The emerging architecture of a regional security complex in the Lake Chad Basin

This article explores the emerging regional security architecture to fight terrorism and insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin (LCB). It diagnoses the evolution of the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) as a sub-regional organization that unites Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria. In particular, the article critically investigates recent efforts by some members of the LCBC to create regional security architecture under the aegis of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to fight terrorism and insurgency within the Basin. The article argues that this new security mechanism in the Chad Basin is largely driven by resource geopolitics, regional security and Nigeria’s quest for hegemonic stability. It is argued that historical contradictions, linguistic differences, resource geopolitics, hegemonic politics, and local national politics have also hampered meaningful progress and undermined the basis for erecting robust new security architecture in Africa’s LCB

Consumer perceptions of real-time marketing used in campaigns for retail businesses

This research empirically investigates consumers’ perception of real-time marketing as a marketing tool that is increasingly being used by businesses. Based on the review of literature, the paper aims to delve into real-time marketing and explore the elements of real-time marketing that influence consumers' perception of RTM campaigns. This study adopted a quantitative methodology. A total of 201 consumers completed an online survey in Gauteng, South Africa. To identify underlying factors that influence the consumer's perception of various real-time marketing campaigns, exploratory factor analysis was conducted. Descriptive statistic was used to provide a further summary of the basic characteristics of the sample. The research findings indicate that consumers value real-time marketing communication campaigns that offer value. Consumers' perception of value includes any real-time marketing campaign that offers some financial gain in the form of immediate and personalized discounts. This research provides retailers with a greater understanding of what consumers perceive as valuable and what they regard as clutter when it comes to real-time marketing campaign

ADOPTION OF COMPUTER ASSISTED LANGUAGE LEARNING SOFTWARE AMONG NIGERIAN SECONDARY SCHOOLS’ STUDENTS

Covenant University (NIGERIA) Learning a language can be a daunting task especially if a learner has acquired his/her first language. In second or foreign language learning (L2 or FL), an effective learning strategy can contribute very much to one’s success. Hence, computer assisted language learning (CALL) materials could be used in teaching to facilitate the language learning process. CALL encompasses broad range of information and communication technology applications and approaches. CALL materials are useful for two reasons; they are focused on learning rather than instruction or teaching and student-centered which enables a learner to learn at his/her pace. The four skills covered by CALL are listening, speaking, reading and writing. There are evidences in the literature that CALL has performed well in promoting three skills; listening, speaking and reading while substantial gains have not been made in writing skill. CALL, like other educational software that is computer software has the potential to facilitate, accelerate, motivate and deepen skills in language learning. This study therefore examined the level of adoption of CALL among secondary students in Nigeria. The study covered two geopolitical zones (North-central and South-west) in Nigeria. Four states were randomly selected; two from each zone. The states are Kogi and kwara from North-central, Lagos and Ogun from South west. Eight secondary schools from each of the states participated in this study. A total of thirty two secondary schools were selected. Twenty students were selected from each of the thirty-two schools (371 girls (58%), 269 boys (42%)). The ages of the participants range from 12-18years with mean age of 14.63years and standard deviation of 2.08. All the participants had English language as one of their subjects while 23% had French language in addition. CALL Adoption Questionnaire (CAQ) was designed and used to measure adoption. Four research questions were raised and answered. The findings revealed that only 147 students representing 23% adopt CALL applications in their language learning activities. The factors that promote the adoption of CALL include; educational qualification of fathers, type of school, peer influence and class of students. The study concluded that the adoption of CALL is low among secondary school students and recommended that parents, government and proprietors of private schools should procure and enforce the use of CALL in our secondary schools to reduce abysmal failure rate in English and French languages

