• Title/Summary/Keyword: Central Africa

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The Utilization of e-resources at Modibbo Adama University of Technology (MAUTech), Yola, Adamawa State, Nigeria

  • Joshua, Dauda;King, Lizette
    • International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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    • v.10 no.1
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    • pp.47-70
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    • 2020
  • This article examines the utilization of e-resources Modibbo Adama University of Technology, (MAUTech) Yola under the auspices of the central library, the Ibrahim Babangida Library. Academics and students are primary users of information resources of any library, hence, their responses towards the utilization of e-resources in the institution have been critically considered in this study. A Mixed method research Design was adopted for the study. A case study approach was employed. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Diffusion of Innovation (DoI) theories were used to develop the conceptual framework of this paper. Questionnaires were used as data gathering tools. Academics and students acted as participants. Major findings are lack of sufficient Internet access for academics and students and lack of training and awareness campaigns. Conclusion has shown that e-resources did not impact research and teaching of academics in MAUTech, Yola.

Advanced Technology Trends in Development of Land-Mine Detection Systems

  • Hwang, Sun-Tae;Park, Kil-Oung
    • Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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    • v.33 no.3
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    • pp.349-354
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    • 2001
  • While the United Nations UN) agencies work to restrict the manufacture, sale, and use of land-mines worldwide, a massive clean-up effort is needed to find and destroy the estimated 100 million land-mines still buried around the world. Land-mines left behind from wars worldwide are one of the past century's main unsolved problems of war and remain the focus of humanitarian land-mine detection and removal primarily in Europe, Africa, Asia and Central and South America. For example, approximately 1 million anti-personnel mines and other various kinds which have been buried in the 249.4 km (155 miles) demilitarized zone (DMZ) of the Korean peninsular should be completely removed in historical process of the peaceful unification between South and North Korea. In this regard, the current trends of technologies linked to land-mine detection systems are surveyed.

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Non-Value Adding Activities in South African Construction: A Research Agenda

  • Emuze, Fidelis;Smallwood, John
    • Journal of Construction Engineering and Project Management
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    • v.1 no.3
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    • pp.38-44
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    • 2011
  • The central issue in this particular research is the seemingly inadequate achievement of optimum performance in the construction process, either with respect to value for money for the client and the entire construction supply chain or value in terms of the utility derived from built assets in spite of efforts by government and governmental bodies such as the Construction Industry Development Board (cidb) to increase industry performance. Therefore, based upon an extensive review of related literature, the paper reports on effects and causes of non-value adding activities in the construction industry in general, and South African construction in particular. The research findings indicate that activities that can be referred to as non-value activities are not only prevalent, but they can also be held responsible for performance related issues in terms of cost, time, quality and health and safety (H&S) in construction; and the exploration of pluralism in the research methodology may result in a robust model based upon the system dynamics approach.

Web Credibility Analysis of University Libraries in Central Africa (저개발 국가의 대학도서관 웹사이트 신뢰성 분석 - 아프리카의 중부지역 10개 국가를 중심으로 -)

  • LEE, Won-Kyung;SEO, Eun-Gyoung
    • Proceedings of the Korean Society for Information Management Conference
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    • 2013.08a
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    • pp.61-65
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    • 2013
  • 아프리카의 인터넷 이용인구는 3%로 웹 정보접근성이 부족하다. 디지털 정보자원의 주체인 대학도서관은 정보접근의 수단을 넘어 의사소통의 역할을 담당하기 때문에 대학도서관 웹사이트 신뢰성은 매우 중요하다. 본 연구에서는 신뢰성 가이드 10개 요소를 중심으로 아프리카 중부지역의 10개국 14개 대학의 신뢰성을 분석하였다. 그 결과 잘 지켜지지 않은 항목은 정보의 정확성, 정보의 최신성, 오류제한, 웹사이트 기관의 신뢰성으로 나타났다. 이는 웹사이트의 기능과 디자인보다는 콘텐츠로 정보의 정확성, 충실함, 신뢰성에 관한 요인들 이었다. 따라서 운영자는 자관의 사용을 배려한 콘텐츠의 정기점검으로 페이지의 정확한 연결, 안내페이지와 정보페이지의 명확성, 최신정보의 유지, 오류를 최소화 하여야 한다. 또한 도움말 제공과 반복적인 페이지를 제한하여 신뢰성을 갖추어야 하며 이를 토대로 웹사이트를 구축해야 할 것이다.

