Lexical Disambiguation of Igbo using Diacritic Restoration

Properly written texts in Igbo, a low resource African language, are rich in both orthographic and tonal diacritics. Diacritics are essential in capturing the distinctions in pronunciation and meaning of words, as well as in lexical disambiguation. Unfortunately, most electronic texts in diacritic languages are written without diacritics. This makes diacritic restoration a necessary step in corpus building and language processing tasks for languages with diacritics. In our previous work, we built some n−gram models with simple smoothing techniques based on a closedworld assumption. However, as a classi- fication task, diacritic restoration is well suited for and will be more generalisable with machine learning. This paper, therefore, presents a more standard approach to dealing with the task which involves the application of machine learning algorithms

The Use Of Banana Flavour Essence, Formalin And Ordinary Water In Pitfall Traps In The Study Of The Diel Activities Of Insects From A Fallow Plot In Awka, Nigeria

A study was carried out to access the insect fauna of a fallow plot in Awka, Nigeria, in relation to their diel activities and to report any differences in the pitfall catches as a result of differences in the fluid used. The fluid used in the three sets of six traps installed bimonthly at the sites for 12 hours in each case were 5% formalin, water with 0.01% banana flavour essence and ordinary water. Using Student t-test, statistical differences existed in the diurnal and nocturnal activities of the Sminthurididae, Poduromorpha, Diptera, Acantholepsis, Paratrechina sp. and Camponotus, at probability level

Use of Transformation-Based Learning in Annotation Pipeline of Igbo, an African Language

The accuracy of an annotated corpus can be increased through evaluation and re- vision of the annotation scheme, and through adjudication of the disagreements found. In this paper, we describe a novel process that has been applied to improve a part-of-speech (POS) tagged corpus for the African language Igbo. An inter-annotation agreement (IAA) exercise was undertaken to iteratively revise the tagset used in the creation of the initial tagged corpus, with the aim of refining the tagset and maximizing annotator performance. The tagset revisions and other corrections were efficiently propagated to the overall corpus in a semi-automated manner using transformation-based learning (TBL) to identify candidates for cor- rection and to propose possible tag corrections. The affected word-tag pairs in the corpus were inspected to ensure a high quality end-product with an accuracy that would not be achieved through a purely automated process. The results show that the tagging accuracy increases from 88% to 94%. The tagged corpus is potentially re-usable for other dialects of the language

Application of Computer Technologies to Circulation Services in University and Research Institute Libraries in North Central Nigeria

The study focused on application of computer technologies to circulation services in university and research institute libraries in North Central, Nigeria. Application of computer technology in this study is the act of using computer, storage devices, computer accessories and internet to improve the slow quality of circulation services.  Descriptive survey was used as design of the study. The study covered 13 university libraries and 19 research institute libraries in North Central, Nigeria. The population of this study was 234 librarians. Sample size for this study was made up of entire population. Research instruments was Questionnaire developed by the researchers titled “Questionnaire on Application of Computer Technologies to Circulation Services in Libraries” (QACTCSIL)...........

Seroprevalence of transfusion transmissible infections (TTI), in first time blood donors in Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Background: Transfusion transmissible infections, such as HIV, HBV, HCV and syphilis are on the rise and pose a threat to blood safety.Objective: To determine prevalence and demographic profiles of TTI’s among first time blood donors in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Methods: The study was conducted between February to November 2013; 130 first time blood donors were tested for the presence of HIV, HBsAg, HCV antibodies and Treponema palidium antibodies using EIA based rapid immunochromatographic kits. Data analysis was done using SPSS with a level of significance of p<0.05.Results: Prevalence rates to HIV, HBsAg, HCV antibody, were 6.2% (n=8), 10% (n=13) and 1.5% (n=2), there was 0% prevalence to Treponema palidium antibodies. Group specific prevalence rates revealed that educational status was associated with HBsAg positivity (p = 0.028), donors with a history of previous blood transfusion was also statistically associated with HIV sero-reactivity (p = 0.013).Conclusions: High levels of HBsAg and HIV were observed, there is need to revise the donor testing algorithm in Nigeria in line with the prevalence of TTI’s. We also advocate that a National surveillance system for TTI’s be established through our National blood transfusion service (NBTS) program, a second serological test is also suggested to reduce the risk of occult HBV infection in Nigeria.Key words: Prevalence rate, TTI’s, Blood donors, Nigeri

Multi-task projected embedding for Igbo

NLP research on low resource African languages is often impeded by the unavailability of basic resources: tools, techniques, annotated corpora, and datasets. Besides the lack of funding for the manual development of these resources, building from scratch will amount to the reinvention of the wheel. Therefore, adapting existing techniques and models from well-resourced languages is often an attractive option. One of the most generally applied NLP models is word embeddings. Embedding models often require large amounts of data to train which are not available for most African languages. In this work, we adopt an alignment based projection method to transfer trained English embeddings to the Igbo language. Various English embedding models were projected and evaluated on the odd-word, analogy and word-similarity tasks intrinsically, and also on the diacritic restoration task. Our results show that the projected embeddings performed very well across these tasks

