Platformisation of Education: An Analysis of South African Universities’ Learning Management Systems

Several studies have focused attention on the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on the traditional face-to-face teaching and learning activities across the globe. There is, however, little research regarding the platformisation of education with the aid of the learning management systems (LMSs) in the contexts of South African universities. With a thematic content analysis of the extant literature and a systematic review of universities’ websites, this study explored and unearthed various LMS platforms which public universities in South Africa adopted and utilized before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and during the lockdown period. The findings revealed that the majority (46%) of South Africa’s public universities used the Blackboard LMS while another 34 percent of the 26 universities used the Moodle LMS. The rest of the public universities in South Africa used one of the following LMS platforms: the Vula, Efundi, ClickUp, RUConnected, Sakai, SunLearn, Canvas, and D2LBrightspace. Furthermore, the study found that a few South African universities had moved from one LMS platform to another, especially during the period of lockdown precipitated by the pandemic; beginning from the year 2020. The LMS platforms serve the pedagogical needs of the universities in terms of facilitation of online interaction between instructors and students, dissemination of course materials, announcements, submissions, assessments, and grading of student assignments electronically. It is recommended that future studies should investigate the challenging factors responsible for the switch from one LMS platform to another across the public universities in South Africa

Awareness and Utilization of Birth Control Measures as a Means of Increasing Production Output Among Rural Women in Fishing Communities of Lagos State, Nigeria

In spite of women huge labour investment, rural women often get low agricultural production, less accruing returns, limited roles in decision making on the farms and lack of access to productive resources as a result of their multiple roles in the home. Nevertheless, to enhance the level of production of these women, their reproductive health needs to be taken seriously and one way to do that is through promotion of birth control practices that help to minimize manday losses during pregnancy period and burden of raising many children. Hence this study was carried out to look at Awareness and Utilization of Birth Control Measures (BCM) as a Means of increasing production output among Rural Women in Fishing Communities of Lagos State, Nigeria. Simple random sampling technique was used to select three hundred and thirty-one respondents in the coastal areas.  Data were collected with interview guide and analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) and linear regression analysis. Results of the study showed that the mean age of respondents was 40.1 years; 88.8% were married; 79.5% had formal education; 78.5% realized more than ₦31,000/month; 59.8% practiced nuclear family; and 63.4% had less than 4 children in their households. Also, 83.4% and 91.5% of the respondents were aware of traditional and modern methods of birth control measures respectively. But, 49.8% always used Combined Oral Contraceptives and 44.4% always used injectable contraceptives of modern birth control measures. Health Care Providers (85.5%), radio (66.5%) and television (81.3%) were the predominant sources of information on BCM in the coastal areas. Most of respondents strongly agreed that the use of BCM allows women’ notable participation in more fish processing activities thereby contributing significantly to women’ earning power (82.2%), and it reduces poverty by contributing to economy of the family, community and national level (75.5%). Similarly, production output was high after use of BCM (more than 10kg/day) than before use of BCM (less than 4kg/day). However, sexual displeasure from contraceptive use (92.4%), fear of side effect (83.7%), and fear of infidelity among women (25.1%) have been identified as most serious constraints to the use of BCM. Results of correlation revealed a significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and use of BCM in the study area at p < 0.05 level of significance. Linear regression indicated that utilization of BCM has significant influence on the production output of the respondents (t = 2.05, p = 0.04) at p < 0.05 level of significance. The study concluded that use of BCM increase production output in the coastal areas. It is hereby recommended that Health Care Providers should keep on emphasizing the advantages of birth control measures to the fish processors to encourage them to adopt and use it. Keywords: Awareness, Utilization, Birth Control Measures (BCM), production output, Rural Wome

Analysis of urban slum disease using geo-spatial and temporal techniques: case study federal capital city of Nigeria

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Assessment of Information Needs of Cassava Processors on Food Safety Practices in Ogun and Oyo States, Nigeria

