An Agenda for the Management of Contemporary Sustainable Houses

The evolution of sustainable design and Construction Management over the past ten years has produced a lot of literature on environmental sustainability and development. But despite this progress in the last ten years it is still a big challenge to designers, architects, landscape designers, etc. and all other professions that are related to the field of environmental science. . The goal of this paper is to simply create a framework for more accurate approach towards sustainable planning, design and development. The Objective of this paper includes to architecturally defining energy sustainable design in our sustainable Buildings; it is also to stress the concept of green building through design guidelines. This paper outlines, recommend and also create architectural design for sustainability and eliminate unsustainable elements in our building

Fire Protection: Architect’s Role during Construction of Buildings

With technological advancement each year and improved awareness of fire safety measures, fires needlessly cause many casualties as well as material damages. Contractors and consultants can utilize past experiences and involvement whenever a property becomes a building site. The past knowledge of existing buildings especially those that have fire certificate and fire safety systems will be invaluable to the architects and contractors. Advance planning for fire protection and vigilance in construction safety can greatly reduce the risk of disasters. Actions necessary to minimize the chances of fire loss lies in recognizing probable causes, implementing adequate prevention measures, and preparing a plan for battling a fire should it strike. Undertaking construction work increases the risk of fire. Some are caused by tools and products used during the construction process, while others are due to carelessness on the job. Most fires can be prevented by taking routine safety precautions and eliminating the opportunities for a fire to start. Keywords: construction, building, fire, safety, site

Fire Protection Measures in Buildings: The Architect’s Design Role

The key elements of any fire protection system involve prevention, retardations, detection, extinguishments as well as rescue. Major advances have been made in all these elements and are continually improved and made increasingly effective by improvement in technology advancement. Advancement in Building design and construction can have significant improvement in fire safety, therefore, architects, need to adapt new techniques and new materials and incorporate them in their designs. They also need to liaise with fire professionals and engineers across the globe in order to update their knowledge in fire safety. In many countries, safety standards and laws were made as a guide to prevent fire conflagration, loss of assets or buildings, as well as protection of individual life, and architects follow such regulations during design. The fire protection codes, laws and standards are as such effectively implemented in advanced countries. Here in Nigeria there seem to be no adequate statutes in place, except the draft National fire Code. Architects in the country have to rely a lot on their personal fire protection knowledge and design dexterity to provide in building fire prevention and protection measures. Statutory Fire Safety Provisions should be established and administered by the 3 tiers of our government and such document must serve as a guideline in all architectural designs.    This paper therefore tries to give an insight into the role of architects as it relates to fire protection during design of buildings. Keywords: buildings, fires, prevention, safety, standards

Dynamics of Housing Affordability In Nigeria

Affordable Housing provision has remained elusive to an average Nigerian, in spite of numerous programs put in action by various government of the country. The situation is similar to other developing countries, thus, it remains a critical issue in socio-economic wellbeing of these countries. The following factors were identified as contributors to poor housing delivery in the country. They include Rapid population growth, rapid urbanization process, rural-urban drift, and high cost of building materials, dearth of indigenous technology and skilled personal, inadequate financial structure as well as poor managerial skill of our mortgage institutions. The past and present housing programs and efforts were reviewed. New solutions were also proposed. Keywords; Housing, Materials, Population, Programs, Urbanization

Cultural Sensitivities and Health

Culture is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired by man as a member of the society. Its components include knowledge, beliefs, norms, techniques, folkways, mores, laws, values, material culture, and universal culture. Health programs and interventions are more effective when they are “culturally appropriate” for the populations they serve. Each medical encounter provides the opportunity for the interface of several different cultures: the culture of the patient, the culture of the physician, and the culture of medicine. Peripheral, evidential, linguistic, constituent involving, and sociocultural strategies enable the health worker practice culturally sensitive healthcare delivery. Cultural targeting and cultural tailoring are applied to groups and individuals, respectively, by taking their peculiarities into account in making health care available to them. A combination of both approaches is recommended for optimal health outcomes. Cultural competency is the answer to the need for previously lacking cultural consideration in planning and delivering care. It enables the health worker overcome organizational and clinical barriers which continually impede efficient and effective healthcare delivery

