Pluralism & Ethnic Conflict in Burundi: Legacies and Prognosis, 1962 - 2015

Burundi, a landlocked East Central African nation has been prominent for the most part, for the wrong reasons –ethnicity and ethnic nationalism. Since independence in 1962, the country has moved from one incidence of massacre of its own citizens to another-in 1965, 1969, 1972,1988,1991,1993 up to 2015. Efforts made to ensure inter-ethnic cooperation and harmony-the Arusha Peace Agreement does not seem to work as it appears to be working for its ethnic kin, and regional ally-Rwanda to the north. What are the peculiarities (if any) of the Burundian society that can be identified as being responsible for this state of affairs? In situating the country within the pluralistic political ethos of the New World Order, it may be argued that ethnic conflict appears to have been accentuated by the demands of that order. Using the instrumentalist model in the analysis of ethnic conflict in plural African societies, this paper seeks to determine the legacies left behind by the culture of conflict and its possible prognostic course for the building of a virile and stable society in a globalized 21st century international system

Developing a framework of food choice determinants among construction workers in South Africa

Abstract: A plethora of factors are known to influence an individual’s food choice and overall nutrition, which in turn, influences their health and safety performance. However, it appears that little research has been conducted in South Africa, on the factors which influence the food choices and intake of construction workers in particular. The paper develops a framework of food choice determinants from literature review and tests the framework using principal components analysis of empirical data from a field questionnaire survey. Results evinced that food choices among South African construction workers aredeterminable by seven factors as opposed to six theorized factors. The study provides evidence which defines the factors that influence construction workers’ food choice. The study will be useful to construction managers and stakeholders in planning for nutrition improvement in the construction industry. Improving nutrition will contribute to improvement in health and safety performance on construction sites

Relationship between nutrition and construction safety performance : experimental work

Abstract: It is known that nutrition is linked with worker health and safety (H&S) performance. However, this relationship has not been evaluated empirically. The present paper evaluates the relationship between nutrition and safety performance on construction sites. Empirical data were collected through a field questionnaire survey conducted on site construction workers in South Africa. Principal components analysis and Spearman’s correlation analysis were used to analyze the data. Findings revealed that increased consumption of certain foods termed “alternatives” in the current study, including dairy products, eggs, nuts, fish and cereals, was associated with improved safety performance. No significant correlation was found between nutritional choice and negative performance measures. By providing evidence of which foods may be correlated with safety performance of construction workers on construction sites, the design of explicit nutrition interventions for construction workers, particularly including planning for these significant foods, will be allowed. The study will also result in nutrition being given more attention in H&S considerations on construction sites

An Application of Spline and Piecewise Interpolation to Heat Transfer (Cubic Case)

An Application of Cubic spline and piecewise interpolation formula was applied to compute heat transfer across the thermocline depth of three lakes in the study area of Auchi in Edo State of Nigeria. Eight temperature values each for depths 1m to 8m were collected from the lakes. Graphs of these temperatures against the depths were plotted. Cubic spline interpolation equation was modelled. MAPLE 15 software was used to simulate the modelled equation using the values of temperatures and depths in order to obtain the unknown coefficients of the variables in the 21 new equations. Three optimal equations were found to represent the thermocline depth for the three lakes. These equations were used to obtain the thermocline gradients.....

Mathematical Model and Analysis of Drug Addiction among Adolescent’s Populace in Nigeria

Drug addiction has become a menace especially among adolescents which has massively contributed to the social vices perpetrated by youths in Nigeria. We constructed a five-compartment model to explain the transmission dynamics of addiction leading to a non-linear deterministic equation. The next generation approach was employed to obtain the basic reproduction number (R_0). The drug free equilibrium point was obtained and showed to be locally asymptotically stable when the threshold quantity is less than one. A suitable Lyapunov function was constructed for the global stability which was found to be globally asymptotically stable. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to ascertain the behavior of the various parameters on the threshold quantity to deduce a suitable intervention strategy. Numerical simulations are carried out, the analysis is discussed, and the results are presented in graphical form. Keywords: Addiction, model, drug, stability, basic reproduction number, sensitivity analysis

Advancements in Flux Switching Machine Optimization : Applications and Future Prospects

This work was supported by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, U. K., under Grant Number: NGCN-180-2021Peer reviewe

Emerging opportunities for responding to climate change in the Obama administration : why China should propel developing countries towards global carbon reduction cooperation

