Electrical grid stability enhancement using smart home Frequency-response Grid -Friendly Appliance System

Load shedding is a powerful scheme used for corrective and preventive measures; corrective to restore system’s stability and preventive to avoid catastrophic failure. However, the affected end users are deprived of power supply absolutely with no choice. This paper presents the design, development, feasibility and merits of Frequency-response Grid -Friendly Appliance System (FRGFAS) in a smart home. FRGFAS is a decentralized Adaptive Load Shaving(ALS) device that supports grid’s system stability by sensing grid’s frequency deterioration level and turns ON/OFF loads accordingly. The FRGFAS permits end users to carry out load shaving at their scale of preference in smart homes via flexible demand responses and automates outdoor lighting to optimum operational hours. FRGFAS obviate load shedding by shaving loads whenever the system is in distress and reset loads supply to the normal state when it stabilizes, this Consequently increases the end user comfort zone and averts a blackout

Electrical characterization of n-type cylindrical gate all around nanowire junctionless transistor with sio2 and high-k dielectrics

In this work, the electrical characteristics of n-type cylindrical gate all around (GAA) nanowire junctionless transistors (NWJLT) of different gate oxides are investigated and analyzed. Silicon dioxide (SiO2) and two high-k dielectrics which are silicon nitride (Si3N4) and hafnium dioxide (HfO2) were used in this study. GAANWJLT of different gate lengths (LG) and nanowire diameter (dNW) were simulated, compared and analyzed to obtain the most optimum device. SDE and Sdevice tools of Sentaurus TCAD were used to simulate and extract the electrical properties of the proposed devices. It was found that GAANWJLT with high-k dielectrics significantly exhibits better electrical properties than with SiO2 due to increase in internal fringe capacitance of the gate dielectric layer. SCEs were considerably improved as the gate-to-channel capacitance reduced. It was found that, for LG of 7 nm and dNW of 6 nm GAANWJLT, device with HfO2 exhibits better electrical properties with more than 2-fold elevated in ION/IOFF ratio and about 15% improvement in SS than the conventional device with SiO2. It proves that GAANWJLT with HfO2 exhibits the most optimum electrical characteristics among the three devices, hence the best alternative to improve SCEs as well as to increase the switching speed of the transistor devices

Perception of final year medical students about the choice of medical microbiology as a speciality

Background: In Nigeria and many other countries, many specialties had problems with recruitment of medical teachers outside the core clinical departments.Objective: We aim at determining the factors that influence the choice of medical microbiology as a speciality among final year medical students in University of Maiduguri, College of Health Sciences.Methodology: The study was a descriptive cross-sectional study. Data was obtained using a structured questionnaire that was administered among to the 2013/2014 session final year medical students of University of Maiduguri. Results were analysed using the SPSS, version 16.0.Results: All the 134 final year medical students responded to the questionnaire, out of whom 91(68%) were males. A total of 115 (86%) of the students would want to specialise after school and only 6 (4%) would choose a career in medical microbiology.Conclusion: Majority of the students believed it was necessary to specialize. However, only 4% of the students choose medical microbiology as a career. The North-East geo-political zone of Nigeria may suffer shortage of trained medical microbiologists if career orientation and mentor-mentee relationships are not strengthened.Keywords: Career choice, male, reasons for specialization, University of Maidugur

A MODEL FOR INTEGRATED SMART REAL ESTATE

Dynamism of technology and the increase complexity of Real Estate management practice prompted the need to integrate Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), Internet of Things (IoT) and the Cloud computing in managing real estates. This study therefore, focused on developing model using the emerging technologies that can solve conventional problems in real estate management such as complex data handling, information gathering and dissemination, maintenance and provision of services. This can be achieved by attaching microchips (nodes) to various components of each property that would transmit information to the readers and send the information to the IoT and Cloud. The WSN serve as the data mining component (collecting information from building components), the Cloud serves as the storage component (Keeping the data for retrieval at convenience) while the IoT serves as the control and the intermediary between the User interface (including computers, smart phones, etc). Then, each of the components were geotagged in order to monitor the spatial location of the property components. The use of these emerging technologies will make property management operations more efficient, by reducing cost with less energy and time. Furthermore, the information collected from nodes would be used to evaluate optimum return, efficiency and reliability of building components, defaults, and more accurately predict property yields. The technology therefore intends to meet the demands of the 21st century Real estate best practices

