Teaching Social Studies from multicultural perspective: a practical approach to re-fashion African Studies for transformation

Currently, global education and global citizenship for social transformation addresses the issues of cordial and harmonious existence of our time. Africa is a multilingual and multicultural continent with about 3.000 ethnic groups and 2000 languages spoken; therefore, introduction of multicultural approach in teaching will ensure effective socialization and transformative education in Africa.  The roots to challenge bias, prejudice and creating classroom environment that reflects the learner’s culture for national unity lies in multicultural education. Multicultural education is a system of instruction which attempts to foster cultural pluralism and acknowledges the difference between race and culture in order to promote societal change and orderliness. This work examined a multicultural educational strategy which could be used in helping students from diverse racial, cultural, ethnic and language groups to experience academic success. Multicultural Concepts Knowledge Test (r=0.82), Multicultural Concept Attitude Scale (r= 0.86) were administered on 251 junior secondary school students from five secondary schools in the south-west region of Nigeria using the simple random technique. Two null hypotheses were formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, analysis of covariance. Treatment had significant main effect on students’ posttest knowledge scores in multicultural concepts (F (2,340) = 5.835; p<.05).  and attitude to multicultural concepts (F (2,340) = 34.055; P<.05). The MCA shows that the cooperative learning group had higher adjusted posttest knowledge score (x =10.14; Dev. =.83) In summary, findings of this study revealed that the cooperative multicultural learning strategy is effective for teaching multicultural classrooms. Therefore, this calls for improved approaches towards teaching by educators in order to bring us closer to the goal of multicultural education    

Aquifer, Classification and Characterization

Aquifers in geological terms are referred to as bodies of saturated rocks or geological formations through which volumes of water find their way (permeability) into wells and springs. Classification of these is a function of water table location within the subsurface, its structure and hydraulic conductivities into two namely; Confined Aquifers and Unconfined Aquifers and then characterized these aquifers. The characterization of aquifers could be done using certain geophysical techniques like Electrical Resistivity, Electromagnetic Induction, Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) and Seismic Techniques. Aquifer Characterization is dependent on the petro-physical properties (porosity, permeability, seismic velocities etc.) of the subsurface. Results of this Aquifer Characterization could be observed and analyzed using varying geophysical software (WinRESIST, RADpro etc.) to better image the subsurface

A note on acoustic black holes in neo-Newtonian theory

Newtonian fluid dynamics allows the construction of acoustic metrics from which black hole configurations can be studied. However, relativistic pressure effects are neglected within Newtonian theory. We study acoustic black holes in the framework of neo-Newtonian hydrodynamics, which is designed to take into account relativistic inertial effects of the pressure $p$. Within this new hydrodynamical context we show how $p$ can influence the formation of the acoustic horizons.Comment: Latex file, 10 pages. Some discussions extended. Accepted for publication in MPL

Upheaval in cancer care during the COVID-19 outbreak

On Monday, 23 March 2020, Nigeria recorded its first mortality from the novel global COVID-19 outbreak. Before this, the country reported 36 confirmed cases (at the time of writing) and has discharged home two cases after weeks of care at a government-approved isolation center in Lagos State. This first mortality was that of a 67-year-old man with a history of multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. He was undergoing chemotherapy and had just returned to Nigeria following medical treatment in the United Kingdom. The novel COVID-19 pandemic has grounded several global activities including the provision of health care serves to people with chronic conditions such as cancer. Evidence from China suggests that cancer patients with COVID-19 infection are a vulnerable group, with a higher risk of severe illness resulting in intensive care unit admissions or death particularly if they received chemotherapy or surgery. This letter is an attempt to suggests practicable interventions such as the use of existing digital health platforms to limit patients' and oncology professionals’ physical interaction as a way of reducing the risk of COVID-19 infection transmission amongst cancer patients and oncologists, as well as outlining effective strategies to ensure that cancer care is not completely disrupted during the outbreak

Cervical Cancer Awareness and Screening Uptake among Rural Women in Lagos, Nigeria

Background: Cervical cancer is the most common cause of female genital cancer and female cancer deaths in developing countries such as Nigeria. The most recent government estimates put the number of new cases at 25,000 per year. According to the latest global estimates, 493, 000 new cases occur each year and 274,000 women die of the disease annually. This study therefore determined the awareness, knowledge and use of cervical cancer screening services among rural women in Lagos State, Nigeria.Method: A cross sectional, descriptive study design was adopted and a total of 400 women were studied. Data was collected using a structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire elicited information about socio-demographic characteristics, awareness, knowledge and use of screening services. Univariate and bivariate analyses were done with Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16. Significance level at 5%Results: Age range of study participants was 25-65years and a mean age of 38.9± 9.51 years. Most of the respondents (85.0%)were not aware of cervical cancer. However, amongst those who were aware of cervical cancer, 66.7% got the information from the media. Only a few (13.3%) of the respondents have ever been screened and none of the screening was in the last 3 years. Majority (86.7%) of the respondents expressed willingness to undergo cervical cancer screening.Conclusion: There was low awareness of cervical cancer and screening uptake among the respondents and the overall knowledge was equally poor. However, the respondents showed a strong willingness for screening. There is need for community education and awareness among the rural women at large as this would engender a more positive attitude and increased use of screening services

Effect of Hybrid Fillers of Bamboo Fiber and Commercial Glass Fiber on High Density Polyethylene Matrix

