Power sector reforms in nigeria: implications for agro-manufacturing industry

Abstract The main objective of this paper is to examine the nexus between the reforms that have been carried out in Nigeria concerning the power sector, and the implications of the reforms on the transformation of agro-allied industries. The power sector, no doubt, can be said to have the potential that can propel national development considering the overall importance of energy to the survival of the nation in terms of job creation, industrial development and sustenance as well increase in revenue generation and Foreign Direct Investment opportunities, among others. The unfortunate situation, however, is that in spite of a number of policies enunciated by successive governments aimed at improving on the power sector, not much has been achieved. The multiplier effect of this kind of development has been seen in the widespread epileptic power shortages, downward spiral of efforts towards industrial development drive; unemployment, shortage of national revenue accruing to government coffers, bourgeoning and rising poverty levels, to mention but a few. All of these have further contributed to the growing army of problems currently being witnessed in the country at the moment. This study is a theoretical exposition of the existing works of scholars and experts in the broader field of power sector reforms. The paper is exploratory in structure and method of its investigation. The study concludes and recommends that in view of the prevailing socio-economic circumstances in Nigeria, genuine reforms in the energy sector devoid of political rhetorics will go a long way in mitigating some of the challenges of contemporary times in the power sector

Canice Erunke Canice erunke

The secret language of birthdays pdf

The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year by by Goldschneider, Gary, Elffers, Joost (Paperback) This The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year book is not really ordinary book, you have it then the world is in your hands. The benefit you get by reading this book is actually information inside this reserve incredible fresh, you will get information which is getting deeper an individual read a lot of information you will get. This kind of The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year without we recognize teach the one who looking at it become critical in imagining and analyzing. Don’t be worry The Secret Language of Birthdays: Your Complete Personology Guide for Each Day of the Year can bring any time you are and not make your tote space or bookshelves’ grow to be full because you can have it inside your lovely laptop even cell phone.

Kamal Singh Kamal singh

Efficacy of probiotic and herbal chewing gums on salivary ph in 6-11 years age group children: a randomised clinical tria

Introduction: Saliva is a crucial diagnostic tool to evaluate oral health. Chewing sugar-free gum is an effective method to increase salivary flow and can also be employed a medium for the administration of medicinal ingredients. Aim: To evaluate and compare the effect of chewing xylitol, herbal and probiotic chewing gums on salivary acidogenicity levels. Materials and Methods: A single centre, randomised, doubleblind, multiple arm parallel clinical trial was conducted on 60 children aged between 6-11 years. Baseline salivary pH was recorded with the pH meter and then the participants were asked to consume chocolate and salivary pH was recorded at an interval of 5, 30, and 60 minutes. Then children were randomly allocated to Group A-Xylitol chewing gum (control group, n=20), Group B-Herbal chewing gum (n=20), and Group C-Probiotic chewing gum (n=20) and instructed to chew gum according to their assigned group and salivary pH was again recorded at an interval of 5, 30, and 60 minutes. The change in salivary pH was evaluated using one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Post-hoc Bonferroni’s test. Results: The mean age of the study population was 9.23±1.38 years. Statistically significant (p<0.001) increase in pH was recorded post consumption of probiotic, xylitol and herbal chewing gums and the mean salivary pH values recorded at 60 minutes were 7.20±0.21, 7.01±0.23 and 6.43±0.22, respectively. Conclusion: The observations of the study showed that xylitol, herbal and probiotic chewing gums reversed the fall in salivary pH, after an acidogenic challenge with probiotic being better among the three groups.

