Price Transmission, Volatility and Discovery of Gram in Some Selected Markets in Rajathan State, India

Market integration in many agricultural commodities had been extensively studied for the insight it provides into the functioning of such markets, thus giving valuable information about the dynamics of market adjustment, and whether there exist market imperfection, which may justify government intervention. This study empirically investigated price transmission, volatility and discovery of gram across four wholesale gram markets, viz. Jaipur, Kishangarh, Chomu and Malpura in Rajasthan state of India using Johansen's multivariate cointegration approach, VECM, Granger causality tests, GARCH, EGARCH and ARIMA. Monthly wholesale gram price data spanning from January 2011 to December 2015 sourced from AGMARKNET were used. Multivariate cointegration showed that all the selected gram markets were cointegarted in the long-run, meaning long-run price association among these markets. The degree of market integration observed is consistent with the view that Rajasthan state gram markets are quite competitive; thus, provide little justification for extensive and costly government intervention designed to enhance market efficiency through improve competitiveness. Therefore, in order to sustain the present system of market integration, there is need to evolve mechanism that will generate market information and market intelligence which would serve as a platform for guiding farmers in marketing their produce

Mediating effect of positive psychological strength, study skills on examination anxiety among nigerian college students

Examination plays a vital role in the present contemporary educational setting as well as serving as an indicator and yardstick to place students in relation to their examination scores after they undergo the examination. However, students at different educational levels experience examination anxiety, which can interfere with making right decisions either before or during examinations and is considered to be a phenomenon associated with low examination scores. Therefore, the present research study was aimed at determining the mediating effect of positive psychological strengths between study skills and examination anxiety among Nigerian college students. The study employed survey research on 315 Nigerian college students. The result of the path analysis shows that study skills (SSK) have a significant and direct relationship on examination anxiety. The mediation between positive psychological strength (PPS) and examination anxiety is identified as being effective and significant. Therefore, positive psychological strength (PPS) acts as an effective mediator towards examination anxiety

Stress assessment in captive greylag geese (<em>Anser anser</em>)

Chronic stress—or, more appropriately, “allostatic overload”—may be physiologically harmful and can cause death in the most severe cases. Animals in captivity are thought to be particularly vulnerable to allostatic overload due to artificial housing and group makeup. Here we attempted to determine if captive greylag geese (Anser anser), housed lifelong in captivity, showed elevated levels of immunoreactive corticosterone metabolites (CORT) and ectoparasites in dropping samples as well as some hematological parameters (hematocrit, packed cell volume, total white blood cell count [TWBC], and heterophil:lymphocyte ratio [H:L]). All of these have been measured as indicators of chronic stress. Furthermore, we correlated the various stress parameters within individuals. Captive geese showed elevated values of CORT and ectoparasites relative to a wild population sampled in the vicinity of the area where the captive flock is held. The elevated levels, however, were by no means at a pathological level and fall well into the range of other published values in wild greylag geese. We found no correlations between any of the variables measured from droppings with any of the ones collected from blood. Among the blood parameters, only the H:L negatively correlated with TWBC. We examine the problem of inferring allostatic overload when measuring only 1 stress parameter, as there is no consistency between various measurements taken. We discuss the different aspects of each of the parameters measured and the extensive individual variation in response to stress as well as the timing at which different systems respond to a stressor and what is actually measured at the time of data collection. We conclude that measuring only 1 stress parameter often is insufficient to evaluate the well-being of both wild and captively housed animals and that collecting behavioral data on stress might be a suitable addition

Optimization and Non-Linear Identification of Reservoir Water Flooding Process

In this study, dynamic optimization and identification of petroleum reservoir waterflooding using receding horizon (RH) principles was examined. Two forms of the strategy were compared on a realistic reservoir model. Sequential quadratic programming (SQP) was applied to optimize net present value (NPV) using water injection rates as the variables. MRST from SINTEF was used for the reservoir modeling. The identification of the reservoir was performed using nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) neural network from MATLAB. Data for the network training and validation was obtained by carrying out a numerical experiment on a high fidelity model of the reservoir. This model was developed with Eclipse Reservoir Simulator from Schlumberger. From the results obtained, moving-end RH gave a higher NPV than fixed-end RH with a margin of $0.5 billion. The identification algorithm was very much effective and near perfect for the studied reservoir

Typhoid ileal perforation in a semi-urban tertiary health institution in north-eastern Nigeria

Introduction: Typhoid ileal perforation is a very serious complication of typhoid fever and remains a significant surgical problem in developing countries like Nigeria, where it is associated with higher mortality and morbidity, due to lack of adequate clean drinking water, poor sanitation and lack of access to health facilities in remote areas and delays in hospital presentation.Materials and methods: This was a retrospective study; all patients treated for typhoid ileal perforation at the centre in the period from January to December 2016 were included.Results: There were 22 (59.5%) males and 15 (40.5%) females, with a male to female ratio of 1.5: 1. The ages ranged from 5 to 49 years with mean of 16.5± 9.2 years. The month of October recorded the highest cases of typhoid ileal perforation. Abdominal pain, anorexia, fever and abdominal swelling were the most common symptoms reported by the subjects. The number of ileal perforations was from 1 to 7 with mean of 2.0 ± 1.3; however, the majority had a single perforation. In addition, excision and simple closure was the most common surgery performed in these cases. Operation site infection was the most common complication in this study. Furthermore, the majority of cases were successfully discharged while eight deaths were recorded.Conclusion: Typhoid ileal perforation was most common among males; abdominal pain, swelling and fever were common findings; single site perforation was the most common intra-operative findings and excision and simple closure was the most common operative procedure. Therefore early presentation, adequate resuscitation and lower number of ileal perforations are associated with better prognosis