Remediation of contaminated marine sediment using bentonite, kaolin and sand as capping materials

There is a growing public concern over the issue of sediment contamination resulting from industrial, municipal wastewater, mining activities, and improper use of chemical fertilizer or pesticides. The conventional treatment of contaminated sediment is dredging, but this treatment is expensive and requires a large area of land for disposal. In situ capping of contaminated sediment is considered as a cheaper technique compared to dredging and efficient treatment technology to immobilize pollutants in sediments on site. In this technique, sediments are capped by placing a layer of inert materials like sand, clean soil, or gravel or active materials like activated carbon, zeolite, or apatite over sediments in order to reduce the risk to the aquatic environment. The objective of this study is to determine the effectiveness of using active materials; bentonite (B), kaolin (K), mixture of bentonite with kaolin (1:1) (BK) as capping materials to block the release of five heavy metals (Pb, Cr, Cu, Cd and Zn) from artificially polluted sediments. The effectiveness of B, K, and BK for preventing the leachability of the trace metals was assessed on a bench-scale laboratory experiment in glass tanks for 90 days, where 1cm thick layer of capping material and sand was placed above the contaminated sediment. The results showed that B and BK reduced the leachability of Pb, Cr, and Cu from the sediments. The results also showed that B and BK could be used as potential capping materials for the remediation of contaminated sites due to their significant entrapping of Pb, Cu, and Cr. The pollutants were released into the overlying water from the contaminated sediment in the following decreasing order; Cd > Zn > Pb > Cu > Cr. The adsorption kinetics analysis also showed that the process of adsorption was by chemisorption. This study proved that bentonite and mixture of bentonite with kaolin clays covered with sand could be used as capping materials for in situ treatment of Pb, Cu, Cr, Zn, and Cd for contaminated marine sediment

Information Requirement for Rural Development Through Telecentre in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Rural information telecentre content play major a role in information dissemination for the rural farmers. Telecentre information content system is a device in ICT that used to alert rural people to know what is going on in the community and updating them about improvement in their daily activities livelihood. This research work address the objectives of user requirement needs for rural ICT, in community development centers in south and north of Kaduna Nigeria. General research method was used. The prototype of telecentre content system was developed with the use of PHP, Java script for the programming language and micro media directory, Xamp as well as Adobe Photoshop. Ten people tested the usability of prototype. The developed telecentre content system brings about adequate information about their daily need when compare to previous way of life and improve the rural farmers to have basic knowledge in using computer. With the use of this device, positive turn around will manifest in Kaduna rural livelihood and increase in income level through market information alert

Spatial location and utilization of maternal healthcare services by women in Niger East Senatorial Zone

Maternal healthcare remains a major challenge to the global public health system, especially in developing countries. Access to appropriate health care including skilled birth attendance at delivery and timely referrals to emergency obstetric care services can greatly reduce maternal deaths and disabilities, yet women in Niger East Senatorial continue to face limited access to skilled delivery services. The study adopted a cross sectional survey design using multi-stage sampling methods to achieve the required sample size of one thousand four hundred and forty-five (1,445) respondents. Questionnaires were administered to women of reproductive age (15-49 years), who are married. The respondents were selected from the sampled local government in Niger State. All the interviews were administered face-to-face ensuring 100% completion of the copies of the questionnaires. Focus Group Discussions (FGD) was also used for data collection. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings of the study revealed that: socio-economic index, who takes decision on health matter and religion were determinants of access to maternal health service. Women in households with high socioeconomic index are more likely to access maternal health services than those in households with low socioeconomic index (p<.001). Furthermore, women in households where men monopolized decision making are less likely to access maternal health services than women where joint decision is taken (p<.001). The higher the level of education of a woman the greater her access to maternal health services in health facility (p<.001). Finally, the study showed that there is high prevalence of maternal mortality rate in the study area, poverty is identified as one of the major barriers to accessing maternal health services and high illiteracy level among women is responsible for inability to access maternal health services.Keywords: Spatial location, Utilisation, Access, healthcare and wome

Appraisal of Trends and Patterns of Immunization in Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State

