The place of integration in Nigerian political structure: A search for redirection

Since the beginning of democratic regime in Nigeria in 1999 after years of military interruption, Nigerians have continued to evaluate the activities of those elected into power at every level of governance and see how they have been able to exemplify the virtue of integrity in the discharge of their electoral promises to the electorates. Existing studies have engaged this critical narrative from the perspectives of honesty, self-discipline, accountability and transparency withlittle attention paid to the virtue of integrity which could be said to be the fulcrum upon which other virtues stand. Integrity means the soundness of moral character and consistence of an individual between his inner values and attitude and his outward words or actions. In order words, the more consistent an individual is, the higher the degree of integrity he possesses. In a simple language, integrity means doing the right thing when nobody is watching. It therefore means that, for any political office holder to effectively discharge his electioneering campaigns promises without fear or favour, the virtue of integrity must be his watchword. The method employed in collecting data for this study is the qualitative method which involves the use of observation, one-on-one interviews and focus group discussion. This paper examined the virtue of integrity among the nation’s political office holders and the interconnectivity between integrity and good governance and how such synergy could engender immense benefit for those at the corridors of powers and Nigerians at large

The Socio Religious Significance of Edi Festival Song in Controlling Marital Infidelity in Traditional Marriage Institution in Oriigbo Meje, Osun state Nigeria

Discrimination and intolerance toward religious communities exists throughout the world making many people of diverse religions and beliefs vulnerable to extremist thinking and violence Recognizing the need to actively combat these ideas and promote religious tolerance and pluralism Hardwired Global piloted a rights based education program to address the underlying fears misconceptions and biases held by youth that influence their behavior and perceptions of others making them susceptible to extremist thinking and violence This resulted in a Teacher-Training Program to equip teachers in three distinct countries in the Middle East and North Africa MENA Iraq Lebanon and Morocco with a rights-based pedagogy and educational resources to integrate greater respect for human dignity equality and the rights of people of different religions and beliefs in the culture of the classroom Analysis of the program has shown statistically significant conceptual change in knowledge attitudes and beliefs as well as an increase in empathy towards others who believe differentl

DEVELOPMENT OF AN IMPROVED PRESSURE VARYING HYDRAULICALLY OPERATED AGRICULTURAL WASTE BRIQUETTING MACHINE

In several developing countries, briquettes from agricultural residues contribute significantly to the energy mix especially for small scale and household requirements. Most times, these briquettes are produced from a manually operated briquetting machine where the pressure at which the agricultural waste is compressed cannot be ascertained. Therefore, this work deals with the design and fabrication of pressure varying hydraulically operated briquetting machine. This machine can produce sixteen (16) briquettes at a time. The machine was developed in other to reduce the stress of producing the briquette and to establish the optimum pressure at which the agricultural waste is compressed. The varying pressure at which the briquette is compressed was used to establish the effect of pressure on the calorific value of the briquette. The agricultural waste that was used for the briquette includes palm kernel shell, rice bran, and sawdust with cassava starch as the binder. Each agricultural waste particle was load in the machine mold at different times at varying pressure of 30, 70, and 100kg/cm2. The result shows that the briquette of sawdust has the highest heating value of 17.585 at 70kg/cm2 pressure while the highest value was recorded for rice bran as 13.722 at 100kg/cm2 and   18.342 MJ/kg at 100kg/cm2 pressure for palm kernel shell

DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXPERT SYSTEM FOR MATERIAL SELECTION OF MACHINE PARTS

Engineering Material selection is a very difficult task because of unlimited available materials. This research was carried out to develop a user-friendly interface that would allow an individual to filter through a large number of materials in order to find the most suitable material options for the production of some selected machine parts. Material selection mathematical models, for twenty-five common machine parts, were developed using the Ashby model format. The software tool used in the development of the expert system is PHPMyAdmin. This was written in Hypertext pre-processor (PHP) language designed to handle the administration of MY Structure Query Language (MySQL) server over the World Wide Web. The system was implemented using the Expert system to predict the material for machine parts of the previously fabricated project. The result of these tests shows that for a developed soya beans milk extraction machine, the software suggested low carbon steel for the shaft in place of mild steel used for the fabrication. Comparing the software predictions for shaft materials with standard materials (in textbooks) used `for manufacturing these parts shows greater conformity. The software is highly recommended for manufacturing industries to improve their material choice for mass production

Awareness and use of information resources for research by final year students in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo.

Abstract The study was conducted to investigate the awareness and use of information resources for research by final year students of Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Four research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. 100 copies of questionnaire were administered to the respondents in the college library through face to face method in order to collect data. Simple random and stratified sampling techniques were employed for the study due to the largeness of the population. In the data analysis, frequency counts, simple percentages, mean, standard deviation and Pearson Product Moment Correlation were used for the statistical analysis. The findings revealed that the nature of awareness of the availability of information resources for research among final year students is high. It also indicated that that the level of use of information resources for research among final year students is high and textbook is the most used information resource for research. The findings show that lack of current resources, inadequate resources, inadequate loaning period, constant power outage and slow connection speed were the challenges encountered in the use of information resources in the library. The study concluded that the challenges could be the reasons why some other students do not bother to do the necessary information sourcing before embarking on their project work which definitely leads to plagiarizing former project written by past students. The study recommended that academic libraries should be stocked with recent information materials to encourage students and other researchers to carry out their research work

An Assessment of Library and Information Science (LIS) Professional Skills among Librarians in Bab Fafunwa Library, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria.

