Extent of use of orthodox and traditional treatments and preventive measures against malaria among rural dwellers in Abia State

The study assessed the extent of use of the orthodox and traditional treatment preventive measures against malaria among rural dwellers in Abia State. Primary data were collected using structured questionnaire from 180 respondents via multi- stage procedure. Data were subjected to descriptive statistics analysis. About 78% and 95.6% of the respondents were married and literates respectively. A mean age of 46 years, a mean monthly income of about ₦24,227.78 and a mean household size of about 5 persons respectively were recorded by the respondents. The result further revealed that the respondents employed different types of malaria treatment practices (100% of the respondents employed orthodox practices and 11.78% employed traditional practices).The extent of adoption of malaria preventive measures was low ( X= 2.2) and only about 45.4% of the respondents had a good knowledge level in the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices . The result equally revealed low (X= 1.78) attitudinal level by the respondents towards the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices. It equally, revealed a low (X= 1.98) practice level and gave the Relative Credibility Index (RCI) of the respondents over the use of traditional methods of controlling malaria as (RCI = 2.9). The study concludes that the respondents in the study area had a low Knowledge, Attitude and Practice (KAP) level over the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices. Therefore, the study recommends more awareness campaign by the health workers mostly in the rural areas in order to increase the KAP level of the rural dwellers in the use of orthodox malaria treatment practices as this will enormously reduce the devastating effects of malaria sickness in Nigeria and mostly in the study area,Keywords: Malaria Treatments, Orthodox, Traditional and Abia Stat

Inflation Hedging Abilities of Residential Properties in Selected areas of Ibadan Metropolis, Nigeria

For long, investors perceived returns on real estate investments as a hedge against inflation; recently, while various empirical studies undertaken in some countries have produced varying results. In this study, the inflation hedging capacities of returns on residential property investments between the year 2002 and 2014 in selected areas in metropolitan Ibadan, Nigeria were empirically examined to ascertain the uncertain inflation hedging abilities in the areas. The study employed the Ordinary Least Squares regression model to regress the rates of returns of the considered residential property investments against actual, expected and unexpected inflation. The inflation hedging capacities of real estate investments were found to vary across geographical sub-markets and return components. Residential properties did not hedge against actual inflation in all the considered areas. However, with regards to expected inflation, the capital and total returns of residential properties in Akobo sub-market completely hedged; while for Bodija estate, it was the income and total returns that hedged against inflation completely and partially respectively. The study therefore recommends that in determining the real estate investments and the geographic locations to integrate in residential property portfolio, property investors should concentrate more in the mentioned geographical areas where residential property investments have shown to be hedging against inflation.Keywords: Ibadan, Inflation hedging capacity, Investments, Residential propertie

Testing the equivalence principle on cosmological scales using the odd multipoles of galaxy cross-power spectrum and bispectrum

One of the cornerstones of general relativity is the equivalence principle. However, the validity of the equivalence principle has only been established on solar system scales for standard matter fields; this result cannot be assumed to hold for the non-standard matter fields that dominate the gravitational dynamics on cosmological scales. Here we show how the equivalence principle may be tested on cosmological scales for non-standard matter fields using the odd multipoles of the galaxy cross-power spectrum and bispectrum. This test makes use of the imprint on the galaxy cross-power spectrum and bispectrum by the parity-violating general relativistic deformations of the past-light cone, and assumes that galaxies can be treated as test particles that are made of baryons and cold dark matter. This assumption leads to a non-zero galaxy-baryon relative velocity if the equivalence principle does not hold between baryons and dark matter. We show that the relative velocity can be constrained to be less than 28% of the galaxy velocity using the cross-power spectrum of the HI intensity mapping/Hα galaxy survey and the bispectrum of the Hα galaxy survey

WORK-LIFE INTEGRATION AND FEMALE LECTURERS’ TASK PERFORMANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS IN IMO STATE, NIGERIA

