Sesame (sesamun indicum L) Market Structure in Jigawa State, Nigeria

Poor marketing structures among others have been identified to be one of the major issues limiting agricultural productivity in Nigeria. Sesame market structure in Jigawa state of Nigeria was examined by studying four sesame markets and also traders and selling agents. Two of the markets were rural (Suletankarkar and Kargo) while the other two were urban (Gumel and Maigatari).The markets were selected using a purposive random sampling. A non recurring survey was conducted in the selected markets in which 117 traders and 39 selling agents were interviewed from the list of their respective associations using a simple random sampling procedure. Questionnaires used as instrument of data collection were pre-tested. Times series data for sesame recorded for the period of 2000-2012 by Jigawa A.D.P. were also used. The data were analysed using Gini ratio analysis.  The Gini ratio for business concentration of rural selling agents and urban selling agents were 0.6013 and 0.5360 respectively. The Gini ratio for rural traders and urban traders were 0.3664 and 0.7838 respectively. The market structure analysis revealed that urban selling agents and rural traders command greater influence. The markets function with some level of imperfection. Market structure could be improved by breaking the dominance of the sesame market by few selling agents. This could take the form of making credits available to the traders and policy intervention in the form of incentives for value addition to sesame local purchasers

Financial Instruments: Islamic Versus Conventional

The financial system of any economy is made up of its financial institution, financial instruments and financial regulators. However, the nature of the instruments, institutions and regulations depend on the economic system and philosophy prevailing in that economy. This chapter presents a simple and precise narrations on the meaning of financial instruments, their forms and characteristics, fundamental principles of Islamic finance as well as the similarities and differences between convention and Islamic financial instruments. A case study reflecting the core merits and pitfalls of financial instruments is presented to further press home the understanding of the topic. This piece is intended to provide readers with the basic understanding of issues raised

Assessment of heavy metals contamination in the sediment of Yardantsi reservoir, Gusau Nigeria

The magnitude and ecological relevance of metals pollution in the sediment of Yardantsi Reservoir, Gusau Nigeria, which serve as main source of water for irrigation and municipalities was assessed by applying sets of complementary sediment quality assessment methods; The contamination factor (Cf); and comparisons with concentration based sediment quality guidelines (CBSQGs) of target heavy metals. The sediment metals concentrations in the reservoir were investigated from May, 2015 to April, 2017. Sediment samples were collected from five sampling stations and analysed using Shimadzu AA6800 Atomic Absorbtion Spectrophotometry. The results showed that Cd has a mean concentration of (1.81cmol/kg). Cu (3.40cmol/kg), Cr (0.99cmol/kg), Fe (46.71cmol/kg), Ni (0.50cmol/kg), Pb (0.14cmol/kg), and Zn (13.87cmol/kg). Contamination factor (Cf) and CBSQGs suggested that cadmium concentration was slightly higher as Cf>6 and exceeded threshold effects concentrations (TECs). This may cause adverse biological effects and the reservoir was in potential risk with regards to Cd concentration, while the rest of the metals were found to be lower than the proposed TECs and has Cf<1 indicating that there are no harmful effects from these metals. It is suggested that the reservoir input should be monitored and the sediment sources be mitigated.Keywords: Assessment, contamination, heavy metals, reservoir, sedimen

The Effect of BudgetIng and Budgetary Control in Local Government Administration of Nigeria

The process of allocating resource to meet demand, as well as converting rhetoric to reality in the political system is termed budgeting. That process should link the past, the present and the future in standard and orderly way. Before the beginning of every financial year, Government at all level (federal, state, local government) announces their budget for the New Year. They state the objectives they anticipate in attaining through the period, and the plan of actions necessary. This study in tends to examine the effectiveness of budget and budgetary control in the local government system in Nigeria. This studied being a theoretical analysis, secondary data were used. As such, Available literatures on budgeting and budgetary control as they applicable to local governments in Nigeria were exhaustively used, relevant materials sourced from text books, Journal, newspapers and other official documents were taken into consideration to discover how local government can make use of a prepared budget to achieve effective and efficient results. It was observed that, local governments in Nigeria were confronting some challenges which includes; corruption and mismanagement, skilled manpower, state government interference and finance. This study recommends that, all the activities of the various departments of the local government should be planned and coordinated very well to ensure all departments are in harmony so that the effective budget will be realized. Keywords: Budgeting, budgetary control, Local government, Finance

Anthropometric indices as novel markers of risk in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among Nigerian adults in Zamfara State

Body mass index (BMI) has traditionally been used as an indicator of body size measure and composition. Although, other measures of adiposity of the abdomen such as waist circumference (WC), waist-hip ratio (WHR), neck circumference (NC) have been suggested as being superior to BMI in predicting disease outcome. This study was designed to compare different anthropometric variables in term of their ability to predict type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). This was a case-control study in 240 participants involving 120 verified T2DM cases and 120 non-diabetics as control. Age, gender and anthropometric data were collected from each participant. Logistic regression models were used with areas under the receiver operating characteristic (AROC) curve to compare the variables predictive statistics. The AROC of WHR to identify T2DM patients was 0.678 (P<0.05), with sensitivity 62.5% of and specificity of 60.8%. The AROC for average arm circumference (AAC) model is 0.649 with sensitivity of 55.8% followed by BMI model (AROC 0.635) and WC model (AROC 0.600) (P<0.05). Hip circumference (HC) (AROC 0.508) and NC (AROC 0.492) models were not significant predictors of T2DM. Subjects of ≥60 years, AAC value ≥32.6 cm, BMI value ≥ 30 kg/m2, and WHR value ≥ 0.93 were at significantly (P<0.05) higher odds of developing T2DM than lower subjects with lower values. There were no significant differences (P>0.05) in the mean HC and NC values between the diabetic and non-diabetic subjects. The non-diabetic subjects have significantly (P>0.05) higher mean height value than the diabetic subjects. Measures of generalized and central obesity were significantly associated with increased risk of developing T2DM. This study revealed that WHR can predict type 2 diabetes mellitus risk more accurately than other anthropometric measures and can thus be helpful in predicting patients with future occurrence of diabetes and providing necessary intervention