DR. NEETI TATIYA Dr. neeti tatiya

Availability of disaster preparedness and digitization in archives preservation in public libraries in rivers state

This study ascertained availability of disaster preparedness and digitization in archives preservation in public libraries in Rivers state. Two objectives and its corresponding research questions and hypotheses guided this study. The descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. The target population of this study comprised 514 library staff drawn from Rivers state library board and staff from Jubilee library Port Harcourt. The sample size for this study was 399 library staff comprising of 227 staff from Rivers state library board and 172 library staff from Jubilee library Port Harcourt. The sample size was determined by Taro Yamane sample size determination formula while a two-stage sampling technique of stratified and simple random sampling techniques was used to select the sample size. A self-structured questionnaire titled availability of disaster preparedness and digitization in archives preservation questionnaire was used as the instrument for data collection. Face and content validation was ensured by three experts. The instrument yielded reliability coefficients of 0.79 with the use of Cronbach Alpha reliability method. Meanand Standard Deviation was used in answering research questions while z-test was used for the inferential statistics. The findings revealed that disaster preparedness and digitization in the preservation of archives are supported and available in public libraries in Rivers state, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that there are significant differences in the responses of Rivers state library board staff and Jubilee library Port Harcourt staff on the terms of the availability of the disaster preparedness and digitization in archive preservation in the public libraries. It was therefore recommended that more librarians should be employed by the Rivers state government so as to make the process of archive preservation in the State’s public libraries through disaster preparedness and digitization less rigorous and efficient.

FXintegrity Publishing Fxintegrity publishing

Utility-based joint power control and resource allocation algorithm for heterogeneous cloud radio access network (h-cran)

The high density of H-CRAN associated with frequent UE handover may degrade the throughput. The infrastructure equipment like RRHs and BBUs consumes more energy to reduce UE energy consumptions. In this paper, we propose a utility-based joint power control and resource allocation (UJPCRA) algorithm for heterogeneous cloud radio access network (H-CRAN). In this framework, the power consumption of baseband units (BBUs), remote radio heads (RRHs), and macrocell base station (MBS) are estimated by predicting their dynamic loads. The data rate achievable for UE associated with each RRH and MBS on resource block RBk is then estimated. The user wishing to connect to a RRH or MBS then checks the corresponding utility with minimum expected energy consumption and the maximum expected data rate. If any UE with high priority traffic connected to MBS could not achieve its desired data rate requirements, then it can cooperatively seek the assistance of any RRH for assigning the balance RBs. The throughput may be enhanced by the high density of H-CRAN and frequent UE handover. Inter- and intracell interference causes the H-CRAN macrocells’ improved data rate to diminish. To lower UE energy consumption, infrastructure devices like RRHs and BBUs need more energy. As a result, there is a trade-off between operators and UE energy conservation. It is possible to determine the power consumption of BBUs, RRHs, and MBS using predictions of their dynamic loads. The UE may then forecast the data rate for each RRH and MBS on the resource block. When a user wishes to connect to an RRH or MBS, they look at the utility with the highest expected data rate and the least predicted energy usage first. A UE with high priority traffic connected to the MBS can cooperatively ask any RRH for assistance in allocating the remaining RBs if it is unable to achieve its intended data rate needs. Experimental results have shown that the proposed JRAUA algorithm achieves higher throughput, resource utilization, and energy efficiency with reduced packet loss ratio, when compared to the existing techniques.

Dr H Shaheen Dr h shaheen

N-gram-based machine learning approach for bot or human detection from text messages

Social bots are computer programs created for automating general human activities like the generation of messages. The rise of bots in social network platforms has led to malicious activities such as content pollution like spammers or malware dissemination of misinformation. Most of the researchers focused on detecting bot accounts in social media platforms to avoid the damages done to the opinions of users. In this work, n-gram based approach is proposed for a bot or human detection. The content-based features of character n-grams and word n-grams are used. The character and word n-grams are successfully proved in various authorship analysis tasks to improve accuracy. A huge number of n-grams is identified after applying different pre-processing techniques. The high dimensionality of features is reduced by using a feature selection technique of the Relevant Discrimination Criterion. The text is represented as vectors by using a reduced set of features. Different term weight measures are used in the experiment to compute the weight of n-grams features in the document vector representation. Two classification algorithms, Support Vector Machine, and Random Forest are used to train the model using document vectors. The proposed approach was applied to the dataset provided in PAN 2019 competition bot detection task. The Random Forest classifier obtained the best accuracy of 0.9456 for bot/human detection.