The study is on assessment of library and information science (LIS) professional skills among librarians in Bab Fafunwa Library, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria. Total population sampling research design was used for the study. The population comprised all the librarians in Bab Fafunwa Library, Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. Questionnaire was the research instrument was used for the study. The researchers collected the data through face-to-face administration of questionnaire. In the data analysis, frequency counts, simple percentages, mean and standard deviation were used for the statistical analysis. . Based on the result, the various personal professional skills among the librarians in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo are: analytical skill, creative skill, flexibility skill, reflective skill, adaptability skill, enthusiastic skill, self-motivation skill and soft skill (interpersonal) and other research questions were treated as well. It was recommended that there should be provision of fund for the acquisition of training facilities and materials for the training. Consequently, librarians will be able to render efficient services in term of discharging professional duties with standard and ethics especially in information provision. Services in the library become more attractive and glaring to the users as a result of this training and this will always draw the users’ interest to the resources in the library and thus the library become active, functional and practically operative

Land Snail Community Structure and Diversity in Unprotected and Protected Forest Areas of Ekiti State, Nigeria

The community structure and diversity of land snail fauna in Ekiti State was investigated in two protected and one unprotected tropical rainforest ecosystems. Twelve (12) plots measuring 20m x 20m each were surveyed in each forest area, using direct search and leaf-litter filtering techniques. A total of 1095 specimens representing 43 species in 9 molluscan families were collected. Each forest area yielded between 190 and 584 individuals. Alpha diversity ranged from 27 to 32 species, with species richness highest in Ogbesse Forest Reserve and least in the unprotected forest area at Ipole Iloro. The herbivorous Subulinidae and carnivorous Streptaxidae were the most represented families as regards species richness, with family Subulinidae (45.20%) being the most abundant numerically. The most abundant species was Thapsia oscitan of the family Urocyclidae, contributing almost 15% of the total number of individuals. Six (6) species occurred as singleton while 4 species occurred as doubleton. There was considerable variation in species richness between the three sampled forest areas, Cluster analysis formed two groups, Analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) between clusters using the BrayCurtis similarity index gave values of R=1, P=0.34, indicating that the study areas were well separated. The high diversity and abundance recorded from this study reveal the study area is rich in land snails, thus, efforts should be made to maintain the ecological integrity of the protected areas as well as improve biodiversity conservation and management in the unprotected areas

A Survey of Information Literacy Skills among Undergraduates of Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria.

Abstract This study reported about information literacy among undergraduates in Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo, Nigeria. Six research questions guided the study. Survey method was used for the study. 150 copies of questionnaire were administered to the respondents but 147 copies were filled and returned. Analysis was done using simple statistical tools of frequency counts, percentage and bar chart. The study revealed that undergraduate students of Adeyemi College of Education are fully aware of the concept Information Literacy Skills. It also indicated that the courses that undergraduate students of Adeyemi College of Education are taught Information Literacy Skills are Library Instruction Programme and Use of Computer among others. The findings show that the problems encountered by the undergraduate students of Adeyemi College of Education in the learning of information literacy skills are overcrowded class; inadequate learning equipment and poor/inadequate information literacy evaluation and assessment. It concludes that librarians and teachers in the field should strongly make collaborated effort in teaching information literacy in the college using modern equipment

Greater body mass index is a better predictor of subclinical cardiac damage at long-term follow-up in men than is insulin sensitivity:a prospective, population-based cohort study

To examine whether lower insulin sensitivity as determined by homeostatic model assessment (HOMA-%S) was associated with increased left ventricular mass (LVM) and presence of LV diastolic dysfunction at long-term follow-up, independently of body mass index (BMI), in middle-aged, otherwise healthy males

Influence of SiAlON ceramic reinforcement on Ti6Al4V alloy matrix via spark plasma sintering technique

Abstract : The titanium-based composite was fabricated by strengthening Ti6Al4V alloy with addition of SiAlON ceramics utilizing spark plasma sintering technique. Ti6Al4V and SiAlON powders were mixed in a T2F Turbula mixer with different propor- tions (5, 10, 15 and 20 vol%) and the admixed powders were consolidated using spark plasma sintering to produce titanium matrix composites. The characterization of the sintered composites was performed using X-ray diffraction, optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy. The influence of SiAlON additions on densification, microstructure, microhardness and fracture morphology were investigated on the sintered composites. The experimental results revealed that the densification of the sintered titanium matrix composites was in the range of 95%–98%, which decreased with an increase in SiAlON addition. However, an increase in microhardness values ranging from 363 to 574 HV0.1 was achieved. The microstructure shows that the SiAlON ceramic particle was uniformly distributed within the titanium matrix composites which comprises of a mixture of lamellar colonies with β grain boundaries. The fracture features of all composites exhibit mixed fracture of both intergranular and transgranular fracture mechanism