Assessment of Food Safety Practices in a Rural Community in Southwest Nigeria

Food safety has been a major health challenge in both developed and developing countries. Ensuring food safety is key to preventing food borne illnesses which are contracted through consumption of unsafe foods. The aim of this study was to identify the food safety practices of residents of a rural community in Southwest, Nigeria. The study design was cross-sectional. Five clusters were selected by simple random sampling from the sampling frame. All households in the clusters were sampled to achieve a sample size of 216 households. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. The results show that majority of the respondents were female (62.2%), Christians (78.1%), married (53.1%), and belong to the Yoruba ethnic group (88.3%). Residents of the community showed good food safety practices with 80.6% reported to always washing their hands before cooking, 90.3% always clean their cooking utensils before and after use, 83.7% always clean their cooking environment, and nearly all (96.9%) reported washing their hands after using the toilet. A statistical association was found between educational level and washing of hands after the use of toilet (p = 0.037). Though the results show a satisfactory level of food safety practice, however, more improvements can still be made. The method of waste disposal and source of drinking water pose a future threat to the health of the community residents. Hence, a call for government’s intervention in providing potable water and modernised waste disposal facilities

Analysis of selected crime data in Nigeria

Crime is an act that brings about offences and it is punishable under the law. Major crimes in Nigeria include rape, kidnapping, murder, burglary, fraud, terrorism, robbery, cyber-crimes, bribery and corruption, money laundering and so on. According to the statistics released by the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics in 2016, Lagos, Abuja, Delta, Kano, Plateau, Ondo, Oyo, Bauchi, Adamawa and Gombe States made the top ten list of states with high number of crimes. Crime is an important topic and it is of interest to us because of the consequences and penalties it attracts (which ranges from fine to death). This data article contains the partial analysis (both descriptive and inferential) of crime data set obtained between 1999 and 2013. The aim of the study is to show the pattern and rate of crime in Nigeria based on the data collected and to show the relationships that exist among the various crime types. Analyzing this data set can provide insight on crime activities within Nigeria. Keywords: Crime, Deviant behavior, Offences, Population, Poverty, Unemployment, Nigeri

A Threshold-based Tournament Resource Allocation in Cloud Computing Environment

Cloud computing environments provide an apparition of infinite computing resources to cloud users so that they can increase or decrease resource consumption rate according to their demands. In the Cloud, computing resources need to be allocated and scheduled in a way that providers can achieve high resource utilization and users can meet their applications’ performance requirements with minimum expenditure. Due to these different intentions, there is the need to develop a scheduling algorithm to outperform appropriate allocation of tasks on resources. The paper focuses on the resource optimization using a threshold-based tournament selection probability for virtual machines used in the execution of tasks. The proposed approach was designed to create metatask and the proposed algorithm used was Median-Based improved Max-Min algorithm. The experimental results showed that the algorithm had better performance in terms of makespan, utilization of resources and throughput. The load balance of tasks was also fairly distributed on the two datacenters

Helminthes parasites of rodents caught around human habitats in Jos, Plateau state, Nigeria

Out of 112 rodents caught from three different locations in the University of Jos premises, 66(58.93%) were positive for helminth parasites. The prevalence rates of helminth parasites in the four species of rodents caught were 82.53% in Xerus erythropus (ground squirrel) 38.30% in Thryonomys swinderianus (cane rat) 70.00% in Rattus rattus (Black rat) and 75.00% in Cricetomys gambianus (Gambian giant rat). There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between the prevalence rates of the helminthes in the different rodent species. Four groups of helminthes, a trematode species, two species of cestodes, four species of nematodes and one species of an acanthocephalan were encountered in the rodents. The prevalence rates for the respective groups of helminthes were 11.61%, 25.00%, 33.93%, and 8.93%. The worm burdens per infected host were 1.85, 9.57, 10.47 and 8.90 for the trematode, cestodes, nematodes and acanthocephalan respectively. The prevalence rates of the different helminth parasites were 11.61, 15.18, 13.39, 18.75, 17.86, 16.96, 1.79 and 8.93% for Gastrodiscus, Hymenolepis nana, H. dimunita, Oesophagostomum, Cyathostomum, Trichuris, Ascaris and Macrocanthorhynchus respectively. Twenty (52.63%) of the 38 male rodents studied and 46(62.16%) of the 74 female rodents were infected by the helminth parasites whose prevalence rates in the male ranged from 0.00% to 15.97% and 2.70% to 22.97% in the female rodents. There was no significant difference (p>0.05) between the prevalence rates of the helminth parasites in both sexes of the rodents. The public health significance of the helminth parasites is discussed. Animal Production Research Avancees Vol. 3 (1) 2007: pp. 6-1

Comparative study of the efficacy of Duocoxin and Amprol in relation to their effects on the development of resistance against mixed Eimeria infections in young chicks

Comparative efficacy of Duocoxin ® and Amprol ® on mixed populations of Eimeria necatrix, E. tenella,E. maxima and E. brunetti in chicks and their effect on the development of resistance against the infections were studied. The two anticoccidial drugs fed to chicks in drinking water for 14 days consecutively, or once 4 days after inoculation, inhibited and reduced oocyst production in chicks that had double exposure. Duocoxin ® was more efficacious than Amprol ® . When the two anticoccidials were fed to chicks 3 days before inoculation, pre-patent period was delayed, but the chicks later discharged more oocysts than those medicated for 14 days or once. The 60 mg/litre or 240 mg/litre of water levels of the two drugs did not interfere with the development of resistance against coccidiosis in the infected and medicated chicks. Chicks infected and medicated with the two anticoccidial agents for 14 days gained more weight, had better feed conversion rates and superior fecal and lesion scores than those that were either infected or medicated once after infection or those medicated 3 days before infection or those that were infected but not medicated. The two anticoccidials were not toxic in the chicks. Mortality rate was 14.29%-19.05% in chicks that were medicated once after infection; and 23.81%-28.57% in those medicated before infection. There was no death among chicks that were infected and medicated for 14days and those not infected but medicated for the same period. Animal Production Research Avancees Vol. 3 (1) 2007: pp. 55-6