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The Study of the Historic Origin and the Symbolism of Mehndi (멘디의 역사적 기원과 상징성에 대한 연구)

  • Jo, Eun-Young;Yoo, Tai-Soon
    • Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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    • v.6 no.3
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    • pp.297-306
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    • 2004
  • Mehndi, becoming a kind of body fashion in western advanced countries nowadays, is a exquisite, classical fashion form sublimated to traditional faith, medicine and designing art. As one of the cultural arts, especially transmitted by women, a individual tradition of the way how to do the mehndi and the design has been handed down from one culture to another over a thousand of years and it is extensively using in many area, all around world today. Mehndi was used as preparing for special events or celebrations in India, Africa, Central Asia in order to pray for happiness, good luck and calm hart 5000 years ago. Especially, it is concerned with romantic love or a wedding and takes important part of a traditional wedding reception and bride adorning in the culture of Hindu or Islam. In addition to adorning skin, mehndi has various symbols, meaning, function, that is, as a speechless language, in several cultures, it has common meaning such as attraction, protection, celebration. The design of mehndi has been in harmony with the figure, colors, skin types of the dress or the ornament. According to the region, religion, design, mehndi is divided into the design of India and Morocco mostly. Indian design mainly shows flowers and paisley pattern, people widely recognize this design to celebrate and adorn bride in wedding ceremony, still apply mehndi the present time. Moroccan mehndi design, representing North Africa, characterized a bold geometrical figure which stands for belief in living under the protection from supernatural power. Through the understanding of these various meaning, function, symbolism of the design, adorning their body, the current general public use mehndi as not only aesthetic means but also another self expression.

SEARCH FOR DEBRIS DISKS BY AKARI AND IRSF

  • Takeuchi, Nami;Ishihara, Daisuke;Kaneda, Hidehiro;Oyabu, Shinki;Kobayashi, Hiroshi;Nagayama, Takahiro;Onaka, Takashi;Fujiwara, Hideaki
    • Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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    • v.32 no.1
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    • pp.73-75
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    • 2017
  • Debris disks are important observational clues to understanding on-going planetary system formation. They are usually identified by significant mid-infrared excess on top of the photospheric emission of a central star on the basis of prediction from J-, H-, and Ks-band fluxes and the stellar model spectra. For bright stars, 2MASS near-infrared fluxes suffer large uncertainties due to the near-infrared camera saturation. Therefore we have performed follow-up observations with the IRSF 1.4 m near-infrared telescope located in South Africa to obtain accurate J-, H-, and Ks-band fluxes of the central stars. Among 754 main-sequence stars which are detected in the AKARI $18{\mu}m$ band, we have performed photometry for 325 stars with IRSF. As a result, we have successfully improved the flux accuracy of the central stars from 9.2 % to 0.5 % on average. Using this dataset, we have detected $18{\mu}m$ excess emission from 57 stars in our samples with a $3{\sigma}$ level. We find that some of them have high ratios of the excess to the photospheric emission even around very old stars, which cannot be explained by the current planet-formation theories.

Analysis of the Genetic Diversity and Population Structure of Amaranth Accessions from South America Using 14 SSR Markers

  • Oo, Win Htet;Park, Yong-Jin
    • KOREAN JOURNAL OF CROP SCIENCE
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    • v.58 no.4
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    • pp.336-346
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    • 2013
  • Amaranth (Amaranthus sp. L.) is an important group of plants that includes grain, vegetable, and ornamental types. Centers of diversity for Amaranths are Central and South America, India, and South East Asia, with secondary centers of diversity in West and East Africa. The present study was performed to determine the genetic diversity and population structure of 75 amaranth accessions: 65 from South America and 10 from South Asia as controls using 14 SSR markers. Ninety-nine alleles were detected at an average of seven alleles per SSR locus. Model-based structure analysis revealed the presence of two subpopulations and 3 admixtures, which was consistent with clustering based on the genetic distance. The average major allele frequency and polymorphic information content (PIC) were 0.42 and 0.39, respectively. According to the model-based structure analysis based on genetic distance, 75 accessions (96%) were classified into two clusters, and only three accessions (4%) were admixtures. Cluster 1 had a higher allele number and PIC values than Cluster 2. Model-based structure analysis revealed the presence of two subpopulations and three admixtures in the 75 accessions. The results of this study provide effective information for future germplasm conservation and improvement programs in Amaranthus.

