A Review of TV White Space Technology and its Deployments in Africa

The emergence of bandwidth-driven applications in the current wireless communication environment is driving a paradigm shift from the conventional fixed spectrum assignment policy to intelligent and dynamic spectrum access. Practical demands for efficient spectrum utilization have continued to drive the development of TV white space technology to provide affordable and reliable wireless connectivity. It is envisaged that transition from analogue transmission to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) creates more spectrum opportunity for TV white space access and regulatory agencies of many countries had begun to explore this opportunity to address spectrum scarcity. To convey the evolutionary trends in the development of TV white space technology, this paper presents a comprehensive review on the contemporary approaches to TV white space technology and practical deployments of pilot projects in Africa. The paper outlines the activities in TV white space technology, which include regulations and standardization, commercial trials, research challenges, open issues and future research directions. Furthermore, it also provides an overview of the current industrial trends in TV white space technology which demonstrates that cognitive radio as an enabling technology for TV white space technology

A survey on drug related problems in cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria

A drug-related problem (DRP) is an event or circumstance involving drug therapy that actually or potentially interferes with desired outcome. The complexities in drug regimens used in cervical cancer chemotherapy has led to more serious problems. The aim of this study is to investigate DRPs in cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. The study was a retrospective cross sectional study on patients receiving cervical cancer chemotherapy at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria (ABUTH). Patients’ medication charts were reviewed from July, 2015 to June, 2016. Data were collected using the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) Classification of DRP V 6.20. A total of 224 DRPs cases were identified from 65 cervical cancer patients. The DRPs were mostly on treatment effectiveness (28.1%), adverse reaction (29.0%), and cost (26.8%), while the causes were majorly drug selection (28.1%) and dose selection (29.0%). The risk factors for the DRPs were found to be comorbidities and polypharmacy. In conclusion, DRPs were common among cervical cancer patients receiving chemotherapy at ABUTH. Pharmacist interventions to achieve a better therapeutic outcome are necessary.Keywords: Cervical cancer, chemotherapy, drug related problem, pharmacist, polypharmac

Bioactive molecule prediction using extreme gradient boosting

Following the explosive growth in chemical and biological data, the shift from traditional methods of drug discovery to computer-aided means has made data mining and machine learning methods integral parts of today's drug discovery process. In this paper, extreme gradient boosting (Xgboost), which is an ensemble of Classification and Regression Tree (CART) and a variant of the Gradient Boosting Machine, was investigated for the prediction of biological activity based on quantitative description of the compound's molecular structure. Seven datasets, well known in the literature were used in this paper and experimental results show that Xgboost can outperform machine learning algorithms like Random Forest (RF), Support Vector Machines (LSVM), Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFN) and Naïve Bayes (NB) for the prediction of biological activities. In addition to its ability to detect minority activity classes in highly imbalanced datasets, it showed remarkable performance on both high and low diversity datasets

Real-Time Detection of Abandoned Object using Centroid Difference Method

An abandoned object is one that remains stationary for an extended period. Such object might contain explosives and if left on purpose could cause death and injuries to people especially in crowded places. Abandoned objects need to be detected on time to prevent what might endanger people’s lives and health. Various methods have been developed to detect abandoned objects. The most reliable one is the vision-based method which automatically detects the abandoned object using image processing. The efficiency of the method was tested and evaluated on the customized datasets as well as the i-Lids advanced video surveillance system database. The Self -organizing Background Subtraction (SOBS) method overrides other methods in terms of its detection accuracy and simplicity of implementation, but fails for dynamic background scenarios. This work presents a real time vision-based object detection method using the centroid difference to improve on the accuracy of the detection and to tackle challenges of dynamic background of the SOBS method. Matlab Image processing toolbox was used to achieve this goal. The strategy is basically decomposed into two; foreground detection and stationary foreground object (SFO) detection. Gaussian Mixture Model is used for detecting the presence of newly introduced object into a scene (foreground detection), while the blob tracking approach based on frame counting is used to determine whether the detected foreground object is static/ abandoned or not. The results show that the detection accuracy of 83% was obtained which outperform the SOBS method with 67% accuracy. Future research should focus on tracking the person that abandoned the object for onward prosecution

A rare case of giant malignant phyllodes tumour and long term survival

Phyllodes tumours are rare breast neoplasm. Its clinical spectrum ranges from a benign and locally recurrent form of behaviour to malignant and metastatic forms. The age at risk is between 35 and 45 years. Giant phyllodes tumours are larger than 10cm in diameter. Case Report: Herewith, we present a rare case of giant malignant phyllodes tumour (40x30x20cm) in a young lady who survived 10 years post- treatment in which most literature reported 10-year survival of 23% to 42%. The patient had mastectomy and radiotherapy to the anterior chest wall. Conclusion: A young lady with a giant malignant phyllodes tumour survived 10 years following treatment

