Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): a Panacea to Achieving Effective Goals in Institutional Administration

This paper examines the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) by institutional administrators for effective administration. The paper states the need for effective use of ICT by institutional administrators in maintaining and controlling according to policies laid down by the governing bodies of the institution. He has to plan in his capacity as an administrator in ensuring effective institutional services. The paper highlights various ICT resources that can be used for effective and efficient institutional administration. It also states some of the benefits and challenges of the use of ICT institutional administration. It is the contention of this paper that though using ICT in Nigerian institutional administration may seem difficult, it is imperative to take advantage and invest in these ICTs to deal with the huge pressure faced in the institutional administration. The remarks highlights the need for infrastructure and how political will push ICT ahead

Investigation of the Effect of Solar Panel Temperature on Power Output Efficiency in Brass, Nigeria.

Background: Luminous efficacy is a property of light sources, which indicates what portion of the emitted electromagnetic radiation is usable for human vision relative to the overall efficiency of a light source for illumination. This also applies to solar panels. Purpose: To confirm the possibility of using solar panel as an alternative source of generating electricity and to highlight hindrances to the maximization of solar panel efficiency in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria using Brass as a case study. Materials and Methods: A Modern digital instrument, BK precision model 615 digital light meter and Alda AVD890C digital multimeter, were use for measurement of solar radiation, current and voltage respectively, under varying conditions of temperature. Result: An average Solar panel temperature of 26.2 oC was recorded in the morning hours. Towards noon, solar panel temperature increased up to 45 0C. Output current also increased from 0.0 to 20.0 x 10-1A. Solar panel temperatures between 26oC and 45oC appeared to favour increase in output current. Above 45oC, output current began to drop despite further increase in solar panel temperature. The best solar panel operating temperature in Brass is 45oC. Between the solar panel temperatures of 26oC and 32oC, output voltage remained relatively stable varying between 8.0V and 8.10V. Conclusion: Within limits, solar panel efficiency appears to be temperature dependent up to a maximum temperature, increasing up to 87.0% at 43.8oC. Higher temperatures appear to be counterproductive on solar panel efficiency

Integration of Learners with Physical Disabilities: Panacea for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

This study investigated the integration of learners with physical disabilities as panacea for sustainable development in Nigeria. Using a descriptive survey research design, data were collected using questionnaires from 185 purposively selected teachers involved in teaching students with physical disabilities in fifty secondary schools in South East Nigeria. Three research questions were answered and data was analysed using descriptive statistics. The result of the study revealed that when students with physical disabilities are integrated with non-physically challenged learners, they adjust favourably to overcome their challenges, are well focused and determined to excel academically and in other extra curricula activities. Therefore, integration policy should be practiced with more vigour. Keywords: Development, Integration, Learners, Nigeria, Panacea, Physical Disabilities. DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-6-22 Publication date: February 29th 202

Reskilling Librarians: A Panacea for Bringing Students Back to the Academic Library

ABSTRACT The academic library that failed to reskill members of its workforce might face consequences of automatic loss of patrons. Based on this, the study examined reskilling librarians as a panacea for bringing students back to the library. 191 academic and research librarians (ARL) on the telegram group platform as of February 14, 2023, formed the population. An Online questionnaire was prepared and sent to the ARLs’ on their group chat. 122 ARLs filled the questionnaire out of the 191 thus having a response rate of 63.9%. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data. The study revealed the need for librarians to go for reskilling. The findings showed that bringing students back to the library entails retraining librarians on 21st-century skills. The findings also revealed that the desertion of students from the library is caused by the attitudes of librarians, disorganization of the library, unawareness of the services and resources of the library, etc. This study recommends that academic library management and even the parent institution should not downplay on reskilling/retraining of librarians on different aspects of the library work

Isolation and Characterization of Soft Rot pathogen of Yam (Dioscorea spp) in Nigeria-A Review

