Environmental and Public Health Issues of Animal Food Products Delivery System in Imo State, Nigeria

Information on livestock movement, animal food products processing facilities, meat inspection methods, official meat inspection records and distribution and marketing systems for processed products in Imo state, Nigeria needed for policy development interventions in the sector are not fully understood. The primary data generated with the aid of personal interviews, field observations and secondary data obtained from records accumulated by the department of veterinary services Imo state from 2001 to 2004 were used to investigate the environmental and public health issues of animal food products delivery system in state. Majority of trade animals supplied to the state originated from the northern states of the country and were brought in with trucks by road. Only two veterinary control posts served the whole state thus resulting in non-inspection and taxing of a large proportion of trade animals. Official record of trade animals supplied to the state from 2001 to 2004 ranged from 45000 – 144000 for cattle, 23000 – 96000 for goats and 11000 – 72000 for sheep per annum, with supplies increasing steadily across the years. Official slaughter points in the state were principally low-grade quality slaughter premises consisting of a thin concrete slab. Meat handling was very unhygienic with carcasses dressed beside refuse heaps of over 2 years standing. Carcasses were dragged on the ground and transported in taxi boots and open trucks. Meat inspection at these points was not thorough because of stiff resistance of butchers to carcass condemnation. Official meat inspection records for the state from 2001 to 2004 revealed that overall totals of 159,000 cattle, 101,000 goats and 67,000 sheep were slaughtered. This accounted for about 56, 57 and 57% shortfall of cattle, goat and sheep respectively supplied to the state and represents the volume of un-inspected animals during the study period. Fascioliasis and tuberculosis were the most common infections encountered in cattle and recorded percentage occurrences of 16.7 and 7.5 respectively, whereas mastitis was common in goats and sheep at percentage occurrences of 5.8 and 5.0 respectively. Overall prevalence rates of 4.4, 8.0, 3.2, 3.3 and 1.5% were recorded for tuberculosis, fascioliasis, streptotricosis, mastitis and worms respectively. Animal food products delivery in Imo state needs to be improved upon in order to safeguarded the health of consumer

Expert knowledge elicitation in the firefighting domain and the implications for training novices

Background/Purpose: Experienced fireground commanders are often required to make important decisions in time-pressured and dynamic environments that are characterized by a wide range of task constraints. The nature of these environments is such that firefighters are sometimes faced with novel situations that seek to challenge their expertise and therefore necessitate making knowledge-based as opposed to rule-based decisions. The purpose of this study is to elicit the tacitly held knowledge which largely underpinned expert competence when managing non-routine fire incidents. Design/Methodology/Approach: The study utilized a formal knowledge elicitation tool known as the critical decision method (CDM). The CDM method was preferred to other cognitive task analysis (CTA) methods as it is specifically designed to probe the cognitive strategies of domain experts with reference to a single incident that was both challenging and memorable. Thirty experienced firefighters and one staff development officer were interviewed in-depth across different fire stations in the UK and Nigeria (UK=15, Nigeria=16). The interview transcripts were analyzed using the emergent themes analysis (ETA) approach. Findings: Findings from the study revealed 42 salient cues that were sought by experts at each decision point. A critical cue inventory (CCI) was developed and cues were categorized into five distinct types based on the type of information each cue generated to an incident commander. The study also developed a decision making model — information filtering and intuitive decision making model (IFID), which describes how the experienced firefighters were able to make difficult fireground decisions amidst multiple informational sources without having to deliberate on their courses of action. The study also compiled and indexed the elicited tacit knowledge into a competence assessment framework (CAF) with which the competence of future incident commanders could potentially be assessed. Practical Implications: Through the knowledge elicitation process, training needs were identified, and the practical implications for transferring the elicited experts’ knowledge to novice firefighters were also discussed. The four component instructional design model aided the conceptualization of the CDM outputs for training purposes. Originality/Value: Although it is widely believed that experts perform exceptionally well in their domains of practice, the difficulty still lies in finding how best to unmask expert (tacit) knowledge, particularly when it is intended for training purposes. Since tacit knowledge operates in the unconscious realm, articulating and describing it has been shown to be challenging even for experts themselves. This study is therefore timely since its outputs can facilitate the development of training curricula for novices, who then will not have to wait for real fires to occur before learning new skills. This statement holds true particularly in this era where the rate of real fires and therefore the opportunity to gain experience has been on a decline. The current study also presents and discusses insights based on the cultural differences that were observed between the UK and the Nigerian fire service

The Political Ecology of the Niger Delta Crisis and the Prospects of Lasting Peace in the Post-Amnesty Period

This paper attempts to look at the Niger Delta Crisis from a socio-politico-ecological perspective By way of deductive reasoning premised on the theory of existentialism the paper observes that the restiveness violence as well as criminality of the people of the Niger Delta represent their desperate struggle for self-preservation and selfdetermination in an environment that is indifferent and hostile to their sustainable livelihood and survival The paper thus submits quite pessimistically that the Niger Delta crisis will prevail until and unless the organic context which precipitates it characterized by ecocide state predation corporate buccaneerism environmental and human rights abuse socioeconomic and political marginalization economic expl oitation etc is comprehensively and adequately transforme

