Women in fisheries: a case study of the Kainji Lake Basin, Nigeria

The study examined the contribution of women to fisheries in Kainji Lake Basin, Nigeria. The sample size of 80 respondents was selected through a purposive sampling in ten (10) fishing villages around Kainji Lake Basin. Instrument for data collection was semi- structured questionnaire. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistic. The result showed that the women are mostly engaged in processing, marketing and financing. About 60 percent of the women interviewed are engaged in marketing and financing. Ten (10) percent of the respondents are engaged in financing. The low participation in financing is attributed to high amount of capital involved. It is recommended that women should be made to benefit more from rural development policies and programmes

Couching in Nigeria: prevalence, risk factors and visual acuity outcomes.

PURPOSE: Couching is an ancient treatment for cataract which is still practiced in some of the poorer developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. The purpose of this study is to describe risk factors for couching and visual acuity outcomes in a nationally representative sample of adults aged 40 years and above in Nigeria. METHODS: Probability in proportion size methods were used to identify a representative sample. Of the 15,375 adults enumerated, 13,582 were interviewed and examined. Examination included logMar acuities, slit lamp examination and dilated fundoscopy with digital fundus imaging. RESULTS: Almost half of the 583 eyes undergoing a procedure for cataract had been couched (249 eyes, 42.7%). Individuals living in rural areas (P = 0.033) and in the two underserved northern administrative zones (P = 0.33; P = 0.002) were more likely to have been couched. Visual outcomes were poor according to World Health Organization categories, with 55.8% of people and 73.1% of eyes having a presenting visual acuity of less than 3/60 and only 9.7% and 2.4% of people and eyes respectively having a good outcome (6/18 or better). None were wearing an aphakic correction, and with correction acuities improved but 42.6% of eyes were still blind (< 3/60). CONCLUSIONS: Couching is still widely practiced in Nigeria and visual outcomes are very poor. The population needs to be made aware of the risks associated with the procedure, and services for high quality, affordable cataract surgery need to be expanded, particularly in rural areas and in the north of the country

Participatory diagnosis and adaptive management of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin

In a broad sense, analysis of ‘resilience’ is about the capacity of systems to adapt to shocks, recognizing that disturbance and change are integral component of complex systems. More formally, resilience analysis proposes to focus on mechanisms and processes that help systems absorbing perturbations and shocks, and coping with uncertainty and risks. Defined in such a way, the concept of resilience thus appears particularly useful for the management of small-scale fisheries. However, while the resilience concept is appealing, particularly in the face of the failure of current management approaches, the danger is that it remains largely academic and theoretical, and not of a great help in effectively improving the way natural resources are managed on the ground. The challenge, therefore, lies in a pragmatic approach to operationalizing the concept of resilience and making its implementation on the ground practical and meaningful. In this project we propose a framework aimed at this objective and we test it in the specific context of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin

Challenges of fish farmers in Ondo State, Nigeria

This study assessed fish farmers in Ondo State, south west agro-ecological zone of Nigeria using a sample size of 100 respondents, selected through a multi-stage sampling technique. Instrument for data collection was semi-structured questionnaire. Data were analysed using frequency counts and % of the respondents. Results showed that majority (52.0%) of the respondents are middle aged, 95.0% male, 93.0% married with a higher education (45.0%). The most important fisheries technology adopted by the farmers is disease control management. 67% indicated lack of finance and high cost of fish seed (58.0%) as the most important problems encountered. It was recommended that adequate incentive and grants should be given to farmers to finance fish production

Structural, optical and thermal properties of Er3+-Ag codoped bio-silicate borotellurite glass

In this paper, thermal, structural and spectroscopic properties of Er3+-Ag+ codoped bio-silicate borotellurite [{[(TeO2)0.8 (B2O3)0.2]0.8 (SiO2)0.2}0.99 (Ag2O)0.01]1-y (Er2O3)y where y = 0.05 glass are studied. The thermal and structural studies have been conducted using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) respectively so as to confirm the nature of the glass sample. The Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) has revealed the basic structural units of the glass system. Ultra violet visible (UV–Vis) spectrometer was used to measure the absorption spectrum and was analysed using Judd-Ofelt (J-O) and McCumber theory. Other important parameters such as radiative lifetime, branching ratio and transition probability are also determined from the analysis. The peak emission cross section discovered from McCumber theory is 4.9 × 10−21 cm2 . This value is larger than that of phosphate, silicate and tellurite glasses. The gain band width and figure of merit are used to evaluate the application of the glass in optical amplification and solid state laser

Review of the publications of the Nigeria national blindness survey: methodology, prevalence, causes of blindness and visual impairment and outcome of cataract surgery.

