Influence of Human Activities on the Water Quality of Ogun River in Nigeria

The quality of Ogun River in south-west, Nigeria was investigated by a field survey; covering the dry season and rainy season. Water samples were collected from seven sites (including an Abattoir, a market, residential community and a brewery); analysis of the physico-chemical parameters using standard methods and their environmental effects on the river were investigated. Generally, the value/degree of dissolved oxygen, phosphate, BOD, COD, pH, temperature, hardness from the sites during the rainy and dry seasons were compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) standards for domestic and commercial water. The traces of some hazardous physical and chemical impurities in the river were above the acceptable limits; and thereby pose a health risk to several rural communities who rely heavily on the river primarily as their source of domestic water. The study revealed a need for continuous pollution monitoring and management program of surface water in Nigeria. Keywords: surface water, water quality, water pollution, field survey, physico-chemical analysi

Antioxidant Fortification of Eggs through Nutrition of Laying Hens Administered Herbs /Medicinal Plants

The sole aim of raising pullet hens in the poultry industry is to produce eggs for human consumption in a large scale when they commence laying. Eggs are important dietary components to humans both adult and children and is classified as complete protein. However, certain quality of eggs produced by laying hens is further influenced by the diet consumed which in turn is determined by the quality of the feed ingredients making up the diet. Antibiotic residue in eggs and antimicrobial resistance are few concerns to consumers of poultry products. The current era of limiting antimicrobial utilization for livestock production has increased research into medicinal plants and herbs as suitable alternative. Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities reported in literature indicate the invaluable benefits of these plants both for humans and livestock. This book chapter attempts to present the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) antioxidant scavenging activity of eggs from laying hens fed medicinal plants – Vernonia amygdalina and Ocimum gratissimum as component of feed or administered orally as an aqueous extract. The DPPH antioxidant scavenging activity was present in eggs sampled but was better (p < 0.05) in eggs of laying hens administered aqueous O. gratissimum extract

Comparative study between two media on in vitro maturation rate of local buffalo oocytes

Availability of developmentally competent buffalo oocytes is critical for in vitro embryo production and application of related biotechniques. The present study has been undertaken to study the effect of TCM-199 and synthetic oviduct fluid (SOF) medium with supplements (10% Bovine serum albumen (BSA), 10 IU/ml follicle stimulating hormone FSH) with100 IU/mL penicillin, 100 mg/mL streptomycin and 100 IU/mL Nystatin on maturation of buffalo oocytes in vitro. Buffalo ovaries (n= 300) were collected from local abattoir of Basrah within two hours of slaughter and transported immediately to the laboratory under septic condition. Follicular oocytes (n= 215) were recovered by aspiration and slicing method. Only normal grades(A and B) cumulus-oocyte-complexes (COCs) were incubating under 5 % CO2 in air at 38.5 C for 24 hours in two media TCM-199 media (n= 105) or SOF media( n =110) oocytes adding same supplements which mention above. The percentage of oocytes maturation when using TCM-199 medium was (33.33%) was significantly higher (P<0.01) compared to those obtained with SOF medium 13.91(%)

Investigating profitability performance of construction projects using big data: A project analytics approach

© 2019 The Authors The construction industry generates different types of data from the project inception stage to project delivery. This data comes in various forms and formats which surpass the data management, integration and analysis capabilities of existing project intelligence tools used within the industry. Several tasks in the project lifecycle bear implications for the efficient planning and delivery of construction projects. Setting up right profit margins and its continuous tracking as projects progress are vital management tasks that require data-driven decision support. Existing profit estimation measures use a company or industry wide benchmarks to guide these decisions. These benchmarks are oftentimes unreliable as they do not factor in project-specific variations. As a result, projects are wrongly estimated using uniform rates that eventually end up with entirely unusual margins either due to underspends or overruns. This study proposed a project analytics approach where Big Data is harnessed to understand the profitability distribution of different types of construction projects. To this end, Big Data architecture is recommended, and a prototype implementation is shown to store and analyse large amounts of projects data. Our data analysis revealed that profit margins evolve, and the profitability performance varies across several project attributes. These insights shall be incorporated as knowledge to machine learning algorithms to predict project margins accurately. The proposed approach enabled the fast exploration of data to understand the underlying pattern in the profitability performance for different types of construction projects

Sardines of the Gulf of Mannar ecosystem - fishery and resource characteristics of major species

