A Historical Perspective of Teacher Education in Rivers State of Nigeria: 1967-1998

Teacher education is an essential component of the educational system because teachers, among others, help to develop human capacity and implement educational policies for the realization of the nation’s objectives and goals. The development of teacher education in Rivers State, a chip of the then Eastern Nigeria that was created on 27th May, 1967 with a myriad of challenges, contributes to data on the subject in Nigeria and explains how these challenges were surmounted. From a gradual development of three Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) for primary school teachers, tertiary institutions were established to produce non-graduate and graduate teachers for secondary schools, undergraduate and post graduate teacher education. Sandwich, in-service and long-distance programmes boosted teacher education in the State. The Universal Primary Education (UPE), insistence on certification for employment in the system, and attainment of the national minimum qualification of Nigeria certificate in Education for teaching were some major factors that stimulated and sustained teacher education development between 1967 and 1998 in Rivers State

A Program Evaluation of an Apprenticeship Program using Stufflebeam’s CIPP Model

This dissertation is a program evaluation of an apprenticeship program operated by Siemens Energy, Inc. in Charlotte, North Carolina. The evaluation was based on Stufflebeam’s CIPP model of context (C), input (I), process (P), and product (P). The CIPP sought to evaluate (C) current and future objectives, (I) various strategies use to achieve the objectives, (P) the implementation of the strategies, and (P) the outcome of the program. The entire model provided insight into the effectiveness of the program and provided feedback for decision making and accountability toward current and future improvement of the program (Stufflebeam, 1971). Four questions were cultivated to align with the CIPP model. The four CIPP questions were (a) Context: How are the objectives of the program matched up with the needs of Siemens and the apprentices; (b) Input: What characteristics help apprentices finish their program? (c) Process: Are the apprentices being successfully trained; and (d) Product: What was the outcome in meeting the program’s strategic plan? The research design methodology follows several pathways. Current apprentices took the online survey of the Noel-Levitz Adult Learner Inventory. They also completed the apprentice survey and were involved in a planned interview. The management team was administered a survey and was part of an interview. Other documents and data were reviewed and analyzed such as strategic plans, current and projected sales demand, applicant and apprentice information, training materials, graduation, retention, and employment information. Based on the findings of the program evaluation, the apprenticeship program is effective and accomplishing its goals. The researcher has concluded three recommendations for consideration based on the evaluation findings: provide more support for apprentices, ensure the apprentices fully comprehend the curriculum requirements and expectations for their associate’s degree, and develop a strategic plan with a mission and vision statement

The case for metadata harvesting

Metadata harvesting is an increasingly popular model of interaction between the mutually autonomous parties of medium, medium-large federations of digital library services. With a harvesting protocol, in particular, resource descriptions locally available at each party can be served to remote applications for the implementation of federated services, such as resource discovery. This article offers a systematic explanation of the success of the model and its standard implementations in the context of current initiatives for national and international federations

Factors considered by undergraduate medical students when selecting specialty of their future careers

Introduction: medical students are the source of a country's physicians. Determining how medical students select their areas of specialization isthe key to achieve a balanced distribution of doctors among all specialties. The objective is to identify the number of medical students who havedecided their postgraduate specialty career, their career specialties preference, and factors that may influence their decision to select a particular specialty.Methods: a facility based cross-sectional study was conducted in  September 2013 at Faculty of Medicine, University of Medical Sciences and Technology, Khartoum, Sudan. A self-administered semi-structured  questionnaire comprising demographic data and questions about future specialties preferences and factors influencing those preferences was  distributed to 887 male and female students, (from first to fifth academicyears) recruited in the study.Results: response rate was 73% with 647 questionnaires collected, out of 887 eligible medical students. Of the returned questionnaires, 604 were valid. The majority of students (541, 89.6%) have chosen a specialty. Surgery, medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology were the most selected specialties. The least selected specialty was  anaesthesiology. A significant association was found between gender and specialty choice using Chi-square test (p=0.00). There was no association between undergraduate level and specialty choice (p=0.633). The most common reason for choosing a specific specialty was "Personal Interest" (215, 39.7 %) followed by being "Helpful to the community" (144, 26.6%). Conclusion: surgery, medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynecology were the most selected specialties

Best Practices for OAI Data Provider Implementations and Shareable Metadata

In summer 2004, the Digital Library Federation (DLF) sponsored a meeting at the California Digital Library. DLF and the National Science Digital Library (NSDL)-affiliated data and service providers as well as other interested individuals discussed issues about OAI PMH implementations and concerns stemming from the harvesting of metadata from diverse collections. This ad hoc working group brainstormed a large list of areas that needed guidelines or best practices and agreed to establish a wiki, hosted by the NSDL, to write a set of best practices. This work was chiefly facilitated by Kat Hagedorn of the University of Michigan, Sarah L. Shreeves of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, and Jenn Riley of Indiana University. It was part of an IMLS-funded effort to establish a training program and set of resources on the implementation of the OAI PMH for data providers and DLF member institutions. The best practices work was coordinated through weekly conference calls and twice-yearly meetings held at the DLF Forums. This document presents the best practices as they existed on the wiki as of April 2007.Sponsored by the Digital Library Federation and the National Science Digital Library (through the National Science Foundation).Ope

