Determinants of Dietary Adequacy Among School Age Children in Guraghe Zone, Southern Ethiopia

Dietary diversity (DD) is a validated proxy indicator of micronutrient adequacy among different age groups including infants, children and women. This study assessed level of dietary adequacy and its associated factors among school age children in Guraghe Zone, Ethiopia. Survey was conducted among 769 children aged 6 to 12 years of with their care givers using multistage sampling method. Data were collected by using structured questionnaire containing the ten food groups for minimum dietary diversity for women and other parts. Adequate dietary diversity was categorized those children who consume at least five food groups. Bivariate and multivariable binary logistic regression with odds ratios (95% CI) was computed. Overall 769 children were included in the study, with a mean age of 8 years. The mean dietary diversity score was 4.9 (±1.42). About 444 (58.3%) had an inadequate dietary diversity. Those children from extended family size had 1.3 times to have inadequate DD level (AOR=1.3). Children from female headed households, did not attend formal education had 1.3 and 1.4 times higher odds of having an inadequate DD level (AOR=1.3 and 1.4). Similarly, children living with uneducated caregiver had six fold more likely to have an adequate DD level (AOR=6.7). The dietary diversity of children in the study area was below average. Household head, caregiver\u27s educational status, occupation of the household head, father/female headed household and family size were found to be associated with DD score. There should be awareness creation through existing Health extension platform and back yard vegetation should be improved

Sociological Factors To Drug Abuse And The Effects On Secondary School Students Academic Performance In Ekiti And Ondo States, Nigeria

This study examined the influence of drug abuse on secondary school students in relation to their family background, family cohesion, peer group influence, and students academic performance. Descriptive research design of the survey type and an inventory were used for the study. The population comprised all secondary school students in Ekiti and Ondo States, while the sample consisted of 460 students that were found to be using drugs in Ekiti and Ondo states. Simple random sampling was used to select one school from each of the 16 local governments in Ekiti and one each from the 30 in Ondo state. Purposive sampling was used to select ten students from each school in the 16 local governments in Ekiti and ten each from the 30 local governments in Ondo states. The instruments used for collection of data were a self-designed questionnaire called Drug Abuse Questionnaire (DAQ) and an inventory for collection of students results. The data were analysed using Pearson Moment Correlation Analysis. The four hypotheses raised were tested at 0.5 level of significance. The study determined that there was significant relationship between family background, peer influence, family cohesion, and drug abuse. In the study, it was also discovered that drug abuse negatively affects students academic performance in Ekiti and Ondo States. It is therefore recommended that parents should give their children moral, social, psychological, and financial support to guide them against negative peer and societal influences

Introducing the VRT gas turbine combustor

An innovative annular combustor configuration is being developed for aircraft and other gas turbine engines. This design has the potential of permitting higher turbine inlet temperatures by reducing the pattern factor and providing a major reduction in NO(x) emission. The design concept is based on a Variable Residence Time (VRT) technique which allows large fuel particles adequate time to completely burn in the circumferentially mixed primary zone. High durability of the combustor is achieved by dual function use of the incoming air. The feasibility of the concept was demonstrated by water analogue tests and 3-D computer modeling. The computer model predicted a 50 percent reduction in pattern factor when compared to a state of the art conventional combustor. The VRT combustor uses only half the number of fuel nozzles of the conventional configuration. The results of the chemical kinetics model require further investigation, as the NO(x) predictions did not correlate with the available experimental and analytical data base

Teachers’ Awareness of the Value Component of the National Policy on Education in Nigeria

