Implementation of Wi-Ap; An IEEE 802.11b/g Based Electrical Switch Module With Web Enabled Interface for Electrical Appliances Control

The aim of this research study is to design and implement a Wi-Fi-based control panel for remote control of lights and electrical appliances with a web functionality that allows for wide area control via the intranet or Internet. This eliminates the inconvenience of moving from one switch to another for analog operation of light fixtures and appliance in home, office and campus environment. The wireless technology we adopted is IEEE 802.11 (2008) b/g, also called Wi-Fi (Wireless Fidelity) which operates in free band and is easily accessible. Wi-Ap (Wi-Fi Automated Appliance) control system contains a web portal which allows for management and control purposes via the intranet or Internet. We built a standalone Wi-Ap console that allows the wireless switching on and off of any appliance(s) that is(are) ) plugged into it. The prototype we built was tested within the Electrical and Information Engineering department, Covenant University, Nigeria intranet and the test achieved our aim of remote appliances control from a web portal vial the intranet

Classification of Product Images in Different Color Models with Customized Kernel for Support Vector Machine

Support Vector Machine (SVM) is widely recognized as a potent data mining technique for solving supervised learning problems. The technique has practical applications in many domains such as e-commerce product classification. However, data sets of large sizes in this application domain often present a negative repercussion for SVM coverage because its training complexity is highly dependent on input size. Moreover, a single kernel may not adequately produce an optimal division between product classes, thereby inhibiting its performance. The literature recommends using multiple kernels to achieve flexibility in the applications of SVM. In addition, color features of product images have been found to improve classification performance of a learning technique, but choosing the right color model is particularly challenging because different color models have varying properties. In this paper, we propose color image classification framework that integrates linear and radial basis function (LaRBF) kernels for SVM. Experiments were performed in five different color models to validate the performance of SVM based LaRBF in classifying 100 classes of e-commerce product images obtained from the PI 100 Microsoft corpus. Classification accuracy of 83.5% was realized with the LaRBF in RGB color model, which is an improvement over an existing method

Perceived effects of N-power agro programme on youth empowerment and income generation in Lagos state, Nigeria

The study examined the effect of N-power Agro program on youth empowerment and income generation in Lagos state, Nigeria. The objectives of the study were to examine the socio-economic characteristics of N-power agro beneficiaries, to determine the contribution of N-Agro to empowerment, to ascertain how N-Power agro programme generates income for the youths and to know the problems affecting N-Power Agro programs in Lagos state. A three-stage sampling technique was used to select one hundred and twenty (120) respondents. Data were collected using structured questionnaire and analysed with descriptive and inferential statistics such as frequency counts, percentages, mean and Analysis of Variance. The mean age of the respondents was 26 years, 55.0% were male, 50.8% were married and 42.5% were First Degree holders. Findings also revealed that 80.0% felt the programme has improved their working experience, 79.2% indicated that the programme has helped in poverty reduction while 62.5% perceived that the programme ensured their financial independence. The major problems affecting the implementation of N-Power Agro programmes in Lagos State are non-payment of stipend to participants as at when due ( ̅= 2.92), insufficient information ( ̅= 2.68) and high transportation fare paid by the participants to work ( ̅= 2.63). The study also revealed that there is a significant relationship between N-Power Agro and youth empowerment in Lagos State. It is therefore recommended that government should ensure adequate provision of funds for income- generating projects through the N-Power programmes. This will solve the problem of delay in the payment of the stipend. &nbsp

The Role of Multinational Oil Companies (MNOCs) and Militancy in Niger Delta

The discovery and exploration of oil in Nigeria seems to have come with good tidings and hope for a better development but today the reverse is the case. Oil has brought agony and insecurity in the country, particularly the oil communities of the Niger Delta region. The high level of marginalization and negligence on the part of the government, the elite and the MNOCs has resulted in militancy, which has consequently inflicted the economic growth of Nigeria. Resource curse is used to examine how the perceive petro dollar turns out to bring curse on the country. Despite different response by the government to address the unrest in the oil rich Niger Delta,yet the insurgency persist. This has been attributed to a commandist and lack of proper consultation with people of the region. This paper therefore, calls for a meaningfulcorroboration between the major actors in the exploration of oil and the people in order to have lasting solution to the prevailing problem and as a consequence a meaningful ataraxia. Keywords: MNOCs, militancy, politics, Niger Delta, Nigeria

Interactive Effects of Major Insect Pest of Watermelon on its Yield in Wukari, Nigeria

