Basic Challenges of Climate Change and Implications for Quality Education in Nigeria

In recent years, climate change has received significant global attention. It presents a unique challenge to sustainable human development. The scientific evidence is clear that climate change is likely to have negative impacts on efforts to achieve Nigeria’s development objectives, including the targets set out in Nigeria Vision20:2020 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The objective of the paper is to examine the challenges of climate change and its implications on quality education in Nigeria educational system. The study is a survey carried out in three education zones in Ekiti State. A stratified random sampling technique was used to divide the State based on Ekiti North, Central and South senatorial districts, and from where a simple random sampling technique was employed to draw a sample of 900 teachers from 30 secondary schools in the state. Two research questions guided the study while a structured questionnaire made up of three sections was used for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using mean statistics. The findings of the study showed that climate change related problems adversely affect teaching and learning by causing lateness and absenteeism to school among teachers and students; destruction of buildings and learning materials; un-conducive learning environment among others. However, the study recommended that climate change should be integrated into secondary school curriculum while seminars, workshops, and conferences should be organized on adaptation and mitigation measures of climate change. Keywords: Climate change, Quality education, Challenges, Sustainable development

DEVELOPMENT OF A VARIABLE SIZE NUT CRACKER

In this work, a variable size nut cracking machine has been designed and constructed to improve the efficiency of shelling operation of quite a number of nuts. The machine is designed to be adaptable to the cracking requirements of some number of nuts, whose shell can be processed to brittleness. The machine performs two operations, shelling of the nut and separation of the shell from the nut. The machine comprises of a hopper, rectangular box housing the cracking drum and compression plate, and a two stage agitated separating tray (to sort the nut from the shell), all supported by a frame. The cracking drum, which is driven by a v-belt connected to an electric motor, also provide the agitation to the separating tray via a v-belt connected a cam mounted shaft that helps push the tray against stationary springs to return the tray to its initial position upon the dwell of the cam. The continual return and compression of the tray against the spring subjects the tray to a vibration needed to enhance the travelling of the shell-nut mixture over it. The machine was tested with palm kernel, the strongest of the class of nuts it was designed to crack; the machine yields a cracking efficiency of 87%. The whole kernel recovery of the machine stands at a magnificent value of 87%. The machine performed satisfactorily

Bioactivity guided isolation of the antifungal components in sawdust extracts of Piptadeniatrum africanum, and Terminalia ivorensis

Aim: The antifungal activities of extracts from fresh sawdust of Piptadeniatrum africanum,and Terminalia ivorensis was determined using the agar well diffusion method. Aqueous, methanol, chloroform,and n-hexane extracts obtained from the sawdust samples were tested against fungi isolated from some decayed wood samples.Methodology and Results: Fungal isolates included: Aspergillus. niger, Aspergillus. flavus, Aspergillus. fumigates, Aspergillus. wentii, Aspergillus. tamari, and Penicillium. chrysogenum (please write the microorganisms’ name in full when first time introducing them). Results of inhibitory activities showed that the chloroform extracts showed the highest inhibitory abilities with zones of inhibition ranging from 14 mm-24 mm for P. africanum, and 11 mm-15 mm for T. ivorensis. However, the aqueous extracts exhibited the least antifungal activity with zones of inhibition ranging between 10 mm-13 mm and 8 mm-11 mm respectively.Conclusion, significance and impact of study: The major secondary plant metabolites identified are alkaloids, anthraquinones, anthraglycosides, arbutin, glycosides, flavonoids, phenolics, saponins, coumarins and valepotriates. The antifungal components in P. africanum were identified to be 3, 7, 8, 3'–Tetramethoxy-6–C-methyl-5, 4'–dihydroxyflavone and 3–methoxy–6–C–methyl–3',4',5,7,8–pentahydroxyflavone while Terminalia ivorensis contained 5,7,8-Trihydroxy-2′5′-methoxy-3′,4′-methylenedioxyisoflavanone as the bioactive component