Chalcopyrite Leaching in Ammonia-Ammonium Chloride Solutions: Insight into the Dissolution Kinetic Studies

The hydrometallurgical method for processing chalcopyrite ore has gained enormous attention due to the environmental problems emanated by the conventional pyrometallurgical route. Here, hydrometallurgy is considered an alternative that may be more of low-cost and environmentally friendly. Thus, alkaline leaching has been considered an effective, efficient, and acceptable leachant for chalcopyrite ore dissolution. The dissolution kinetics of copper from low-grade chalcopyrite ore was examined in an ammonia-ammonium chloride solution. However, the effect of parameters including leachant concentration, reaction temperature, and particle size was considered. . At optimal conditions (o.4 mol/L NH3-NH4Cl; 75 °C; 43 µm), 81.1% dissolution efficiency was achieved within 120 minutes. The leaching kinetics with activation energy (Ea) of 29.95 kJ/mol is by the proposed diffusion control mechanism. Hence, the dissolution rate was confirmed by characterizing the raw ore and un-leached residue using XRD and SEM-EDS analyses for possible industrial utilities

A Parametric Debate of Corruption and Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan African Countries

This paper investigates the determinants of corruption and its impact on economic growth in 39 sub-Saharan African countries. The significance of this study would be to add to extant literature on causes of corruption in sub-Saharan African countries and the results obtain could further raise cautions about casual attempts at institutional reform. In an attempt to empirically investigate on corruption, the corruption index was obtained from the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) and data for the study span from 1996 to 2011. In a Barro-styled economic growth model, the dynamic panel regressions were conducted for both corruption determinants and growth-corruption models. Panel unit root test following lm, Pesaran and Shin W-Stats, Model reliability tests and cointegration test were also conducted. From the model to find the determinants of corruption, empirical result suggests that natural resource (ore, fuel, food and Agriculture), rule of law, secondary school enrollment and foreign direct investment are relevant in explaining spate of corruption. Corruption was important in explaining GDP per capita. Overall, our result suggests that natural resource wealth, irrespective of the types (whether ores, fuel, food and agriculture) tends to consolidate and conserve bad political regimes which undermines appropriate social-cultural changes that in turn breeds corruption via institutional weakness, and in the process distorts economic growth dynamics in countries studied. Keywords: Corruption, Economic Growth, Barro-Growth Model, Institutional Weakness, Dynamic Panel Regression, Point-Source and Diffused Natural Resource

Wavelet-based short-term load forecasting using optimized anfis

This paper focuses on forecasting electric load consumption using optimized Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy inference System (ANFIS). It employs the use of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to optimize ANFIS, with aim of improving its speed and accuracy. It determines the minimum error from the ANFIS error function and thus propagates it to the premise part. Wavelet transform was used to decompose the input variables using Daubechies 2 (db2). The purpose is to reduce outliers as small as possible in the forecasting data. The data was decomposed in to one approximation coefficients and three details coefficients. The combined Wavelet-PSO-ANFIS model was tested using weather and load data of Nova Scotia province. It was found that the model can perform more than Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimized ANFIS and traditional ANFIS, which is been optimized by Gradient Decent (GD). Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) was used to measure the accuracy of the model. The model gives lower MAPE than the other two models, and is faster in terms of speed of convergence

Health Implications of Work-Related Stress among Academic Staff of Tertiary Institutions in Katsina State

This study investigated the health implications of work-related stress among academic staff of tertiary institutions in Katsina State, Nigeria. This research adopts a descriptive survey design. The population of this study is 2,036 academic staff from thirteen institutions. A sample of 328 academic staff was drawn, using proportionate stratified sampling technique. A self-developed questionnaire (HIWRS-Q) with reliability of 0.75 was used. Chi-square and t-test were used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. Findings of this study revealed that 105 (32%) of the respondents do not experienced health implications of work-related stress while, 223 (68%) of the respondents experienced health implications of work-related stress. Also, there is significant health implication of work-related stress among academic staff (P=0.0010.05). It is recommended among others that the State government should improve on the working environment and conditions of academic staff to be health-friendly, health enhancing conditions for achieving academic excellence, and sustainable productivity in the State

Analisis Pengembangan Karakter, Keterampilan Proses Sains, Dan Penguasaan Konsep Siswa Pada Topik Koloid Melalui Pembelajaran Inkuiri Terbimbing

This study aims to obtain a model of learning that develop character values​​, science process skills, and mastery of concepts students. This study was designed with a quasi-experimental methods, to form "the two-group pretest-posttest design". The instrument used in this study is the science process skills test items and mastery of concepts, student worksheets, observation sheets and questionnaires of students and teachers. The subjects of this study were students at one of the high schools in Kampar regency of Riau as many as 24 peoples in experimental class and 24 peoples in control class. The results showed that the guided inquiry learning students can develop character, enhancing science process skills and mastery of concepts students colloid significantly compared to conventional learning