The causes and prevalence of road traffic accidents amongst commercial long distance drivers in Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria

The prevalence of road traffic accidents is on the rise, thus contributing to morbidity and mortality. In the year 2000, road traffic injuries was the 11th leading cause of death globally, currently, it is the 9th leading cause of death. Despite the tragedy behind the loss of life and injuries due to road traffic crashes, there is less mass media attention and public awareness than other less frequent types of tragedy. This study was done to assess the causes and prevalence of road traffic accidents among commercial long distance drivers in Benin City.A descriptive cross sectional study design was used, and data was collected from 315 commercial long distance drivers and their vehicles. Study was done from January to October, 2013. Respondents were recruited using systematic random sampling technique. Study instruments included structured interviewer administered questionnaires and focus group discussion guide.The results showed that 114 (36.2%) were within the age group of 31-40 years. Ninety-one (28.9%) were in the 41-50 years age group while 18 (5.7%) fell within the 61-70 years age group. Most of the respondents 272 (86.3%) were married, 28 (8.9%) were single, 10 (3.2%) were cohabiting, while 2 (0.6%) were separated. Almost all the respondents 311 (98.7%) were males while 4 (1.3%) were surprisingly females. More than half of the respondents 172 (54.6%) had a secondary level of education, 112 (35.6%) had a primary level of education while 12 (3.8%) had no formal education. The study showed a prevalence of road traffic accidents of 47.9% in Benin City occurring more in day time and the common causes of road traffic accidents include careless driving, speed violation, brake failure, traffic violations, faulty overtaking, burst tyre, bad roads, alcohol use and armed robbery attack. Thus measures should be made to ensure proper maintenance of the roads to ensure the risk of RTA due to bad road is reduced and also provide adequate security for road users to prevent armed robbery attacks.Key Words: Road traffic accidents, determinants, crashe

3-TIER E-COMP: A NOVEL E-COMMERCE MANAGEMENT PORTAL BASED ON SECURED SDLC APPROACH

In today’s business world, there is an urgent need to develop a new approach for customer to business owner transactionssecurely. This research develops, implements, and discussed a novel 3 – Tier E-Commerce Management portal. This makesonline business very flexible and secured on the part of business owners and customers. Our proposed system seeks toreplace the conventional E-commerce models on the internet today. We argue that process logic manipulation using SecuredSoftware Development Life Cycle (SSDLCM) on Ecommerce platform is a promising scheme for studying andunderstanding script processing on the new web paradigms. In this research, we define security calculus for 3 Tier EComPwith the aim of eradicating SQL injection possibilities as well as exploiting Software as a service in a dynamic Ecommercedomain. Also, we developed a new access hierarchy for E-commerce comprising of Application layer users, designatedadministrator and super administrators in the 3 – Tier EComP. We developed a new encryption scheme based on XAMPMD5 Random Curve Cryptography (XMD5 – RCC) running on Secure Socket Layer (SSL) which protects the user andadministrators on the Ecommerce platform. The result of encryption scheme randomly generates and secures the logindetails dynamically on the server during the authentication and authorization phases. The programming was accomplishedwith PhP, and MySQL Server. The overall methodology as detailed in the body of the work could serve as good template forapplication developers and other researchers.Keywords: E-Commerce, XMD5-RCC, SSL, Platform, SSDLCM, Software, Servic

AN EVALUATION OF LEGACY 3-TIER DATACENTER NETWORKS FOR ENTERPRISE COMPUTING USING MATHEMATICAL INDUCTION ALGORITHM

In today’s internet computing, regardless of the scale of infrastructural integrations, the design Cost, QoS, powermanagement etc, largely plays a role in the choice of design. In this paper, we present the limitations of traditional DataCenter Networks (DCN) for efficient web application integration in enterprise organisations. We carried out an in-depthstudy on typical enterprise DCNs viz: University of Nigeria DCN and Swift Network DCN Lagos state, seeking to ascertainthe limitations of the traditional DCN with respect to throughput, latency, scalability, efficiency in web applicationintegration, etc in QoS context. Microtic Server and Ethereal Wireshack were employed for traffic trend observation andpacket captures on a monitoring Dell Inspiron laptop connected to the UNN DCN. The traffic graphs were captured,computed and analysed. From the results obtained, deductions were derived while articulating on the limitations of thesenetworks. Using mathematical induction theorem, we show that for any introduced network enhancer, this will enable sucha network to scale optimally. In this regard, this work opines that for large scale enterprise computing, collapsing a three tiernetwork models into a low cost two-tier model using virtualization and consolidation will be widely celebrated. These formsthe basis for our future work on a re-engineered DCN for enterprise web application integrations.Keywords: Internet, Computing, Efficiency, Application, Ethereal, Wireshack, Enterpris

Using Software Engineering Approach in Mitigating QoS Challenges in Mobile Communication Networks in Nigeria

