Praise Names and Power De/constructions in Contemporary Igbo Chiefship

Los nombres laudatorios constituyen un importante medio a través del cual los individuos de la sociedad Igbo articulan y expresan sus ideologías, se vanaglorian de sus logros y critican, así como subvierten las representaciones del Otro. En referencia a la figura del jefe tribal, los nombres laudatorios, en cuanto acto pragma-semiótico, se relacionan con la construcción y deconstrucción del poder, de lo que se derivan importantes implicaciones para el significado endosado al jefe tribal y sus roles en el sistema democrático poscolonial. El artículo explora la semiótica de los términos laudatorios en la sociedad Igbo contemporánea, utilizando datos de la cultura popular y de los discursos de los jefes. Igualmente, aborda la interfaz entre significación y política (la política de la significación) en África para concluir que el cambio en la relevancia y la manera de entender al jefe tribal en la África poscolonial se (re)escenifica en el nivel del signo.Praise names are very important means through which individuals in the Igbo society generally articulate and express their ideologies, boast about their abilities and accomplishments, as well as criticize and subvert the visions of the Other. With particular reference to chieftaincy in the Igbo society, praise-naming as a pragma-semiotic act ties up with constructions and deconstructions of power, and so does have serious implications for the meanings attached to chieftaincy, as well as the roles of the chief in the postcolonial democratic system. The present paper therefore discusses the semiotics of praise names in the contemporary Igbo society, drawing data from popular culture and chieftaincy discourses. It addresses the interface between signification and politics (and the politics of signification) in Africa, arguing that change in the understanding and relevance of chieftaincy in postcolonial Africa calls for attention to how chieftaincy is (re)staged at the site of the sign

Rapid-Throughput Analysis of 1,4-Dioxane in Plants by Centrifugal Sampling and Phytoforensic Analysis for Site Delineation and Assessing Enhanced Rhizodegradation

Owing to its broad use and environmental persistence, 1,4-dioxane (dioxane) poses a notable threat to public health and is recalcitrant to traditional remedial systems. Dioxane moves readily in an aqueous environment and is an emerging contaminant in drinking water, surface water, groundwater, and wastewater. The extent of dioxane in the biosphere is also difficult to delineate, particularly in the subsurface. Phytoremediation has demonstrated the potential for dioxane groundwater remediation. Recent findings indicate that plant-microbial symbiosis may be more advantageous for limiting potential transport and transfer into plant tissues and the atmosphere. Bioaugmentation of the rhizosphere paired with soil amendments has been proposed as a sustainable approach to improve phytoremediation applications. Biochar, as a soil amendment is evaluated to attenuate chemical activity and aid microbial survival and degradation of dioxane in the rhizosphere. This study investigated the ability of hybrid poplar trees (DN91) to work symbiotically with rhizosphere-dwelling microorganisms, Pseudonocardia dioxanivorans (CB1190), to enhance the treatment of 1,4-dioxane in bench-scale experiments. Concurrently, phytoforensic analytical methods were developed to rapidly detect dioxane in plant tissues which was also applied in a field study to delineate an existing plume. The impact of phytovolatilization, microbial degradation, and the possible sorption of 1,4-dioxane onto biochar was quantified by HS-SPME analysis of dioxane in the stems and leaves of our cuttings using GC-MS. The dioxane concentrations found in the inoculated trees were significantly lower (p \u3c 0.05) than those in the trees with no microbial inoculation. This finding suggests that an efficient degradation pathway for the cleanup of dioxane exists in the symbiotic interactions between plants and microbes. Furthermore, the impact of biochar on stimulating microbial degradation was not significant in this study, which could be related to the physicochemical properties of the type of biochar used in this study. Overall, this study shows that plant tissue analysis can be effective for the site characterization and distribution of contaminants in the subsurface environment, as well as being a sensor of subsurface degradation --Abstract, p. i

Addressing the Challenges of Igbo Computational Morphological Studies Using Frequent Pattern-Based Induction

