A SHETTLE’S METHOD MODEL FOR AUTOMATING PRECONCEPTION SEX SELECTION

The world over, and especially in Africa and Asia, couples show a preference for particular sex of children; eithermale or female. This preference may arise due to economic reasons, customs of the people, or simply for a “genderbalanced family”. Whatever the reasons, the fact still remains that couples would like to be able to choose the sex oftheir children. While there are various options to achieve sex selection, all of them are either too expensive or tooinvasive. This paper presents how Shettles’ method being the least expensive and the most reliable method ofpreconception sex selection was modeled to enable automation. The results show that it is a more consistent andreliable method for gender selection. In addition, the result also shows that the Shettles’ method lends itselffavourably to computer programming and would be very useful in the lives of couples that desire a particular genderof offspring.Keywords: Computer assisted, Preconception, Sex selection, Model, Programming

The Institutional and Policy Environment and the Quest for Industrialization in Nigeria

The paper empirically investigates the impact of the institutional and policy environment on Nigeria’s industrialization, using annual data for the period 1981 to 2013. The institutional environment was proxied by quality of service delivery while government expenditure as a percentage of GDP and real exchange rate were used to reflect the policy environment. Foreign direct investment as percentage of GDP was employed to reflect technological transfer and diffusion. Using the technique of cointegration, a long run relationship was found between industrialization and associated variables. Government expenditure was found to be positively related to industrialization and statistically significant in the long and short run. In the short run, real exchange rate is positively related to industrialization and statistically significant, while a negative and statistically significant relationship was found in the long run. In the long and short run, technological transfer indicates a negative relationship with industrialization. Quality of service delivery was found to influence industrialization positively and significantly in the long and short run. A bilateral causality was found between industrialization and the associated variables. Based on the empirical findings, it is concluded that the institutional and policy environments are critical to industrialization in Nigeria and that pragmatic efforts should be made to initiate and implement policies that promote industrial growth, while enhancing the quality of institutions

Stability Study of Some Selected Nigerian Crude Oil Emulsions and the Effectiveness of Locally Produced Demulsifier

Crude oil emulsion stability causes high viscosity of crude oil which leads to problems in pipeline transportation and processing. In this research, four samples of crude oil emulsions were collected from Ughelli East Wellhead and labeled A, B, C and D. These samples were characterized to determine their specific gravity, 0API gravity, structural composition, density, temperature, amount of water, amount of gas and the gross crude oil production. The 0API at 60 0F showed that all the samples had values below 30 0API which was an indication that the crude oil produced from these wells were heavy crude oil. The FTIR spectra showed bands at 3444.55 cm-1 for Sample A, 3418.23 cm-1 and 3175.94 cm-1for Sample B, 3444.61 cm-1 for Sample C and  3444.49 cm-1 for Sample D attributing to strong and broad O-H stretch, H-bonded and an indication of Asphaltenes presence; the alkanes signal, C-H stretch at 2961.14 cm-1 for Sample A, 2926.00 cm-1 for Sample B, 2924.15 cm-1 for Sample C and 2922.88 cm-1 for Sample D are indications of the presence of wax; C=O stretch at 1737.74 cm-1 only present in sample C is an indication of the presence of resins. The well test details showed that sample A and B had smaller water percentage in the gross crude oil production than Sample C and D with high water percentage. Therefore crude oil produced from these four wells represented by samples A, B, C and D contains natural emulsion stabilizers and stable. However, the stability of Samples A and B are more than that of Samples C and D. The performance of locally produced demulsifier increased with increase in residence time of contacting it with the emulsion samples at their operating temperatures, while equal dosage of patent Separol N46 demulsifier showed no performance within thesame residence time. However, treatments AWHT, BRT, CWHT and DWHT all at well head temperatures of 35.6 0C, 27 0C, 48.2 0C and 48.8 0C respectively showed that most water was expelled in 480 minutes. Key words: Stability, Selected, Crude oil, Emulsion, Demulsifiers, Treatmen

Development of Fingerprint Biometric Attendance System for Non-Academic Staff in a Tertiary Institution

Institutions, companies and organisations where security and net productivity is vital, access to certain areas must be controlled and monitored through an automated system of attendance. Managing people is a difficult task for most of the organizations and maintaining the attendance record is an important factor in people management. When considering the academic institute, taking the attendance of non-academic staff on daily basis and maintaining the records is a major task. Manually taking attendance and maintaining it for a long time adds to the difficulty of this task as well as wastes a lot of time. For this reason, an efficient system is proposed in this paper to solve the problem of manual attendance. This system takes attendance electronically with the help of a fingerprint recognition system, and all the records are saved for subsequent operations. Staff biometric attendance system employs an automated system to calculate attendance of staff in an organization and do further calculations of monthly attendance summary in order to reduce human errors during calculations. In essence, the proposed system can be employed in curbing the problems of lateness, buddy punching and truancy in any institution, organization or establishment. The proposed system will also improve the productivity of any organization if properly implemented. Keywords: Institution, Attendance, Biometric, Fingerprin

PARTICIPATION OF PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES IN AGRICULTURAL ACTIVITIES IN OGUN STATE, NIGERIA

