A capability approach to the analysis of rural households' wellbeing in Nigeria

Rural households in Nigeria have been characterized as poor, and with little opportunity for development. Many studies have equated poverty with well being, however empirical literature on well being is less researched. This paper attempts bridge the knowledge gap in the empirical literature of well being studies and specifically the use of the capability approach in its application in the Nigerian well being context which is not as well researched as poverty studies. The study made use of the Nigerian Core welfare indices survey questionnaires of 2006 to provide data relevant to capability well being dimensions. The dimensions include housing, health, nutrition, education, asset ownership/economic, information flow and security. The first part of the study involve developing indices of well being using the fuzzy set in order to generate a composite well being index by the elementary indicators of the well being dimensions. The second part of the study used a logistic regression to explore the variability in achieving the composite well being index value by a set of Conversion factors. The fuzzy set result revealed that the capability to attain a desired state of well being is highest with respect to asset ownership and lowest with respect to security. The logistic analysis shows that the predicted probability of attaining the mean capability well being level increases for male headed rural households, increasing educational level and age of the head, increasing household size, employment in the public sector and residence in any other geopolitical zone except the Northwestern zone.Well being, Capability, Rural Households, Nigeria

Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Consumption among Commercial Drivers in Lagos, Nigeria

This cross-sectional survey research provided a quantitative description of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption among commercial drivers in Lagos, Nigeria. A multi-stage purposive sampling of two hundred (200) commercial drivers from Mile 2 to Badagry was used for this study. Three hypotheses were formulated for this study. Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Consumption Questionnaire (CSACOQ) adopted from Genacis lite- H2O Questionnaire was used to gather information from the respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression were used to analyse the data gathered for this study. The result showed that 63.7% were heavy users, 15.6% were moderate users, and 17.7% were occasional or mild users. The researchers discovered that 60% to 70% of the commercial drivers engaged in drinking and driving. In comparison, about 40% of the commercial drivers used other psychoactive drugs such as tobacco (30.4%), cannabis (4.3%), caffeine (31.9%), sedatives (10.1%), and solvents (8.7%). The researchers believe that there is an urgent need to formulate policies in line with the ten proposed targets of WHO, (2008) resolution on strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and cigarette smoking in Nigeria.This cross-sectional survey research provided a quantitative description of cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption among commercial drivers in Lagos, Nigeria. A multi-stage purposive sampling of two hundred (200) commercial drivers from Mile 2 to Badagry was used for this study. Three hypotheses were formulated for this study. Cigarette Smoking and Alcohol Consumption Questionnaire (CSACOQ) adopted from Genacis lite- H2O Questionnaire was used to gather information from the respondents. Both descriptive and inferential statistics of Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression were used to analyse the data gathered for this study. The result showed that 63.7% were heavy users, 15.6% were moderate users, and 17.7% were occasional or mild users. The researchers discovered that 60% to 70% of the commercial drivers engaged in drinking and driving. In comparison, about 40% of the commercial drivers used other psychoactive drugs such as tobacco (30.4%), cannabis (4.3%), caffeine (31.9%), sedatives (10.1%), and solvents (8.7%). The researchers believe that there is an urgent need to formulate policies in line with the ten proposed targets of WHO, (2008) resolution on strategies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and cigarette smoking in Nigeria

Aggregate Demand for Micro-insurance among Rural Household Non-farm Enterprises in Nigeria

Although, rural based enterprises are subject to a myriad of risks and economic shocks, insurance uptake has been found to be abysmally low. The aim of this study was to examine the determinants of demand for insurance from the standpoint of the rural based household non-farm enterprises (RHNFE). This study made use of the household non-farm enterprise data from the LSMS- General Household Survey of 2010/2011. Demand for insurance was measured as the monthly expenditure on insurance by the RHNFE. The empirical findings indicate that RHNFE were mainly informal in nature with low level investment, and low labour requirement. Consequently, there is relatively high production/transactions costs relative to revenue. Premium paid for insurance was found to be very low and determined by the value placed on the system, access to market for operation as well as the scope of operation of the businesses. Access to market infrastructure and opportunities for standardizing products area recommended in order for the RNFE to take advantage of insurance targeted towards them. Keywords: Microinsurance, Demand, Rural, Non-farm enterprises, Nigeri