The focus of this research work is to study the effect of hybrid fillers of bamboo fiber and commercial glass fiber on high density polyethylene (HDPE) matrix without interfacial coupling agent. The hybrid composite was formed through melt blending method using two-roll mixing mill at temperature of 160 oC and was shaped using compression molding machine. The highest value of Tensile Modulus at break and Hardness were obtained at hybrid ratio of 70 % of HDPE/ 15 % bamboo/ 15 % glass particles (H/B15/G15). However, the inclusion of the hybrid fillers did not show any significant difference in Impact strength from the molded blank HDPE samples (H/B0/G0) while the percentage water absorbed by the samples predominantly decreased as the content of the commercial glass filler was increase in the HDPE matrix

A FASHION COLOUR COMBINATION VISUALIZATION MODEL USING GENETIC ALGORITHM

Selecting appropriate colours poses great challenge for expert fashion designers and users. At times, different coloured fabrics and textiles have to be manually placed side by side to see how well they combine. In this paper, a model was developed for fashion colour combination visualization for ladies using concepts in genetic algorithm to achieve a display of colour variations. This research involved 26 users to suggest rules that guide choosing fashion colour combination for ladies in the initial stage. Analysis of the questionnaire was carried out in an online survey site. Two of the suggestions made by the users were considered. These are light colours on dark colours and stripped colours on plain colours. The system was implemented using C# programming language and XAML. It was found to be a useful tool to users and fashion designers for the visualization of fashion colour combination for ladies.

Penile fracture at Lautech Teaching Hospital, Osogbo

Background/Objective: We have seen three cases of penile fracture presenting in diverse ways in our teaching hospital.Wewant to highlight the difficulties of management when patients present late. Patients and Methods: Three case reports of young men whose ages range between 22-32 years and who presented at 1year 6months, fourweeks, and 3 hours respectively, following penile fracture. Results: The patient that presented within 3hours had immediate exploration and primary repair with good results while the one that presented after four weeks is still being followed up. The patient that presented very late has been lost to followup after hewas told that hewould require surgery. Conclusion: Early surgical intervention in penile trauma still gives the best result and is hereby advocated. Decision to operate or not should also be based on the empirical finding of size of tear if there is no associated urethra injury.KeyWords: Penile fracture, tunica albuginea, injury, surger

Challenges of Surgical Repair of Hypospadias in Ile-Ife, Nigeria

Objective: To document the presentation, outcome and challenges of management of hypospadias in a resource-limited setting.Patients and Methods: For this retrospective study we analyzed the files of  all patients with hypospadias managed at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife, Nigeria between 1996 and 2006. The parameters studied were the patients’ bio-data, clinical presentation,treatment and outcome. Results: During the 10-year period under review 51 cases of hypospadias were managed. The majority of the patients (n=39, 76.5%) presented within the first year of life with a mean age atpresentation of 1 year and 8 months, though most of the repairs were done in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th years of life. Of the 51 patients 46 (90.2%) came from rural and semi-urban areas and 18 (35.3%) had been circumcised before presentation. Surgical repair consisted of preputial island flap in 22 patients (43.1%) followed by a peri-meatal based flap (Mathieu procedure) in 16 patients (31.4%). The MAGPI procedure was used in 5 patients (9.8%) and the Snodgrass procedure in 1 (2%).Staged repair was necessary in 7 patients (13.7%). Post-operative complications were encountered in 15 patients with urethrocutaneous fistula being the commonest one (11 patients, 21.6%). Conclusion: Our results show that hypospadias can be successfully managed in a low- resource setting

Effect of hemodialysis on the hearing function of patients with chronic renal failure

Sensorineural hearing impairment (SHI) has been reported in chronic renal failure (CRF) patients with a prevalence of 20-40%. The aetiopathogenetic mechanisms reported included osmotic alteration resulting in loss of hair cells and in some, complications of haemodialysis have been hypothesized. We have in the past reported 2 cases of CRF patients who developed acute SHL following hemodialysis. This is a report of investigation of the effect of hemodialysis on the hearing function of CRF patients using pure tone audiometry findings. Thirty-three CRF patients were recruited for Pure Tone Audiometry (PTA) at admission and after three sessions of hemodialysis. The pure tone audiometry was done with a computer audiometer BA 20 Kamplex in the sound - proof (acoustic) booth in the ENT clinic. The duration of illness, dosage of diuretics and blood pressure were also noted. Similar age and sex-matched control were selected among volunteers who were otherwise clinically healthy. The data was processed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois, USA). Thirty-three CRF patients treated with haemodialysis and 28 healthy controls completed the study, 34 males and 27 females, age range was 16 - 72 years, mean of 45.30 (SD16.20) for subjects and 49.7 for controls. Hearing loss was found in 22/34 (67%) at recruitment and 27/34 (79%) after 3 sessions of hemodialysis. There was a significant difference between the mean pre- and post-hemodialysis PTA values, P =0.0008. There was also a significant correlation between post - hemodialysis hearing threshold and (i) duration of illness (P = 0.00340) and (ii) creatinine levels of the patients (P=0.035). In conclusion, there was a significant depression in the hearing threshold of patients with CRF following three sessions of hemodialysis. This could be caused by changes induced by hemodialysis or effects of the duration and severity of disease. African Journal of Health Sciences Vol. 13 (3-4) 2006: pp. 29-3