من المعروف أن الرقي يصاب بآفات حشرية متعددة في نفس الوقت وبالتسلسل. وقد تبين أن تفاعلات الآفات لها آثار إيجابية أو سلبية أو مضافة أو غير مضافة أو تعويضية أو زائدة التأثير على الغلة. بالكاد تم تحديد هذا النوع من العلاقة للبطيخ مقابل آكلات الحشرات العاشبة. تم إجراء تجارب ميدانية لمدة عامين وموسمين (4 تجارب) في مزرعة الأبحاث التابعة لجامعة ووكاري الفيدرالية ، للتحقيق في التأثيرات التفاعلية للآفات الحشرية الرئيسية للرقي  على محصول ثمار الرقي في عامي 2016 و 2017 باستخدام الإصابات الطبيعية. تم تحديد العلاقة بين الآفات الحشرية السائدة وحاصل الثمار من خلال تحليل الارتباط (r) والانحدار الخطي (البسيط والمتعدد). تم استخدام الاستدلال المتعدد النماذج لتحديد المتنبئ الذي يؤثر على إنتاج الفاكهة أكثر. أوضحت النتائج أن كل آفة لها تأثير سلبي معنوي (p < 0.05) على الغلة (نطاق r = -0.78 إلى -0.92) وأن معامل التحديد (R2) قيم (والتي كانت تدل على تأثير الآفات أو مجمعاتهم على العائد) عند إضافة شروط التفاعل. هذا يكشف عن تأثير سلبي غير مضاف لتفاعلات الحشرات على محصول ثمار الرقي. قد يكون هذا بسبب من بين أمور أخرى ؛ منافسة الآفات أو الظواهر أو الدفاعات النباتية أو التغيرات في المحتوى الغذائي للنبات. وبالتالي ، فإن الحاجة إلى استخدام تحليل تمييزي للتأكد من مساهمة كل آفة في تحقيق الخسارة عند تسليط الضوء على الآفات المتعددة التي تصيب المحصولWatermelon is known to be infested by multiple insect pests both simultaneously and in sequence. Interactions by pests have been shown to have positive or negative, additive or non additive, compensatory or over compensatory effects on yields. Hardly has this sort of relationship been defined for watermelon vis-à-vis insect herbivores. A 2-year, 2-season (4 trials) field experiments were laid in the Research Farm of Federal University Wukari, to investigate the interactive effects of key insect pests of watermelon on fruit yield of Watermelon in 2016 and 2017 using natural infestations. The relationship between the dominant insect pests and fruit yield were determined by correlation (r) and linear regression (simple and multiple) analyses. Multimodel inference was used to define the predictor that impacted on fruit yield the most. Results indicated that, each pest had highly negative and significant (p < 0.05) impact on yield (range of r = -0.78 to -0.92), and that the coefficient of determination (R2) values (which were indicative of the effect of pests or their complexes on yield) did not rise on addition of interaction terms. This reveals a non additive negative impact of insect interactions on the fruit yield of watermelon. This may be due to among others; competition by the pest, phenology, plant defenses or changes in nutritional content of the plant. The need to therefore employ discriminate analysis to ascertain the contribution of each pest to yield loss when multiple pest infest a crop is thus highlighted

Computational construction of a glycoprotein multi-epitope subunit vaccine candidate for old and new South-African SARS-CoV-2 virus strains

The discovery of a new SARS-CoV-2 virus strain in South Africa presents a major public health threat, therefore contributing to increased infections and transmission rates during the second wave of the global pandemic. This study lays the groundwork for the development of a novel subunit vaccine candidate from the circulating strains of South African SARS-CoV-2 and provides an understanding of the molecular epidemiological trend of the circulating strains. A total of 475 whole-genome nucleotide sequences from South Africa submitted between December 1, 2020 and February 15, 2021 available at the GISAID database were retrieved based on its size, coverage level and hosts. To obtain the distribution of the clades and lineages of South African SARS-CoV-2 circulating strains, the metadata of the sequence retrieved were subjected to an epidemiological analysis. There was a prediction of the cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL), Helper T cells (HTL) and B-cell epitopes. Furthermore, there was allergenicity, antigenicity and toxicity predictions on the epitopes. The analysis of the physicochemical properties of the vaccine construct was performed; the secondary structure, tertiary structure and B-cell 3D conformational structure of the vaccine construct were predicted. Also, molecular binding simulations and dynamics simulations were adopted in the prediction of the vaccine construct’s stability and binding affinity with TLRs. Result obtained from the metadata analysis indicated lineage B.1.351 to be in higher circulation among various circulating strains of SARS-CoV-2 in South Africa and GH has the highest number of circulating clades. The construct of the novel vaccine was antigenic, non-allergenic and non-toxic. The Instability index (II) score and aliphatic index were estimated as 41.74 and 78.72 respectively. The computed half-life in mammalian reticulocytes was 4.4 h in vitro, for yeast and in E. coli was >20 h and >10 h in vivo respectively. The grand average of hydropathicity (GRAVY) score is estimated to be − 0.129, signifying the hydrophilic nature of the protein. The molecular docking indicates that the vaccine construct has a high binding affinity towards the TLRs with TLR 3 having the highest binding energy (− 1203.2kcal/mol) and TLR 9 with the lowest (− 1559.5kcal/mol). These results show that the vaccine construct is promising and should be evaluated using animal model

Molecular Toxicity of Popular Toothpaste Formulations on Post-Juveniles of Clarias gariepinus

The widespread use of toothpaste containing various chemical formulations has raised concern regarding their potential impact on aquatic ecosystems. This research examines the molecular toxicity of popular toothpaste brands on post-juveniles of Clarias gariepinus from a commercial fish farm in Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. Specifically assessing the impact of these toothpaste brands on the mRNA expression levels of the heat shock protein (HSP70), interleukin (IL-1β), melatonin receptors (MEL1C), and growth hormone in comparison to a control group. The results revealed a significant upregulation of HSP70, IL-1β, and MEL1C genes in the exposed group, indicating a potential stress response and immune system activation. Intriguingly, the growth hormone mRNA expression remained unaffected in the treated group compared to the control. These findings underscore the need for further exploration into the potential molecular consequences of common toothpaste ingredients on aquatic organisms, raising important questions about environmental safety and consumer product development