Energy Analysis of Biodiesel Production From Waste Groundnut Oil

The objective of the study was to carry out energy analysis of biodiesel production from Waste groundnut oil (WGO). 13 experimental runs were designed by Minitab software 16 to carried out the trans-esterification of WGO which involved the variation of catalyst concentration and methanol/oil mole ratio. Total Input energy and output energy of the process were determined to obtain the energy efficiency of the process. The results of the research gavehighest biodiesel yield of 92 % at the methanol/oil mole ratio of 7 and catalyst concentration of 0.7 wt/wt % Oil. The calculated input energy and output energy of 124.51MJ/Land 98.47 MJ/L respectively were obtained. The energy efficiency obtained from the biodiesel production was 0.72. The net energy of -35.04 MJ while the energy productivity of 0.08 kg.MJwas arrived at. Further research work on how to reduce input energy during biodiesel production needs to be carried out

TREATMENTS OF BIODIESEL WASHING WATER

The main objective of this study was to produce biodiesel from palm kernel oil and to purify the biodiesel washing water generated through adsorption, acidification, coagulation and filtration treatment processes. Removal efficiencies of these treatment processes were investigated by analysing biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids (TDS) and elements present in the biodiesel washing water (before and after treatments). The results of the trans-esterification process showed that the highest biodiesel yield of 87.6% was obtained at a reaction time of 65 minutes and methanol to oil mole ratio of 6:1.The overall removal efficiencies obtained using the stated water treatment processes were 65% (BOD), 38% (COD), 75% (TDS) and 94%(conductivity).The treated washing water met the waste water discharge standards of FEPA. Hence, adsorption, acidification, coagulation and filtration, were effective in treating biodiesel washing water

SMALL AND MEDIUM SCALE ENTERPRISES:PIVOTAL TO SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: THE NIGERIAN EXPERIENCE

The development of small and medium scale enterprise has been canvassed as the foundation of any solid development of any nation world over. The objectives of this paper include: (i) To find out the relationship between effective management of small scale enterprise and the nation’s economic development, (ii) To examine whether financial challenges faced by sole proprietorship business can affect employment generation in Nigeria amongst others. The study used survey research method with three hypotheses, which were later analyzed with correlation and regression test statistics on the nature of each of the hypotheses. Based on findings of the study, useful policy recommendations were made which businesses owners and policy makers at the various tiers of government will find beneficial when faithfully implemente

Automatic Monitoring of Physical Activity Related Affective States for Chronic Pain Rehabilitation