As a result of telecommunication poor Quality of Service (QoS) in Nigeria with respect to voice ,data and video services, several works have been carried out using approaches such as drive test, survey design with statistical computation techniques, modeling simulation, etc. These have been employed to carry out comprehensive evaluation and optimization of Quality of Service (QoS) of Mobile Cellular Networks in Nigeria. In this context, there are five major Key Performance Indices (KPIs) which are usually considered for the evaluation, viz: Call Setup Success Rate (CSSR), Call Completion Rate (CCR), Call Drop Rate (CDR), Call Handover Success Rate (CHSR) and Standalone Dedicated Control Channel (SDCCH). In this paper, following data collated from a recently conducted drive test KPIs, we leveraged software engineering SDLC concepts, particularly using JAVA programming language to develop an optimization drive test plant for improving QoS thresholds by service providers. A test dataset for the months of April and March 2012 was used in the drive test plant design. In this regard, the raw data set, the optimized dataset and the normalized data sets were shown in the drive test plant. Relevant flowcharts were developed and discussed in the context of the drive test plant. This work argued that with the drive test plant properly integrated into the vendors Mobile Switching Centers (MSC), the QoS thresholds by NCC will be satisfied. Consequently, this work calls for a mobile community driven responses while future work will focus on integration validations necessary to boost the performance of the KPIs in order to guarantee a better Quality of Service.Keywords: Quality of Service, Cellular, Networks, Software Engineering, Thresholds, Validations, Optimization

CHARACTERIZATION OF HOTSPOT COVERAGE PLAN IN 2.4/ 5GHZ FREQUENCY BAND (NNAMDI AZIKIWE UNIVERSITY, NIGERIA, AS A CASE STUDY)

Research and tertiary institutions today uses wireless connectivity owing to the benefits of mobility flow-awarecommunication and flexibility advantages generally. In this case, mobility computing involving the use of smartdevices, laptops, wifi-desktops, etc, largely depends on a deployed hotspot infrastructure. In particular, the physicalposition of the mobile system (and hence of the user) and the hotspot infrastructure design layout are fundamentalconsiderations for service efficiency. While previous works have focused on user position estimation, signal strengthquality and network QoS, this work leverages the contemporary challenges of network connectivity in tertiaryinstitutions in Nigeria with respect to optimal coverage and cost minimization. Using Nnamdi Azikiwe University-Unizik, Awka as testbed, we carried out a study on hotspot/WLAN IEEE 802.11 deployments while devising a costeffective coverage plan in 2,4/5GHz frequency band. A mathematical model on cost optimization for WLANHotpot project processes was developed using Linear programming, the installation procedure, coverage plan basedon specifications of the deployment hardware, and data security were covered in this work. Consequently, from themodel, we argue that with careful selection of optimization criteria in the deployment, an efficient design cost plan,and QoS, could eliminate possible trade-offs in the deployment contexts by over 95%.Keywords: Mobility, Flow-aware, Hotspot, Infrastructure, Optimization, Design, Minimizatio

Effects of a high-dose 24-h infusion of tranexamic acid on death and thromboembolic events in patients with acute gastrointestinal bleeding (HALT-IT): an international randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

Background: Tranexamic acid reduces surgical bleeding and reduces death due to bleeding in patients with trauma. Meta-analyses of small trials show that tranexamic acid might decrease deaths from gastrointestinal bleeding. We aimed to assess the effects of tranexamic acid in patients with gastrointestinal bleeding. Methods: We did an international, multicentre, randomised, placebo-controlled trial in 164 hospitals in 15 countries. Patients were enrolled if the responsible clinician was uncertain whether to use tranexamic acid, were aged above the minimum age considered an adult in their country (either aged 16 years and older or aged 18 years and older), and had significant (defined as at risk of bleeding to death) upper or lower gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients were randomly assigned by selection of a numbered treatment pack from a box containing eight packs that were identical apart from the pack number. Patients received either a loading dose of 1 g tranexamic acid, which was added to 100 mL infusion bag of 0·9% sodium chloride and infused by slow intravenous injection over 10 min, followed by a maintenance dose of 3 g tranexamic acid added to 1 L of any isotonic intravenous solution and infused at 125 mg/h for 24 h, or placebo (sodium chloride 0·9%). Patients, caregivers, and those assessing outcomes were masked to allocation. The primary outcome was death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation; analysis excluded patients who received neither dose of the allocated treatment and those for whom outcome data on death were unavailable. This trial was registered with Current Controlled Trials, ISRCTN11225767, and ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01658124. Findings: Between July 4, 2013, and June 21, 2019, we randomly allocated 12 009 patients to receive tranexamic acid (5994, 49·9%) or matching placebo (6015, 50·1%), of whom 11 952 (99·5%) received the first dose of the allocated treatment. Death due to bleeding within 5 days of randomisation occurred in 222 (4%) of 5956 patients in the tranexamic acid group and in 226 (4%) of 5981 patients in the placebo group (risk ratio [RR] 0·99, 95% CI 0·82–1·18). Arterial thromboembolic events (myocardial infarction or stroke) were similar in the tranexamic acid group and placebo group (42 [0·7%] of 5952 vs 46 [0·8%] of 5977; 0·92; 0·60 to 1·39). Venous thromboembolic events (deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism) were higher in tranexamic acid group than in the placebo group (48 [0·8%] of 5952 vs 26 [0·4%] of 5977; RR 1·85; 95% CI 1·15 to 2·98). Interpretation: We found that tranexamic acid did not reduce death from gastrointestinal bleeding. On the basis of our results, tranexamic acid should not be used for the treatment of gastrointestinal bleeding outside the context of a randomised trial

