AN INSILCO STUDY OF 1,1-DIFLUORO-2-METHOXYPROPANE REACTION MECHANISM WITH THE BROMINE MONOXIDE (BrO) RADICAL

An Insilco study was carried out on the thermochemistry, mechanism and kinetics of the Hydrogen abstraction reaction of 1,1-difluoro-2-methoxypropane (CH3CH(OCH3)CHF2) with the Bromine monoxide radical (BrO) using the Density Functional Theory (DFT) based M06-2X/6-311++G** method. The energy values were immediately improved via optimization at DFT/M06-2X/6-311++G(2df,2p) level (single-point calculations) of the reacting species involved. The Monte Carlo search on the investigating hydrofluoroether (HFE) showed nine conformers with the lowest global minimum conformer being predicted and considered for this work. The results of this study showed that the atmospheric oxidation reaction of CH3CH(OCH3)CHF2 with the BrO radical proceeded in four (4) plausible reaction routes. The  total experimental rate of 4.34*10-06 cm-3 molecule-1 sec-1 for HFE + BrO reaction was estimated with atmospheric lifetime (ALT)/global warming potential (GWP) of 1.80 years and 165.30 respectively. The 3D potential energy surfaces (PES) for the reaction was however constructed at absolute temperature of 298.15 K

ASSESSING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF MANAGERS OF TECHNICAL COLLEGE WORKSHOPS: A CASE OF NORTH CENTRAL NIGERIA

This study assesses the effectiveness of managers of technical college workshops from the perspective of stakeholders in North Central Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was employed. Three research questions and two hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. A 35-item questionnaire developed by the researchers and validated by three experts was used to collect data from 101 administrators, 140 teachers, and 24 workshop personnel randomly sampled and stratified along trades in technical colleges. Mean was employed to answer the research questions while one way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed to test the hypotheses using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for data analysis. Result revealed that respondent shared similar opinions on the management of technical college workshops. It was therefore recommended that: The managers of the workshops should use alternative approaches in the management of workshop instead of waiting for government to provide everything; maintenance of tools should be a regular practice in the workshops; administrators should recommend teachers and workshop personnel to attend seminars regularly in order to update their knowledge on current practices in the management of technical college workshops among others

Emerging cancer disease burden in a rural sub-Saharan African population: northeast Nigeria in focus

Introduction Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is plagued by myriads of diseases, mostly infectious; but cancer disease burden is rising among non-communicable diseases. Nigeria has a high burden of cancer, however its remote underserved culturally-conserved populations have been understudied, a gap this study sought to fill. Methods This was a cross-sectional multi-institutional descriptive study of histologically diagnosed cancers over a four-year period (January 2019-December 2022) archived in the Departments of Pathology and Cancer Registries of six tertiary hospitals in the northeast of Nigeria. Data obtained included age at diagnosis, gender, tumor site and available cancer care infrastructure. Population data of the study region and its demographics was obtained from the National Population Commission and used to calculate incident rates for the population studied. Results A total of 4,681 incident cancer cases from 2,770 females and 1,911 males were identified. The median age at diagnosis for females was 45 years (range 1–95yrs), and 56 years (range 1–99yrs) for males. Observed age-specific incidence rates (ASR) increased steadily for both genders reaching peaks in the age group 80 years and above with the highest ASR seen among males (321/100,000 persons) compared to females (215.5/100,000 persons). Breast, cervical, prostatic, colorectal and skin cancers were the five most common incident cancers. In females, breast, cervical, skin, ovarian and colorectal cancers were the top five malignancies; while prostate, haematolymphoid, skin, colorectal and urinary bladder cancers predominated in men. Conclusion Remote SSA communities are witnessing rising cancer disease burden. Proactive control programs inclusive of advocacy, vaccination, screening, and improved diagnostics are needed