This study examined work-life integration and female lecturers’ tasks performance in government-owned higher educational institutions in Imo state. The correlational research design was adopted for the study. Two research questions were answered while two hypotheses were tested. The population of the study comprised 1292 female lecturers in government-owned higher educational institutions in Imo State. The sample size of the study was determined using Taro Yamane formula. A two-stage sampling of proportionate and stratified random sampling technique was used to draw 406 respondents from the strata. Two sets of instruments titled; Female Lecturers’ Work-Life Integration Questionnaire (FLWLIQ) and Female Lecturers’ Task Performance Questionnaire (FLTPQ) were used for data collection. Face and content validities were ensured by experts including the researcher’s supervisor. The reliability coefficient of the FLWLIQ and FLTPQ was calculated to be 0.97 and 0.95 with the help of Cronbach Alpha. Multiple and simple regressions were used to answer the research questions. ANOVA associated with multiple regression and t-test associated with simple regression were used to test the null hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level. It was found that self-management skills predicts female lecturers’ tasks performance by 54% in government-owned higher educational institutions in Imo state. Based on the findings, it was concluded that work-life integration is positively and moderately significant to female lecturers’ tasks performance in higher educational institutions in Imo state. It was therefore recommended among others that female lecturers should adopt SMART goal setting so as to manage their energy properly.  Article visualizations

Shopping Mall Patronage: A Review of Predictive Factors

Given the increasing popularity of shopping malls globally, it is vital for would-be investors and their consultants (bankers, estate surveyors and valuers, among others) to examine the critical variables for the feasibility and viability of such an investment. Taking this into consideration, a systematic review of prior studies on shopping malls was conducted with the aim of highlighting the factors predicting patronage. To accomplish this aim, the researchers reviewed papers published within a ten-year period. According to the summary, research on shopping malls has gotten a lot of attention, especially in developing countries. The study also discovered that, in both developed and developing countries, income, location, accessibility, and price are the most important factors influencing mall patronage. In conclusion, shopping mall stakeholders should consider using the fifteen variables highlighted in this study as an investment guide

Design, Construction and Characterization of a Sliding- Plate- Evaporator Freezer (Spef)

This work embodied the design, construction and characterization of a sliding plate evaporator freezer, a modified version of the conventional freezer. The presence of a sliding plate evaporator reduces the freezing area, to increase the freezing rate and with a reduced freezing time. The freezer is intended to freeze agro and allied products in a record time. This is achieved by incorporating sliding plate evaporators to a conventional freezer to have two or more freezing sources, thereby, also giving the freezer with the option of a deferring freezing area to increase freezing rate. The results obtained are not exactly matched with the designed objectives because of construction flaws; and modifications can be made to improve the Coefficient of performance. The Coefficient of performance of the SPFE is obtained   to be 7.26. The SPEF is recommended for use in household and agro based industries for faster and effective freezing. Keyword: Freezer, Sliding Plate, Evaporator, and Refrigerator, Freezer chamber, Compressor power, Condenser power and Co-efficient of performance

Molecular genotyping of sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas L. Lam) accessions using microsatellites

The experiment was conducted to ascertain the level of genetic diversity in sweet potato accessions using microsatellites. Thirty sweet potato accessions obtained from the International Potato Center (CIP), Kumasi, Ghana, Mozambique, and local germplasm of the National Root Crops Research Institute (NRCRI), Umudike, Abia State, Nigeria, as well as sweet potato vines from local farmers' fields in Jos, Plateau State, and Bauchi State, Nigeria, were analyzed for genetic diversity using five microsatellite markers. The results showed that the polymorphic SSR loci revealed diverse relationship among the sweet potato cultivars, which was grouped into four major clusters by unweighted pair group method analysis (UPGMA) method. Cluster analysis showed a Jaccard co-efficient ranging from 0.0 to 3.0 indicating high genetic diversity. The primers detected a total of 18 alleles and the number of alleles per locus was 4 for IBR-19, IBR-286, IBR-297 and 3 for IBR-16 and IBR-242 with an average of 3.67 alleles per locus. The polymorphic information content (PIC) of the markers varied from 0.35 to 0.72 with an average of 0.497. Marker IBR-19 revealed the highest PIC of 0.72, while marker IBR-297 had the lowest PIC of 0.35. Observed heterozygosity ranged from 0.32 to 0.89 with a mean of 0.675 across the five SSR loci. The results from the Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) which was used to quantify the diversity level and genetic relationship among the thirty sweet potato accessions indicated that a high diversity was mostly distributed within the populations for sweet potato accessions (75.12%) and (15.67%) among the populations