This is a review of the major publications from the Nigeria national blindness survey in order to highlight major findings and challenges of eye care in Nigeria. The review summarizes methodology and key findings. Survey publications on methodology, prevalence and causes of visual impairment and outcome of cataract surgery were retrieved, reviewed and relevant data extracted, reported and discussed. The study was the largest and more detailed eye survey in Nigeria (15,375 people 40 years and older recruited). Participants had detailed eye examination including visual acuity, autorefractokeratometry, A- scan biometry, visual field and basic eye examination. Cause(s) of visual impairment in each eye using WHO algorithm was determined among participants with vision < 6/12. Some of the participants also had qualitative questions on barriers to uptake of services, quality of life and visual function. Major highlights of the results as contained in the publications include a high prevalence of blindness with 4.2% (95% CI: 3.8-4.6%;),of the study population having blindness (using presenting vision (PVA)) even with best correction the prevalence was 3.4% (95% CI: 3.0-3.8%. The prevalence of SVI using PVA was 1.5% (95% CI: 1.3-1.7%).and with best correction 0.8% (95% CI: 0.7-1.0%). Blindness varied by age groups, sex, literacy level and geopolitical zone. Furthermore, 84% of blindness was due to avoidable causes with cataract responsible for 43% of blindness, glaucoma 16.7%, uncorrected aphakia 8.4% and corneal opacity 7.9%. Of the total 538 eyes that had cataract surgery procedures, 42.7% had couching and the remaining had cataract surgery, but only 41.4% of cataract operated eyes had IOL surgery. Outcome of cataract surgery was good at presentation for only 30.8% of eyes (84 eyes) which improved to 56.8% with correction. The possible remedy for the high burden of needless blindness and harmful eye health practices in Nigeria are discussed

Changing passband on microstrip hairpin band-pass filter

Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.Due to copyright restrictions, the access to the full text of this article is only available via subscription.In this work, a microstrip hairpin band-pass filter is designed and simulated in Sonnet Suite, a 3-D Planar Electromagnetic simulation tool [1]. A microstrip hairpin band-pass filter in any desired pass band can be obtained by modifying the length of CL parameter

Structural, optical and Judd-Offelt intensity parameters of samarium doped with zinc tellurite glasses

Objective: The current challenges in materials science and technology is to modify the optical response of rare-earth-doped inorganic glasses for optical applications. The main objectives of the present study are to identify the effect of samarium oxide concentration on the linear optical properties of the zinc tellurite glass system and to use the Judd–Ofelt analysis to study the compositional dependence of the optical properties of the synthesized glasses. Mehodology: Zinc tellurite glasses [(TeO2)0.7 (ZnO) 0.3]1−x [Sm2O3NPs] x, with x = 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04 and 0.05 molar fraction are prepared by melt quenching technique. The glass samples were produced by employing high-purity analytical chemicals of TeO2 (Alfa Aesar 99.99 per cent), ZnO (Alfa Aesar 99.99 per cent) and Sm2O3 NPs (Alfa Aesar 99.99 per cent). The density of the glass samples was determined based on Archimedes principles with distilled water as an immersed liquid. The density measurement was taken at 10 different times and the average value was recorded. Results: Densimeter, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to study the physical and structural properties. The density and molar volume increases from 5.10 to 5.32 g/cm3 and 27.06–27.54 cm3/mol with an increase in Sm2O3 NPs concentrations. The XRD revealed that the glasses are amorphous. FTIR spectrum reflects the TeO4 structural unit stretching mode. The UV-Vis absorption spectra have seven absorption peaks from the ground state 6H5/2 to 4F7/2, 4I9/2, 6F11/2, 6F9/2, 6F7/2,6F5/2, and 6F3/2 excited energy levels of Sm3+ NPs. The emission spectra under 404 nm wavelength comprised of four bands at 566 nm, 604 nm, 647 nm, and 710 nm represented as transitions. The presence of Sm2O3 NPs was confirmed by high-resolution electron microscopy transmission (HR-TEM) with a particle size of 72.43 nm. Judd-Offelt parameters ( = 4.94, and ) were obtained from the least square fitting and the results revealed that the glasses have potential for laser application