Fishery, species diversity and resource characteristics of exploited sardine resources of the genera Sardinella were studied during 2000-2008. Sardines were exploited by sardine gillnets, trawls and shore seine. Annual average production for the period was 20,249 t. They formed about one fourth of the total marine fish production (77,443 t) of the region. Fishery was supported by eight species dominated by Sardinella gibbosa, followed by S. sirm, S. albella and S. longiceps. Fishery fluctuated widely with declining trend over the years mainly due to reduction in the fishing effort following destruction of traditional crafts and gears during the Tsunami in 2004. Oilsardine in the fishery registered an increasing trend with wide annual fluctuation during the period. Stock assessment studies show that the exploitation rate of major species ranged between 0.45 and 0.62, against the EMSY value of 0.72 and 0.86. This indicated that sardine resource as a whole is under-exploited, offering considerable scope for enhancing their yield. Despite contributing a higher share to marine fish production, sardines, along with other small pelagics, play a vital ecological role in sustaining the stock and fishery of other predatory groups especially large pelagics by providing them a major share of their forage. They support 46 to 87% of the total food of pelagic predators and 14 to 29% of demersal predators

STOCHASTIC MODEL ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF MEDIA CAMPAIGN ON TRANSMISSION OF COVID – 19 EPIDEMIC.

The COVID - 19 pandemic is currently causing authorities and public health officials more concern. The goal of the project is to convert a deterministic model for COVID-19 transmissions to a stochastic model, and then analyze the results to see how media-driven awareness campaigns have an impact on the disease's spread. The dynamic COVID-19 model was converted to a stochastic model, which was then examined. The model includes the following categories: Susceptible (S), Exposed (E), Infected class (I),  Isolated class ( ), Aware class  and Recovered class (R), as well as the Cumulative density of awareness programs by media denoted by   . With the help of MATLAB, the converted model is then numerically solved using the Eula Maruyama approach, allowing the existence and uniqueness of the model to be examined. The implementation of awareness programs has been found to have a significant positive impact on the spread of COVID-19. As the rate of implementation of these programs rises, the population that is exposed to the virus and those who are infected with it declines, and it has been hypothesized that this will eventually cause COVID-19 to become extinct. According to the report, putting awareness campaigns into place can help stop the COVID-19 epidemic from spreading

An adaptive wavelet transformation filtering algorithm for improving road anomaly detection and characterization in vehicular technology

Accelerometers are widely used in modern vehicular technologies to automatically detect and characterize road anomalies such as potholes and bumps. However, measurements from an accelerometer are usually plagued by high noise levels, which typically increase the false alarm and misdetection rates of an anomaly detection system. To address this problem, we have developed in this paper an adaptive threshold estimation technique to filter accelerometer measurements effectively to improve road anomaly detection and characterization in vehicular technologies. Our algorithm decomposes the output signal of an accelerometer into multiple scales using wavelet transformation (WT). Then, it correlates the wavelet coefficients across adjacent scales and classifies them using a newly proposed adaptive threshold technique. Furthermore, our algorithm uses a spatial filter to smoothen further the correlated coefficients before using these coefficients to detect road anomalies. Our algorithm then characterizes the detected road anomalies using two unique features obtained from the filtered wavelet coefficients to differentiate potholes from bumps. The findings from several comparative tests suggest that our algorithm successfully detects and characterizes road anomalies with high levels of accuracy, precision and low false alarm rates as compared to other known methods

Development and Evaluation of an Interactive Instructional Package for Teaching Engineering Graphics Skills

Exposure to modern pedagogical approaches and methods with appropriate instructional media can enhance the development of high-level critical thinking and technical skills. This study examined the development of an interactive instructional software package for teaching engineering graphics and evaluated its relative effectiveness on second-year undergraduate engineering students' academic achievement, skill transfer, and retention. In this study, the quasi-experimental, pre-test, post-test, control group design was employed. 45 research participants were sampled, employing two-stage stratified sampling technique, which comprises the simple random sampling to assign students into three groups from the study population and systematic sampling with k = 3 to select 15 students from each group to a control group and experimental groups A and B. The control group was exposed to conventional classroom instruction (CI), group A to computer-aided instruction (CAI); and group B to conventional and computer-aided instructions (CCAIs). A computer-aided learning package on engineering graphics was developed using the Camtasia software package, which served as the treatment instrument. The pre-test and post-test data used for analysis stemmed from a validated Engineering Graphics Achievement Test instrument. Analysis of covariance and Sidak post hoc test statistical analysis of the groups' performance provided the results on the comparative effects of the treatment conditions. Findings indicated significant differences between the academic achievement, skill transfer, and retention of students, exposed to CCAIs, and CI or CAI strategies. When used together, a significant improvement in students' academic achievement, transfer, and retention of engineering graphics skills occurred than either the CI or CAI strategy used alone

Feeding congregation of ribbonfish, Trichiurus lepturus juveniles in oceanic waters and their targeted exploitation by deepsea trawlers along the Tuticorin coast in Gulf of Mannar

Ribbonfishes supported commercial fishery at Tuticorin prior to nineteen nineties. But reports suggested that their stock and fishery declined considerably thereafter. Their fishery during 2000- 2006 was represented by occasional landings of small quantity of ribbonfish by trawls. Average production by trawls at Tuticorin fishing harbour during the period was 250 t. They represent about 0.7% of the total fish catch of the period

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