Making a difference with Vision 2020: The Right to Sight? Lessons from two states of North Western Nigeria

Settings and Aim: The World Health Organization launched in 1999 an initiative to eliminate the global avoidable blindness and prevent the projected doubling of avoidable visual impairment between 1990 and 2020 (Vision 2020: The Right to Sight). The World Health Assembly (WHA) adopted resolutions WHA 59.25, WHA 56.26 urging member states to adopt the Vision 2020 principles. More than 90 nongovernmental development organizations, agencies, and institutions, together with a number of major corporations, are now working together in this global partnership. Two neighboring states in North Western Nigeria provide eye care services using different approaches; one state uses the principles of Vision 2020, the other uses a different strategy. The aim of the study was to assess awareness and utilization of eye care services in two Nigerian states.Design: A population‑based cross‑sectional interview of households was conducted in two neighboring states using a structured questionnaire. Data analysis was performed using SPSS version 21 and a P < 0.05 was considered as significant.Findings: Participation rate was 97% in the two states. The population in the Vision 2020‑compliant state were significantly more aware about general eye care services (80% vs. 44%, P < 0.0005); had less proportion of households unaware of any eye care service (55% vs. 69%, P < 0.0005); and have a significantly higher felt the need to utilize eye care services (47% vs. 5.9%, P < 0.0005). The service utilization rate was however low in the two states.Conclusion: The principles of Vision 2020: The Right to Sight is adaptable to different cultures/societies and has demonstrated a potential to increase awareness and a felt need for eye care in poor resource settings.Key words: Eye care services, Nigeria, service utilization, Vision 202

Ethnocentrism and ethno-political conflicts in Northern Nigeria: A critical analysis

Nigeria is a hotspot for numerous conflicts, especially in the postcolonial times. These intractable conflicts include ethnic, religious, political, sectarian, communal, Settlers-Natives and Pastoralist-Farmers dimensions. On this occasion, different scholarly arguments were advanced to know whether there is a generalizable cause for the menace. Much of these studies focus on conflicts associated with federal structure, uneven development, resources control and marginalization explaining the wider context of the problem. This article explores the significance of understanding the historical context of ethno-political conflict in Northern Nigeria and examines why conflicts keep reoccurring between different communities in the region. The article also assumes that, it is significant to note the influence of politicization of ethnicity, selective injustice and elite manipulation in conflict analysis in Nigeria. It concludes that ethno-political conflicts in Nigeria are fundamentally influenced by bad politics and bad governance. Therefore its management has become a mirage in spite of series of interventions to put the conflicts to an end

A holistic based digital forensic readiness framework for Zenith Bank, Nigeria

The advancement of internet has made many business organizations conduct their operation automatically, in effect its open a possibly dangerous unforeseen information security incidents of both illegal and civil nature. Therefore, if any organization does’t arrange themselves for such instances, it’s likely that vital significant digital evidence will be damage. In other word an organization should has a digital forensic readiness framework (DFR). DFR is the capacity of anyassociation to exploit its prospective to use digital evidence whilst minimizing the cost of investigation. Subsequently, in order to prepare organizations for incident responds, the application of digital forensic readiness policies and procedures is important. Contemporary lack of forensic skills is one of the factors that make organizations reluctant to implement digital forensics. This project propose a holistic-based framework of DFR and investigate how it can be applied to Zenith Bank Plc. This paper surveys existing frameworks to identify the best-suited practical components for Zenith Bank’s operational unit

Isolation and Identification of Postharvest Spoilage Fungi Associated with Sweet Oranges (Citrus sinensis) Traded in Kano Metropolis

Mycological studies on fungi in apparently diseased sweet oranges (Citrus sinensis) sampled from retailers at Na'ibawa Yan Lemu market in Kano Metropolis was carried out between August and September 2006. The samples were surface sterilized using 85% ethanol and homogenates were cultured on potato Dextrose Agar and incubated aerobically at room temperature for 7 days at 30°C. Pure cultures of the resulting fungal colonies were obtained from the subcultures of the primary plates. These were identified morphologically and microscopically. The investigation revealed that up to 90% of the samples were infected with one or more fungal species. The most predominant pathogenic fungus isolated from the samples was, Aspergillus sp (32.5%); others include Mucor sp. (25%), Penicillium sp (15%), Rhizopus sp (15%), Fusarium sp, (7.5%), and Alternaria sp. (5%). Proper handling from the farm as well as during storage and the avoidance of mixing of diseased ones with the healthy ones were identified as important factors in preventing loss. The use of suitable chemical treatment of the orange is also recommended as means of reducing economic loss due to fungal pathogens.Key words: Mycological studies, Fungal colonies, Sweet orange, Kan

The effectiveness of IT strategic plans in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

Strategic planning has been identified as one of the key and important concept that reshapes and strengthens modern businesses toward achieving their targeted goal. It has been proven in theoretical and empirical researches that it helps in attaining business goals in most of large corporations that implemented the concept. Though it is working for large corporations, the same conclusion cannot be said for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) due to so many factors that differentiated the two categories. In this paper we investigated the effectiveness of the strategic plan on the SMEs and based on the data collected from our survey, it shows that the concept is also working in the SMEs but our finding cannot be generalized due to the small number of firms we investigated

CONTROL OF PARTICULATE MATTER (PM) EMISSIONS FROM INDUSTRIAL PLANT USING ANFIS BASED CONTROLLER

In recent times, the negative effect of air pollution such as particulate matter (PM) emitted from industrial plants has compelled researchers in finding efficient control system to control such pollutants in order to keep the environment safe. The aim of this study is to develop a reliable method of controlling the emissions of PM using wet scrubber system as a control device. The process of a wet scrubber is nonlinear in nature. Due to difficulty in selecting optimum scrubbing liquid droplet size in wet scrubbing process, the system becomes complex. Thus, Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) based control technique is employed in this paper to handle the nonlinearities. ANFIS control technique has the advantage to integrate fuzzy logic systems and learning ability of neural network, thus able to handle nonlinear systems better. The controller is developed using data of PM emission from cement kiln. The system is simulated using triangular and trapezoidal membership function (MF) with 2 and 3 input MF in each case. The performance of the controller is evaluated based on settling time. The results indicated that the developed controller was able to maintain the PM emission below a set point of 20µg/m3 which is the maximum allowable PM emission limit recommended by world health organization (WHO). The controller with 2 input triangular membership functions indicated a better performance with a settling time of 5.2 seconds

Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC) for the control of Particulate Matter (PM) emission in wet scrubber system

Air pollution such as particulate matter (PM) emitted from industries result in several thousands of deaths. In recognition of this global threat, a large number of abatement measures have been taken to minimize the emission of this pollutant. Wet scrubber system has been the most widely used control device for PM contaminants. Its operating variables (gas velocity, temperature profile, particle size, liquid droplet’s size, terminal settling velocity of liquid droplets, particle density and liquid to gas ratio) fluctuates randomly, thus resulting in a non-linear dynamic behavior of the system. This non-linearity generally limits the ability of the scrubber to control PM less than 5µm in diameter. Thus, in this study, intelligent control technique based on fuzzy logic controller (FLC) has been developed to solve the non-linearity in the system by selecting appropriate scrubbing liquid droplet size in order to improve system performance to control PM that are less than 5µm in diameter. The developed FLC has two inputs (error and change in error) and a single output. The results shows that within short settling time, the controller was able to effectively reduce the PM that are less than 5µm below the set-point (20µg/m3) which is the maximum allowable emission limit of PM contaminants by world health organization (WHO)

Information-based interactive services and support system

The fact that information-based interaction designed requires user involvement, Service Desk System (SDS) is necessary for collecting, tracking and processing requests for IT service support. The system can be dynamic, where many approaches can be used depending on the objective of the tasks at hand. Currently, Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology (KICT), International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM) SDS do not cover a lot of evolving user's tasks. As a result, the main aim of this study is to propose interactive SDS for students and staffs at KICT, IIUM. The architectural framework of the system has been formulated to include all the necessary requirements that might have arisen over time. There are some drawbacks in the process of the current system which affects the whole management process of the organization. With the aid of the framework, a prototype has been implemented. This prototype is established using the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), PHP with the support of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS3), Bootstrap and JavaScript along with MySQL as the database. The developed system is an online (web-based) system which allows users to request information in order for the administrator to respond promptly, which shows the efficiency and reliability of the syste