Nigerians as a people are in dire need of value re-orientation in order to stem the tide of negative social values that are bedevilling the country. Education has crucial role to play in the efforts towards value regeneration and reorientation because the youth of the nation spend their formative years in the school system. This study investigated the level of secondary school teachers’ awareness of the National Policy on Education (NPE) with regard to the value components of the Policy. A descriptive survey design was employed to collect data for the study, using a sample of 301 secondary school teachers in Kano state, Nigeria. The data collection instrument was a self-developed and validated 16 items questionnaire. Data collected through the instruments were analysed using SPSS 20; descriptive statistics (Frequency, Percentage, Mean, and Standard Deviation) and inferential statistics (i.e., Independent sampled t-test and One-Way ANOVA) were used to analyse the data. Findings reveal that, the secondary schools teachers have no access to the NPE document and possess moderate level of awareness of the value component of NPE. Similarly, there is no significant difference in the teachers’ level of awareness with respect to gender, qualifications and teaching experiences. Based on the findings of this study it can be concluded that, the secondary school teachers have limited access to the NPE documents and irrespective of their gender, qualifications and years of teaching experience possess moderate level of awareness of the value component of NPEs in Kano state. It is therefore recommended among others that, relevant authorities should provide more copies of the latest edition of the NPE in school libraries; In-service training of teachers should include sensitization on the contents and relevance of the policy document to their work as teachers. Moreover, in-service training of teachers should include inculcation of skills of identifying the value components of school subjects and the retraining should be all-inclusive to accommodate teachers of all cadres

Design and Development of a Photovoltaic Water Pumping

The theory of design and analysis of experiments has been primarily developed by statisticians engaged mostly in agricultural research. The theory has now found applications in other fields of research, because it is based on general principles concerning the statistical behavior of observations which arise either freely in nature or in artificial laboratory conditions (Badrldin and Kshirsagar,1990). Incomplete block designs were developed to suit experiments where the number of experimental units per block is less than the number of treatments. The concept of incomplete block designs augmented by a control was first introduced by Das (1954). He considered  the case where (q ³ 1) new treatments are introduced into the design and all included in each block. He concluded that  q should be chosen as low as possible to keep the block size to a reasonable level. Pearce (1960) considered the case where a Balanced Incomplete Block (B. I. B.) design is supplemented by a control, where the test treatments are replicated r times except the control which is  replicated r0 times, while all pairs of treatments occurs l times in blocks, the supplemented treatment occurs l0 times with any other treatment(Ture,1982). Pesek (1974) considered the case of a B. I. B. design having an extra control in each block. He utilized Rao’s general formulas to obtain the variances of the elementary treatment contrast between any pair of test treatment and any treatment and the control. He also obtained the efficiency factor of this design and showed that this design is more efficient than a B. I. B. design for comparing treatments with a control, but is less efficient for pair wise comparisons between the test treatments. Many times, for important new drugs and for serious diseases, investigations are carried out simultaneously at various locations under different climatic conditions, for a series of treatments. In such cases, the result of all such investigations need to be combined to produce an overall estimate of the effect of treatment contrast to the control. In this study the case where a control is added to each block in a B. I. B. design is considered. The variances of the elementary treatment contrast between any pair of test treatments and any treatment and the control were obtained. The general theory of inter & intra -block estimates of treatment effect when a B. I. B. design is augmented by a control was investigated, the general theory of a balanced incomplete block design is given where a control is added to each block. The estimation of weight for combining inter and intra-block estimates is also dealt with, and the weight for combining inter-block estimates of treatment contrast was also considered. The object of this study is to get a minimum variance of the treatment contrast between the inter and intra block estimates when a control treatment is added to each block in B. I. B. design

Development and Evaluation of a Combined Castor Seed Roaster-Oil Expeller

This study evaluated optimal process parameters for mechanical oil expression from castor seeds after designing a castor seed roaster-expeller. The effect of input variables (Moisture Content at 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10% db; Roasting Temperature at 80, 90, 100,110 and 120oC and Applied Pressure at 15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 MPa) on the oil yield, expression efficiency, expression loss and energy used were determined using Central Composite Design in Response Surface Methodology for the optimization and modelling. Analysis of Variance was employed to determine the level of significance (P≤ 0.05). The optimum expression efficiency, expression loss and minimum energy used were 72.86%, 0.63% and 584.19 Watts obtained at experimental conditions of 15.00 MPa applied pressure, 6% moisture content and 85.52°C heating temperature respectively. The R2 values of the developed models ranged from 0.813 to 0.982 at 95% confidence level. The developed combined castor seed roaster-oil expeller was found to be efficient and developed models showed adequate prediction with good relationships between dependent and independent variables. Keywords: castor seed, oil extraction, modeling, optimization DOI: 10.7176/ISDE/11-1-07 Publication date: January 31st 2020