Towards cloud energy metering system with 32 bit FPGA device architecture

Cloud based Advanced Metering Infrastructure (CAMI) is the next digital future for energy  management (EM). Various efforts on EM capabilities are mainly skewed towards embedded device  architectures that support non-concurrent execution. This paper presents cloud energy metering system  (CEMS) using high speed 32 bit field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. The architectural  framework for energy tracking and profile measurement in CEMS is presented. This aims at accurate  metering with demand side management (DSM). An application context that supports an EM  architecture is highlighted. The contextual CEMS features energy monitoring in distributed energy  utilities such as solar generators, wind and energy storage sources. Process integration with Cloud  based Internet for real-time energy reading is achieved through the FPGA synthesis to provide end-to-end energy analytics. CEM prototype (Xilinx FPGA) running on a wireless open-access research  platform supports management of large historical data-sets from the current data up to the last granular  interval, hourly, daily, monthly and yearly dataset captures. The system provides the low latency  datasets in both tabular and graphical forms for end-user visualization of energy consumption patterns.  In the experimental setup, three case scenarios demonstrate how the metering system executes fast  edge computing profiling, thereby providing data-visualization services to end-users. The results show  the Avg. Latency time for CAMI household 1, 2 and 3 respectively. In case 1, the average latencies for  actual and measured (proposed CAMI) are 75% and 25% respectively. In case 2 and case 3, this gave  66.67% and 33.33% respectively. Clearly, the proposed CAMI offers lower latency for all scenarios of  energy consumption metering usage.Keywords: Advanced Metering, Energy management, Cyber-physical systems, Cloud Computing,  IoT, Fog. 1.0 INTRODUCTIO

Nonlinear damper design for a vibration isolation system

In this paper, vibration transmissibility of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) for a mass-springdamper system is presented. This is done with a linear damper having a configuration perpendicular to a linear vertical spring. The method is analyzed using a nonlinear frequency analysis approach. The concept of the output frequency response function (OFRF) is used to derive an explicit polynomial relationship between the system output response (relative displacement of the mass) and the nonlinear damping coefficient which is the parameter of interest. With the derived OFRF polynomial, various damping parameters were designed for desired output responses. Real-time experimental results are presented for the vibration isolation system validation with dampers orientated perpendicularly (at 90 degrees) to the linear spring. The experimental case studies are provided to demonstrate the new OFRFbased nonlinear system design and its significance in isolated vibration system applications. A force transmissibility graph showing the system output using both numerical and the OFRF methods are presented.N/

Geometric nonlinear damper design — A frequency based approach

In this study, the vibration transmissibility of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) with a linear damper having a configuration perpendicular to a linear vertical spring is analyzed using a nonlinear frequency analysis method. The concept of the output frequency response function (OFRF) is employed to derive an explicit polynomial relationship between the system output response (relative displacement of the mass) and the parameter of interest which is the nonlinear damping coefficient. With the derived OFRF polynomial, various damping parameters were designed for desired output responses.N/

Computational Robotics: An Alternative Approach for Predicting Terrorist Networks

Increasing terrorist activities globally have attracted the attention of many researchers, policy makers and security agencies towards counterterrorism. The clandestine nature of terrorist networks have made them difficult for detection. Existing works have failed to explore computational characterization to design an efficient threat-mining surveillance system. In this paper, a computationally-aware surveillance robot that auto-generates threat information, and transmit same to the cloud-analytics engine is developed. The system offers hidden intelligence to security agencies without any form of interception by terrorist elements. A miniaturized surveillance robot with Hidden Markov Model (MSRHMM) for terrorist computational dissection is then derived. Also, the computational framework for MERHMM is discussed while showing the adjacency matrix of terrorist network as a determinant factor for its operation. The model indicates that the terrorist network have a property of symmetric adjacency matrix while the social network have both asymmetric and symmetric adjacency matrix. Similarly, the characteristic determinant of adjacency matrix as an important operator for terrorist network is computed to be -1 while that of a symmetric and an asymmetric in social network is 0 and 1 respectively. In conclusion, it was observed that the unique properties of terrorist networks such as symmetric and idempotent property conferred a special protection for the terrorist network resilience. Computational robotics is shown to have the capability of utilizing the hidden intelligence in attack prediction of terrorist elements. This concept is expected to contribute in national security challenges, defense and military intelligence