Catalyst-free crosslinking modification of nata-de- coco-based bacterial cellulose nanofibers using citric acid

Bacterial cellulose (BC) has gained research attention in materials science and biomedicine due to its fascinating properties. BCs' fiber collapse phenomenon (inability to reabsorb water after dehydration) is one of the drawbacks that limit its potentials. To overcome this, a catalyst-free thermal crosslinking reaction was employed to modify the BC using citric acid (CA) without compromising the biocompatibility. Properties evaluation of the modified BC (MBC) by FTIR, XRD, SEM/EDX, TGA, and Tensile analysis confirmed the fiber crosslinking and improvement of some properties that could be advantageous for various applications. The modified nanofiber seems to maintain its inherent crystallinity and thermal stability with an increased water absorption/swelling and tensile modulus. The resulting MBC reported here can be relevant for wound dressings and tissue scaffolding

The Economic Effect of Insurgency on Smoked Fish Sellers in Maiduguri Metropolis of Borno State Nigeria

Fish scarcity is a major problem that leads to malnutrition, which has a major health hazard in many developing countries. Malnutrition impedes health, work efficiency, productivity and general economic progress. The economy is of high importance to marketing system, therefore before production, market must be available. This research therefore examined the economic effect of insurgency on smoked fish sellers (a case study of Baga fish market) in Maiduguri metropolis of Borno-State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using structural questionnaires. A total of 60 respondents were randomly selected for the study. Descriptive statistics and gross margin was used to analyse data generated. The result revealed that (91.7%) were male, (83.3%) married, active productive ages between 41- 60 years (53.3%) and family size between 1-5 (41.7%) with moderate educational level of (33.3%) while main occupation of the respondents was trading with (90%). The previous and present gross margin values for small, medium and large carton of smoked fish were (N1, 402.00, N1, 962.20, and N4, 455.30) and (N1, 733.80, N13, 893.00 and N66, 488.70) respectively. The problems mostly encountered were poor storage facilities, pests and disease, lower market price by the buyers due to its perishable nature and lack of access to capital with (21.9%, 31.4% 22.5% and 24.3% respectively. The insurgency attack has negative effect on the economic activities of smoke fish sellers. It can be recommended that local dried fish marketers should be organized into cooperative groups by extension agents and government should provide adequate infrastructural facilities such as modern storage facilities, good road network etc

The Economic Effect of Insurgency on Smoked Fish Sellers in Maiduguri Metropolis of Borno State Nigeria

Fish scarcity is a major problem that leads to malnutrition, which has a major health hazard in many developing countries. Malnutrition impedes health, work efficiency, productivity and general economic progress. The economy is of high importance to marketing system, therefore before production, market must be available. This research therefore examined the economic effect of insurgency on smoked fish sellers (a case study of Baga fish market) in Maiduguri metropolis of Borno-State, Nigeria. Primary data were collected using structural questionnaires. A total of 60 respondents were randomly selected for the study. Descriptive statistics and gross margin was used to analyse data generated. The result revealed that (91.7%) were male, (83.3%) married, active productive ages between 41- 60 years (53.3%) and family size between 1-5 (41.7%) with moderate educational level of (33.3%) while main occupation of the respondents was trading with (90%). The previous and present gross margin values for small, medium and large carton of smoked fish were (N1, 402.00, N1, 962.20, and N4, 455.30) and (N1, 733.80, N13, 893.00 and N66, 488.70) respectively. The problems mostly encountered were poor storage facilities, pests and disease, lower market price by the buyers due to its perishable nature and lack of access to capital with (21.9%, 31.4% 22.5% and 24.3% respectively. The insurgency attack has negative effect on the economic activities of smoke fish sellers. It can be recommended that local dried fish marketers should be organized into cooperative groups by extension agents and government should provide adequate infrastructural facilities such as modern storage facilities, good road network etc

HausaNLP at SemEval-2023 Task 12: Leveraging African Low Resource TweetData for Sentiment Analysis

We present the findings of SemEval-2023 Task 12, a shared task on sentiment analysis for low-resource African languages using Twitter dataset. The task featured three subtasks; subtask A is monolingual sentiment classification with 12 tracks which are all monolingual languages, subtask B is multilingual sentiment classification using the tracks in subtask A and subtask C is a zero-shot sentiment classification. We present the results and findings of subtask A, subtask B and subtask C. We also release the code on github. Our goal is to leverage low-resource tweet data using pre-trained Afro-xlmr-large, AfriBERTa-Large, Bert-base-arabic-camelbert-da-sentiment (Arabic-camelbert), Multilingual-BERT (mBERT) and BERT models for sentiment analysis of 14 African languages. The datasets for these subtasks consists of a gold standard multi-class labeled Twitter datasets from these languages. Our results demonstrate that Afro-xlmr-large model performed better compared to the other models in most of the languages datasets. Similarly, Nigerian languages: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba achieved better performance compared to other languages and this can be attributed to the higher volume of data present in the languages