Chandra sekhar sanaboina

Molecular changes in invasive front of oral cancer

Treatment planning for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is based on the clinical TNM (Tumor, Node and Metastasis) classification. This system operates on the assumption that small tumours without clinical spread have a better prognosis than larger tumours with metastases. However, it is a well-known fact that some tumours with the same clinical staging show different growth patterns and clinical behaviour. This makes the prognosis for patients with OSCC difficult to predict on the basis of clinical staging alone. Although many histopathological characteristics of OSCC have been identified as prognostic factors, none is believed to be completely infallible. Therefore, a great need exists for more reliable prognostic markers, which will assist in treatment decisions. It is now well documented that several molecular events of significance for tumour spread, such as gain and loss of adhesion molecules, secretion of proteolytic enzymes, increased cell proliferation and initiation of angiogenesis occur at the tumour–host interface or invasive front, where the deepest and presumably most aggressive cells reside. This review describes the various molecular events and interactions, which take place in the invasive front of the OSCC, and elucidates their role as prognostic markers.

Mohit Sharma Mohit sharma

Secured message exchange in mission critical infrastructure using conditional privacy preserving authentication

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) received enormous attention in recent years due to its phenomenal ability of implementation in various fields. WSNs consist of a large number of small sensor nodes. These nodes are very cheap in terms of cost. In military operations, there is always a threat of being attacked by enemies. So, the use of these cheap sensor nodes will help to reduce the loss. In this project, the security of data transmission in WSNs for military applications is analyzed. It discusses the available scenarios of using sensor nodes in the military uses. The aim is to present a better deployment of sensor nodes for military purposes with the help of cryptographic techniques. This project will try to identify different areas in which we can reduce the damage in case of militant’s attack or enemy’s outbreak using an intelligent deployment of nodes. It is proposed to use the WSNs in battlefield surveillance to closely monitor the critical areas and borders to obtain information about enemy activity in that area. Hence, militant’s will gather information quickly which will result in quick response. Border monitoring is an essential component of military surveillance to prevent enemy’s intrusion. Here the proposed work provides security using several techniques to encrypt and decrypt the data in WSNs. Elliptic Curve cryptography involves Attribute based encryption which is more complicate to hack. As well as skipjack is used to create digital signature to avoid unauthorized users.

Dr H Shaheen Dr h shaheen

Choleretic and cholagogic effects of anti-cholelithiatic plants

A large number of people suffer from gallstones worldwide, and this problem is now increasing significantly due to malnutrition, changes in living lifestyle, lack of exercise and conditions, i.e. industrialization. Medicinal plants have been used for centuries due to their cultural acceptability, efficacy, safety and fewer side effects than modern synthetic medicines. This review aims to gather information on the plants utilized in various parts of society against gallstones. The information provided is beneficial for ordinary people and the scientific community for further phytochemical, toxicological and pharmacological studies, which may lead to the discovery of new, more effective and safer medicines for gallstones.

Dr. Salman Ahmed Dr. salman ahmed

Diuretic and anti-diarrheal potential of four fruit extracts of capsicum annum l

Capsicum has been an essential part of the diet for centuries and has been widely used traditionally for ailments. The objective of the present analysis was to determine the diuretic and antidiarrheal potentials of four variations of Capsicum annum L. fruits available in the local market of Karachi, Pakistan. It belongs to the family Solanaceae, and extracts were prepared in 95% ethanol and given in 200 and 400mg/kg doses. The activity correlated with commonly used diuretics and anti-diarrheal, reinforcing its conventional use. To confirm its activity, fruit extracts were evaluated for anti-diarrheal properties in castor-oil-induced diarrhoea. The diuretic activity of the 95% ethanolic extracts of Capsicum annum L. was assessed based on diuresis of 24 hr. collected through a metabolic cage. Urinary excretion of water and electrolytes (Na+ and K+) is significantly increased by the standard diuretic drug furosemide, which is comparable with the extract. The anti-diarrheal effects of 95% ethanolic extracts of Capsicum annum L. were examined by castor oil-induced diarrhoea. All varieties of Capsicum annum L. significantly inhibited the number of defecations.