Optimal Growth and Characterization of Cobalt Sulphide Thin Films Fabricated Using the Chemical Bath Deposition Technique

In this work, chemical bath deposition technique was used to deposit thin films of cobalt sulphide on glass substrate from the aqueous solution containing 1M of cobalt chloride, 1M of thiourea, 1M of ammonia and 1M of ethylene diamine tetra acetate (EDTA) which served as the complexing agent. The optical measurement was carried out on the deposited films using M501 single beam scanning UV/visible spectrophotometer. The results show that the films have high absorbance towards the UV-region whereas it recorded low transmittance value in the same region. The films also exhibited poor reflectance value towards the UV-region. The band gap energy value was found to be 1.72eV. The films were observed to have thickness value range of 1.122µm to 1.152µm. These properties made the material to be a good candidate for photovoltaic and opto-electronic applications. Keywords:Cobaltsulphide, absorbance, transmittance,reflectance, solid state property, band gap energy, thin fil

Validation of the polysemen admixture on viability and acrosomal morphology of boar spermatozoa

Semen were collected using artificial vagina (AV), from 5 large white boars aged 2-2.5 years twice a week for 16 weeks in each of the two seasons, early rainy (ER) and late rainy (LR) seasons, to determine the effects of multiple semen pool admixture on the viability and acrosomal morphology. The semen qualities studied were sperm motility, live sperm and sperm concentration, while the acrosomal parameters includes normal apical ridge (NAR), damaged apical ridge (DAR), missing apical ridge (MAR) and loose apical ridge (LAC). There were no significant (P>0.05) seasonal effects. Three-boar semen admixture gave the highest percentage NAR, motility, live sperm concentration and least DAR and LAC, although these were not significantly (P>0.05) different from the 2-boar semen admixture. The result of this study suggests that 3-boar semen admixture is most suitable for use in artificial insemination program

Frequency Of Isolation Of Salmonella From Commercial Poultry Feeds And Their Anti-Microbial Resistance Profiles, Imo State, Nigeria

This study was conducted to determine the frequency of isolation of salmonella and their microbial resistance profiles across different commercial poultry feeds sold in Imo State, Nigeria. Thirty-six bulk feed samples were colleted from 154 bag across different feed types and brands which included Guinea (GF), Top (TF), Vital (VF), Extra (EF), Animal care (AF) and livestock (LF) feeds. The salmonella isolated were tested against 14 anti-microbial drugs using the disc diffusion method. Bacterial load enumeration of the samples indicated a range of <30 colony forming unit (CFU) to overgrowth at 104 serial dilutions. Eight feed samples (22.2%) which cuts across the entire feed brands expect EF were positive for salmonella. The highest prevalence of 28.8% and 25.0% were recorded for LF and TF respectively, while VF, GF and AF had 11.1 and 10.0% respectively. Salmonella isolates showed high rates of resistance (51-100%) against nitrofurantoin, ampicillin, tetracycline and ceftriazole, while moderate rates (31-50%) were recorded for chloramphenicol, oxfloxacin and cotrimoxazole. Low resistance rates (1-30%) were on the other hand recorded against ciprofloxacin and amoxycillin clavulanate (Augumentine), whereas zero resistance was demonstrated against pefloxacin, gentamycin, streptomycin and nalidixic. Commercial feeds form important channels for the dissemination of multi-drug resistant salmonella in Imo State, Nigeria

A Guide to Conducting a Standalone Systematic Literature Review

Many scholars are not well trained in conducting a standalone literature review, a scholarly paper that in its entirety summarizes and synthesizes knowledge from a prior body of research. Numerous guides that exist for information systems (IS) research mainly concentrate on only certain parts of the process; few span the entire process. This paper introduces the rigorous, standardized methodology for the systematic literature review (also called systematic review) to IS scholars. This comprehensive guide extends the base methodology from the health sciences and other fields with numerous adaptations to meet the needs of methodologically diverse fields such as IS research, especially those that involve including and synthesizing both quantitative and qualitative studies. Moreover, this guide provides many examples from IS research and provides references to guides with further helpful details for conducting a rigorous and valuable literature review. Although tailored to IS research, it is sufficiently broad to be applicable and valuable to scholars from any social science field

A Legal Inquiry into the Proliferation and Control of Small Arms in Nigeria

The continual state of insecurity in Nigeria for several decades can be traced to a number of factors, including ethnic militias and religious fundamentalism. This article examines the extent to which such retrogressive phenomena are caused or fuelled by the proliferation of small arms in Nigeria. It examines the legal regime on small arms, non-legal but relevant societal issues and police powers as they concern the control of small arms proliferation in Nigeria. It argues that the extant legal regime is not robust enough to support any sustainable progress in this area. Also, it concludes that apart from a critical police overhaul and necessary municipal legislative action as influenced by international legal developments, practical policies and economic empowerment must be in place with a view to attaining sustainable development in the area of small arms control