Effects of mixed nitrogen sources on biodegradation of phenol by immobilized Acinetobacter sp. strain W-17

Using Ca-alginate immobilized cells of Acinetobacter sp. strain W-17, the effects of ammonium-N and nitrate-N on the biodegradation of phenol were investigated. Degradation experiments in three different culture media; minimal salts medium (MSM), simulated (SW) and modified simulated wastewater (MSW) were performed. With the freely suspended cells (cell dry weight 0.2 g/l), complete phenol (500 mg/l) degradation was achieved after incubation for 120 h. Using the immobilized cells, the time was reduced to 24 h in MSM medium, and 15 h in the MSW. The results also indicate that strain W-17 can tolerate to high concentrations of NH4+-N (63 mg/l) and NO3--N (1000 mg/l) without a significant loss in the phenol biodegradation rate. Moreover, the presence of 500 mg/l phenol in the MSW had no considerable effect on the removal of both ammonium-N and nitrate-N. Repeated use of immobilized cells revealed that they could be used as much as five times without loss of activity. Our findings could be extended to enhance biotreatment of phenol contamination in a variety of biological treatment processes. (African Journal of Biotechnology: 2003 2(1): 8-12

ABH secretor status of students in the college of medical sciences, University of Maiduguri by inhibition method

Background: ABH blood group and secretor status of individuals are inherited independently although both may be associated with diabetes, autoimmune diseases and heart diseases. Aim: A cross-sectional study was employed to determine the ABH blood group and secretor status of students in the University of Maiduguri. Methodology: Two ml blood and 3ml saliva were collected from each study participants and were assayed independently. The ABO blood group and secretor status were determined by tube method and haemagglutination inhibition technique respectively. Results: A total of 235 apparently healthy students of the College of Medical Sciences participated in this study. Of the 235 participants, 97.4% are ABH secretors whereas 2.6% are ABH non-secretors. One hundred and nineteen 119(50.6%) of the subjects are males, of which 115 are secretors while 4 are non-secretors. Among the 116(49.4%) females who participated, 114 are secretors while 2 are non-secretors. The distribution of ABO blood group among the subjects shows that 21.3% were group A, 20.8% group B, 8.5% group AB and 49.4% group O. Conclusion: In this study, Blood group O is the commonest while AB was the least among the subjects. Overall, there are more secretors than non-secretors among the subjects. However, the study suggests that the ability to secrete ABH substances is independent of ABO blood group genes. The analysis also helps in revealing the prevalence of secretor status among the students. With the associations of disease and secretors, the secretor status of individuals may play a role in the diagnosis and management of diseases. Keywords: ABO blood group; secretor status; ABH antigen

Loan Loss Provision and Earnings Management in Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

Researchers and financial economists have for long identified that bank managers use loan loss provisions which is a substantial accrual in the banking industry to manage reported earnings in line with the prediction of the agency theory. In Nigeria, this practice remains a mere theoretical insinuation because there are hardly any empirically documented evidences to support the assertion. In order to fill this void in literature, the present study explores the relationship between loan loss provision and earnings management in Nigerian DMBs. Secondary data were obtained from the 8 banks’ annual reports for the period of 2006 to 2011 and robust regression was used as a tool for data analysis. The result indicates that there is a positive relationship between the provision for loan losses and earnings management in Nigerian DMBs. It is therefore, recommended that, if emphasis is on the integrity of financial reports, regulators should put a ceiling on the provision for loan losses rather than leaving it at the total discretion of managers who provide it to suit their selfish interest. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n17p4