Hazard Perception and Demand for Insurance Among Selected Motorcyclists in Lagos, Nigeria

This study examines hazard perception effects on the demand for insurance withspecial focus on motorcycle riders in Lagos state. For this purpose, the researchershave been able to examine selected hazard perception determinants and theireffects on the insuring attitude and desire of motorcycle riders. An explanatoryresearch design was employed and a convenience sampling type of the nonprobabilitysampling technique was adopted.  Data was gathered by interviewsconducted at motorcycle parks along the Lagos-Badagry expressway.  The sampleconsisted of 126 respondents made up of commercial motorcycle riders within thesample areas. Data collected was analysed using multiple regression technique.The study was able to establish some level of contributory linkage between hazardperception and demand for motorcycle insurance. The findings show that whiledread and trust both appeared to have significant effect, publicity and controllabilityboth have positive contributory effect; furthermore, choice expressed an inverserelationship with demand for insurance among the motorcycle riders. The studytherefore recommends pre-loss and post-loss measures among the motorcycleriders so that unforeseen motorcycle risks can be managed. Also, insurancecompanies should endeavour to invest more on enlightening the motorcycle riders in order to lessen their dread of loss outcome, and thus, design policy that can instil trust in motorcycle riders in insurance as a loss control measure

Investigation of Suitable Foundation for Storey Building in Surcharged Swampy Soil (A Case Study of Lagos State)

In Lagos, Southwestern Nigeria, the land area has been developed such that there are insufficient land spaces for building construction. It therefore becomes imperative that construction of storey buildings is inevitable to accommodate buildings within the limited land spaces. The percentage of swampy – land is high, thus restricting people to build on the little available land with little or no convenience and to effectively utilize the available land, there is need to improve the large percentage of swampy–land for construction of storey building with suitable foundation. This study therefore focused on determination of soil properties for building foundations at 1.5km South of Lagos – Epe Expressway Oloja, Ibeju Lekki Local Government Area of Lagos State.Soil samples were collected from open pits in five different locations within the study area. The undisturbed samples were obtained at depths of  3m and  were carefully transported by putting each of the samples in polythene bag and then kept in sealed container before being transported.The particle size distribution analysis of selected soil samples from the study area was carried out in accordance with the provision of BS1377: Part 2, 1990. Compaction test, Unconfined compression Strength (UCS) test and bearing capacity test  were all carried out on the collected soil samples.The results of the tests carried out on the selected soil samples showed that the soil in the study area was largely made up of silty-clay material with OMC and MDD ranging from 9.60-12.5% and 1.82-1.91 g/cm3 respectively; UCS values between 22.24 – 56.67 kN/m2 and allowable soil bearing capacity ranging from 90.95 to 106.26 kN/m2. It is recommended that Raft foundation be used for bungalows while beam/slab raft should be used for structures that have 2-5 storeys and pile foundation for structures above 5 storeys in order to cater for silt-clay nature of the soil and to prevent differential settlement in future. Keywords: Swampy Soil, consolidation, foundation, storey building

EXPLORING THE METHODS OF COINTEGRATION PROCEDURES USING STOCK PRICES

Stationary models are an essential class of stochastic models for describing time series data which have received a great attention. In reality, however, business and economic data are non-stationary multivariate time series that are often better understood by cointegration analysis. This study investigates the cointegration testing methods of Engle-Granger two-step estimation technique, Phillip-Ouliaris test, and Johansen's multivariate test. The stock prices of selected companies in Nigeria from 2008-2014 are used in the study. Findings revealed that the three techniques produced different results and that the Johansen's method and Engle-Granger two steps procedure exhibits higher efficiencies than Phillips-Ouliaris methods but their efficiency is dependent on the number of variables and correct selection

The analysis of physicochemical characteristics of pig farm seepage and its possible impact on the receiving natural environment

Pig farm seepage poses an environmental risk, considering that seepage can be generally applied on land without appropriate agronomic criteria or may accidentally spill on the natural environment. These environmental risks include increasing oxygen demand, nutrient loading of water-bodies, promoting toxic and algal blooms eutrophication, thus, leading to a destabilized environment. This research was conducted to determine the impact that the pig farm seepage may have the receiving environment based on the analyses of the physicochemical parameters of the adjacent environments. Wastewater and soil samples were collected between the periods of March 2013 to August 2013 and wastewater was analyzed for pH, temperature, Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), salinity, turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), NO3, NO2, and PO4 3−. The results for wastewater samples for BOD (163 mg/L to 3350 mg/L), TDS (0.77 g/L to 6.48 mg/L), COD (210 mg/L to 9400 mg/L), and NO3 (55 mg/L to 1680 mg/L), were higher than the maximum permissible limits. Results of soil samples for TDS (0.01g/L to 0.88 g/L), COD (40 mg/L to 304 mg/L), NO3 (32.5 mg/L to 475 mg/L), and NO2 (7.35 mg/L to 255 mg/L) were also higher than recommended limits. The results revealed that the seepage from pig farm degraded the natural environment by causing eutrophication, promote toxic and algal blooms, increase oxygen demand and thus destabilize the homeostatic balance of the receiving environment.Keywords: Physicochemical parameters, pollution, soil, wastewater, seepage, pig farm, environmen