Childhood immunization is the initiation of World Health Organization (WHO) through the administration of vaccine to children below the age of five (5) years. It is considered important for improving child survival. This is because more than 10 million children in developing countries die every year because they do not access effective interventions such as immunization that could fight common and preventable childhood illnesses. The study adopted a survey research design and applied multi stage sampling techniques to sample 280 respondents in the study area. The first stage involved the splitting of the local government into wards. The second stage involves selecting streets, while the third stage was sampling households. In all, 6 wards were sampled for the study. The study utilized both primary and secondary sources of data. Two hundred and eighty (280) structured questionnaires were administered while twenty health personnel were interviewed. Descriptive statistics like tables, frequencies and percentages were employed in presenting and interpreting the data. Information from the qualitative data was transcribed and ordered in themes to ensure that outstanding points of the responses are noted. One of the strategies that has been adopted but must be strengthened is community engagement. The study concluded that there is under coverage of the local government area by health personnel in administering immunization vaccine. Most parents in rural areas denied seeing health workers in their community during immunization days. Parents out rightly denied health workers access to administer immunization vaccine on their children due to religious and cultural factors. Similarly, parents in the local government have negative perception on immunization vaccine. The study made the following recommendations; proper engagement of communities; the proper persons in the community is liaised with; proper incentives are provided and benefits are clearly explained; aggressive enlightenment by government and development partners to minimize misconception of immunization vaccine and increase acceptance.Key Words: Immunization, vaccine, Survival, acceptability and Healt

Disaster Vulnerability and Resilience of Urban Residents: A Case of Rainstorm Disaster Risk Management in Bida, Nigeria

Rainstorm disaster is one of the challenges facing a growing number of settlements in Nigeria. Either in rural or urban centres, this environmental catastrophe, has become a recurring and increasingly formidable disaster negatively affecting socio-economic activities. The reduction of the risk and the negative effects of rainstorm disaster has long been a major concern to the residents of Bida in Niger State – central Nigeria. Using on-the-spot assessments and Descriptive Statistical Analysis (DSA), this work highlighted the effectiveness of disaster relief strategies available to victims of recurrent rainstorm events; the various structural damages occasioned by increasing vulnerability to negative effects of climate change related disasters. On-the-spot field finding shows that this disaster negatively affects all areas of human abode and livelihood in the city. Mitigation strategies mostly employed by low-income urban dwellers that constitute majority of the victims, are not only ineffective for addressing hydro-meteorological disasters, but also known to compound peculiar emergency situations occasioned by disasters. In order to effectively tackle these catastrophic events, urban and regional governments need to intervene meaningfully at all levels of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) including disaster risk prevention and management. The present practice of providing food items and household utensils as disaster relief materials to disaster stricken and traumatized urban poor can hardly prevent the reoccurrence or reduce the inevitable impacts of future disasters. Keywords: environment / low-income / rainstorm disaster / risks / urban area

Synthesis and characterization of iron (ii) and nickel (ii) schiff base complexes

The complexes of iron (II) and nickel (II) with schiff base derived from benzoin and 2-amino benzoic acid have been prepared. Solubility, melting point, decomposition temperature, conductance measurement, infrared (IR) and UV – Visible spectrophotometric studies were used in characterizing the compounds. The melting point of the schiff base determined is 120oC. The decomposition temperatures of iron (II) and nickel (II) complexes are 152oC and 155oC, while the molar conductance values are 11.2 and 10.7 ohm-cm2mol-1, respectively. The UV-Visible spectrophotometric analysis revealed 1:1 (metal-ligand) stoichiometry for the two complexes. Keywords: Schiff base, conductivity, azomethine, benzoin, spectrophotometry

Structural, optical and Judd-Ofelt parameters study on samarium and dysprosium ions doped calcium sulfate and magnesium sulfate ultra-phosphate glasses