The use of diplomatic brinkmanship by the USA and her more recent uncooperativeness with global response to the climate crisis (Kyoto Protocol) under the presidencies of George W. Bush and Bill J. Clinton has led to fears in quarters that China, a rapidly industrialising country might opt to become uncooperative in the global climate change efforts. We use suitable conceptual frameworks of international relations to review the US’ previous conduct in international relations during the “cold war” among others to analyse recent issues pertaining to global carbon reduction under the Kyoto Protocol. We argue that China’s rising profile in economic, political and social spheres especially the way it offers loans on softer terms compared to the Western Consensus model, her ratification of the Kyoto are among the several indications that her relationship with the USA and other nations in carbon reduction portend good relationship in future. We argue also that Presient Obama’s promise of acknowledging the reality of climate (change) science and to lead other nations in responding to the crises seem to be getting fulfilled based on recent evidences. We conclude that the future for global cooperation between the USA and China, on one hand, and between USA and the rest of the world, on the other, present grounds for optimism that global carbon reduction would proceed more peacefully and profitably than it was hitherto

Criticality of Computer Aided Design Packages in Engineering Education & Professionalism for the Developing Countries

Engineers all over the world are known for their creativity, innovations and ingenuity in harnessing the resources and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind. No doubt, engineers in some parts of the world have done so well in view of their giant and mind throbbing technological breakthroughs, while some other parts of the world are at the receiving end of the products of engineering technology. This paper underscores the importance of Computer Aided Design (CAD) in Engineering while calling for a wake-up and real-time embracement of CAD technology by the developing countries. The objective is to re-echo the indisputable fact that CAD represents the most critical part of modern engineering training curricula and by extension, the most important aspect of engineering professionalism. The need to step-up academic training of CAD systems users to better align and measure-up with continuing evolutions in modern day CAD driven engineering is summarily emphasized

Evaluation of whole genome sequencing for outbreak detection of Salmonella enterica

Salmonella enterica is a common cause of minor and large food borne outbreaks. To achieve successful and nearly 'real-time' monitoring and identification of outbreaks, reliable sub-typing is essential. Whole genome sequencing (WGS) shows great promises for using as a routine epidemiological typing tool. Here we evaluate WGS for typing of S. Typhimurium including different approaches for analyzing and comparing the data. A collection of 34 S. Typhimurium isolates was sequenced. This consisted of 18 isolates from six outbreaks and 16 epidemiologically unrelated background strains. In addition, 8 S. Enteritidis and 5 S. Derby were also sequenced and used for comparison. A number of different bioinformatics approaches were applied on the data; including pan-genome tree, k-mer tree, nucleotide difference tree and SNP tree. The outcome of each approach was evaluated in relation to the association of the isolates to specific outbreaks. The pan-genome tree clustered 65% of the S. Typhimurium isolates according to the pre-defined epidemiology, the k-mer tree 88%, the nucleotide difference tree 100% and the SNP tree 100% of the strains within S. Typhimurium. The resulting outcome of the four phylogenetic analyses were also compared to PFGE revealing that WGS typing achieved the greater performance than the traditional method. In conclusion, for S. Typhimurium, SNP analysis and nucleotide difference approach of WGS data seem to be the superior methods for epidemiological typing compared to other phylogenetic analytic approaches that may be used on WGS. These approaches were also superior to the more classical typing method, PFGE. Our study also indicates that WGS alone is insufficient to determine whether strains are related or un-related to outbreaks. This still requires the combination of epidemiological data and whole genome sequencing results

Analysis of upland farm households’ vulnerability to climate variability in the Niger Delta, Nigeria

Analysis of upland farm households’ vulnerability - Gabriel, Edet, *Valerie, Glory, Godwin, Clement, Nkoyo, E. Bassey and Obot Analysis of upland farm households’ vulnerability to climate variability in the Niger Delta, Nigeria The study analysed the vulnerability of upland farm households to climate variability in the Niger Delta. Three states - Akwa Ibom, Ondo and Rivers were selected from the nine states that make up the Niger Delta region. A total of 120 respondents from upland communities of the Niger delta were used for analysis. Household questionnaire and vulnerability questionnaire using Cost Route method were the instruments used for data collection and analysed using Vulnerability Profile and Vulner-ability / Risk Framework. The results of the analysis show that both male and female headed house-holds in all the upland communities were vulnerable to flooding, windstorm, erosion and drying up of streams. Important factors that made households vulnerable to climate hazards were low agricultural output and income, non-availability of irrigation facilities, insufficient farm labour and lack of storage facilities. Technical capacities of household members were assessed using both science-based knowledge as well as indigenous knowledge of climate change as indicators to adaptation to climate variability. It was assumed that the adaptive capacity of households could be enhanced by the number of persons with either science-based knowledge or indigenous knowledge across the re-gion. Expenditure on carbohydrate was higher across the region during disaster time, followed by expenditure in protein, vitamin/minerals and fat and oil and other classes of food, implying that more carbohydrate food is consumed during disaster period than any other class of food. Certain geo-graphical factors such as distance to coastline and population have direct impact on climate variability in the Niger Delta Region. Recommendations include establishment of emergency evacuation systems, income opportunities and support programmes as well as capacity building on climate change knowledge, enterprise development and management. Key words: Farm households, Nigeria, poverty, rural areas, smallholder farmer