Genderlect and Language Use in a Dynamic World

The dynamism of the world and language can be likened to the movement of individual stars, whose constellations are continuously changing their shape. One can hardly think of any language conventionally used in any society in the world that can ever be permanently the same. None, but it will always change from one age to another. Language use therefore depends on the state of language and the world view at any point in time. The fast movement of human life span may make one to hardly notice any change in language which definitely occurs but slowly. Significantly, people are expected to use language appropriately, flexibly and accurately to enhance fidelity in communication. Since no two people speak one language the same way, there are usually noticeable differences. These differences as observed in this study, occur as a result of some factors among which are: age and education/social class, audience, gender etc. Hence this study examined the notion of genderlect and language use in a dynamic world. Some changes in language use over time have resulted in the emancipatory language used to refer to women instead of the old days’ derogatory expressions. Interestingly,what was deemed uncouth and barbarous in one age has been accounted polite and elegant in another. It was concluded, therefore, that societies should institutionalize positive attitudes where everyone is truly equal and treated as such and allow it reflect in the languages they use. This study believed that when this is done, the asymmetries that exist in language and which has been a socio-linguistic concern over the years will be of a little concern

Electronic Counseling System for the Visually Impaired in Enugu State Nigeria

This paper was developed for visually impaired students in Anambra state Nigeria for proper interaction with counselors. Based on discussion with some visually impaired students called for this research effort to investigate on how to design and build a voice command computer based counseling system that work with voice recognition program since they cannot see with their eyes reply electronic mails sent to them, the voice command interface helps them to listen and answer questions effectively from their counselors. Keeping in view a strong need for managing these students’ information and problems a network computer based counseling system with voice command was designed and developed. Electronic counseling in Anambra State does not consider how visually impaired reply electronic mails sent by their counselors. It is web based application that uses Visual Basic .Net, HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheet), JavaScript, PHB (Hypertext Pre Processor), Microsoft Speech Recognition Engine and SQL (Structured Query Language) to implement and Object Oriented Analysis and Design Methodology was adopted since it is based on states and behaviour of objects. The system uses Microsoft speech recognition to read electronic mails sent to students by online counselors. It is user friendly and provides simple and efficient way for managing students’ problems

The Course of SARS-COV2 Infection Was Not Severe in a Crohn\u27s Patient Who Administered Maintenance Anti-TNF Therapy Overlapping the Early Pre-Symptomatic Period of Infection.

The Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) population, which may require treatment with immunosuppressive medications, may be uniquely vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. In fact, there is some evidence these medications may inhibit the cytokine storm that is theorized to cause a rapid decline seen in COVID-19. In addition, the digestive symptoms of COVID-19 can be difficult to distinguish from the activation of IBD. We present an interesting case of a Crohn\u27s patient inadvertently administering anti-cytokine therapy during the pre-symptomatic period of COVID-19 infection. Immune suppression during early infection with SARS-COV2 risks a poor immune response to the virus and could theoretically result in a more severe course of infection

Strong convergence and stability of Kirk-multistep-type iterative schemes for contractive-type operators

In this paper, we introduce Kirk-multistep and Kirk-multistep-SP iterative schemes and prove their strong convergences and stabilities for contractive-type operators in normed linear spaces. By taking numerical examples, we compare the convergence speed of our schemes (Kirk-multistep-SP iterative schemes) with the others (Kirk-SP, Kirk-Noor, Kirk-Ishikawa, Kirk-Mann and Kirk iterative schemes) for this class of operators. Our results generalize and extend most convergence and stability results in the literatur

Seasonal Variability of Rainfall and its Decadal Anomaly over Nigeria: Possible Role of Solar and Geomagnetic Activities

This study investigates seasonal variations of rainfall and its decadal anomaly over Nigeria and the possible role of solar and geomagnetic activities. Sunspot number and geomagnetic aa index were used as solar indices. Monthly mean rainfall data from Nigeria Meteorological Agency was used in this study. Bivariate and power spectral density analyses were employed in analyzing the data. Rainfall anomaly was calculated using the mean of the base period, 1981 – 2010. Seasonally, rainfall varies from the coastal areas to the hinterland from January to December during rainy and dry seasons. On the decadal rainfall anomaly, positive anomalies increases steadily towards the coastal regions; indicating an increase in rainfall characteristic, whereas negative anomalies increases towards the northern regions; depicting decrease in rainfall characteristic. This was confirmed from the Mann-Kendall trend test. These variations are evidence of climate change. Correlation analysis revealed that the correlation of rainfall with sunspot and aa index were statistically insignificant. The spectral analysis revealed signatures of solar and geomagnetic activities on the rainfall spectrum. We therefore infer that, in addition to anthropogenic activities, solar and geomagnetic activities might play important role in the observed climate change in Nigeria; since rainfall is used as climate change indicator