Trivalent rare earth (Dy3+ and Sm3+) doped calcium sulfophosphate, 20CaSO4-(80-x)P2O5-xDy2O3, 20CaSO4-(80-x)P2O5-xSm2O3 and magnesium sulfophosphate 20MgSO4-(80- x)P2O5-xDy2O3, 20MgSO4-(80-x)P2O5-xSm2O3 with 0.2 = x = 1.5 mol% of ultra-phosphate glass system were prepared using conventional melt-quenching method followed by annealing process at 300 ºC for 4 hours. The amorphous phase of glass samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) method, while the structural features of the samples were measured using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. The optical properties of glass samples were characterized by ultraviolet-visible-near infrared (UV-Vis-NIR) spectroscopy and photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. The infrared spectra revealed the bonding link of the host affected by modifier oxides (MgO, CaO) and intermediate oxides (SO4). Their linkages consist of P-O-P network, PO2 units, PO-, P=O, O-S-O and SO4 groups with no evidence of rare earth ions network as a result of the low concentrations of dopant. In addition, the similar tetrahedral arrangement was also shown by Raman spectra. The NMR spectra were used to identify the phosphate compositional change through conversion of Q3 (in P2O5) to Q2, Q1 and Q0 which follow the predictions of the Van Wazer’s model. The NMR spectra affirmed the presence of Q3, Q2, and Q1 groups, referring to existence of ultra-, meta- and pyrophosphate units, although the Q2 and Q1 are more predominant. Changes in Qn distributions in host phosphate networks are due to the breaking of P-O-P linkages to form P-O-M networks (where M is metal ions). The physical and nuclear properties such as density, molar volume, field strength, oxygen packing density, ionic packing density, inter nuclear distance, ion concentration and polaron radius were evaluated. The absorption characteristic presented by the UV-Vis-NIR spectra showed eight peaks from transition of Sm3+, and six peaks for transition of Dy3+ ions. All transitions correspond to the transition from ground state to excited state of Sm3+ and Dy3+ ions, respectively. The energy gap ranges from 4.090 – 4.185 eV, 4.517 – 4.612 eV and Urbach energy from 0.105 – 0.119, 0.155 – 0.135 eV with respect to the rare earth ions content. The photoluminescence spectra of Dy3+ ions illustrate three prominent bands around 481 nm (4F9/2->6H15/2), 577 nm (4F9/2->6H13/2), and 660 nm (4F9/2->6H11/2), and for Sm3+ ions five peaks were observed around 560 nm (4G5/2->6H5/2), 597 nm (4G5/2->6H7/2), 642 nm (4G5/2->6H9/2), 703 nm (4G5/2->6H11/2) and 735 nm (4G5/2->6H13/2). The absorption and emission spectra were used to evaluate the Judd-Ofelt parameters and radiative properties such as transition probabilities, radiative lifetimes and branching ratios of rare earth ions. Based on this study, calcium sulfophosphate glass and magnesium sulfophosphate glass doped with rare earth ions could be suggested as promising luminescent host material for solid-state lighting device application

Deployment of Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria Institutional Digital Repository

The paper discussed the concept of open access initiative and its relevance to the development of digital repositories. It primarily focused on the  institutional digital repository project of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria. The University library administration setup, policy, equipment and facilities including software for the project were highlighted. The digitisation process, test running, training, system installation and the workflow developed by the institution were discussed. The successes recorded and challenges faced by the project were equally presented. The paper concluded that repositories are very important to universities in helping them showcase, manage and capture their intellectual assets as a part of their information service strategy and contribution to universal access to knowledge and information

Awareness and availability of TISHIP information sources by undergraduate students for accessing healthcare services in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria

This study assessed the awareness and availability of Tertiary Institutions Social Health Insurance Programme (TISHIP) Information Sources by Undergraduate Students for Accessing Healthcare Services in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. the objectives of the study is to identify the types of Healthcare Services covered by TISHIP are accessible to Undergraduate Students in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, identify the types of TISHIP Information Sources are available to Undergraduate Students for accessing Healthcare Services in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and to find out the extent Undergraduate Students aware of TISHIP Information Sources available for accessing Healthcare in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Three research questions were formulated in line with the research objectives. The study adopted descriptive survey design. 381 students were sampled using cluster proportionate random sampling out of the entire 42,779 for the study. Questionnaire was the instrument used for data collection which were collected, analysed and presented in tables using frequencies, percentages, mean and standard deviation. Findings of the study revealed that the types of healthcare services covered by TISHIP accessible by the Undergraduate Students were Routine Immunisations, Health Education, Essential Drugs, Accident and Emergency Care, Dental Health Services and Periodic Medical Check-ups. Also, the types of TISHIP information sources available to the Undergraduate Students for accessing healthcare were Orientation and Matriculation, Friends, Notice Boards, Lecturers and Staff, Campus Bulletin, Social Media, Internet, and Religious and Association Leaders. Hence, it was recommended that information services aimed at providing information to the student be provided and the university management should provide more TISHIP information sources and healthcare services that will enhance access for the Undergraduate Students thereby saving their time in accessing information sources. Keyword: Information Sources, Awareness, Availability, Undergraduate Students, TISHI