A review of inclusive business models and their application in aquaculture development

For aquaculture to continue along its current growth trajectory and contribute towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, value chains must become more inclusive. Smallholders and other local value chain actors are often constrained by circumstances and market failures in the global aquaculture industry. Integrating these actors into aquaculture value chains through inclusive business models (IBMs) is often touted as a solution to sustainable and ethical trade and business that can generate development outcomes. We reviewed 36 papers under seven business models commonly used in agriculture development to assess their application in aquaculture value chains in lower‐income countries. A global value chain (GVC) analysis is used to unpack the economic and social upgrading objectives of the different IBMs, as well as the types of relational coordination used between actors in the chain to achieve development outcomes. The extent to which these IBMs helped poor actors overcome certain barriers is evaluated with a focus on how they may ensure or be a risk to inclusiveness through the relations and upgrading opportunities evident in their make‐up. The analysis found that the majority of the models focused on economic upgrading over social upgrading. Providing opportunities for the latter is key to achieving the inclusive objectives of IBMs. Greater horizontal coordination between actors can create further opportunities for economic upgrading established under vertical coordination with other nodes upstream and downstream in a value chain. There is a need to further contextualize these models to aquaculture systems and develop clear indicators of inclusiveness

Adoption and farm-level impact of genetically improved farmed tilapia (GIFT) in the Philippines

Over the last four decades, the aquaculture sector especially in developing countries has experienced dramatic growth. The increase in aquaculture production is a combination of area expansion and technological change (enhanced strains, input of feed and fertilizer, and improved management). One example of such technological change is the selective breeding efforts on tilapia that were initiated in 1988 by the WorldFish Center (then ICLARM) together with (inter-)national partners. The outcome of the selective breeding effort was a tilapia strain called ”GIFT” (genetically improved farmed tilapia) which was first made available in 1993 and which showed significantly higher growth rates in on-farm trials. The strain was first adopted in the Philippines but has since been disseminated in 11 Asian countries. Ex-ante studies had shown the potential of the GIFT strain and concluded that substantial impact from GIFT and GIFT-derived strains can be expected. Our study is an ex-post assessment of the farm-level impact of GIFT and the way the technology has been disseminated and taken up. The study is based on a survey of 780 tilapia producers conducted in 2006/2007 in three different regions in Luzon, the Philippines. We analyze adoption rates of the GIFT strain and compare the performance of GIFT vs. non-GIFT strains and the impact of different factors on tilapia yields. Lastly, we evaluate the profitability of the production of GIFT vs. non-GIFT strains. Our major findings are that based on farmers’ reporting the adoption of pure GIFT strains is very low (6%), while almost half of the farmers reported to use GIFTderived strains. There is uncertainty about the genetic origin of the strains in at least 27% of the cases, and even for the GIFT and GIFT-derived strains questions remain with regard to the purity of the breed. Based on farmers’ ratings and the reported production information, the GIFT and GIFT-derived strains did not perform any better compared to other strains. This is likely to be a result of the poor management of improved strains over the last 15 years rather than a shortcoming of the original GIFT technology

Las buenas prácticas agrícolas en el sistema de innovación de la Región Andina

Presenta los resultados de la consulta realizada a distintos actores de los países de la región andina sobre la institucionalidad y competencias de las Buenas Prácticas agrícolas

Modeling and Numerical Investigation of Hot Gas Defrost on a Finned Tube Evaporator Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

Defrosting in the refrigeration industry is used to remove the frost layer accumulated on the evaporators after a period of running time. It is one way to improve the energy efficiency of refrigeration systems. There are many studies about the defrosting process but none of them use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. The purpose of this thesis is (1) to develop a defrost model using the commercial CFD solver FLUENT to simulate numerically the melting of frost coupled with the heat and mass transfer taking place during defrosting, and (2) to investigate the thermal response of the evaporator and the defrost time for different hot gas temperatures and frost densities. A 3D geometry of a finned tube evaporator is developed and meshed using Gambit 2.4.6, while numerical computations were conducted using FLUENT 12.1. The solidification and melting model is used to simulate the melting of frost and the Volume of Fluid (VOF) model is used to render the surface between the frost and melted frost during defrosting. A user-defined-function in C programming language was written to model the frost evaporation and sublimation taking place on the free surface between frost and air. The model was run under different hot gas temperatures and frost densities and the results were analyzed to show the effects of these parameters on defrosting time, input energy and stored energy in the metal mass of the evaporator. The analyses demonstrate that an optimal hot gas temperature can be identified so that the defrosting process takes place at the shortest possible melting time and with the lowest possible input energy