Role of Self–Help Groups a Needful Approach to Sustainable Community Development

The proliferation of self-help groups is an indication of effectives, because groups without value cease to exist overtime. That is why; this paper examined the role and approaches of these groups in Goni-Gora with a view to its sustenance’s. The study is empirical research involved collection of data of both primary and secondary data. The primary data were the information obtained through administration of questionnaires’, oral interview and photographs of the group’s activities. this was done by identifying the means of interaction/participation in community development process, income generation for projects/programs, campaign organizers’ for community projects and the perception of community members on the level of development, as well as impact of project executed and its cost estimates. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistic inform of tables frequency distribution and percentage. The study revealed sixteen different self-help groups, interacting and participating in community development process through community meetings and generates income from sons and daughters of the community through donations levy as well as government support for projects. The campaign organizer of projects is the association of the groups under the auspices of the local authority leadership. And the general perception of community members on executed projects indicated that they are all functional serving the purposes of the community. The impressive/encouraging contribution of these groups is an essential element in the process of community development or transformation. Therefore for the sustenance of these projects, it is recommended government must enlists and maintain the willing support of the groups in the planning, execution and management of these projects that affects them. This will bridge communication gaps

Establishment and Validation of Continuously Operating Reference Stations Geosystems Network on Static and Real-Time Kinematic in Benin City, Nigeria

An infrastructure highly treasured by Geomatics Engineers is the continuously operating reference stations (CORS). CORS technology is a complete paradigm shift from the previously known ground control system to a virtual control system. In this paper, we present the steps taken to install CORS Geosystems in Benin City and further test its efficacy by observing fifteen existing control points located far and near using two Tersus GNSS receivers (A&B) concurrently. We perform statistical adjustment using Trimble Business Center software. Successful adjustment took two (2) iterations with Chi square test at (95%) precision confidence level and degree of freedom being nine (9) showed that the result of the adjustment was reliable.  Means of 0.007m, 0.003m 0.000m for Easting, Northings and Heights were obtained while the standard errors (σ) in E, N and H  are 0.003m, 0.007m and 0.000m respectively. The achieved RMS errors obtained from the attempted validation confirmed further that the newly installed CORS is capable of providing reliable 3D geo-spatial data for prospective authorized users to proffer solutions to engineering, scientific, environmental and research driven challenges

Hierarchical multiple regression modelling on predictors of neighbourhood satisfaction in violence-induced segregated urban environments

Violence-induced segregated urban environments (VISUE) are quite unique urban centres for their characteristic of neighbourhood sharing among residents before the resultant parting triggered by violence. Yet, not much is known about the neighbourhood satisfaction of inhabitants in this type of urban setting. Such knowledge can provide hints on the factors to be prioritized in planning for improvement of neighbourhood satisfaction of residents in these cities. This paper thus examines the key predictors of neighbourhood satisfaction in a VI-SUE. Household heads (n = 289), cutting across the three identifiable types of neighbourhoods in Jos, Nigeria, expressed their level of satisfaction on a 71-item self-administered structured survey instrument. The principal component analysis with varimax rotation option explored 10 factors to represent the examined attributes of the neighbourhood environment. The third (final) in the sequence of hierarchical regression models estimated, indicates that none of the socio-economic and demographic attributes and dwelling attributes is significant in pre-dicting neighbourhood satisfaction in VISUE. Three factors: neighbourhood safety and stability, social relationships, and neighbourhood facilities and services, emerge as the key predictors of neighbourhood satisfaction. On the basis of these findings, these three attributes are required to be given precedence in any policy action aiming to improve residents’ satisfaction with their neighbourhoods in VI-SUE

Improving mechanical and thermal properties of graphite–aluminium composite using Si, SiC and eggshell particles

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Characterizing Genetic Susceptibility to Breast Cancer in Women of African Ancestry

Background: Genome-wide association studies have identified approximately 100 common genetic variants associated with breast cancer risk, the majority of which were discovered in women of European ancestry. Because of different patterns of linkage disequilibrium, many of these genetic markers may not represent signals in populations of African ancestry. Methods: We tested 74 breast cancer risk variants and conducted fine-mapping of these susceptibility regions in 6,522 breast cancer cases and 7,643 controls of African ancestry from three genetic consortia (AABC, AMBER, and ROOT). Results: Fifty-four of the 74 variants (73%) were found to have ORs that were directionally consistent with those previously reported, of which 12 were nominally statistically significant ( P < 0.05). Through fine-mapping, in six regions ( 3p24, 12p11, 14q13, 16q12/FTO, 16q23, 19p13 ), we observed seven markers that better represent the underlying risk variant for overall breast cancer or breast cancer subtypes, whereas in another two regions ( 11q13, 16q12/TOX3 ), we identified suggestive evidence of signals that are independent of the reported index variant. Overlapping chromatin features and regulatory elements suggest that many of the risk alleles lie in regions with biological functionality. Conclusions: Through fine-mapping of known susceptibility regions, we have revealed alleles that better characterize breast cancer risk in women of African ancestry. Impact: The risk alleles identified represent genetic markers for modeling and stratifying breast cancer risk in women of African ancestry. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(7); 1-11. ©2017 AACR