Dr. Salman Ahmed Dr. salman ahmed

Determination of the rich structural wave dynamic solutions to the caudrey–dodd–gibbon equation and the lax equation

This article addresses the implementation of the new generalized (G'∕G)-expansion method to the Caudrey–Dodd–Gibbon (CDG) equation and the Lax equation which are associated with the fifth-order KdV (fKdV) equation. The method works well to derive a variety of standard and functional closed-form wave solutions with distinct physical structures, such as, soliton, kink, periodic soliton, and bell-shaped soliton solutions. The solutions obtained using this method are useful and adequate than other methods. In order to understand the physical aspects and importance of the method, the attained solutions have been simulated graphically. The extracted results definitely establish that the new generalized(G'∕G)-expansion method is an effective mathematical tool to work out new solutions to different types of local nonlinear evolution equations emerging in applied science and engineering, but this method is not effective in solving nonlocal equations.

Md khorshed alam

Analysis of online purchase intention using scarcity and liking as the persuasion marketing strategies

Customers shopping behaviors have altered because of technological advancement and widespread of internet access. The rise in online sales presents both opportunities and challenges for many e-commerce companies. To successfully increase the customers’ purchase intention, it is important to implement persuasion marketing strategies especially in the online environment, together with other traditional marketing techniques available. The goal of this study is to determine which technique, between Scarcity Tactics and Liking Tactics, has more impact on customers’ Purchase Intention. Zalora Indonesia, as one of the leaders in fashion, beauty, home and lifestyle e-commerce, is chosen to be the research object. Scarcity Tactics and Liking Tactics are the independent variables used in this study, with customers’ Purchase Intention as the dependent variable. Quantitative method using a causal strategy, with an online questionnaire has been delivered to 120 Zalora Indonesia buyers. According to the findings of this research, customers who buy online have the tendency to do purchases when Zalora Indonesia uses Scarcity Tactics and Liking Tactics in its marketing approach. Scarcity Tactics, however, has more influence on online Purchase Intention, whereas Liking Tactics has a promising but insignificant impact. Both Scarcity Tactics and Liking Tactics show influences in customers’ Purchase Intention as much as 60.2%.

Lila Maria Kaban Lila maria kaban

Post-market surveillance of natural health products in canada

Market trends indicate that natural health products are being used to maintain health as well as prevent and treat many medical conditions. A recent Canadian survey showed that 71% of the Canadian population have used a natural health product. Among these, many reports that they take natural health products on a daily basis. This review emphasizes on Canadian post-market surveillance system that apply to natural health products for human use. The public's perception is that the natural health products are all-natural, safe and effective, but there is still a wide variety of harms linked with these products. The post-market surveillance system is the monitoring window to observe and control the adverse effects of using natural health products. There are many activities involved in the post-surveillance to ensure the quality of the approved natural health products. Despite the fact that post-market surveillance plays a very important role in eliminating and/or reduce the risk of using natural health products, there are still some challenges and more work to be done to improve the outcome of the post-market surveillance of the natural health products.

Mediterranean Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Mediterranean journal of pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences

Empowerment of aisyiyah members through the application of germas on aspects of drug storage at home

The government has implemented the Healthy Living Community Movement (GERMAS) program by promoting the pharmaceutical sector related to drug storage at home. However, many problems still exist in storing household medicines in the community. This activity was carried out through a community empowerment approach using the community capacity-building method for a community organization, Aisyiyah, which consists of Muslim women in the Grendeng village, Purwokerto. This activity was carried out in stages, namely pre-test methods, lectures, group teaching, self-empowerment through peer teaching and training, and measuring the success of activities using post-tests. Based on the activities, partners' knowledge about storing medicines at home has increased in a good category.

