Social Media as Information and Communication Tool for Socio-Economic Empowerment of Undergraduate Students in Nigeria

Purpose: The purpose of this work is to establish how undergraduate students in the University of Lagos and University of Nigeria, Nsukka, are using social media as information and communication tool for their socioeconomic empowerment including the specific ways in which their adoption has empowered them socioeconomically.Design/ Methodology/ Approach: The exploratory research design was adopted for the study while the simple random sampling technique was adopted in selecting undergraduate students who were seen at the lecture rooms during the lecture days. A total number of 400 third and final-year students altogether, were randomly selected from the Departments of Sociology and Mass Communication of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the two universities. A questionnaire, constructed with both open and close-ended questions was used for data collection.Findings: The findings revealed that the social media tools generally known to all the participants are; Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, while the most popularly utilized ones for their socio-economic empowerment are: WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The specific ways it has empowered them socio-economically include; reduction in their cost of business communication, accessing information that helped their business to blossom, advertising their products and services, and linking them up with new customers.Originality /value: This study shows how undergraduate students in the two universities are using social media as an information and communication tool for their socio-economic empowerment. It offered insight into the specific ways in which their usage has empowered them socio-economically

Isolation and screening of α-amylase and glucoamylase producing fungi and their application in bioethanol production

Isolation of α-amylase and glucoamylase producing fungal strains was investigated. Samples (120 in number) were collected aseptically from rice mill industrial areas, cassava processing grounds, potato farms, corn processing industries and refuse dumping sites within Abakaliki metropolis in Ebonyi State of Nigeria. The samples were first grown on solid agar (PDA) and sub-cultured to get their pure cultures. The pure cultures were then grown for 3 days on PDA and screened for starch hydrolysis using Iodine-potassium iodide method. Out of the 120 cultures, 26 showed some degrees of starch hydrolysis. The 26 positive fungal isolates were further screened for enzymatic activities which were measured quantitatively with spectrophotometric methods. However, only 3 isolates (2a, 3 and 6b) were finally selected based on their high α-amylase and glucoamylase activities. Alpha-amylase production by co-cultivation of the selected isolates showed higher activities than single cultures. For instance, the co-culture of isolate 2a and 3 was higher (40.32+0.489 U/ml) than individual activities of isolate 2a (30.55+0.710 U/ml) or isolate 3 (32.44+0.442 U/ml). Bioethanol production was achieved by Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) process using the selected fungal isolates and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The bioethanol concentrations were measured quantitatively with boiling/iodometric method. Isolate 3 with the yeast gave the highest concentration of the ethanol (10.913+0.874 g/L) after 96hours followed by isolate 2a and yeast (9.817+0.400 g/L) and then isolate 6b and yeast (8.540+0.308 g/L). Finally, the selected fungal isolates were identified as Aspergillus species (isolate 3), while isolates 2a and 6b were Mucor and Rhizopus species respectively

Phonon spectra and heat capacity of Li2B4O7 and LiB3O5 crystals

The results of calculations of the phonon dispersion, the vibrational density of states and the heat capacity of lithium tetraborate and lithium triborate crystals are presented. They are obtained in the framework of a potential model that takes into account the non-equivalence of boron atoms in different structural positions (BO3 and BO4 units). A symmetry analysis of the phonon modes at Γ point was performed, and calculated frequencies are compared to experimental spectra. Analysis of Li contributions to the vibrational density of states reveals that the Li-O bonds in both crystals are relatively weak. This is in line with the experimentally observed high mobility of lithium ions at high temperatures. A good agreement between calculated and measured heat capacities from the literature was obtained. Copyright EDP Sciences/Società Italiana di Fisica/Springer-Verlag 2004