Number of siblings and school achievement in sub Sahara Africa

This paper uses biographical data from Dakar and Yaounde, two big African cities, to study the link between the number of siblings and school attainment. The data describe all fertility events meet by parents and the sibling?s size structure of every child over time. The average sibling size effect is estimated first. Then, the sibling?s size at given age effect is estimated. The results show that, in Dakar, both the overall and age specific siblings size effect on education are negative and statistically significant. In Yaounde, the overall effect is not significant, but we observed negative effects at some schooling ages (between 14 and 16). This paper uses biographical data from Dakar and Yaounde, two big African cities, to study the link between the number of siblings and school attainment. The data describe all fertility events meet by parents and the sibling?s size structure of every child over time. The average sibling size effect is estimated first. Then, the sibling?s size at given age effect is estimated. The results show that, in Dakar, both the overall and age specific siblings size effect on education are negative and statistically significant. In Yaounde, the overall effect is not significant, but we observed negative effects at some schooling ages (between 14 and 16).Education; siblings; Dakar; Yaounde

A framework to deploy Mobile Business Intelligence within Small and Medium Enterprises in developing countries

Abstract: Over the years, there has been emergence of varieties of decision-support applications. System evolved due to the rapid growth in data complexity and need for accurate information in a dynamic environment. Due to increase in mobility and automation of activities within enterprises, huge amounts of data are rapidly generated than they could be instantaneously utilized in heterogeneous, intra or interorganisational business processes. Developing countries’ Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are faced with challenges of accessing intelligent information for decision making at different operational sites. SMEs in developing countries are paying a huge business opportunity cost by not utilizing Mobile Business Intelligence (MBI) systems. This is as a result of lack of MBI framework to inform the deployment of MBI solutions in developing countries’ SMEs. This study therefore is envisioned to design a framework for the deployment of MBI in developing countries’ SMEs. So as to achieve this, the study adopted various scientific approaches (Textual Analysis, Principal Component Analysis, and Structural Equation Modelling) systematically. This study is expected to contribute towards the literature and the methods in establishing and determining the factors needed for the development of frameworks in Information Systems studies. Practically, the study is expected aid deployment of MBI for SMEs in developing countries’ contexts

Satirical forms and strategies in Joe Ushie’s Popular Stand and Rome Aboh’s A Torrent of Terror

The influence of socio-political and economic realities continues to flock the literary sphere of Nigerian literature. In the genre of poetry, a park of social and political realities have always been the burden of early poets like Wole Soyinka, Tanure Ojaide, Niyi Osundare, Odia Ofeimun, Ezenwa Ohaeto, J.P Clark, Christopher Okigbo, among others, all in the attempt to portray the disillusioned status quo of the country as a result of bad governance. In a similar vein, contemporary poets like Musa Idris, Peter Onwundinjo, G‘Ebinyo Ogbowei, Kalu Uka, Gbemisola Adeoti, Ogaga Ifowodo, among others, alongside the early poets still feature the stark and dark, diseased and ill circumstances that keep the minds of Nigerians disillusioned. However, this paper investigates the satirical strategies and forms (Horatian and Juvenalian) in Joe Ushie‘s Popular Stand and Rome Aboh‘s A Torrent of Terror. Using New Historicism as a theoretical framework, the analysis attempts to show how the various types of satire and sub-satirical devices are used to question regurgitating socio-political aches in recent times. Furthermore, Ushie and Aboh are substantiated as satirists as their use of pun, ridicule, sarcasm, farce, innuendo, irony, travesty and other satirical tools help the quest for change amidst the prevailing upheavals hindering national growth and development in Nigeria

A Pedagogical Smart Learning Environment in South African Tertiary Institutions

With the rapid growth rate of technology innovation different sectors tends to keep up with the developing trends by implementing the latest technology with the aim of achieving their goals. Educational institutions deploy information systems in their teaching and learning environment to enhance performance. However, educational institutions usually struggle with smooth implementation of IT leading to its failure. Adopting various scientific methods such as content analysis, Principal Component Analysis and so on, contextual factors were identified for effective deployment of smart learning environments based on extensive review of exploratory research, analyzing data and study outcomes of ICT deployment educational institutes around the world. The identified factors were used to develop a framework which can inform the deployment of SLE

Maternal care provides antifungal protection to eggs in the European earwig

Many insects raise their offspring on organic substrates or in the soil where microorganisms are abundant. Microbes may pose a serious threat to offspring development and survival by either decomposing food resources or directly infecting the offspring. Selection to cope with these effects may favor social defenses, for example, through forms of parental care that can limit or eliminate these threats to offspring fitness. In this study, we experimentally tested if maternal egg attendance in the European earwig Forficula auricularia has a function as a social defense against mold infection of eggs by manipulating exposure of eggs to mold spores and the presence of the mother in a fully factorial design. Furthermore, we investigated the potential roles of egg grooming behavior and maternal transfer of chemicals as underlying mechanisms. As predicted, the beneficial effect of egg attendance on hatching success was significantly enhanced when eggs were exposed to the mold. Females significantly increased their egg grooming duration in response to mold exposure of her eggs, and the quantity of chemicals (identified as hydrocarbons) was maintained among attended eggs but decreased substantially among unattended eggs. Maternal transfer of chemicals was confirmed in extractions of glass beads that were mingled into attended or unattended clutches. This study shows that maternal egg attendance in the European earwig has a social defense function protecting offspring against mold infection. The maternal egg grooming behavior seems to be key for this effect, probably through both the mechanical removal of spores and the continued application of chemical substances on the egg surfac

A neural autoencoder approach for document ranking and query refinement in pharmacogenomic information retrieval

In this study, we investigate learning-to- rank and query refinement approaches for information retrieval in the pharmacogenomic domain. The goal is to improve the information retrieval process of biomedical curators, who manually build knowledge bases for personalized medicine. We study how to exploit the relationships be- tween genes, variants, drugs, diseases and outcomes as features for document ranking and query refinement. For a supervised approach, we are faced with a small amount of annotated data and a large amount of unannotated data. Therefore, we explore ways to use a neural document auto-encoder in a semi-supervised approach. We show that a combination of established algorithms, feature-engineering and a neural auto-encoder model yield promising results in this setting

Brood size, sibling competition, and the cost of begging in great tits (Parus major)

Evolutionary theory of parent-offspring conflict explains begging displays of nestling birds as selfish attempts to influence parental food allocation. Models predict that this conflict may be resolved by honest signaling of offspring need to parents, or by competition among nestmates, leading to escalated begging scrambles. Although the former type of models has been qualitatively supported by experimental studies, the potential for a begging component driven by scramble competition cannot be excluded by the evidence. In a brood-size manipulation experiment with great tits, Parus major, we explored the scramble component in the begging activity of great tit nestlings by investigating the mechanisms of sibling competition in relation to brood size. While under full parental compensation, the feeding rate per nestling will remain constant over all brood sizes for both types of models; the scramble begging models alone predict an increase in begging intensity with brood size, if begging costs do not arise exclusively through predation. Great tit parents adjusted feeding rates to brood size and fed nestlings at similar rates and with similar prey sizes in all three brood-size categories. Despite full parental compensation, the begging and food solicitation activities increased with experimental brood size, whereas nestling body condition deteriorated. These findings support a scramble component in begging and suggest that the competition-induced costs of food solicitation behavior play an important role in the evolution of parent-offspring communicatio