Effects of Salt, Detergents and Alum on Fatty Acid Profile in Cooked Eggs

In Abakaliki, as in most other parts of Nigeria, it is a common practice among commercial sellers of boiled eggs to boil them with chemicals such as omo, klin, table salt and alum, which gives the egg ashy appearance after cooking.  The effects of cooking with these chemicals on the fatty acid profile of eggs from four species of birds (gallus gallus): Quail (corturnix delegorgei), Guinea fowl (Numida meleagris), local chicken (Gallus varius) and high-breed chicken (Gallus gallus domesticus) were investigated. Fifteen eggs from each bird were bought from various places where they are reared in Abakaliki. Eggs were divided into five groups: A, B, C, D and E, with three eggs in each group. Eggs in groups A, B, C, and D were boiled with omo, klin, table salt and alum, respectively. Group E eggs served as the control group and were boiled with water only. Fatty acid profile was determined using High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC, AKAPTA). The results showed significant (P<0.05) reduction of fatty acids contents of the eggs compared to the control. The effects which were species-dependent were found to be least in the quail egg and highest in the high-bred chicken. The detergents (klin and omo) had more devastating effects compared to alum and table salt. Thus boiling eggs with any of the chemicals studied reduces their nutritional quality and should be discouraged. Keywords: Egg, fatty acid profile, detergents, salt and alu

Body Mass Index, Blood Pressure and Serum Cortisol Level as Stress Index in Symptomatic HIV/AIDS Male Subjects on Antiretroviral Therapy Negative to Malaria Parasite in Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria

Background: HIV infection is a risk factor for a variety of endocrine problems. Objectives: This study investigated the body mass index (BMI), Systolic blood pressure (SBP), Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and serum cortisol level as stress factor/index symptomatic HIV/AIDS male subjects on ART who are negative to malaria parasite in Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria. Methods: A total of 274 adult male participants aged between 18 and 60 (42 ±13) years were randomly recruited at the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Centre in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital and grouped based on WHO criteria for staging HIV into symptomatic HIV (stage 11) infected male participants on ART (A: n=69), Symptomatic HIV subjects not on ART (B: n= 69), Asymptomatic HIV positive subjects (C: n= 68) and HIV seronegative subjects (D: n= 68). Blood samples were collected from the participants for the determination of HIV status by immunochromatography and HIV confirmation by Western Blot. Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) was used to assay for cortisol level. Results: The results showed a significantly increased BMI and decreased mean serum cortisol level in HIV/AIDS seropositive participants on ART than in those, not on ART (p<0.05). Also, the BMI and mean serum cortisol level were significantly decreased and increased respectively in  HIV/AIDS seropositive participants not on ART than in Asymptomatic HIV positive subjects and control respectively (p<0.05). However, the mean SBP and DBP did not differ significantly between the groups studied (p>0.05). Conclusion: This study revealed a decreased stress index in HIV/AIDS subjects on ART with hypercortisolism and lower BMI in symptomatic HIV participants, not on ART. Keywords: HIV; AIDS; Malaria uninfected male subjects; Cortisol; Blood pressure; Antiretroviral therapy

Body Mass Index, Blood Pressure and Serum Cortisol Level as Stress Index in Symptomatic HIV/AIDS Male Subjects on Antiretroviral Therapy Negative to Malaria Parasite in Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria

Background: HIV infection is a risk factor for a variety of endocrine problems. Objectives: This study investigated the body mass index (BMI), Systolic blood pressure (SBP), Diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and serum cortisol level as stress factor/index symptomatic HIV/AIDS male subjects on ART who are negative to malaria parasite in Nnewi, Anambra State, Nigeria. Methods: A total of 274 adult male participants aged between 18 and 60 (42 ±13) years were randomly recruited at the Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) Centre in Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital and grouped based on WHO criteria for staging HIV into symptomatic HIV (stage 11) infected male participants on ART (A: n=69), Symptomatic HIV subjects not on ART (B: n= 69), Asymptomatic HIV positive subjects (C: n= 68) and HIV seronegative subjects (D: n= 68). Blood samples were collected from the participants for the determination of HIV status by immunochromatography and HIV confirmation by Western Blot. Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA) was used to assay for cortisol level. Results: The results showed a significantly increased BMI and decreased mean serum cortisol level in HIV/AIDS seropositive participants on ART than in those, not on ART (p<0.05). Also, the BMI and mean serum cortisol level were significantly decreased and increased respectively in  HIV/AIDS seropositive participants not on ART than in Asymptomatic HIV positive subjects and control respectively (p<0.05). However, the mean SBP and DBP did not differ significantly between the groups studied (p>0.05). Conclusion: This study revealed a decreased stress index in HIV/AIDS subjects on ART with hypercortisolism and lower BMI in symptomatic HIV participants, not on ART. Keywords: HIV; AIDS; Malaria uninfected male subjects; Cortisol; Blood pressure; Antiretroviral therapy

MasakhaNER 2.0: Africa-centric Transfer Learning for Named Entity Recognition

African languages are spoken by over a billion people, but are underrepresented in NLP research and development. The challenges impeding progress include the limited availability of annotated datasets, as well as a lack of understanding of the settings where current methods are effective. In this paper, we make progress towards solutions for these challenges, focusing on the task of named entity recognition (NER). We create the largest human-annotated NER dataset for 20 African languages, and we study the behavior of state-of-the-art cross-lingual transfer methods in an Africa-centric setting, demonstrating that the choice of source language significantly affects performance. We show that choosing the best transfer language improves zero-shot F1 scores by an average of 14 points across 20 languages compared to using English. Our results highlight the need for benchmark datasets and models that cover typologically-diverse African languages