The Role of Movement Transformation in Recursiveness: Evidence from English and Standard Yorùbá

Human beings are naturally endowed with innate ability with which they make use of finite number of grammatical constituents to generate infinite number of acceptable and grammatical sentences, through a linguistic process known as recursion. What is really marvelous about recursion is the fact that, in addition to its pervasiveness among natural languages, the resultant amazing sentences produced through the process are always rule-governed. Such derived sentences can be subjected to grammaticality judgement by any native speaker of the language in which the sentences are produced; no matter how long the sentences might be. The aim of this paper is to present empirical data from English and Standard Yorùbá1 (two languages that are genetically unrelated)2 for the purpose of illustrating how the syntactic creativity of recursiveness produces new meanings and nuances of meanings through the application of a movement transformation like ‘relativization’ to a given basic sentence. The Principles and Parameters (P&P) theory is employed as a theoretical framework for our analysis in this paper. Keywords: Recursion, Movement transformation, Relativization, English, Standard Yorùbá

Building the capacity of agricultural extension personnel for effective implementation of agricultural transformation agenda in Nigeria

This paper reviews the capacity (number, quality and motivation) of the extension personnel in Nigeria; and describes farmers’ perception of the quality of extension service delivery using evidences from literature, reports of organizations as well as experiences from field research. Findings reveal a tremendous shortage in the number and quality of extension personnel across the country as major reason for the poor performance of the ADPs thereby leaving no hope for the “beautiful†transformation agenda. This paper strongly recommends immediate recruitment of new hands as well as full implementation of a well-designed capacity building programme so as to ensure a sustainable extension service delivery system where extension personnel can operate in the expected commercial (agriculture-driven) economy

Building the capacity of agricultural extension personnel for effective implementation of agricultural transformation agenda in Nigeria

This paper reviews the capacity (number, quality and motivation) of the extension personnel in Nigeria; and describes farmers’ perception of the quality of extension service delivery using evidences from literature, reports of organizations as well as experiences from field research. Findings reveal a tremendous shortage in the number and quality of extension personnel across the country as major reason for the poor performance of the ADPs thereby leaving no hope for the “beautiful†transformation agenda. This paper strongly recommends immediate recruitment of new hands as well as full implementation of a well-designed capacity building programme so as to ensure a sustainable extension service delivery system where extension personnel can operate in the expected commercial (agriculture-driven) economy

ATTITUDES AND THE PRACTICE OF DOCUMENTATION OF INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE BY THE TRADITIONAL HEALTH PRACTITIONERS IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA.

This paper examines the attitudes and the practice of documentation of indigenous knowledge by the traditional health practitioners (THP) in Kwara State, Nigeria. Indigenous knowledge has been playing significant roles most especially in the primary health of the people in rural areas. This important knowledge is prone to attrition due to non-documentation and the World Bank has warned that if the knowledge is not documented, it will be lost. The study adopted descriptive survey research design and utilized questionnaire to collect data for the study. 30 traditional health practitioners were purposively selected based on their experience for the study. Simple percentage and frequency count were used to analyse the biographic variables while the research questions were answered using means and standard deviation while the hypotheses were tested using Pearson Correlation. The result of the study shows that there were more male traditional health practitioners than female, the higher percentage of them were elderly and highly experienced in the practice. The practitioners had positive attitudes to documentation of their IK and there is significant relationship between attitudes and documentation of IK. Writing and storytelling are the most prominent practice of documentation and that lock of formal education, fear of loss of ownership of the knowledge, misuse of the documented knowledge among others are challenges facing documentation of Ik in Kwara State, Nigeria. The study concludes that THP should be helped to overcome these challenges so that they will be encouraged to document their IK to prevent it from going into extinction

Design of an Intelligent Traffic Light Control System

Today, the number of cars is rapidly increasing which creates a real traffic control problem. While the conventional traffic control systems are inconvenient to provide fast and fair solutions for the congestion problem. This research addresses the traffic control problem and hence proposes an intelligent traffic light control system. In particular, the proposed system senses the presence or absence of cars on each lane, and then estimates the time to open each lane, which is proportional to the number of cars on that lane. Practically, the system circuit has been printed on a board with three main components; namely pressure sensors, microcontroller, and traffic lights. Then a C program has been developed to enable the microcontroller for receiving inputs from sensors, calculating the times to open lanes and sending appropriate logic decisions to traffic light. The obtained results prove the accuracy and reliability of the system.    In addition to the practical test, the intelligent traffic light control system has been successfully simulated, where the simulation results are found to be the same as the calculated ones

ASSESSMENT OF SCARCITY OF WOODWORK ARTISAN IN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION IN KWARA STATE, NIGERIA

Woodwork artisanal scarcity is at an alarming rate in Nigeria and in Kwara state in particular. The reason being that most of the available woodwork artisans lack adequate skills demanded quality Building Construction. Generally, the issue of woodwork artisanal scarcity is not a current one as it dates as far back as the two World Wars. This study is on the causes of the observed scarcity of woodwork artisans in Nigeria and Kwara state in particular. The objectives of the study were to identify the factors increasing woodwork artisanal scarcity in Kwara state, its effect on Kwara state economy and the possible remedies. The study employed the use of descriptive survey design which involves the use of a structured questionnaire to collect data from 25 contractors and 35 woodwork artisans in carpentry and joinery. There was no sampling because the population is manageable, hence, the entire population was used. Mean ratings were used to answer research questions. The findings show that major factors causing the scarcity of woodwork artisans include; fluctuating payment, low remuneration, low motivation, lack of interest to take-up woodwork trade by youth, technological advancements in tools, equipment and working process. It also identified the effects of scarcity of woodwork artisan on Kwara state economy. Based on the finding of the study, it was recommended that the Carpentry and Joinery Union of Kwara state should encourage the welfare of its members in order to improve the issues raised by this study

Synthesis and Characterization of New heterocyclic Polyacrylamides from Derivatives 2-Aminobenzothiazole

The present work involved preparation of new hetro cyclic polyacrylamides (1-9) using reaction of polyacryloyl chloride with 2-aminobenzothiazole which prepeard by thiocyanogen method in the presence of a suitable solvent and amount tri ethyl amine (Et3N) with heating. The structure confirmation of polymers were proved using FT-IR,1H-NMR,C13NMR and UV spectroscopy.Other physical properties including softening and melting points, and solubility of the polymers were also measured

Synthesis and Characterization of New Polyimide by Curing Poly Acryloyl Chloride with Different Amides

The present work involved preparation of new substituted and unsubstituted and poly imides (1-17) using reaction of acryloyl chloride with different amides (aliphatic ,aromatic) in the presence of a suitable solvent and amount tri ethyl amine (Et3N) with heating – the structure confirmation of all polymers were proved using FT-IR,1H-NMR,C13NMR and UV spectroscopy ,thermal analysis (TG) for some polymers confirmed their thermal stabilities . Other physical properties including softening and melting points, PH and solubility of the polymers were also measure