Genome-wide association studies in women of African ancestry identified 3q26.21 as a novel susceptibility locus for oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer

Multiple breast cancer loci have been identified in previous genome-wide association studies, but they were mainly conducted in populations of European ancestry. Women of African ancestry are more likely to have young-onset and oestrogen receptor (ER) negative breast cancer for reasons that are unknown and understudied. To identify genetic risk factors for breast cancer in women of African descent, we conducted a meta-analysis of two genome-wide association studies of breast cancer; one study consists of 1,657 cases and 2,029 controls genotyped with Illumina's HumanOmni2.5 BeadChip and the other study included 3,016 cases and 2,745 controls genotyped using Illumina Human1M-Duo BeadChip. The top 18,376 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) from the meta-analysis were replicated in the third study that consists of 1,984 African Americans cases and 2,939 controls. We found that SNP rs13074711, 26.5 Kb upstream of TNFSF10 at 3q26.21, was significantly associated with risk of oestrogen receptor (ER)-negative breast cancer (odds ratio [OR]=1.29, 95% CI: 1.18-1.40; P = 1.8 × 10 (-) (8)). Functional annotations suggest that the TNFSF10 gene may be involved in breast cancer aetiology, but further functional experiments are needed. In addition, we confirmed SNP rs10069690 was the best indicator for ER-negative breast cancer at 5p15.33 (OR = 1.30; P = 2.4 × 10 (-) (10)) and identified rs12998806 as the best indicator for ER-positive breast cancer at 2q35 (OR = 1.34; P = 2.2 × 10 (-) (8)) for women of African ancestry. These findings demonstrated additional susceptibility alleles for breast cancer can be revealed in diverse populations and have important public health implications in building race/ethnicity-specific risk prediction model for breast cancer

Cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis identifies six breast cancer loci in African and European ancestry women.

Our study describes breast cancer risk loci using a cross-ancestry GWAS approach. We first identify variants that are associated with breast cancer at P < 0.05 from African ancestry GWAS meta-analysis (9241 cases and 10193 controls), then meta-analyze with European ancestry GWAS data (122977 cases and 105974 controls) from the Breast Cancer Association Consortium. The approach identifies four loci for overall breast cancer risk [1p13.3, 5q31.1, 15q24 (two independent signals), and 15q26.3] and two loci for estrogen receptor-negative disease (1q41 and 7q11.23) at genome-wide significance. Four of the index single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) lie within introns of genes (KCNK2, C5orf56, SCAMP2, and SIN3A) and the other index SNPs are located close to GSTM4, AMPD2, CASTOR2, and RP11-168G16.2. Here we present risk loci with consistent direction of associations in African and European descendants. The study suggests that replication across multiple ancestry populations can help improve the understanding of breast cancer genetics and identify causal variants

Equity and justice in global warming policy

Many countries are implementing or at least considering policies to counter increasingly certain negative impacts from climate change. An increasing amount of research has been devoted to the analysis of the costs of climate change and its mitigation, as well as to the design of policies, such as the international Kyoto Protocol, post-Kyoto negotiations, regional initiatives, and unilateral actions. Although most studies on climate change policies in economics have considered efficiency aspects, there is a growing literature on equity and justice. Climate change policy has important dimensions of distributive justice, both within and across generations, but in this paper we survey only studies on the intragenerational aspect, i.e.., within a generation. We cover several domains including the international, regional, national, sectoral and inter-personal, and examine aspects such as the distribution of burdens from climate change, climate change policy negotiations in general, implementation of climate agreements using tradable emission permits, and the uncertainty of alternatives to emission reductions

Investigation of surface energy budget over a humid tropical site at Ile-Ife, Nigeria: A comparison of eddy covariance and Bowen ratio methods

37-44Research grade-data for estimating surface energy budget is still scarce for the humid tropical West African sub-region despite its vital importance in development and validation of the numerical models both at regional and global scales. The present paper examines the surface energy budget data collected over a humid tropical site at Ile-Ife, Nigeria (7.55oN, 4.56oE, 296 m) from eddy covariance (EC) and Bowen ratio (BR) methods during February/March and July 2007. The two periods represent transition from dry to wet and entirely wet season, respectively. The differences in the partitioning of the fluxes by both methods were examined. The mean closures were 92.21 and 80.72% for February/March and July, respectively. The EC and BR were found to partition fluxes differently. The BR estimation of sensible heat flux (HS) was consistently higher than EC while the BR estimation of latent heat flux (HLE) was higher in the morning hours before sunrise. At sunrise, however, the EC estimation HLE was higher than that of BR. The difference in net radiation (RN), ground heat flux (HG), and soil moisture by both methods were also reported