Effect of antiretroviral drugs on prolactin in HIV infected pregnant women

The world has finally settled living with Human immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) with no cure discovered so far. Yong people with HIV infection under HIV management drugs get married and eventually end up being pregnant and bearing babies. The need therefore to investigate the effect of HIV infection and antiretroviral drugs on body chemistry especially the hormones concerned with pregnancy and lactation cannot be over emphasized as this is important to intervene when necessary for the overall benefit for the mother and child. We investigated the effect of anti-retroviral drugs and human immune deficiency virus (HIV) infection on prolactin production and stimulation in HIV-infected pregnant women. A total of 120 subjects participated in the study. Sixty (group 1) of these subjects were HIV seropositive pregnant women who commenced treatment with zidovudine in combination with lamivudine, that is highly anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) at 2nd trimester. The 2nd group made up of 60 HIV seronegative pregnant women who received no drug and as control to the study. The blood samples of both groups were collected at the beginning of the second and at the end of the third trimesters. For group 1 (seropositive pregnant women), the blood collection was done just before commencingthe HAART treatment. The prolactin level of HIV seropositive pregnant women were significantly (P < 0.05) lower than the HIV seronegative pregnant women at the 2nd trimester. Also, the prolactin level of HIV seropositive pregnant women at 2nd trimester was not significantly  increased (P> 0.05) compared with third trimester level. The reverse was the case with HIV seronegative pregnant women where prolactin level of 3rdtrimester was significantly increased when compared with 2nd trimester. HIV infection has prolactin suppressive effect on pregnant women and HAART treatment did not significantly raise prolactin level.Keywords: Prolactin, pregnancy, HIV, highly active retroviral therapy (HAART)

Impact of Landuse Morphology on Urban Transportation

People, cities, nations and the world, in general, would remain largely underdeveloped without transportation systems. However, Transportation puts significant pressure on land use and poses a great challenge to urban sustainability in developing countries. This study examines the influence of Land use structure on Intra-urban transportation in the developing city of cities in the West African sub-region – using Enugu city as a case study. The study uses a descriptive research method. A survey was carried out in six districts within the Enugu metropolis based on a stratified, purposive sampling technique. Questionnaires were used as data collection instruments; 400 respondence participated in the study employing Yamane equation. Furthermore, a twelve-hour (7 am to 7 pm) traffic count was conducted to assess traffic volume. The study finding revealed that Transportation within the urban areas is significantly impacted by Land-use structure, city morphology, neighbourhood characteristics in terms of population and residential density of the city. The hypothesis suggests no significant difference between the various land uses across the Enugu metropolis (p = 0.129). It was also discovered that an average of 122,431 Passenger Car Units (PCU) constantly ply the metropolis roads to service a total population of 564,725 daily, indicated a high rate of car dependency. The study surmises that land use generates vehicular traffic, which impacts the socio-economic environment and the effectiveness of the transportation system. The significance of this study is that the findings contribute to the existing knowledge base that would advance stratic policy formation towards acceleration of the uptake of sustainable urban transportation systems in the region. Doi: 10.28991/cej-2021-03091758 Full Text: PD

Non-linear bending and stress analysis of a transversely loaded isotropic plates material using 3-D plate theory

This paper presents the bending stress analysis of anisotropic plate material under transverse loading using a three-dimensional (3-D) plate theory. The static elastic theory was used to formulate the total energy expression of the plate thereafter, transformed into a compatibility equation through general variation to get the slope and deflection relationship. The solution of equations of the equilibrium gave rise to the exact polynomial deflection function while the coefficient of deflection and shear deformation of the plate was gotten from the governing equation through the direct variation method. These solutions were used to obtain the characteristic expression for analyzing the displacement and stresses of the rectangular plate. This formula was used for the solution of the bending problem of the rectangular plate that is clamped at the first-two edge and the other edges simply supported (CCSS). The result of the deflection and stresses decrease as the span-thickness ratio increases. More so, the aspect ratio effect of the shear stress of isotropic plates is investigated and discussed after a comparative analysis between the present work and previous studies. The result shows that the present study differs from that refined plate theory (RPT) of assumed deflection by 5.5% whereas exact 2-D RPT by 5.3%. This shows the efficacy of the exact 3-D plate theory for flexural characteristics of CCSS isotropic rectangular thick plate

Static Elastic Bending Analysis of a Three-Dimensional Clamped Thick Rectangular Plate using Energy Method

Analytical formulations and solutions for the thick rectangular plate static analysis with clamped support based on a three-dimensional (3-D) elasticity theory is developed using the energy method. The theoretical model, whose formulation is based on the static elastic principle as already reported in the literature, is presented herein to obviate the shear correction coefficients while considering shear deformation effect and transverse normal strain/stress in the analysis. The equilibrium equations are obtained using 3-D kinematic and constitutive relations. The deflection and rotation functions, which are the solutions of the equilibrium equation, are obtained in closed form using a general variational technique for solving the boundary value problem. The minimization energy equation yields the general equation which was used to obtain the theoretical model for the deflection and stresses of the plate. The results are compared with the available literature and the results-computed trigonometric displacement function shows that this 3-D predicts the vertical displacement and the stresses more accurately than previous studies considered in this paper. The result showed that the percentage difference between the present work and those of 2-D Mindlin FSDT, 2-D numeric analysis, and 2-D HSDT of polynomial shape functions was about 3.02%, 0.62%, and 0.33%, respectively. It is concluded that the 3-D trigonometric model gives an exact solution, unlike other 2-D theories, and can be used for clamped-supported thick plate analysis. Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2022-03-03-03 Full Text: PD