Cassava is a major staple crop that can be processed into diverse products for human consumption in Nigeria. However, improper practices and lack of knowledge of food safety practices by food processors are contributing factors for the spread of food borne outbreaks. Everyone in the food and agro-processing sector therefore needs information on food safety for preventing food borne diseases and death. Hence, this study was carried out to assess information needs of cassava processors on food safety practices in Ogun and Oyo States, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used in the selection of 360 respondents for this study. Descriptive statistics, chi-square and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used to analyze the data collected. Results of this study showed that the mean age of the respondents was 38.4 years, majority (79.7%) of the respondents was married, 41.9% had primary education; 35.8% of the respondents have spent more than 11 years in cassava processing. Ohori (62.3%) and Arubieru (37.7%) are the most processed varieties of cassava by the respondents; they processed 50 – 100kg/day using traditional equipment. Furthermore, many of the respondents did not have the knowledge that protective clothes such as apron, chef and cap should be worn during cassava processing (64.2%) and that blowing of nose and splitting during cassava processing cannot affect safety of food (67.5%). Meanwhile, most of the respondents need information on washing hands with soap and water before and after cassava processing (90.8%), and disposal of waste away from processing plant from time to time. Correlation results showed that there was a significant relationship between sources of information and food safety practices (r = 0.79, p = 0.01) at p < 0.05 level of significance. Keywords: information needs, cassava processors, food safety practices

Assessment of Human African Trypanosomiasis Foci using Change Detection Algorithms

Environ-climatic change influences the occurrence and propagation of Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT), focusing on two foci; Delta State and Jigawa State Nigeria where HAT has been reported. Geospatial and temporal based ground truthing exercise carried out to harvest HAT vector in Jigawa state did not yield any results; this indicates that the disease might have been phased out in the state.  In the same vein, resurging of HAT disease in the Delta State has been reported of recent. Thus, a change detection analysis was conducted in a geographic information systems (GIS) environment, to investigate the foci landscape. Using normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalised difference water index (NDWI) and tasseled cap transformation (TCT), changes with a lag time of two decades was assessed for the two foci.  The analysis suggested that the landscape has changed considerably over the years that show Delta State as the potential active HAT foci as explained from the regression analysis of 0.9868 (99%) ahead of Jigawa state 0.0000 (0%) that can be regarded as non-active foci.  However, on-going programs, such as afforestation, forestation, irrigation farming and water reservoir projects may result in re-introduction of favourable landscape, thus, re-invasion of the area by the HAT vector. Therefore strategies that will maintain the present HAT-free status of the non-active foci, without adverse effect on the environment should be a government priority. To effectively reduce or control HAT propagation, integrated prevention schemes should be developed and executed.  The two HAT foci are of great economic importance; Delta State landscape is rich in hydrocarbons while Jigawa State is known for its extensive grazing and arable landscape. Keywords: Trypanosomiasis, Afforestation, Foci, HAT, Landscape, Environ-climatic, Spatial, Irrigatio

Effects of experimental Neisseria meningitis W135 infection on serotoninergic parameters in mice

This study investigated the effects of Neisseria menigitidis W135 infection via intraperitoneal route on plasma free tryptophan concentration, brain serotonin and 5-hydroxyindole acetic acid (5-HIAA) levels in albino mice fed normal and tryptophan-enriched diets. The kinetics of appearance of viable bacteria in the blood, brain and liver following infection were also investigated. The serotoninergic parameters were determined by colorimetric and HPLC methods while colony counts were measured by plate count technique. Compared to normal diet, the tryptophan-enriched diet resulted in significantly (

Meningococcus serogroup C clonal complex ST-10217 outbreak in Zamfara State, Northern Nigeria.

After the successful roll out of MenAfriVac, Nigeria has experienced sequential meningitis outbreaks attributed to meningococcus serogroup C (NmC). Zamfara State in North-western Nigeria recently was at the epicentre of the largest NmC outbreak in the 21st Century with 7,140 suspected meningitis cases and 553 deaths reported between December 2016 and May 2017. The overall attack rate was 155 per 100,000 population and children 5-14 years accounted for 47% (3,369/7,140) of suspected cases. The case fatality rate (CFR) among children 5-9 years was 10%, double that reported among adults ≥ 30 years (5%). NmC and pneumococcus accounted for 94% (172/184) and 5% (9/184) of the laboratory-confirmed cases, respectively. The sequenced NmC belonged to the ST-10217 clonal complex (CC). All serotyped pneumococci were PCV10 serotypes. The emergence of NmC ST-10217 CC outbreaks threatens the public health gains made by MenAfriVac, which calls for an urgent strategic action against meningitis outbreaks