Generalized and Subset Integrated Autoregressive Moving Average Bilinear Time Series Models

Generalized integrated autoregressive moving average bilinear model which is capable of achieving stationary for all non linear series is proposed and compared with subset generalized integrated autoregressive moving average bilinear model using the residual variance to see which perform better. The parameters of the proposed models are estimated using Newton-Raphson iterative method and Marquardt algorithm and the statistical properties of the derived estimates were investigated. An algorithm was proposed to eliminate redundant parameters from the full order generalized integrated autoregressive moving average bilinear models. To determine the order of the models, Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) were adopted. Generalized integrated autoregressive moving average bilinear models are fitted to Wolfer sunspot numbers and stationary conditions are satisfied. Generalized integrated autoregressive moving average bilinear model performed better than subset generalized integrated autoregressive bilinear model. Keywords: Stationary, Newton-Raphson, Residual Variance, Marquardt Algorithm and Parameters

Inflationary Trend in Basic Amenities in Ibadan Oyo State, Nigeria using Price Indices

Trend of inflation was studied using price indices gotten from market survey conducted on the prices of food, clothes and building materials collected from major  markets in Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria in 2004 and 2014, 2004 being the base year. The price indices used were Laspeyres’, Paache’s, Fisher’s Ideal (FI) and Dorbey’s and Bowley’s (DB) with emphasis on Fisher’s and DB because of their advantages over others. A well-structured questionnaire was used to collect data on prices of food, clothes and building materials in these markets in 2004 and 2014. The results showed an increase between 40.27 and 460.26% increase in the prices of food items; an increase between 13.93 and 84.04% in the price of food items (provisions) except custard with a reduction of 15%; an increase between 11.2 and 100% in prices of cloths except ankara with less than 8% reduction in price and an increase between 5.9 and 69.7% in the price of building materials. Since price change affects planning, especially when citizen are face with stable income, efforts must be made by relevant authorities to control and stabilize the prices of these commodities. Keywords: Inflation, Basic amenities, Market survey, Price indices, Ibada

Performance Evaluation of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) in Nigerian Banking Institution: A Case Study of First Bank of Nigeria Plc. Ibadan

This paper evaluates the performance of ATM machine in Nigeria banking sector using queue theory model. A few simple queues-models were analysed in terms of steady-state derivation. Theoretical formulations and results (with real-life dataset) were established for queue models with Poisson arrivals and exponential service durations. Derivation and calculation of some performance measure including the average queue length, average waiting time in the queue and in the system, and the probability of encountering the system in certain states such as empty, full having an available server or having to wait a certain time to be served were explored under single and multi-server. FIFO (first in, first out) queue discipline was adopted. Keywords: Steady state, waiting-time, queue-discipline, multi-severs, FIFO (first in, first out)

On the use of Locality for Improving SVM-Based Spam Filtering

Recent growths in the use of email for communication and the corresponding growths in the volume of email received have made automatic processing of emails desirable. In tandem is the prevailing problem of Advance Fee fraud E-mails that pervades inboxes globally. These genres of e-mails solicit for financial transactions and funds transfers from unsuspecting users. Most modern mail-reading software packages provide some forms of programmable automatic filtering, typically in the form of sets of rules that file or otherwise dispose mails based on keywords detected in the headers or message body. Unfortunately programming these filters is an arcane and sometimes inefficient process. An adaptive mail system which can learn its users’ mail sorting preferences would therefore be more desirable. Premised on the work of Blanzieri & Bryl (2007), we proposes a framework dedicated to the phenomenon of locality in email data analysis of advance fee fraud e-mails which engages Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier for building local decision rules into the classification process of the spam filter design for this genre of e-mails

Isothiourea-catalysed acylative kinetic resolution of aryl-alkenyl (sp2 vs. sp2) substituted secondary alcohols

We would like to thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and CRITICAT Centre for Doctoral Training [Ph.D. studentship to S.F.M.; Grant code: EP/L016419/1 and EP/J018139/1] and The Leverhulme Trust [Early Career Fellowship to J.E.T.; ECF-2014-005] for financial support. A.D.S. thanks the Royal Society for a Wolfson Merit Award.The non-enzymatic acylative kinetic resolution of challenging aryl–alkenyl (sp2 vs. sp2) substituted secondary alcohols is described, with effective enantiodiscrimination achieved using the isothiourea organocatalyst HyperBTM (1 mol %) and isobutyric anhydride. The kinetic resolution of a wide range of aryl–alkenyl substituted alcohols has been evaluated, with either electron-rich or naphthyl aryl substituents in combination with an unsubstituted vinyl substituent providing the highest selectivity (S=2–1980). The use of this protocol for the gram-scale (2.5 g) kinetic resolution of a model aryl–vinyl (sp2 vs. sp2) substituted secondary alcohol is demonstrated, giving access to >1 g of each of the product enantiomers both in 99:1 e.r.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Assessment of Agroforestry Practices in Ago-Owu Forest Reserve, Ayedaade Local Government area, Osun State, South-western Nigeria

