of Land Use and Vegetative Cover in Kano Metropolis (from 1975-2015) Employing GIS and Remote Sensing Technology

This study applied GIS and remote sensing technology to assess agricultural land use and vegetative cover in Kano Metropolis. It specifically examined the intensity of land use for agricultural and non agricultural purpose from 1975 – 2015. Images (1975, 1995 and 2015), landsat MSS/TM, landsat 8, scene of path 188 and 052 were downloaded for the study. Bonds for these imported scenes were processed using ENVI 5.0 version. The result indicated five classified features-settlement, farmland, water body, vegetation and bare land. The finding revealed an increase in settlement, vegetation and bare land between 1995 and 2015, however, farmland decreased in 2015. Indicatively, higher percentage of land use for non agricultural purposes was observed in recent time. Conclusively, there is need to accord surveying the rightful place and priority in agricultural planning and development if Nigeria is to be self food sufficient. Keywords: Geographic Information System, Agriculture, Remote sensing, Land use, Land cove

2,4-Dichlorophenoxy acetic acid, abscisic acid, and hydrogen peroxide induced resistance-related components against potato early blight (Alternaria solani, Sorauer)

AbstractInduction of acquired resistance activates defense-related genes. Current study aimed to (a) initiate potato acquired resistance to the Early Blight disease caused by Alternaria solani through treating potato plants with low and repetitive doses of 2,4-dichlorophenoxy acetic acid (2,4-D), abscisic acid (AB), and hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and (b) test the success of the use of the chemical inducers along with the application of fungicides. Potato cultivars Nicola and Spunta were treated once per wk for 6wk and challenged 1wk later by in the control of A. solani. Results showed that peroxidase (POD), phenylalanine ammonia lyase (PAL), and polyphenoloxidase (PPO) enzyme activities and gene regulation were significantly increased after 1d of infection and lasted for more than 15d. The 2,4-D and H2O2 inducers significantly increased both enzyme activities and gene expression of PAL, PPO, and POD for more than 15d post inoculation. PAL was the most increased at the enzyme activity and gene expression levels. Incorporation of such in-expensive treatments might reduce management costs and reduce the environmental pollution

Radix-2n serial–serial multipliers

All serial–serial multiplication structures previously reported in the literature have been confined to bit serial–serial multipliers. An architecture for digit serial–serial multipliers is presented. A set of designs are derived from the radix-2n design procedure, which was first reported by the authors for the design of bit level pipelined digit serial–parallel structures. One significant aspect of the new designs is that they can be pipelined to the bit level and give the designer the flexibility to obtain the best trade-off between throughput rate and hardware cost by varying the digit size and the number of pipelining levels. Also, an area-efficient digit serial–serial multiplier is proposed which provides a 50% reduction in hardware without degrading the speed performance. This is achieved by exploiting the fact that some cells are idle for most of the multiplication operation. In the new design, the computations of these cells are remapped to other cells, which make them redundant. The new designs have been implemented on the S40BG256 device from the SPARTAN family to prove functionality and assess performance

Cross sectional study of malarial parasite among patients attending general hospital, Hadejia, Jigawa state, Nigeria

A study was conducted to find out prevalence of malarial parasite among patients attending Hadejia General Hospital. A total of 227 people were screened in the  study area. Out of this number 150(66.1%) were males, while 77(33.9%) were females. Overall prevalence of malarial parasite was found to be 114(50.2%). Prevalence of malarial parasite in males was found to be 78(52%), while prevalence in females was found to be 36(46.8%). There was no significant difference (p >0.05) between the sex of the people and prevalence of the infection. Prevalence of malarial parasite in children aged 0 to 5 years has highest prevalence37(53.4%), followed by children aged 6 to 15 years with prevalence of 56(50.3%) and lowest prevalence was obtained in people aged 15 years and above 25(40.4%).There was no significant difference (p > 0.05) between the age of the people and prevalence of the infection. The prevalence of malarial parasite was found to be high among patients attending Hadejia General Hospital.Keywords: Hospital, Malaria, Prevalence, Parasite, Patient

Prevalence of fasciolosis among cattle slaughtered at Hadejia Abattoir

A study was carried out to find out the prevalence of Fasciolosis in cattle  slaughtered at Hadejia Abattoir. Fasciola gigantica is a parasite of liver and bile duct in cattle, sheep and goat. The liver was examined for Fasciola by making length wise incision on the ventral side of the liver in such a way that the Bile duct was cut open. The forcep was used to pick the exposed worms in the bile duct and the Gall bladder. The Flukes recovered from each cattle were placed in label containers and taken to the Laboratory for identification and preservation. A total of 545cattle were  examined for the presence or absence of Fasciolosis in Hadejia Abattoir. Out of this number 279 (51.2%) were males and 266 (48.8%) were females. The overall  prevalence of Fasciolosis in the study area was 159(28.0%). The prevalence of Fasciolosis in males was found to be 73(26.2%), while the prevalence in females was 79(29.7%). There was no significant relationship (P > 0.05)between sex of the cattle and prevalence of the infection. The Prevalence of Fasciolosis in adult cattle was 36(40.2%), while in young cattle the prevalence was 123(15.0%). There was significant relationship (P < 0.05) between the age of cattle and prevalence of the infection.Fasciolosis is one of the helminths diseases that were found to be prevalent affecting cattle in the study area.Key words: Abattoir, Cattle, Cross-sectional., Fasciolosis, Slaughter

Bit-level pipelined digit serial GF(2m) multiplier

A low latency digit serial multiplier for GF(2m) that can be pipelined to the bit-level is presented in this paper. Unlike existing structures, the new multiplier does not put any restriction on the type of generator polynomial used or the digit size. Furthermore, the latency of the new multiplier is significantly less than the latency of the existing bit-level pipelined digit-serial multiplie

Beyond organoids: in vitro vasculogenesis and angiogenesis using cells from mammals and zebrafish

The ability to culture complex organs is currently an important goal in biomedical research. It is possible to grow organoids (3D organ-like structures) in vitro; however, a major limitation of organoids, and other 3D culture systems, is the lack of a vascular network. Protocols developed for establishing in vitro vascular networks typically use human or rodent cells. A major technical challenge is the culture of functional (perfused) networks. In this rapidly advancing field, some microfluidic devices are now getting close to the goal of an artificially perfused vascular network. Another development is the emergence of the zebrafish as a complementary model to mammals. In this review, we discuss the culture of endothelial cells and vascular networks from mammalian cells, and examine the prospects for using zebrafish cells for this objective. We also look into the future and consider how vascular networks in vitro might be successfully perfused using microfluidic technology.Animal science

High radix parallel architecture for GF(p) elliptic curve processor

A new GF(p) cryptographic processor architecture for elliptic curve encryption/decryption is proposed in this paper. The architecture takes advantage of projective coordinates to convert GF(p) inversion needed in elliptic point operations into several multiplication steps. Unlike existing sequential designs, we show that projecting into (X/Z,Y/Z) leads to a much better performance than the conventional choice of projecting into the current (X/Z/sup 2/,Y/Z/sup 3/). We also propose to use high radix modulo multipliers which give a wide range of area-time trade-offs. The proposed architecture is a significant challenger for implementing data security systems based on elliptic curve cryptography