Spatial Analysis of Agricultural Pattern in Ikere Area, Nigeria

Agriculture is the backbone of Africa’s economy. In spite of the increased significance of oil and gas sector, Nigeria largely remained an agrarian economy since a high percentage of the labour force continues to engage in agricultural production. The sector remains labour intensive as this is one of the reasons for downward trend in productivity. The study therefore aimed at examining the influence of distance on size of farmland and impact of land tenure system in Ikere agricultural region. The study involved identifying major routes leading to the city centre where three farmsteads were randomly sampled on the basis of distance using 0 – 3 km, 4 – 7 km, 8 – 11 km, for nearby, middle and distant farmlands. In all, 18 farmsteads were used for the purpose of the study and 180 farmers representing the sample size. Questions relating to the size of farmland, years of cropping, dominant crops and farming activities were sought for. A descriptive statistics was adopted to summarize the data. The study revealed that farming practices adopted is the popular bush burning in preparation of land and shifting cultivation after a short use to allow land to regain fertility. Also, both indigenous and migrant farmers engaged in production of food crops while indigenes are more involved in cash crop production. All the farmsteads produced the same type of crops at the same distance from the city centre while farmers have farm plots with an average of 4.5 plots. On the basis of the findings one recommends among other things the need to construct roads to link the city centre and the various farmsteads for easy commuting and evacuation of farm products. Farmers are to increase their outputs by adopting new farming techniques, and government should provide agricultural extension workers to advice farmers on modern farming techniques to increase agricultural products. Keywords: Agricultural pattern, food production, farming techniques, land use, Ikere.

A Comparative Analysis of Agricultural Land Use in Ikere Ekiti, Nigeria

Agriculture is the mainstay of Nigerians. This is exemplified by the fact that more than 70 percent of Nigerians are involved in this sector (Olayide, 1980). However, a lot of land use problems beset the Nigerian farmers hence the prospects of the sector are better appreciated by a comparative analysis of agricultural pattern in the developing and the developed world. Von Thünen’s agricultural land use provided the basis of arguments while distances from the city centre, crops planted, means of transport and number of days spent on farm constitute the data collected on the basis of primary source. The result revealed that there is total departure of what existed in Ikere agricultural region with that of Von Thünen. The major deviation is that food crops and forest woods were grown in distance farms. In conclusion, the paper recommends intensive use of fertilizer for nearby farms with reduction in land left to fallow. This will further create more land for use in nearby farms Keywords:Land use, farming system, crops planted, agriculture, comparative analysis

Development and performance evaluation of a natural draft mixed-type solar dryer for agricultural products

Reduced moisture content enhances storage properties of agricultural products and reduces post-harvest losses. Effective drying can be achieved using solar dryers in regions with abundant solar radiation. In this study, a natural draft mixed-type solar dryer suitable for rural communities of developing countries was developed. The performance of the solar dryer was also investigated using pepper, okra and tomato. The temperature taken at different points of the drying chamber and the auxiliary collector show that the temperature within the drying chamber is higher than the ambient temperature. The temperature within the drying chamber was also found to depend on the atmospheric conditions. The maximum drying rate was obtained at periods between 1200 and 1400 hrs Nigeria local time during which the temperature within the solar dryer is also maximum. Temperature within the solar dryer reached up to 62°C. The solar collector efficiency was 52.0% while the drying efficiency was 21.9%.Peer reviewe

Comparative Analysis of CHATGPT and the evolution of language models

Interest in Large Language Models (LLMs) has increased drastically since the emergence of ChatGPT and the outstanding positive societal response to the ease with which it performs tasks in Natural Language Processing (NLP). The triumph of ChatGPT, however, is how it seamlessly bridges the divide between language generation and knowledge models. In some cases, it provides anecdotal evidence of a framework for replicating human intuition over a knowledge domain. This paper highlights the prevailing ideas in NLP, including machine translation, machine summarization, question-answering, and language generation, and compares the performance of ChatGPT with the major algorithms in each of these categories using the Spontaneous Quality (SQ) score. A strategy for validating the arguments and results of ChatGPT is presented summarily as an example of safe, large-scale adoption of LLMs.Comment: 10 Page

Antimicrobial activities of Vernonia tenoreana

The antimicrobial activity of Vernonia tenoreana was investigated. Crude extracts and solvent fractions of the leaf and bark of V. tenoreana were obtained using methanol and distilled water (2:3, v:v),ethylacetate, chloroform, and n-hexane as solvents of extraction. The crude and solvent fractions showed broad spectrum activities against Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus faecalis, Bacillussubtilis, B. cereus, Shigella dysenteriae, Klebsiella pneumonia, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Proteus vulgaris, with zones of inhibition ranging from 1.7 to 18.3 mm. The leaf extracts showed betterantimicrobial activities, as the minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values for most of the isolates was 10 mg/ml with a least value of 5 mg/ml recorded for P. aeruginosa (NCIB 950). On the contrary, inthe case of bark extract, 15 mg/ml was the MIC value recorded for most of the test isolates with the least value of 10 mg/ml recorded for S. aureus, B. subtilis, and K. pneumoniae. Out of all the solventfractions, the chloroform fractions exhibited the highest antimicrobial activities. The bark extracts exercised antifungal activities against Candida albicans, Aspergillus niger and A. flavus, while the leafextract was inactive against all the fungal isolates. Phytochemical constituents revealed the presence of saponins, tannins, and anthraquinones in the bark extracts, while, tannins, anthraquinones, andcardenolides were present in the leaf extract