• Title/Summary/Keyword: Nigeria

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High Cadmium Levels in Cured Meat Products Marketed in Nigeria - Implications for Public Health

  • Adejumo, Olufunmilayo E;Fasinu, Pius S;Odion, Judith E;Silva, Boladale O;Fajemirokun, Timothy O
    • Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention
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    • v.17 no.4
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    • pp.1933-1936
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    • 2016
  • Heavy metals are known to disrupt important physiological processes in living cells, and have been responsible for various pathological conditions with possible contributions to cancer development. Food contamination have been identified as one of the ways humans are exposed to heavy metals. In developing countries like Nigeria, the regulatory framework for enforcing compliance with globally acceptable exposure to deleterious contaminants is poor. In the current study, thirteen samples of cured meat products of diverse origin marketed in South-west Nigeria were evaluated for lead, cadmium, chromium and nickel contents using the atomic absorption spectroscopy technique. All the samples analysed contained cadmium between 0.35 and 1.20 ppm, levels considered higher than acceptable limits in consumable products. Lead, chromium and nickel were not detected in any of the samples. As known cumulative poisons, there is the need for stringent regulatory control of these heavy metals in cured meat products imported into or produced indigenously in the country in order to minimize the risks to public health.

The review of municipal solid waste management in Nigeria: the current trends

  • Iorhemen, Oliver T.;Alfa, Meshach I.;Onoja, Sam B.
    • Advances in environmental research
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    • v.5 no.4
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    • pp.237-249
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    • 2016
  • The management of municipal solid waste (MSW) is essential for every community; and, it is currently a major challenge in Nigeria. This paper provides an overview of the current MSW management trends in Nigeria and proposes new sustainable MSW management systems. Across Nigerian cities, MSW management is characterized by inefficient collection and transportation to disposal sites. Collection services do not reach some unplanned areas and slums due to poor street network. Even some planned areas are not reached by collection services. The informal sector contributes to waste collection, resource recovery and recycling; however, their activities are not recognized by the governments. Markets exist for recovered materials but more efforts need to be geared towards intensive recovery of materials and expansion of these markets. Despite the high proportion of putrescible matter in MSW, the only form of treatment commonly used currently is open burning for volume reduction. The high organic fraction presents a great opportunity for composting and anaerobic digestion. Ultimate disposal is currently done in open dumpsites. This needs to be upgraded to engineered landfills that are properly sited and adequately operated by well trained personnel. There is an emerging waste stream of concern, electronic-waste (e-waste), that requires urgent sustainable management as e-waste are currently co-disposed with other waste streams or burnt in the open posing detrimental health impacts.

Impact of urbanization on Nwaorie and Otamiri Rivers in Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria

  • Ogbomida, Emmanuel T.;Emeribe, Chukwudi N.
    • Advances in environmental research
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    • v.2 no.2
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    • pp.119-129
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    • 2013
  • The study examined the effect of urbanization on the water quality of Nwaorie and Otamiri Rivers in Owerri metropolis, Imo State, South-East Nigeria. Water samples were collected from Nwaorie and Otamiri Rivers from four sampling stations up and down stream. Water parameters analyzed using standard procedures were: color, turbidity, temperature, pH, total hardness, total solids, metals (Iron and magnesium), anions (nitrate and ammonia) and Fecal coliform. Results showed increased levels of coloration, iron, ammonia, turbidity and fecal coliform which exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) permissible limits for drinking water. Increase in these parameters indicated influx of industrial effluent from the nearby industries and indiscriminate disposal of wastes at the bank of the rivers. Application of ANOVA showed various degree of variation in pollutants levels between the two rivers and at different sampling points. River Nwaorie was observed to be more impacted than River Otamiri. High values of iron observed from the study could be deleterious to human health if the river water is consumed without treatment. The study, therefore, recommended proper waste management and disposal as well as effluent treatments in Owerri municipal against pollution of surface water.

Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Libraries for The Visually Impaired in Nigeria: Alternative Format Use and Perception of Information Services

  • Adetoro, 'Niran
    • Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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    • v.3 no.1
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    • pp.40-49
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    • 2015
  • Nigeria's non-government organization (NGO) libraries for the visually impaired has over the years been at the forefront of information services provision to persons with visual impairment. This study adopted a survey research design to investigate use of alternative formats and perceptions of information services to the visually impaired, focusing on two purposively chosen NGO libraries for the visually impaired in Nigeria. Using a complete enumeration approach, data were gathered from 180 users of the libraries through the use of a structured questionnaire with a reliability score (${\alpha}=0.74$). Data from 112 (62.2%) of the 180 administered copies of a questionnaire that were retrieved were analysed. The study found that Braille materials had a high level of utilization ($\bar{x}=4.46$) and were the most frequently utilized (90.9%). Perception of information services by the visually impaired was positive while use of alternative formats was significantly and positively related to users' perception of information services (r = .041; p < 0.05). The study recommends improved transcription and investment in alternative formats and in e-resources. It also recommends collaborations to widen access as well as constant evaluation of services.