Agroforestry is a collective name for land use systems and practices in which woody perennials are integrated with food crop and forestry, either in a spatial mixture or in a temporal sequence and there are normally both ecological and economic interactions between woody and non woody components. This study investigated types of agroforestry practiced, the impact of agroforestry on the lives of people, assessed the impact of agroforestry on the environment, and identified possible problems associated with agroforestry system in Ago-owu Forest Reserve, Ayedaade Local Government area of Osun State, Nigeria by collecting samples from Mokore, Ajegunle and Alabameta villages using verified methods. Sampling intensity of 10% for population below 500, 5% sampling intensity for population between 500 and 1000 and 2.5% sampling intensity for the population above 1000. A total of eighty (80) questionnaires were administered, thirty copies of questionnaires were distributed both in Mokore and Ajegunle and twenty in Alabameta. The result was analysed using Descriptive Statistics such as frequency tables, percentages, bar chart and Chi square. The result showed that 47.5 % of the respondents are involved in Agri-silviculture. The benefits derived from agroforestry was also unfolded, they are medicinal (11.25%), Income generation (52.5%), production of food crop (33.75%) and non-timber forest products generation (2.5%). The impact of agroforestry to the environment includes Soil erosion control (48.75%), Soil stabilization (31.25%), and (Stable environment 20%)

Cytogenetic Effects of Radiation from Projector on Meristematic Cells of Allium Cepa (Onions) Root

The objective of this study is to evaluate the cytogenetic consequences of exposing root tips of Allium cepa (onion) to varying distances and durations of radiation from the projector and treatment with sodium azide and distilled water using standard methods. The sodium azide and distilled water served as positive and negative controls respectively. Results obtained in this study revealed that radiations from the projector induced eleven chromosomal aberrations which included; binucleate cells, sticky chromosomes, vacuolated cells, star metaphase, bride chromosome, vagrant chromosome, faculty polarity, C-mitosis, spindle fibre disturbance, ghost cells, and fragmented chromosomes. This suggests that radiation from the projector poses danger to genetic systems. The higher mitotic index of irradiated onion root tip cells compared to negative control groups indicates that radiation from the projector exhibited a promontory effect on cell division. The findings in this study revealed that exposing cells to radiation beyond 20cm from projector reduced its potencies to induce aberrations as well as distortion of mitotic cell division cycles irrespective of the duration of exposure. This suggests that the genotoxic effects of radiations from a projector depend more on distance than the duration of exposure

Porphyromonas gingivalis initiates a mesenchymal-like transition through ZEB1 in gingival epithelial cells

The oral anaerobe Porphyromonas gingivalis is associated with the development of cancers including oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Here we show that infection of gingival epithelial cells with P. gingivalis induces expression and nuclear localization of the ZEB1 transcription factor which controls epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT). P. gingivalis also caused an increase in ZEB1 expression as a dual species community with Fusobacterium nucleatum or Streptococcus gordonii. Increased ZEB1 expression was associated with elevated ZEB1 promoter activity and did not require suppression of the miR-200 family of micro RNAs. P. gingivalis strains lacking the FimA fimbrial protein were attenuated in their ability to induce ZEB1 expression. ZEB1 levels correlated with an increase in expression of mesenchymal markers, including vimentin and MMP-9, and with enhanced migration of epithelial cells into matrigel. Knockdown of ZEB1 with siRNA prevented the P. gingivalis-induced increase in mesenchymal markers and epithelial cell migration. Oral infection of mice by P. gingivalis increased ZEB1 levels in gingival tissues, and intracellular P. gingivalis were detected by antibody staining in biopsy samples from OSCC. These findings indicate that FimA-driven ZEB1 expression could provide a mechanistic basis for a P. gingivalis contribution to OSCC

Geophysical Investigation of Part of Ahmadu Bello University Farm, Nigeria

Geophysical methods are becoming an increasingly valuable tool even for agricultural applications. Agricultural  geophysics investigations are commonly focused on delineating small- and/or large-scale objects/features within the soil profile (````````~ 0 to 2 m depth) over very large areas. The study was carried out at a farm site in Ahmadu Bello University, to delineate subsurface structures with depth. It revealed the lithological units in the study area. The analyses has revealed various lithological units from the results of the inverted sections along the profiles. The study area has shown clearly two distinct layers, overburden and weathered basement. The overburden layer is clayey sand, sandy clay, and laterite. This laterite soil show very high resistivity anomaly that may be referred to as consolidated laterite. The weathered layer which contains medium grained sand with clay and feldspar materials also has the presence of fractured part that could act as the aquifer in the area. From the subsurface properties, this farm land may have low agricultural yield or may limit the cultivation potential of the region, but the region may be good for underground water yield

Ensemble averaging using remote sensing data to model spatiotemporal PM10 concentrations in sparsely monitored South Africa

There is a paucity of air quality data in sub-Saharan African countries to inform science driven air quality management and epidemiological studies. We investigated the use of available remote-sensing aerosol optical depth (AOD) data to develop spatially and temporally resolved models to predict daily particulate matter (PM10) concentrations across four provinces of South Africa (Gauteng, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape) for the year 2016 in a two-staged approach. In stage 1, a Random Forest (RF) model was used to impute Multiangle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction AOD data for days where it was missing. In stage 2, the machine learner algorithms RF, Gradient Boosting and Support Vector Regression were used to model the relationship between ground-monitored PM10 data, AOD and other spatial and temporal predictors. These were subsequently combined in an ensemble model to predict daily PM10 concentrations at 1 km x 1 km spatial resolution across the four provinces. An out-of-bag R(2) of 0.96 was achieved for the first stage model. The stage 2 cross-validated (CV) ensemble model captured 0.84 variability in ground-monitored PM10 with a spatial CV R(2) of 0.48 and temporal CV R(2) of 0.80. The stage 2 model indicated an optimal performance of the daily predictions when aggregated to monthly and annual means. Our results suggest that a combination of remote sensing data, chemical transport model estimates and other spatiotemporal predictors has the potential to improve air quality exposure data in South Africa's major industrial provinces. In particular, the use of a combined ensemble approach was found to be useful for this area with limited availability of air pollution ground monitoring data