Towards the Design of a Synchronous Virtual Learning System

The field of education has undoubtedly been affected by the penetrating influence of information and communication technology, characterized by improved access to the internet, and the increasing use of computing devices. However, education in Africa generally and specifically in Nigeria and other developing countries still face a 21st Century challenge in making education available and accessible to all. To this end therefore, this paper presents a conceptual approach, as to how tailor made e-learning services could be realized and integrated with a real time video conference server and any existing learning management system in order to facilitate a synchronous virtual learning environment in making education accessible and available to both remote students (distance learning students) and onsite users in Universities and other related educational institutes. It proposes a functional framework to exemplify educational services such as file sharing to enhance collaboration, a digital resource center for retrieval of both free and paid relevant academic resource. A conference room for real time classroom participation which learning platform should provide in order to enhance both teaching and learning performance of course instructors and their students respectively is also proposed. It provides an operational design which describes how custom made e-learning portal integrated with an Open source Video Conference server could be realized, in facilitating a synchronous virtual learning service. Furthermore, it proposes a Virtual Learning Network architecture to show how both remote and onsite students could optimize quality network access in realizing these electronic learning services

CONSUMPTION PATTERN OF MAIZE BASED DISHES IN FOUR AGRO-ECOLOGICAL ZONES OF NIGERIA

The global picture had dramatically changed the lifestyles of Nigerian citizens pushing them into various fast-eating cultures with more instant and tasty meals, and the attendant gradual relegation of our traditional rich eating cultures. Studies were carried in eight Local Government Areas of Nigeria from the four Agro-Ecological Zones (AEZs) namely: moist savanna (Oyo State), humid forest (Lagos State), mid-altitude (Abuja) and dry Savanna (Kaduna State). Stratified multistage sampling technique with structured questionnaires from 1641 respondents and focus group discussions (FGDs) were employed to identify the maize-based dishes consumed and determined the frequency of consumption. The demographic characteristics revealed that 54.8% of the respondents were male. Residents in the rural area were more (56.8%) and majority of the respondents were between the ages of 26-45 years (67.6%), while more Christians (57.88%) participated in the study than any other religion. Results showed that thirty–two maize-based dishes were identified, of which ten were frequently consumed. Ogi was the most popular maize-based dish (73.5%) consumed in the AEZs while corn pudding was the least consumed (28.5%). There were significant differences (p<0.05) in all the sensory attributes measured. The low consumption of majority of the maize-based dishes raises concern for the current campaign on mobilizing local biodiversity which has been reported to be one of the food based intervention strategies for solving nutrition problems among population groups

A qualitative investigation of lived experiences of long-term health condition management with people who are food insecure.

Background: As more people are living with one or more chronic health conditions, supporting patients to become activated, self-managers of their conditions has become a key health policy focus both in the UK and internationally. There is also growing evidence in the UK that those with long term health conditions have an increased risk of being food insecure. While international evidence indicates that food insecurity adversely affects individual's health condition management capability, little is known about how those so affected manage their condition(s) in this context. An investigation of lived experience of health condition management was undertaken with food insecure people living in north east Scotland. The study aimed to explore the challenges facing food insecure people in terms of, i. their self-care condition management practices, and ii. disclosing and discussing the experience of managing their condition with a health care professional, and iii. Notions of the support they might wish to receive from them. Methods: Twenty in-depth interviews were conducted with individuals attending a food bank and food pantry in north east Scotland. Interview audio recordings were fully transcribed and thematically analysed. Results: Individuals reporting multiple physical and mental health conditions, took part in the study. Four main themes were identified i.e.: 1. food practices, trade-offs and compromises, that relate to economic constraints and lack of choice; 2. illness experiences and food as they relate to physical and mental ill-health; 3. (in) visibility of participants' economic vulnerability within health care consultations; and 4. perceptions and expectations of the health care system. Conclusions: This study, the first of its kind in the UK, indicated that participants' health condition management aspirations were undermined by the experience of food insecurity, and that their health care consultations in were, on the whole, devoid of discussions of those challenges. As such, the study indicated practical and ethical implications for health care policy, practice and research associated with the risk of intervention-generated health inequalities that were suggested by this study. Better understanding is needed about the impact of household food insecurity on existing ill health, wellbeing and health care use across the UK

Characterizing Prostate Cancer Risk Through Multi-Ancestry Genome-Wide Discovery of 187 Novel Risk Variants

The transferability and clinical value of genetic risk scores (GRSs) across populations remain limited due to an imbalance in genetic studies across ancestrally diverse populations. Here we conducted a multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of 156,319 prostate cancer cases and 788,443 controls of European, African, Asian and Hispanic men, reflecting a 57% increase in the number of non-European cases over previous prostate cancer genome-wide association studies. We identified 187 novel risk variants for prostate cancer, increasing the total number of risk variants to 451. An externally replicated multi-ancestry GRS was associated with risk that ranged from 1.8 (per standard deviation) in African ancestry men to 2.2 in European ancestry men. The GRS was associated with a greater risk of aggressive versus non-aggressive disease in men of African ancestry (P = 0.03). Our study presents novel prostate cancer susceptibility loci and a GRS with effective risk stratification across ancestry groups