Yam (Dioscorea spp) is a tuber crop belonging to the family Dioscoreaceae. The species of economic importance include Dioscorea rotundata, Dioscorea alata, Dioscorea cayenensis, Dioscorea dumetorum, Dioscorea bulbifera and Dioscorea esculentus. In West Africa, Dioscorea rotundata is also refered to as white yam or white guinea yam. It is the most widely cultivated. It is the most important food and income source for millions of producers, processors and consumers in West Africa. A pathogen or infectious agent is a biological agent that causes disease or illness to its host and it can infect unicellular organisms from all of the biological kingdoms. In the oldest and broadest sense, it is anything that can produce disease, a term which came into use in the 1880s ("Pathogen". Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House ; Casadevall, Arturo; Pirofski, Liise-anne 2014). It is used to describe an infectious agent like the following: virus, bacterium, prion, fungus, viroid, or parasite that causes disease in its host. The host may be a human, an animal, a plant, a fungus, or even another micro-organism (Alberts B et al., 2002; MetaPathogen, 2015). There are different types of pathogens which include the following: Bacterial, Viral, Fungal, Prionic Protozoa, Viroids and Human Parasite. Isolation It is defined as the complete separation from others of a person or plant suffering from contagious or infectious disease; quarantine. It is very damaging, and there is no way to ameliorate it and isolation of pathogen is the process whereby pathogens of yam are treated. This is the process where rotted yam tubers were rinsed in distilled water, surface sterilized with 70% ethanol and cut open with a sterilized knife and it is now treated

A 5-year review of contraceptive uptake among women attending family planning clinic at Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital, Lafia, North-Central Nigeria

Background: Rapidly rising population in Africa is of great concern, most especially in Nigeria because of its impact on social stability. Family planning is an indispensable tool for population control and also in preventing unwanted pregnancy and its complications. Women and men at any given point in their lifetime should be able to choose the most appropriate contraceptive methods from many available options, as this is an important contributor to the successful use of contraception. Aim of the study was to determine the uptake and trend in contraceptive use from 2014-2018 in the family planning unit of a specialist hospital in the North central, Nigeria. Methods: It is a retrospective, descriptive study of contraceptive uptake of women attending family planning clinic of Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital (DASH), Lafia, Nasarawa State, Nigeria from 2014 to 2018. Results: Of the 5448 women accessing family planning services in the hospital within the study period, 5277 folders were retrieved with complete data. A vast majority of the women were married (99.6%) with the mean age of the subjects being 28.8±6.0 years. Contraceptive uptake was 43.2% of deliveries in the hospital. Implants (65.4%) remained the preferred contraceptive choice, followed by injectables (20.7%) and intrauterine devices (IUDs) (10.3%). Less popular were bilateral tubal ligation (BTL) (0.2%), Sayana press (0.1%) and Standard Days Methods (SDM) (0.0%). Implants, injectables and IUDs consistently remained the preferred contraceptive choices yearly throughout the studied years. Conclusions: Implants is the most popular contraception in DASH. Contraceptive uptake is relatively high among the women but there is still need to increase access to effective contraception and if possible make them freely available at all levels of health care

Cluster update and recognition

We present a fast and robust cluster update algorithm that is especially efficient in implementing the task of image segmentation using the method of superparamagnetic clustering. We apply it to a Potts model with spin interactions that are are defined by gray-scale differences within the image. Motivated by biological systems, we introduce the concept of neural inhibition to the Potts model realization of the segmentation problem. Including the inhibition term in the Hamiltonian results in enhanced contrast and thereby significantly improves segmentation quality. As a second benefit we can - after equilibration - directly identify the image segments as the clusters formed by the clustering algorithm. To construct a new spin configuration the algorithm performs the standard steps of (1) forming clusters and of (2) updating the spins in a cluster simultaneously. As opposed to standard algorithms, however, we share the interaction energy between the two steps. Thus the update probabilities are not independent of the interaction energies. As a consequence, we observe an acceleration of the relaxation by a factor of 10 compared to the Swendson and Wang procedure.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure