Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process.Content-based filtering; Recommender Systems; Ontology; Social Attributes, Destination recommendation

Managing Residential Building Project Retention Money Using Building Informatics Parameters

In recent times there have been paradigm shift in the management of finance on project sites, especially the retention money that client usually release to the contractor after the end of defect liability period. Improper management of retention money often results into crisis on site among client and professionals which can lead to delay in project completion. It is against this background that this study was centered on managing construction project retention fee in residential building projects in Nigeria. A random sampling technique was adopted in carrying out the study, while population size of 100 residential building projects was used. Also, a structured questionnaire in Likert Scale 1-5 was used for data collection. Parameters for scope of retention fee, challenges of retention practice, impact of retention fee on projects, and model for managing retention money were generated using Building informatics generated parameter. Mean Item Score was used to generate the agreement index for parameters obtain from influencing the retention fee management process, while Factor Analysis in Regression Analysis of SPSS software was used to generate factors for a suitable fee management model by reducing the factors to their minimum Coefficients and Eigen Values. The building informatics generated model if adopted could assist in managing retention money on residential building projects

Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process

Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process

The burden of road traffic crashes, injuries and deaths in Africa:A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective To estimate the burden of road traffic injuries and deaths for all road users and among different road user groups in Africa. Methods We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Google Scholar, websites of African road safety agencies and organizations for registry- and population-based studies and reports on road traffic injury and death estimates in Africa, published between 1980 and 2015. Available data for all road users and by road user group were extracted and analysed. We conducted a random-effects meta-analysis and estimated pooled rates of road traffic injuries and deaths. Findings We identified 39 studies from 15 African countries. The estimated pooled rate for road traffic injury was 65.2 per 100000 population (95% confidence interval, CI: 60.8–69.5) and the death rate was 16.6 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 15.2–18.0). Road traffic injury rates increased from 40.7 per 100 000 population in the 1990s to 92.9 per 100 000 population between 2010 and 2015, while death rates decreased from 19.9 per 100 000 population in the 1990s to 9.3 per 100 000 population between 2010 and 2015. The highest road traffic death rate was among motorized four-wheeler occupants at 5.9 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 4.4–7.4), closely followed by pedestrians at 3.4 per 100 000 population (95% CI: 2.5–4.2). Conclusion The burden of road traffic injury and death is high in Africa. Since registry-based reports underestimate the burden, a systematic collation of road traffic injury and death data is needed to determine the true burden

An Estimate of the Incidence of Prostate Cancer in Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Prostate cancer (PCa) is rated the second most common cancer and sixth leading cause of cancer deaths among men globally. Reports show that African men suffer disproportionately from PCa compared to men from other parts of the world. It is still quite difficult to accurately describe the burden of PCa in Africa due to poor cancer registration systems.We systematically reviewed the literature on prostate cancer in Africa and provided a continentwide incidence rate of PCa based on available data in the regio

Uganda Genome Resource Enables Insights into Population History and Genomic Discovery in Africa.

Genomic studies in African populations provide unique opportunities to understand disease etiology, human diversity, and population history. In the largest study of its kind, comprising genome-wide data from 6,400 individuals and whole-genome sequences from 1,978 individuals from rural Uganda, we find evidence of geographically correlated fine-scale population substructure. Historically, the ancestry of modern Ugandans was best represented by a mixture of ancient East African pastoralists. We demonstrate the value of the largest sequence panel from Africa to date as an imputation resource. Examining 34 cardiometabolic traits, we show systematic differences in trait heritability between European and African populations, probably reflecting the differential impact of genes and environment. In a multi-trait pan-African GWAS of up to 14,126 individuals, we identify novel loci associated with anthropometric, hematological, lipid, and glycemic traits. We find that several functionally important signals are driven by Africa-specific variants, highlighting the value of studying diverse populations across the region.Main funding: This work was funded by the Wellcome Trust, The Wellcome Sanger Institute (WT098051), the U.K. Medical Research Council (G0901213-92157, G0801566, and MR/K013491/1), and the Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute Uganda Research Unit on AIDS core funding