Electrical Grid Stability Enhancement using Smart Home Frequency-response Grid -Friendly Appliance System

Load shedding is a powerful scheme used for corrective and preventive measures; corrective to restore system’s stability and preventive to avoid catastrophic failure. However, the affected end users are deprived of power supply absolutely with no choice. This paper presents the design, development, feasibility and merits of Frequency-response Grid -Friendly Appliance System (FRGFAS) in a smart home. FRGFAS is a decentralized Adaptive Load Shaving(ALS) device that supports grid’s system stability by sensing grid’s frequency deterioration level and turns ON/OFF loads accordingly. The FRGFAS permits end users to carry out load shaving at their scale of preference in smart homes via flexible demand responses and automates outdoor lighting to optimum operational hours. FRGFAS obviate load shedding by shaving loads whenever the system is in distress and reset loads supply to the normal state when it stabilizes, this Consequently increases the end user comfort zone and averts a blackout

Herd growth parameters and constraints of camel rearing in Northeastern Nigeria

Abstract The one-humped camel, Camelus dromedarius, is an important pack and ride, dairy and meat animal in semi-arid northeastern Nigeria. This study was carried out to document reproductive information for scientists and farmers on camel rearing for improved productivity. A structured open-ended questionnaire on herd growth parameters and constraints of camel-rearing in the region was administered to 147 respondents. Results showed that most camel owners were middle aged, married, Arab men with over 20 years of experience in camel-rearing. The camels were made up of predominantly mixed breeds originating from eastern and northern Africa. Sexually matured heifers are detectable at three years of age, have good body conformation and are receptive to bulls during estrus. They have a long rutting period that stretched from rainy to harmattan seasons (July to January). Length of gestation is 13 months, and pregnancy is detectable by observing a successfully mated cow raising her tail on being approached by a bull at two weeks into pregnancy or the distension of the abdominal region towards mid pregnancy. Up to 60% conception rate was reported while age of cow at first parturition was five years. Other herd growth parameters reported include calf mortality rate of up to 40%, milking duration of one year and productivity of at least 10 calves per cow per life time. Only 4% of respondents in this study consult veterinary care while few (23%) respondents helped the dam to suckle its new born. Abortion, biting flies, trans-border conflicts and armed banditries were the major constraints to camel production in the study area. It was concluded that despite the knowledgeability of camel herders in this study, there appears to be poor herd management that needs to be addressed by adequate education and access to veterinary care in order to improve productivity

Tracking the uptake and trajectory of COVID-19 vaccination coverage in 15 West African countries: an interim analysis

The African Union Bureau of Heads of State and Government endorsed the COVID-19 Vaccine Development and Access Strategy to vaccinate at least 60% of each country’s population with a safe and efficacious vaccine by 2022, to achieve the population-level immunity needed to bring the pandemic under control. Using publicly available, country-level population estimates and COVID-19 vaccination data, we provide unique insights into the uptake trends of COVID-19 vaccinations in the 15 countries that comprise the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS). Based on the vaccination rates in the ECOWAS region after three months of commencing COVID-19 vaccinations, we provide a projection of the trajectory and speed of vaccination needed to achieve a COVID-19 vaccination coverage rate of at least 60% of the total ECOWAS population. After three months of the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines across the ECOWAS countries, only 0.27% of the region’s total population had been fully vaccinated. If ECOWAS countries follow this trajectory, the sub-region will have less than 1.6% of the total population fully vaccinated after 18 months of vaccine deployment. Our projection shows that to achieve a COVID-19 vaccination coverage of at least 60% of the total population in the ECOWAS sub-region after 9, 12 and 18 months of vaccine deployment; the speed of vaccination must be increased to 10, 7 and 4 times the current trajectory, respectively. West African governments must deploy contextually relevant and culturally acceptable strategies for COVID-19 vaccine procurements, distributions and implementations in order to achieve reasonable coverage and save lives, sooner rather than later