Testing the generalizability of ancestry-specific polygenic risk scores to predict prostate cancer in sub-Saharan Africa

Background Genome-wide association studies do not always replicate well across populations, limiting the generalizability of polygenic risk scores (PRS). Despite higher incidence and mortality rates of prostate cancer in men of African descent, much of what is known about cancer genetics comes from populations of European descent. To understand how well genetic predictions perform in different populations, we evaluated test characteristics of PRS from three previous studies using data from the UK Biobank and a novel dataset of 1298 prostate cancer cases and 1333 controls from Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa. Results Allele frequency differences cause predicted risks of prostate cancer to vary across populations. However, natural selection is not the primary driver of these differences. Comparing continental datasets, we find that polygenic predictions of case vs. control status are more effective for European individuals (AUC 0.608–0.707, OR 2.37–5.71) than for African individuals (AUC 0.502–0.585, OR 0.95–2.01). Furthermore, PRS that leverage information from African Americans yield modest AUC and odds ratio improvements for sub-Saharan African individuals. These improvements were larger for West Africans than for South Africans. Finally, we find that existing PRS are largely unable to predict whether African individuals develop aggressive forms of prostate cancer, as specified by higher tumor stages or Gleason scores. Conclusions Genetic predictions of prostate cancer perform poorly if the study sample does not match the ancestry of the original GWAS. PRS built from European GWAS may be inadequate for application in non-European populations and perpetuate existing health disparities

Full Length Research Article - Prevalence of Hypertension in a University Community in South West Nigeria

A worksite study of hypertension prevalence was carried out in a university community in Southwestern Nigeria. Overall crude prevalence was 21% in the respondent population. About 16% of these were already on treatment with medicines. The study established no significant (p>0.05) relationship between coffee consumption and hypertension. Prevalence was 32% in subjects with over 3 children, while among subjects with eye problem, diabetics and those who took local kola nuts and it was 18.6%, 1.9% and 7.4%, respectively. There is need for increased awareness of the disease and other cardiovascular risk factors within the populace and to encourage the possession or provision of self-measurement blood pressure devices

Towards the Design of a Synchronous Virtual Learning System

The field of education has undoubtedly been affected by the penetrating influence of information and communication technology, characterized by improved access to the internet, and the increasing use of computing devices. However, education in Africa generally and specifically in Nigeria and other developing countries still face a 21st Century challenge in making education available and accessible to all. To this end therefore, this paper presents a conceptual approach, as to how tailor made e-learning services could be realized and integrated with a real time video conference server and any existing learning management system in order to facilitate a synchronous virtual learning environment in making education accessible and available to both remote students (distance learning students) and onsite users in Universities and other related educational institutes. It proposes a functional framework to exemplify educational services such as file sharing to enhance collaboration, a digital resource center for retrieval of both free and paid relevant academic resource. A conference room for real time classroom participation which learning platform should provide in order to enhance both teaching and learning performance of course instructors and their students respectively is also proposed. It provides an operational design which describes how custom made e-learning portal integrated with an Open source Video Conference server could be realized, in facilitating a synchronous virtual learning service. Furthermore, it proposes a Virtual Learning Network architecture to show how both remote and onsite students could optimize quality network access in realizing these electronic learning services

Энергоэффективная обучаемая модель динамической ставки для будущей беспроводной сети

In this paper, an energy efficient learning model for spectrum auction based on dynamic spectrum auction process is proposed. The proposed learning model is based on artificial intelligence. This paper examines and establishes the need for the users to learn their bid price based on information about the previous bids of the other users in the system. The paper shows that using Q reinforcement learning to learn about the bids of the users during the auction process helps to reduce the amount of energy consumed per file sent for the learning users. The paper went further to modify the traditional Q reinforcement learning process and combined it with Bayesian learning because of the deficiencies associated with Q reinforcement learning. This helps the exploration process to converge faster thereby, further reducing the energy consumption by the systemВ статье представлена энергоэффективная обучающая модель аукциона частот, основанная на его динамическом процессе. Предложенная модель обучения базируется на искусственном интеллекте. Рассмотрены требования по установлению цены предложения на основе информации о предыдущих ставках других пользователей в системе. Применяя Q-обучение, можно сократить количество потребляемой энергии за файл, отправленный для пользователей обучения. Описаны изменения традиционного процесса Q-обучения и объединение его с Байесовским обучением из-за недостатков Q-обучения. Это помогает ускорить процесс поиска, тем самым уменьшая потребление энергии системо