Modelling and Control of Freeway Traffic

This paper presents the most recent developments of the Simulator of Intelligent Transportation Systems (SITS). The SITS is based on a microscopic simulation approach to reproduce real traffic conditions in an urban or non-urban network. In order to analyse the quality of the microscopic traffic simulator SITS a benchmark test was performed. A dynamical analysis of several traffic phenomena, applying a new modelling formalism based on the embedding of statistics and Laplace transform, is then addressed. The paper presents also a new traffic control concept applied to a freeway traffic system

Juvenile Huntington’s disease skin fibroblasts respond with elevated parkin level and increased proteasome activity as a potential mechanism to counterbalance the pathological consequences of mutant Huntingtin protein

Huntington’s disease (HD) is an inherited neurodegenerative disorder, caused by an abnormal polyglutamine (polyQ) expansion in the huntingtin protein (Htt). Mitochondrial dysfunction and impairment of the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) are hallmarks of HD neurons. The extraneural manifestations of HD are still unclear. We investigated the crosstalk between mitochondria and proteolytic function in skin fibroblasts from juvenile HD patients. We found reduced mitosis, increased cell size, elevated ROS and increased mitochondrial membrane potential in juvenile HD fibroblasts, while cellular viability was maintained. Mitochondrial OXPHOS analysis did not reveal significant differences compared to control. However, the level of mitochondrial fusion and fission proteins was significantly lower and branching in the mitochondria network was reduced. We hypothesized that juvenile HD fibroblasts counterbalance cellular damage and mitochondrial network deficit with altered proteasome activity to promote cell survival. Our data reveal that juvenile HD fibroblasts exhibit higher proteasome activity, which was associated with elevated gene and protein expression of parkin. Moreover, we demonstrate elevated proteasomal degradation of the mitochondrial fusion protein Mfn1 in diseased cells compared to control cells. Our data suggest that juvenile HD fibroblasts respond to mutant polyQ expansion of Htt with enhanced proteasome activity and faster turnover of specific UPS substrates to protect cells

Optimal approximation of fractional derivatives through discrete-time fractions using genetic algorithms

This study addresses the optimization of rational fraction approximations for the discrete-time calculation of fractional derivatives. The article starts by analyzing the standard techniques based on Taylor series and Padé expansions. In a second phase the paper re-evaluates the problem in an optimization perspective by tacking advantage of the flexibility of the genetic algorithms

Approximating fractional derivatives through the generalized mean

This paper addresses the calculation of fractional order expressions through rational fractions. The article starts by analyzing the techniques adopted in the continuous to discrete time conversion. The problem is re-evaluated in an optimization perspective by tacking advantage of the degree of freedom provided by the generalized mean formula. The results demonstrate the superior performance of the new algorithm

A New Method for the High-Precision Assessment of Tumor Changes in Response to Treatment

Imaging demonstrates that preclinical and human tumors are heterogeneous, i.e. a single tumor can exhibit multiple regions that behave differently during both normal development and also in response to treatment. The large variations observed in control group tumors can obscure detection of significant therapeutic effects due to the ambiguity in attributing causes of change. This can hinder development of effective therapies due to limitations in experimental design, rather than due to therapeutic failure. An improved method to model biological variation and heterogeneity in imaging signals is described. Specifically, Linear Poisson modelling (LPM) evaluates changes in apparent diffusion co-efficient (ADC) before and 72 hours after radiotherapy, in two xenograft models of colorectal cancer. The statistical significance of measured changes are compared to those attainable using a conventional t-test analysis on basic ADC distribution parameters. When LPMs were applied to treated tumors, the LPMs detected highly significant changes. The analyses were significant for all tumors, equating to a gain in power of 4 fold (i.e. equivelent to having a sample size 16 times larger), compared with the conventional approach. In contrast, highly significant changes are only detected at a cohort level using t-tests, restricting their potential use within personalised medicine and increasing the number of animals required during testing. Furthermore, LPM enabled the relative volumes of responding and non-responding tissue to be estimated for each xenograft model. Leave-one-out analysis of the treated xenografts provided quality control and identified potential outliers, raising confidence in LPM data at clinically relevant sample sizes