Much Ilham Novalisa Aji Wibowo Much ilham novalisa aji wibowo

Dr.ismath shameem

Background and objectives: Heavy menstrual bleeding (HMB) is the most common clinical presentation of abnormal uterine bleeding (AUB). The objective designed for the study was to evaluate the effect of a Unani formulation in HMB (Kaṭhrat-i-Tamṭh). Methods: An open observational single arm clinical study was carried out at the Department of Ilmul Qabalat wa Amraze Niswan, National Institute of Unani Medicine, Hospital, Bengaluru. Diagnosed cases (n=30) of HMB with pelvic pathology were included in the study. Unani formulation comprises of Khurma (Phoenix dactylifera Linn), Rasaut (Berberis aristata), Talmakhana (Asteracantha longifolia Linn), Lodh pathani (SymplocosracemosaRoxb) was administered orally in powder form in a dose of 3g with 2g sugar, twice daily for seven days/cycle for three consecutive cycles.Main outcome measures were clinical response of 30-50% in menstrual blood loss (MBL) assessed with pictorial blood loss assessment chart (PBAC) and duration of bleeding (DOB). Improvement in Hb% and quality of life (QOL) assessed with menorrhagia impact questionnaire (MIQ). Data were analyzed using paired Student ‘t’ test, Results: Clinical response of 30-50% in MBL and DOB was achieved in 86.7% (p< 0.001**) and 56.7% (p< 0.001**) patients respectively and improvement in Hb% and QOL was achieved in 16.7% (p=0.228) and 100% (p< 0.001**) patients respectively. Conclusion:Unani formulation had a significant effect in controlling the bleeding by reduction in MBL and DOB with improvement in QOL

Dr ismath shameem

Tunisian maturity-onset diabetes of the young: a short review and a new molecular and clinical investigation

Introduction/aims: Maturity-Onset Diabetes of the Young (MODY) is a monogenic non-autoimmune diabetes with 14 different genetic forms. MODY-related mutations are rarely found in the Tunisian population. Here, we explored MODY related genes sequences among seventeen unrelated Tunisian probands qualifying the MODY clinical criteria. Materials and methods: The GCK and HNF1A genes were systematically analyzed by direct sequencing in all probands. Then, clinical exome sequencing of 4,813 genes was performed on three unrelated patients. Among them, 130 genes have been reported to be involved in the regulation of glucose metabolism, β-cell development, differentiation and function. All identified variants were analyzed according to their frequencies in the GnomAD database and validated by direct sequencing. Results: We identified the previously reported GCK mutation (rs1085307455) in one patient. The clinical features of the MODY2 proband were similar to previous reports. In this study, we revealed rare and novel alterations in GCK (rs780806456) and ABCC8 (rs201499958) genes with uncertain significance. We also found two likely benign alterations in HNF1A (rs1800574) and KLF11 (rs35927125) genes with minor allele frequencies similar to those depicted in public databases. No pathogenic variants have been identified through clinical exome analysis. Conclusions: The most appropriate patients were selected, following a strict clinical screening approach, for genetic testing. However, the known MODY1-13 genes could not explain most of the Tunisian MODY cases, suggesting the involvement of unidentified genes in the majority of Tunisian affected families.

Mariam moalla Mariam moalla

Research capability of teachers: its correlates, determinants and implications for continuing professional development

Recently, research capability has received an overwhelming and remarkable interest among academics and practitioners. This is timely since the Department of Education had institutionalized research and encouraged teachers to engage in it to support evidence-based practice, decision-making, policy, and program development. On these premises, a study was carried out to assess the research capability of public teachers in Malaybalay City, determine its correlates and determinants. It utilized descriptive, correlational, and explanatory designs. It administered survey questionnaires to 92 participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The results revealed that teachers were slightly capable of conducting research and having neutral attitudes toward it, motivated to write research, had a high level of difficulties in research processes, and moderately capable of action planning. They also show evidence of potential in mentoring. Further, mentoring and action planning skills, motivation to write research, attitudes toward research, and the number of studies completed by teachers were the correlates of their research capability at different magnitudes of the relationship. Notably, the research capability of teachers had a low, negative but significant relationship with their age and accumulated years of service. Thus, this capability deteriorates as they age and accumulate years of service. The motivation to write research, the number of studies completed, and age were the determinants of research capability. It was concluded that research capability can be determined and predicted by how motivated teachers are to write research, how productive they are in research, and how young they are when they engage in this rigorous endeavor. The study identified and recommended topics for continuing professional development.

