Evaluation of HIV health services in Lagos State: an empirical study

This paper investigates the efficiency of a particular health service (specifically HIV/AIDS counselling and testing centres (HCT) in Lagos State, Nigeria). A survey of 958 students, aged between 15-25, was carried out in Lagos State secondary schools and Lagos State University, in conjunction with the Lagos State Ministry of Education, Guidance and Counselling Unit. It was found that there was a low awareness about HIV testing and counselling activities in all the Lagos State divisions. This result suggests that Lagos State students remain vulnerable and that HCT centres are less organized than they could be and it proposes that knowledge management (KM) initiatives be adopted to increase both efficiency and effectiveness of efforts for this essential health service

HIV/AIDS behavioural challenges in Lagos state schools: An empirical study

This paper evaluates the extent of the behavioural challenges concerning HIV/AIDS among senior secondary school (SSS) and tertiary institution students in Lagos, Nigeria. The study, part of a large research project evaluating knowledge-based HIV/AIDS education initiatives in Lagos, has been carried out in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Education. Questionnaires (n=958 copies) were administered to selected senior secondary schools in the Lagos State administrative divisions (urban and rural) and the Lagos State University (LASU). The study aimed to record information about students’ behaviour related to HIV/AIDS as this would provide information relating to the factors responsible for its transmission. This included (a) behavioural change information – BCI, (b) sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and clinical understanding (c) sexual activities (d) condom use and (e) fear of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination (HASD). The results show that the behaviour of the respondents with regard to HIV/AIDS puts them at risk of contracting the virus. We conclude by suggesting the use of Knowledge Management (KM) techniques as an appropriate modern approach to tackling the problem and that the availability of behavioural change communication (BCC) materials in all Lagos State schools should be increased

An efficient image retrieval scheme for colour enhancement of embedded and distributed surveillance images

From the past few years, the size of the data grows exponentially with respect to volume, velocity, and dimensionality due to wide spread use of embedded and distributed surveillance cameras for security reasons. In this paper, we have proposed an integrated approach for biometric-based image retrieval and processing which addresses the two issues. The first issue is related to the poor visibility of the images produced by the embedded and distributed surveillance cameras, and the second issue is concerned with the effective image retrieval based on the user query. This paper addresses the first issue by proposing an integrated image enhancement approach based on contrast enhancement and colour balancing methods. The contrast enhancement method is used to improve the contrast, while the colour balancing method helps to achieve a balanced colour. Importantly, in the colour balancing method, a new process for colour cast adjustment is introduced which relies on statistical calculation. It adjusts the colour cast and maintains the luminance of the image. The integrated image enhancement approach is applied to the enhancement of low quality images produced by surveillance cameras. The paper addresses the second issue relating to image retrieval by proposing a content-based image retrieval approach. The approach is based on the three features extraction methods namely colour, texture and shape. Colour histogram is used to extract the colour features of an image. Gabor filter is used to extract the texture features and the moment invariant is used to extract the shape features of an image. The use of these three algorithms ensures that the proposed image retrieval approach produces results which are highly relevant to the content of an image query, by taking into account the three distinct features of the image and the similarity metrics based on Euclidean measure. In order to retrieve the most relevant images, the proposed approach also employs a set of fuzzy heuristics to improve the quality of the results further. The result

Accelerating youth agri-incubators in Africa - Lessons from Nigeria

WeHub focuses on inspiring and empowering the youth to solve socio-economic challenges by leveraging technolog

MACHINE LEARNING USING A GENETIC-BASED APPROACH.

ABSRACT: A Holland learning classifier system is one of the methods for applying a genetic-based approach to machine learning applications. An enhanced version of the system that employs the Bucket-brigade algorithm to reward individuals in a chain of co-operating rules is implemented and assigned the task of learning rules for classifying simple objects. Results are presented which show that the system was able to learn rules for the task. It is argued that a classifier based learning method requires little training examples and that by its use of genetic algorithms to search for new plausible rules, the method should be able to cope with changing conditions. However, the results appear to indicate that the use of bucket-brigade as a fitness function and as a means of rewarding rules in the type of application considered needs further investigation

Promouvoir les incubateurs pour agripreneurs en Afrique - enseignements du Nigéria

WeHub entend inspirer et donner aux jeunes les moyens de résoudre les problèmes socio-économiques par la technologie

IMPROVING PERFORMANCE OF IEEE 802.11 BY A DYNAMIC CONTROL BACKOFF ALGORITHM UNDER UNSATURATED TRAFFIC LOADS

The IEEE 802.11 backoff algorithm is very important for controlling system throughput over contentionbased wireless networks. For this reason, there are many studies on wireless network performance focus on developing backoff algorithms. However, most existing models are based on saturated traffic loads, which are not a real representation of actual network conditions. In this paper, a dynamic control backoff time algorithm is proposed to enhance both delay and throughput performance of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordination function. This algorithm considers the distinction between high and low traffic loads in order to deal with unsaturated traffic load conditions. In particular, the equilibrium point analysis model is used to represent the algorithm under various traffic load conditions. Results of extensive simulation experiments illustrate that the proposed algorithm yields better performance throughput and a better average transmission packet delay than related algorithms.Comment: 9pages,6figures,2015, International Journal of Wireless & Mobile Networks (IJWMN) Vol. 7, No. 6, December 201

Content-based image retrieval approach for biometric security using colour, texture and shape features controlled by fuzzy heuristics

AbstractIn this paper, we discuss a new content-based image retrieval approach for biometric security, which is based on colour, texture and shape features and controlled by fuzzy heuristics. The proposed approach is based on the three well-known algorithms: colour histogram, texture and moment invariants. The use of these three algorithms ensures that the proposed image retrieval approach produces results which are highly relevant to the content of an image query, by taking into account the three distinct features of the image and similarity metrics based on Euclidean measure. Colour histogram is used to extract the colour features of an image. Gabor filter is used to extract the texture features and the moment invariant is used to extract the shape features of an image. The evaluation of the proposed approach is carried out using the standard precision and recall measures, and the results are compared with the well-known existing approaches. We present results which show that our proposed approach performs better than these approaches