A Dynamic Level Technical Indicator Model for Oil Price Forecasting

Investment in commodities and stock requires a nearly accurate prediction of price to make profit and to prevent losses. Technical indicators are usually employed on the software platforms for commodities and stock for such price prediction and forecasting. However, many of the available and popular technical indicators have proved unprofitable and disappointing to investors, often resulting not only in ordinary losses but in total loss of investment capital. We propose a dynamic level technical indicator model for the forecasting of commodities prices. The proposed model creates dynamic price supports and resistances levels in different time frames of the price chart using a novel algorithm and employs them for price forecasting. In this study, the proposed model was applied to predict the prices of the United Kingdom (UK) Oil. It was compared with the combination of two popular and widely accepted technical indicators, the Moving Average Convergence and Divergence (MACD) and Stochastic Oscillator. The results showed that the proposed dynamic level technical indicator model outperformed MACD and Stochastic Oscillator in terms of profit

Comparative Effectiveness of Certain Antimicrobial Agents in Semi Solid Preparations

Cosmetics and topical products need not be sterile but may contain lowlevels of microbial load during use. This study was conducted to determine effectiveness of antimicrobial preservation during storage life of preparations and particularly the suitability of such preservative in terms of safety and broad spectrum activity. In this study, six formulations of both aqueous and oily cream were prepared under laboratory conditions. Four of these preparations were prepared with either methyl parahydroxybenzoate or chlorocresol as preservative. The remaining two formulations, aqueous and oily creams were without preservative serving as control preparations. All the formulations were subjected to microbial qualitative screening, 24 – 48 hours after formulation. Thereafter, the formulations were challenged withbacteria inocula, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphlococcus aureus (1 x103 and Candida albicans (1 x 102 moulds/g/ml). The result shows that there was initial contamination of the control formulations without preservative (P03 and P04) and oily cream preparation with chlorocresol preservative (P06) with Proteus spp, Aspergillus fumigatus and Candida albricans respectively. Also subjecting the data to statistical inference, (P methylparahydroxylbenzoate. It can be concluded that preservatives used in topical formulations should be thoroughly evaluated to ensure effectiveness. In some instances, reinforcement may be necessary to confer synergy

Inventory Analysis of Solid Waste Management in Ikorodu Community

The challenge of managing solid waste generally in developed countries has shifted from ensuring minimum damage to public health and environment to the manner in which discarded resources are to be handled such that future generations are not deprived of its value. Statistics reveals that 3.5 billion people (half of the world’s population) are without access to waste management services, and open dumping remains the prevalent waste-disposal method in most developing countries.This study was carried out on the inventory analysis of solid waste disposal and management in Ikorodu community, Lagos State, Nigeria. The study focuses on Odogunyan, Odokekere and Odonla area of Ikorodu community. Structured interviews, personal observation and review of secondary data were used to address the objectives of the study.Primary data were collected through interview in the areas which include; Banks around Motor Park, House-holds, Industries, Hospitals, Schools and Market. A total of 200 respondents were sampled.At critical region 0.05, Chi square was used to analyze the hypothesis. And the null hypothesis was rejected. The alternate or research hypothesis was accepted. Hence, there is a statistical significant relationship between education of respondent and their knowledge of waste management in Ikorodu community. Keywords: Inventory, Waste, Solid Waste, Waste Management and Ikorodu

Health status of children aged under two years cared for in day-care centres and the home environment in Ibadan, Nigeria

Background: As a result of the increasing numbers of Nigerian women in the labour force and also the gradual disintegration of the extended family system, a demand for alternative means of caring for children is being created. Day-care as an alternative source of childcare has now become a necessity rather than an option. Objectives: To assess and compare the health status of two groups of children under two years old cared for in two different rearing environments, home environment and day-care centres. Methods: A descriptive comparative study design was used. Two groups of children from comparable low socio-economic backgrounds were recruited into the study. Using simple random sampling, 91 under two-year old children attending day-care centres in a middle-high density area of Ibadan and 91 under two-year old children cared for in the home environment in a settlement in the junior staff quarters of the University of Ibadan were enrolled in the study. Anthropometric data, immunisation status and morbidity patterns for various childhood illnesses were obtained for children in both groups in the study. Results: Statistically insignificant higher percentages of children cared for in the day-care centres were underweight and wasted, while significantly more children cared for at home were stunted {Relative risk RR=1.46, (95% Confidence Limit CL = 1.10-1.93), p=0.018}. Except for measles immunisation coverage which was lower in the day-care group, there was comparability in the immunisation status of children in both groups. Day-care attendance was found to be a significant risk factor associated with the occurrence of diarrhoea (RR=1.74, (95% CL =1.34-2.26), p=0.0016) and upper respiratory tract infections (RR=2.31, (95% CL = 1.62-3.30), p=0.0000004) in these children. Measles occurred only in children attending day-care centres and there was an outbreak during the study period. Conclusions: Given the higher risk of infections among children cared for in day-care centres, strategies should be put in place to train the child minders and ensure regular supervision of the Keywords: day-care, home environment, health status immunisation status, morbidity pattern, under two-year old childJournal of Community Medicine and Primary Health Care 2005, 17(1): 33-3