People with disabilities (PLWDs) are generally believed to be incapacitated in all spheres of life endeavours. This study assessed their participation in agricultural activities as well the determinants     affecting their participation. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 268 respondents from persons who are: physically challenged (PC), with visually impairment (VI), speech impaired (SI) and lepers (L) from a list of registered members of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities list in Ogun State. Data collected through interview guide were analysed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square, Pearson's Product Moment Correlation and Binary Logistic Regression. Few (30.6%) of the respondents participated in agricultural activities. The agricultural activities mostly participated by PC were egg production (41.4%), cassava production (31.0%) and free range chicken production(27.6%). Also, persons with PVI engaged in free range chicken (44.0%), cassava (32.0%) and maize (28.0%) productions while lepers were engaged in millet (78.6%), cassava (46.4%) and free range chicken (35.7%) production. Few PC (6.9%) and PVI (16.0%) were engaged in broiler production, while 48.0% percent (PC), 32.0% (VI) and 10.7% (lepers) of the PWDs who participated in agricultural activities had access to extension agents. The binary logistic regression results showed that the determinantswhichsignificantly(p<0.01) influenced PWDs’ likelihood of participation in agricultural activities were access to agricultural training (β = 4.14), access to agricultural inputs (β=3.46), access to agricultural credit or loan (β =2.59),access to assistive technologies (β =3.28)and access to land (β=2.11). The constraints encountered by PWDs participating in agriculture were lack of funds (x̅ = 4.02), inaccessibility to land (x̅ = 3.72), inadequate infrastructure (x̅ = 3.16), inadequate assistive technology (x̅ = 3.05) and negative attitude of people towards PWDs (x̅ = 2.81) as well as negative attitude of people to PWDs (x̅ = 2.81). The study recommended that provision of lands, agricultural trainings, inclusive agricultural extension service delivery, assistive technology and change of negative mindset towards PWDs, may enhance their participation in agricultural activities.   &nbsp

Kinetic and Thermodynamic Studies of Chromium Ion Adsorption Using Chitosan from Mussel Shell

A study was carried out to investigate the removal of chromium (VI) ion from chromate solution using deacetylated chitin extracted from mussel shell. Mussel shells were obtained from Gubi dam in Bauchi, Nigeria and chemical method was used to extract chitin and then chitosan from these shells. A batch adsorption study was used to generate data for kinetic modelling. Out of the four kinetic models tested, the adsorption process was found to follow the pseudo-second order kinetic model with an R2-value of 0.9997; The process was physical with a free sorption energy of 0.224 kJ/mol. Also, the enthalpy of adsorption was -67.295 kJ/mol K and the Gibbs free energies were all negative, thus the process is spontaeneous and exothermic. Keywords: Kinetic, Chitosan, Mussel, Chromium, Adsorption, Thermodynami

Methyl orange, an organic dye: its health impact and sorptive removal from waste water

AbstractMethyl Orange (MO) a member of Azo dyes are commonly used as synthetic dyes in textile, food, paper and cosmetics. Their use is easy and cost-effective, compared with natural dyes. However, azo bonds are hardly removed because of their high water solubility as well as low exhaustion with the potential for persistence and accumulation in the environment, therefore aqueous solution of MO is toxic and irritating. Thus, the removal of them from industrial wastewaters is capital with regard to protect public health, environment, and aquatic life

Measurements of branching fraction ratios and CP-asymmetries in suppressed B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decays

We report the first reconstruction in hadron collisions of the suppressed decays B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- and B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^-, sensitive to the CKM phase gamma, using data from 7 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity collected by the CDF II detector at the Tevatron collider. We reconstruct a signal for the B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)K^- suppressed mode with a significance of 3.2 standard deviations, and measure the ratios of the suppressed to favored branching fractions R(K) = [22.0 \pm 8.6(stat)\pm 2.6(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^+(K) = [42.6\pm 13.7(stat)\pm 2.8(syst)]\times 10^-3, R^-(K)= [3.8\pm 10.3(stat)\pm 2.7(syst]\times 10^-3, as well as the direct CP-violating asymmetry A(K) = -0.82\pm 0.44(stat)\pm 0.09(syst) of this mode. Corresponding quantities for B^- -> D(-> K^+ pi^-)pi^- decay are also reported.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, accepted by Phys.Rev.D Rapid Communications for Publicatio

Search for anomalous t t-bar production in the highly-boosted all-hadronic final state

A search is presented for a massive particle, generically referred to as a Z', decaying into a t t-bar pair. The search focuses on Z' resonances that are sufficiently massive to produce highly Lorentz-boosted top quarks, which yield collimated decay products that are partially or fully merged into single jets. The analysis uses new methods to analyze jet substructure, providing suppression of the non-top multijet backgrounds. The analysis is based on a data sample of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 inverse femtobarns. Upper limits in the range of 1 pb are set on the product of the production cross section and branching fraction for a topcolor Z' modeled for several widths, as well as for a Randall--Sundrum Kaluza--Klein gluon. In addition, the results constrain any enhancement in t t-bar production beyond expectations of the standard model for t t-bar invariant masses larger than 1 TeV.Comment: Submitted to the Journal of High Energy Physics; this version includes a minor typo correction that will be submitted as an erratu