Computational studies of Igbo language are constrained by non-availability of large electronic corpora of Igbo text, a prerequisite for data-driven morphological induction. Existing unsupervised models, which are frequent-segment based, do not sufficiently address non-concatenative morphology and cascaded affixation prevalent in Igbo morphology, as well achieving affix labelling. This study devised a data-driven model that could induce non-concatenative aspects of Igbo morphology, cascaded affixation and affix labelling using frequent pattern-based induction. Ten-fold Cross Validation (TCV) test was used to validate the propositions using percentages. An average accuracy measure of 88% was returned for the developed model. Ten purposively selected Igbo first speakers also evaluated samples of 100 model-analysed words each and the mean accuracy score of 82% was recorded. We conclude that morphology induction can be realized with a modestly sized corpus, demonstrating that electronic corpora scarcity does not constrain computational morphology studies as it would other higher levels of linguistic analysis

Measurement of ∣Vub∣|V_{ub}| in semi-inclusive charmless B→πXB \to \pi X decays

We study semi-inclusive charmless decays $B \to \pi X$, where $X$ does not contain a charm (anti)quark. The mode $\bar B^0 \to \pi^- X$ turns out to be be particularly useful for determination of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$. We present the branching ratio (BR) of $\bar B^0 \to \pi^- X$ as a function of $|V_{ub}|$, with an estimation of possible uncertainty. The BR is expected to be an order of $10^{-4}$.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of the Fifth KEK Topical Conferenc

Some Salient Issues in the Unsupervised Learning of Igbo Morphology

The issue of automatic learning of the morphology of natural language is an important topic in computational linguistics. This owes to the fact that morphology is foundational to the study of linguistics. In addition, the emerging information society demands the application of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to languages in ways that demand human-like analysis of language and this depends to a large extent on the ability to undertake computational analysis of morphology. Even though rule-based and supervised learning approaches to the modeling of morphology have been found to be productive, they have also been discovered to be costly, cumbersome and sucseptible to human errors. Contrarily, unsupervised learning methods do not require the expensive human intervention but as in everything statistical, they demand large volumes of linguistic data. This poses a challenge to resource scarce languages such as Igbo. Furthermore, being a highly agglutinative language, Igbo features certain morphological processes that may not be easily accommodated by most of the frequency-driven unsupervised learning models available. this paper takes a critical look at some of the identified challenges of inducing Igbo morphology as a first step in devising methods by which they can be addressed

MORPHOLOGICAL STRATEGIES IN TEXT MESSAGING AMONG NIGERIAN USERS OF GLOBAL SYSTEM FOR MOBILE COMMUNICATION

Text messaging is the application of abridged morphological forms in order to communicate and it is one of the fastest means of communication since the emergence of the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) in the world. In text messaging, we apply innovative language forms with morpho-syntactic structures that have become acceptable since they are understood by the ‘texters’ (senders) and the ‘textees’ (receivers) of the message. There are applications of morphological strategies in the form of omissions, word order violations, contractions, abbreviations, acronyms, compounding, blending and lack of punctuation. All these characterize the morpho-syntactic elements in the Short Message Service (SMS) texts messages. However, there is no hard and fast rule with regards to the morphological choices in SMS. Texters use a combination of letters and numbers in their text messages and in some cases they use only numerals. The texters ignore the basic orthographic and syntactic rules of formal English Language syntax to suit the semantics of their message. This paper, therefore, examines the creative strategies of word formation found in the morphology and syntax of select SMS text messages marked out for this research. Our data was collected from select SMS of individual users and the service providers of GSM. Our thesis statement is that these morphological patterns as used in SMS are already becoming standardized forms being adopted by the Nigerian users of GSM.Keywords:       Morphology and Syntax, SMS texts, GSM (Mobile Phone), Semantics, Nigerian English