A Basic Study on Marine Traffic Assessment in Mombasa Approach Channel-I

  • Otoi, Onyango Shem;Park, Young-Soo;Park, Jin-Soo
    • Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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    • v.40 no.5
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    • pp.257-263
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    • 2016
  • Mombasa is the principle port of Kenya, serving inland countries in Eastern and central Africa. Mombasa port has undergone a massive infrastructure upgrade and dredging works with an expectation that more vessels and large post Panamax ships will be able to enter Mombasa port. Therefore, it is vital to carry out a marine traffic risk assessment in order to quantify the degree of navigation safety needed in the Mombasa approach channel and also to evaluate the navigation risk imposed on transit traffic by local ferry traffic. In this paper, a marine traffic risk assessment is carried out using the IWRAP mk2, Environmental Stress (ES) model, and the PARK model. Risk assessment results show that Likoni area has an unacceptable stress/risk ranking at 20.7% by the ES model and 38.89% by the PARK model. The IWRAP mk2 model shows that the crossing area has the highest risk of crossing collision and the area at the entrance to the inner channel has a high risk of grounding. The conclusions derived from this study will provide the basis for proposing the most effective countermeasure to improve navigation safety in the Mombasa approach channel.

European Medieval and Renaissance Cosmography: A Story of Multiple Voices

  • CATTANEO, Angelo
    • Asian review of World Histories
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    • v.4 no.1
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    • pp.35-81
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    • 2016
  • The objective of this essay is to propose a cultural history of cosmography and cartography from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries. It focuses on some of the processes that characterized these fields of knowledge, using mainly western European sources. First, it elucidates the meaning that the term cosmography held during the period under consideration, and the scientific status that this composite field of knowledge enjoyed, pointing to the main processes that structured cosmography between the thirteenth century and the sixteenth century. I then move on to expound the circulation of cosmographic knowledge among Portugal, Venice and Lisbon in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This analysis will show how cartography and cosmography were produced at the interface of articulated commercial, diplomatic and scholarly networks; finally, the last part of the essay focuses on the specific and quite distinctive use of cosmography in fifteenth-century European culture: the representation of "geo-political" projects on the world through the reformulation of the very concepts of sea and maritime networks. This last topic will be developed through the study of Fra Mauro's mid-fifteenth-century visionary project about changing the world connectivity through the linking of several maritime and fluvial networks in the Indian Ocean, Central Asia, and the Mediterranean Sea basin, involving the circumnavigation of Africa. This unprecedented project was based on a variety of sources accumulated in the Mediterranean Sea basin as well as in Asia and in the Indian Ocean over the course of several centuries.

Molecular analyses and reproductive structure to verify the generic relationships of Hypnea and Calliblepharis (Cystocloniaceae, Gigartinales), with proposal of C. saidana comb. nov.

  • Yang, Mi Yeon;Kim, Myung Sook
    • ALGAE
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    • v.32 no.2
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    • pp.87-100
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    • 2017
  • The genera Hypnea and Calliblepharis of the family Cystocloniaceae are discriminated by their female reproductive structure, especially in the formation of carposporangia and gonimoblasts. Hypnea saidana, once classified based on obsolete evidence, has not been studied phylogenetically using molecular analysis and detailed reproductive structure though it shares many morphologic features with the genus Calliblepharis. To provide better understanding of generic relationship of H. saidana with Hypnea and Calliblepharis, we carried out molecular analyses using the nuclear-encoded small subunit ribosomal DNA (SSU) and chloroplast-encoded large subunit of the RuBisCO (rbcL), and exact morphological observations focusing on the reproductive structures of wild specimens. Our molecular phylogeny showed that H. saidana is closely related to Calliblepharis, but distinct from the clade of Hypnea. Female reproductive structure of H. saidana characterized by upwardly developing chains of carposporangia, central reticulum of cell, and gonimoblast filaments not connected to the pericarp provides definite evidence to assign the taxonomic position of this species to Calliblepharis. Based on our combined molecular and morphological analyses, we have proposed Calliblepharis saidana comb. nov., expanding the distribution of Calliblepharis habitat from the eastern Atlantic South Africa, the northern Indian Ocean, Australasia, and Brazil to the western Pacific Ocean.