The Cure: Making a game of gene selection for breast cancer survival prediction

Motivation: Molecular signatures for predicting breast cancer prognosis could greatly improve care through personalization of treatment. Computational analyses of genome-wide expression datasets have identified such signatures, but these signatures leave much to be desired in terms of accuracy, reproducibility and biological interpretability. Methods that take advantage of structured prior knowledge (e.g. protein interaction networks) show promise in helping to define better signatures but most knowledge remains unstructured. Crowdsourcing via scientific discovery games is an emerging methodology that has the potential to tap into human intelligence at scales and in modes previously unheard of. Here, we developed and evaluated a game called The Cure on the task of gene selection for breast cancer survival prediction. Our central hypothesis was that knowledge linking expression patterns of specific genes to breast cancer outcomes could be captured from game players. We envisioned capturing knowledge both from the players prior experience and from their ability to interpret text related to candidate genes presented to them in the context of the game. Results: Between its launch in Sept. 2012 and Sept. 2013, The Cure attracted more than 1,000 registered players who collectively played nearly 10,000 games. Gene sets assembled through aggregation of the collected data clearly demonstrated the accumulation of relevant expert knowledge. In terms of predictive accuracy, these gene sets provided comparable performance to gene sets generated using other methods including those used in commercial tests. The Cure is available at http://genegames.org/cure

Social Control in Precolonial Igboland of Nigeria

This study is a descriptive investigation of the traditional system of social control and order maintenance in the Igbo nation of Nigeria in Africa. It discusses how the Igbo employed customary standards of conduct and negative sanctions for breach of norms to control its people prior to the advent of the Europeans, colonization, and prisons. Employing ethnographic methodology, the paper describes what constitutes serious deviance and the stringent penalties imposed for their contravention in pre-colonial Igboland. Specifically, the Igbo employed the services of council of elders, age-grade associations, title-making associations, oracles, “Dibia” fraternities (medicine men), secret societies, the myth of reincarnation and non-transmigration, and the invocation of spirits of the ancestors (“mmanwu” and ancestral worship) to preserve collective conscience. Finally, the paper suggests a re-evaluation by current government in Igbo nation to determine a possibility of co-opting certain elements of pre-colonial systems into the 21st century social control in Igbo states

Comparison of Reinforcement Loading on the Mechanical and Physical Properties of Palm Trunk Ash and Polyethene Composites

A comparison experiment of reinforcement loading on the physical and mechanical properties of palm trunk ash and polyethene composites was carried out. The effect of physical and mechanical properties of reinforced low density polyethylene of both virgin and recycled with palm trunk ash was compared using tensile test, hardness test, flexural test and micro structural test determination. The equipment used in determining physical and mechanical properties of the composites materials  include metal mould, sieves, digital weighing balance, hack saw, grinding machine, tensometer, universal material tester, digital Rockwell hardness tester and optical micro structural microscope. The matrix materials used for the formation of the composites are the virgin and recycled low density polyethene and palm trunk ash was used as filler material. The composites were prepared using percentage weight of 0%,10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50% of palm trunk ash. The conversion of waste materials to a valuable product was the major target of the author and the results showed that palm trunk ash (PTA) can be used as a reinforcing material on polymeric matrices of both virgin and recycled polyethene. The results of the RLDPE-PTA and VDPE-PTA showed that the virgin material was more effective than the recycled material and the quality of the recycled composites can be increased with an increase in the PTA. The Palm trunk ash at 50% increases the tensile strength thereby increasing the brittleness of the material and reducing the ductility. The tensile strength of VDPE-PTA and RLDPE-PTA obtained showed that proper mixture of palm trunk ash and low density polyethene composite are good engineering materials for reinforcement loading. The increase in PTA also decreases the flexural strength of the composite materials which shows that the 0% PTA composite materials have the highest flexural strength. It was also observed that the melting point of the composite materials increase with increase in palm trunk ash of both VDPE-PTA and RLDPE-PTA. Keywords: Comparison, Reinforcement, Properties, Palm Trunk Ash, Polyethene, Composite