CMB anisotropy from spatial correlations of clusters of galaxies

The SZ effect from clusters of galaxies is a dominant source of secondary CMB anisotropy in the low-redshift universe. We present analytic predictions for the CMB power spectrum from massive halos arising from the SZ effect. Since halos are discrete, the power spectrum consists of a Poisson and a correlation term. The latter is always smaller than the former, which is dominated by nearby bright rich clusters. In practice however, those bright clusters are easy to indentify and can thus be subtracted from the map. After this subtraction, the correlation term dominates degree-scale fluctuations over the Poisson term, as the main contribution to the correlation term comes from distant clusters. We find that the correlation term is detectable by Planck experiment. Since the degree scale spectrum is quite insensitive to the highly uncertain core structures of halos, our predictions are robust on these scales. Measuring the correlation term on degree scales thus cleanly probes the clustering of distant halos. This has not been measured yet, mainly because optical and X-ray surveys are not sufficiently sensitive to include such distant clusters and groups. Our analytic predictions are also compared to adiabatic hydrodynamic simulations. The agreement is remarkably good, down to ten arcminutes scales, indicating that our predictions are robust for the Planck experiment. Below ten arcminute scales, where the details of the core structure dominates the power spectrum, our analytic and simulated predictions might fail. In the near future, interferometer and bolometer array experiments will measure the SZ power spectrum down to arcminutes scales, and yield new insight into the physics of the intrahalo medium.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures. submitted to Proceedings of the 9th Marcel Grossmann meetin

Impediments of Self-Managed Type 2 Diabetes in Mgbidi Women, Nigeria

Type 2 diabetes is a complex metabolic disorder characterized by hypoglycemia or hyperglycemia that affects fat, protein, and carbohydrate metabolism. Researchers have identified that for individuals with Type 2 diabetes, staying on interventions for diabetes self-management is sometimes difficult and challenging. It is an increasing public health concern, especially in certain minority populations and in many developing and developed nations. This is especially true for the population of women 40 years and older in Mgbidi, Nigeria. In the Enugu State of Nigeria, women bear most of the burden of Type 2 diabetes when compared to the males in the state. This study explored and evaluated the impediments to self-managed Type 2 diabetes among Mgbidi women in the Enugu State of Nigeria, West Africa, using a qualitative phenomenological approach. The concept of impediments influencing cultural behavior was used as the guiding framework. The participants were a group of 9 women 40 years and older who live with Type 2 diabetes. Face-to-face in-depth structured and unstructured interviews were used for the data collection. The responses of the participants were recorded using a tape recorder with their consent. Their responses were analyzed using aspects of Hycner\u27s and Colaizzi\u27s approach for analyzing phenomenological data. The result of this study supported and expanded on the findings of the current literature review. Individual and social challenges and barriers came to light; such as lack of or non-functioning care centers, lack of diabetes related education, and misconceptions like ignorance, social support and medications behaviors. The use of the concept of impediments influencing culturally sensitive self-management behavior of type 2 Diabetes strengthened the study. The findings could help to enhance cultural sensitive diabetes education for this population and other populations who have diabetes in this community

Yoruba Christian video narrative and indigenous imaginations

Le récit des vidéos yoruba-chrétiennes face à l’imagination indigène : dialogue et joute narrative. – Cet article analyse le projet déconstructeur qui est à l’œuvre dans le traitement de l’imagination indigène par les vidéos yoruba-chrétiennes, notamment pour ce qui concerne le pouvoir des mots (oro). Deux tendances principales sont distinguées : le dialogue, qui implique la mise en conversation des formes sémiotiques, et la joute narrative (“duelogue”), qui concerne la posture d’hostilité et le maintien de frontières sémiotiques étanches. L’article montre que l’ambivalence de la rhétorique des vidéos chrétiennes permet néanmoins au texte chrétien de se réinventer en tant que texte nomade et reproductible. On attire également l’attention sur l’importance de la connaissance culturelle qui est transmise dans ces films, lesquels attendent encore d’être pleinement adaptés dans les programmes des écoles nigerianes, même si une telle connaissance est cruciale pour le maintien d’une tolérance pluraliste dans le Nigeria postcolonial.The paper discusses the deconstructive project that is involved in the appropriations of indigenous imaginations in contemporary Yoruba Christian video films, especially with respect to the idea of the power of oro (word). Two tendencies are identified:   dialogue, which involves the “conversation” of semiotic forms, and “duelogue”, which involves the posture of hostility and maintenance non-permeable semiotic boundaries. The paper argues that the ambivalence of the Christian video rhetoric nevertheless enables the Christian text to reinvent itself as a travelling and reproductive text. Attention is also drawn to the importance of the cultural knowledge transmitted through these films, which are yet to be fully accommodated in the school curricula in Nigerian schools, even when such knowledge is very crucial for the pursuit of tolerance in the plural postcolonial Nigeria