Care of motherless babies in Nigeria

In the developed countries, numerous investigations over the past forty years have demonstrated that young children who are deprived of the love, attention, and continuous care of a mother or mother substitute figure can suffer adverse effects which may manifest themselves in retarded physical, mental, and social development. In Nigeria, however, little is known about the extent and problems of deprived children. The present study, a pioneer one in that country, attempts to examine the problems involved in the care of motherless babies in the Western State of Nigeria, to evaluate critically in terms of their physical, mental and social development, the efficacy of existing methods of care and, finally, to formulate recommendations for their improvement and development. The samples in the study were drawn from urban and rural communities and comprised 227 motherless babies - 110 in institutions, 30 in foster homes and 87 living with their families; in addition, in children in two control groups were examined. All were under five years old and from the some socio-economic background. The study comprised three parts, retrospective, transverse and prospective, and was preceded by a detailed survey of the institutions and foster homes with special reference to physical environment, standards of care, and quality of staff. In the retrospective study, examination of any available medical records of motherless babies in the various groups was carried out with special reference to morbidity experience. In the prospective study, the motherless babies were followed up for twelve to eighteen months and weight gain or loss and morbidity experience recorded. In the transverse study, general physical examination and certain laboratory investigations were performed on each child using standard procedures. For the psychological assessment, those under two years were given the Griffiths Baby Test, and for the two to five year olds the revised Stanford-Binet Achievement tests were administered. General information about the children and their families was collected by the use of self-devised questionnaires and by direct interviews with individuals. Community opinion surveys were also conducted in two areas, one representing an urban, the other a rural community. Married persons were interviewed in each locality and their opinion sought about the publicity of, and their own attitude to, the different methods of care. The findings indicate that motherless babies in institutions, although in a comparatively healthier environment, had the highest mortality and morbidity. It is also shown that motherless babies living with their families achieved better mental, social, and physical development than those in institutions or foster homes. However, in one institution where there were higher standards of care and supervision, the development of the motherless babies there compared favourably with those living with their families. The community opinion surveys revealed that the different methods of care were not publicised sufficiently and that the majority of those interviewed were unwilling to receive abandoned children into their own homes. Finally, the problems involved in the care of motherless babies wore analysed, and the reasons for them discussed. These included the high cost of institutional care, the shortage of suitably trained staff and the scarcity of foster homes and of suitable foster parents. Inadequacies in all three methods of care can be attributed to several causes. General and specific recommendations are suggested to improve the care of motherless babies and these will involve action central and local Government, the voluntary organisations and agencies concerned and, not least, an increased community responsibility

Dyn DDoS Cyberattack: A Position Paper

The strategy adopted in the Dyn distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack remains a purported accentuation to classify it as a recent state-of-the-art DDoS even though it took place in 2016. It was one of the biggest DDoS ever launched and affected the availability of essential internet services. In exploiting vulnerabilities, the attack exposed the insecurity that surrounds some IoT devices. It helps experts in further deployment of detection techniques and countermeasures strategy. In this paper, a multi-stakeholder approach to mitigating against such attacks explored by critically analyse and reflect on the Dyn DDoS attack and hacking techniques. A discussion on possible countermeasures followed to suggest hybrid solutions by multiple different organisations to provide a secured solution to the internet against similar attacks

Developing a Machine Learning-Based Clinical Decision Support Tool for Uterine Tumor Imaging

Uterine leiomyosarcoma (LMS) is a rare but aggressive malignancy. On imaging, it is difficult to differentiate LMS from, for example, degenerated leiomyoma (LM), a prevalent but benign condition. We curated a data set of 115 axial T2-weighted MRI images from 110 patients (mean [range] age=45 [17-81] years) with UTs that included five different tumor types. These data were randomly split stratifying on tumor volume into training (n=85) and test sets (n=30). An independent second reader (reader 2) provided manual segmentations for all test set images. To automate segmentation, we applied nnU-Net and explored the effect of training set size on performance by randomly generating subsets with 25, 45, 65 and 85 training set images. We evaluated the ability of radiomic features to distinguish between types of UT individually and when combined through feature selection and machine learning. Using the entire training set the mean [95% CI] fibroid DSC was measured as 0.87 [0.59-1.00] and the agreement between the two readers was 0.89 [0.77-1.0] on the test set. When classifying degenerated LM from LMS we achieve a test set F1-score of 0.80. Classifying UTs based on radiomic features we identify classifiers achieving F1-scores of 0.53 [0.45, 0.61] and 0.80 [0.80, 0.80] on the test set for the benign versus malignant, and degenerated LM versus LMS tasks. We show that it is possible to develop an automated method for 3D segmentation of the uterus and UT that is close to human-level performance with fewer than 150 annotated images. For distinguishing UT types, while we train models that merit further investigation with additional data, reliable automatic differentiation of UTs remains a challenge

Insatisfação corporal em gestantes: uma revisão integrativa da literatura

Resumo A imagem corporal de gestantes deve ser alvo de atenção por parte dos profissionais, tendo em vista a promoção da saúde materna infantil. O objetivo da presente revisão integrativa foi analisar a literatura sobre imagem e insatisfação corporal em gestantes. Foram buscados artigos nas bases de dados Scopus, PubMed, BVS e PsycINFO utilizando o cruzamento de “pregnancy” com as palavras-chave: “body image” e “body dissatisfaction”. Após a adoção dos critérios de inclusão e exclusão foram analisados 40 estudos. Estes apontam dados inconclusivos quanto à insatisfação corporal durante a gestação. Presença de sintomas depressivos, baixa autoestima, atitude alimentar inadequada e ganho de peso fora dos limites recomendados têm sido associados a uma imagem corporal negativa. Contradições nos achados podem estar relacionados às diferenças nos instrumentos utilizados para mensurar a imagem corporal. Pelo possível impacto de uma imagem corporal negativa durante a gestação na saúde materna e infantil, são recomendadas novas investigações, em especial o desenvolvimento de um instrumento avaliativo de imagem corporal específico para gestantes