Manuel Caingcoy Manuel caingcoy

Surface modification of anhydrous borax with stearic acid by wet coating method

The wet coating of anhydrous borax powders with stearic acid (SA) to reverse their inherent hydrophilic surface properties was investigated. The coating procedure was based on the results from a previous study that revealed that the stearic acid solution (2 wt. % SA) mixed for 60 minute at 750 rpm on the magnetic stirrer was sufficient for the surface modification of anhydrous borax. For the experiments, stearic acid powders were first dissolved in water at 80 °C. The mixture obtained by adding anhydrous borax powders to this solution was vigorously mixed on a magnetic stirrer to initiation and completion the surface modification. Each of these solutions was then filtered using a filter paper to separate the undissolved particles, and the residue on paper was dried at 50 °C for 48 h until constant weighing was obtained. Wettability has been accepted as a key parameter for success in wet coating treatment. This parameter gained via the experimental characterization technique was used for an evaluation of the powder properties. The degree of wettability of anhydrous borax powders was measured and compared both after their surfaces were coated with stearic acid and after they were treated with water for a certain period of time in an aqueous environment. The stearic acid coating made the powder hydrophobic and this property was highly preserved after washing.

Journal of Characterization Journal of characterization

Anti-emetic activity of some leguminous plants

Crude methanol extracts of the leaves of Adenanthera pavonina L., Peltoforum roxburghii L, Prosopis cineraria L., and Prosopis juliflora DC., were evaluated for anti-emetic activity. Emesis was induced by the oral administration of copper sulphate 50mg/kg body weight to male chicks of four days age. The anti-emetic activity was determined by calculating the mean decrease in number of retching in contrast with those of control. All extracts (150 mg / kg body weight orally) showed anti-emetic activity when compared with standard drug Chlorpromazine at the same dose. Among all the extracts, Prosopis juliflora showed the highest (73.64%) and Adenanthera pavonina showed the lowest (50.17%) anti-emetic activity

Dr. Salman Ahmed Dr. salman ahmed

An international, interlaboratory ring trial confirms the feasibility of an extraction-less “direct” rt-qpcr method for reliable detection of sars-cov-2 rna in clinical samples

Reverse transcription–quantitative polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is used worldwide to test and trace the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2). “Extraction-less” or “direct” real time–reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is a transparent and accessible qualitative method for SARS-CoV-2 detection from nasopharyngeal or oral pharyngeal samples with the potential to generate actionable data more quickly, at a lower cost, and with fewer experimental resources than full RT-qPCR. This study engaged 10 global testing sites, including laboratories currently experiencing testing limitations due to reagent or equipment shortages, in an international interlaboratory ring trial. Participating laboratories were provided a common protocol, common reagents, aliquots of identical pooled clinical samples, and purified nucleic acids and used their existing in-house equipment. We observed 100% concordance across laboratories in the correct identification of all positive and negative samples, with highly similar cycle threshold values. The test also performed well when applied to locally collected patient nasopharyngeal samples, provided the viral transport media did not contain charcoal or guanidine, both of which appeared to potently inhibit the RT-PCR reaction. Our results suggest that direct RT-PCR assay methods can be clearly translated across sites utilizing readily available equipment and expertise and are thus a feasible option for more efficient COVID-19 coronavirus disease testing as demanded by the continuing pandemic.

Bitrus Inuwa Bitrus inuwa

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