Chronic pain is a prevalent disorder that affects engagement in valued activities. This is a consequence of cognitive and affective barriers, particularly low self-efficacy and emotional distress (i.e. fear/anxiety and depressed mood), to physical functioning. Although clinicians intervene to reduce these barriers, their support is limited to clinical settings and its effects do not easily transfer to everyday functioning which is key to self-management for the person with pain. Analysis carried out in parallel with this thesis points to untapped opportunities for technology to support pain self-management or improved function in everyday activity settings. With this long-term goal for technology in mind, this thesis investigates the possibility of building systems that can automatically detect relevant psychological states from movement behaviour, making three main contributions. First, extension of the annotation of an existing dataset of participants with and without chronic pain performing physical exercises is used to develop a new model of chronic disabling pain where anxiety acts as mediator between pain and self-efficacy, emotional distress, and movement behaviour. Unlike previous models, which are largely theoretical and draw from broad measures of these variables, the proposed model uses event-specific data that better characterise the influence of pain and related states on engagement in physical activities. The model further shows that the relationship between these states and guarding during movement (the behaviour specified in the pain behaviour literature) is complex and behaviour descriptions of a lower level of granularity are needed for automatic classification of the states. The model also suggests that some of the states may be expressed via other movement behaviour types. Second, addressing this using the aforementioned dataset with the additional labels, and through an in-depth analysis of movement, this thesis provides an extended taxonomy of bodily cues for the automatic classification of pain, self-efficacy and emotional distress. In particular, the thesis provides understanding of novel cues of these states and deeper understanding of known cues of pain and emotional distress. Using machine learning algorithms, average F1 scores (mean across movement types) of 0.90, 0.87, and 0.86 were obtained for automatic detection of three levels of pain and self-efficacy and of two levels of emotional distress respectively, based on the bodily cues described and thus supporting the discriminative value of the proposed taxonomy. Third, based on this, the thesis acquired a new dataset of both functional and exercise movements of people with chronic pain based on low-cost wearable sensors designed for this thesis and informed by the previous studies. The modelling results of average F1 score of 0.78 for two-level detection of both pain and self-efficacy point to the possibility of automatic monitoring of these states in everyday functioning. With these contributions, the thesis provides understanding and tools necessary to advance the area of pain-related affective computing and groundbreaking insight that is critical to the understanding of chronic pain. Finally, the contributions lay the groundwork for physical rehabilitation technology to facilitate everyday functioning of people with chronic pain

Distillery Wastewater Decontamination by the Fenton Advanced Oxidation Method

This study evaluated the effect of Fenton advanced oxidation process on the treatment of an industrial wastewater (distillery). The comparison of the effects of Fe2+ loadings, H2O2 dosages (2%(v/v)and 4%(v/v)), reaction temperature and reaction time, established optimum efficiency in terms of BOD and COD reductions. The best operating conditions for the treatment of the distillery wastewater containing 43.85 mg/L BOD concentration and 274.28 mg/L COD concentration in the raw effluent was 2% H2O2 dosage at constant loadings of Fe2+ (1.5 g), 80 oC pretreatment temperature, and 1 h reaction time. At this optimized condition, the BOD content reduced to about 35 mg/L (about 21% removal) and COD content reduced to about 53 mg/L (about 81% removal). There was a complete removal of the initial colour present in the wastewater after the treatment process. The process proved the ability to effectively reduce the COD content which when high in industrial wastewaters can lead to serious impacts to the environmen

Effect of Annealing on Machinability of Grey Cast Iron

This study investigates the influence of process parameter on machined cast iron under varying material strength and cutting conditions. The three process parameters considered in this study are spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. The cast iron bars were annealed and machined under both wet and dry cutting conditions. The signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio was used to analyze results generated, identify optimal process parameters (factors) and analyze the effect of these parameters on tool-tip temperature. Taguchi design of Minitab 18 was employed to optimize and analyze results. Results shows that the spindle speed was the most significant factor affecting tool-tip temperature reduction, followed by feed rate, while the depth of cut has least role to play on tool-tip temperature. Depth of cut and spindle speed both significantly influenced increment in material removal rate. The annealed cast iron bar had a better surface integrity than the Unannealed sample bars. Conclusively, the preferred condition for machining grey cast iron bar was annealed and wet machining condition

Design and Development of a Wear Testing Machine for Manufacturing Laboratories

Wear of parts during manufacturing processes is inevitable but controllable. Therefore, the critical study of wear in engineering components is vital because failure of components due to wear has resulted in loss of a great deal of fortune. This study was therefore an attempt to design and fabricate a wear testing machine, evaluate the performance of the machine and compare data obtained with existing ones. Materials for the various parts were carefully selected based on desirable properties and availability. Design calculations were made for the main shaft, compression spring, belt, pulley and electric motor. The post fabrication test was carried out on the machine to evaluate the performance of the machine and results gotten reported