Paediatric anatomical models in radiotherapy applications

Anatomical models have key applications in radiotherapy, notably to help understand the relationship between radiation dose and risk of developing side effects. This review analyses whether age-specific computational phantoms, developed from healthy subjects and paediatric cancer patient data, are adequate to model a paediatric population. The phantoms used in the study were International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP), 4D extended cardiac torso (XCAT) and Radiotherapy Paediatric Atlas (RT-PAL), which were also compared to literature data. Organ volume data for 19 organs was collected for all phantoms and literature. ICRP was treated as the reference for comparison, and percentage difference (P.D) for the other phantoms were calculated relative to ICRP. Overall comparisons were made for each age category (1, 5, 10, 15) and each organ. Statistical analysis was performed using Microsoft Excel (version 16.59). The smallest P.D to ICRP was for Literature (-17.4%), closely followed by XCAT (26.6%). The largest was for RT-PAL (88.1%). The rectum had the largest average P.D (1,049.2%) and the large bowel had the smallest (2.0%). The P.D was 122.6% at age 1 but this decreased to 43.5% by age 15. Linear regression analysis showed a correlation between organ volume and age to be the strongest for ICRP (R = 0.943) and weakest for XCAT (R = 0.676). The phantoms are similar enough to ICRP for potential use in modelling paediatric populations. ICRP and XCAT could be used to model a healthy population, whereas RT-PAL could be used for a population undergoing/after radiotherapy. [Abstract copyright: Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Emerging methods for prostate cancer imaging: evaluating cancer structure and metabolic alterations more clearly

Imaging plays a fundamental role in all aspects of the cancer management pathway. However, conventional imaging techniques are largely reliant on morphological and size descriptors that have well-known limitations, particularly when considering targeted-therapy response monitoring. Thus, new imaging methods have been developed to characterise cancer and are now routinely implemented, such as diffusion-weighted imaging, dynamic contrast enhancement, positron emission technology (PET) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy. However, despite the improvement these techniques have enabled, limitations still remain. Novel imaging methods are now emerging, intent on further interrogating cancers. These techniques are at different stages of maturity along the biomarker pathway and aim to further evaluate the cancer microstructure (vascular, extracellular and restricted diffusion for cytometry in tumours) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), luminal water fraction imaging] as well as the metabolic alterations associated with cancers (novel PET tracers, hyperpolarised MRI). Finally, the use of machine learning has shown powerful potential applications. By using prostate cancer as an exemplar, this Review aims to showcase these potentially potent imaging techniques and what stage we are at in their application to conventional clinical practice

Deregulation: the Effect of Market-led Approach to Nigerian Universities Management

This paper examines the effects of market-led approach Nigeria universities management concept deregulation from a market-led point of view to evaluate its effect on the management of university education in Nigeria. From many debates and argument put forward on the discussion of deregulation, it is very clear that deregulation policy was introduced for the purpose of enhancing productivities of public sectors or government-owned establishment. The establishment of deregulation policy has created opportunities for different individuals and groups to participate or take ownership of some public sectors in the quest for providing better services and making profits.  However, widens the gap in knowledge about whether or not taking ownership of public sector business has generated profit or not. This paper is desk research and intends to review issues unturned in the past literature on how deregulation has now suddenly become a market-led approach to the Nigerian Universities Management. The paper revealed that Nigerians are keen on getting the best quality education irrespective of how the education systems are put up to be achieved. Likewise, the government has not been able to deregulate any of the public universities they owned rather university provisions have been commercialized and extended to private individuals

On the Application of the Open Jackson Queuing Network

In real life, waiting for service is a common phenomenon. As a system gets congested, service delay is inevitable; as the service delay increases, waiting time in the queue gets longer. In a typical hospital, the network is made up of various departments (nodes). In this study we considered the inflow and outflow of an hospital network; this is depicted in the schematic diagram. For an efficient hospital planning, a good patient flow means that patient queuing time is minimized, while poor patient flow means the patient suffer considerable queuing delays. This paper presents the results of a study carried out in a University Hospital Centre; the queuing model adopted used the Open Jackson Queuing Network to minimize the waiting times in the queues. The data collection was done for a period of two weeks, with a week interval in order to observe the system for any anomaly. For each node, the number of arrivals and departures together with the service times were recorded at an interval of five minutes. The study showed that for a good hospital planning, the more the personnel (servers) are made to focus on their assignments, the lesser the time the patients will spend on the queue and this leads to more efficient patient flo