Malaria Epidemic Prediction Model by Using Twitter Data and Precipitation Volume in Nigeria

  • Nduwayezu, Maurice;Satyabrata, Aicha;Han, Suk Young;Kim, Jung Eon;Kim, Hoon;Park, Junseok;Hwang, Won-Joo
    • Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
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    • v.22 no.5
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    • pp.588-600
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    • 2019
  • Each year Malaria affects over 200 million people worldwide. Particularly, African continent is highly hit by this disease. According to many researches, this continent is ideal for Anopheles mosquitoes which transmit Malaria parasites to thrive. Rainfall volume is one of the major factor favoring the development of these Anopheles in the tropical Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA). However, the surveillance, monitoring and reporting of this epidemic is still poor and bureaucratic only. In our paper, we proposed a method to fast monitor and report Malaria instances by using Social Network Systems (SNS) and precipitation volume in Nigeria. We used Twitter search Application Programming Interface (API) to live-stream Twitter messages mentioning Malaria, preprocessed those Tweets and classified them into Malaria cases in Nigeria by using Support Vector Machine (SVM) classification algorithm and compared those Malaria cases with average precipitation volume. The comparison yielded a correlation of 0.75 between Malaria cases recorded by using Twitter and average precipitations in Nigeria. To ensure the certainty of our classification algorithm, we used an oversampling technique and eliminated the imbalance in our training Tweets.

A Multi-Indexes Based Technique for Resolving Collision in a Hash Table

  • Yusuf, Ahmed Dalhatu;Abdullahi, Saleh;Boukar, Moussa Mahamat;Yusuf, Salisu Ibrahim
    • International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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    • v.21 no.9
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    • pp.339-345
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    • 2021
  • The rapid development of various applications in networking system, business, medical, education, and other domains that use basic data access operations such as insert, edit, delete and search makes data structure venerable and crucial in providing an efficient method for day to day operations of those numerous applications. One of the major problems of those applications is achieving constant time to search a key from a collection. A number of different methods which attempt to achieve that have been discovered by researchers over the years with different performance behaviors. This work evaluated these methods, and found out that almost all the existing methods have non-constant time for adding and searching a key. In this work, we designed a multi-indexes hashing algorithm that handles a collision in a hash table T efficiently and achieved constant time O(1) for searching and adding a key. Our method employed two-level of hashing which uses pattern extraction h1(key) and h2(key). The second hash function h2(key) is use for handling collision in T. Here, we eliminated the wasted slots in the search space T which is another problem associated with the existing methods.

Intellectual Capital and Innovation Capability: A Strategy for Achieving Competitive Advantage

  • OYELAKIN, Oyekunle;ABBA, Maryam Tijjani;ADAMU, Ahmed;BABAN-MAIRAM, Munir;NA'ANMAN, Sallah Boniface;FAKAH, Henrietta
    • Fourth Industrial Review
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    • v.2 no.2
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    • pp.11-23
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    • 2022
  • Purpose - The ability to meet the high demand for education in Nigeria is lacking, making the region remain backwards in education. Given this reason, the study investigates the role of innovation capability in the relationship between intellectual capital and competitive advantage in tertiary institutions in Nigeria. Research design, data, and methodology - The study is cross-sectional research, a total of 427 questionnaires were administered to respondents. The study distributed its questionnaire across 12 faculties at the University of Ibadan using a random sampling technique. Data were analyzed using ADANCO 2.1.1. Result - The study reveals that human capital, structural capital, relational capital, and innovation capability positively affect competitive advantage. Innovation capability mediates the relationship between human capital and relational capital. However, structural capital was not mediated by innovation capability. Conclusion - The study concludes that intellectual capitals and innovation capability are crucial to maintaining a competitive advantage over their peers. Achieving more significant success in the variables mentioned earlier will help Nigeria's tertiary institutions compete locally and internationally.

Malaria Endemicity in the Rural Communities of Ebonyi State, Nigeria

  • Nwele, David Ekene;Onyali, Ikechukwu Oliver;Iwueze, Milliam Okwudili;Elom, Michael Okpara;Uguru, Ogbonna Elom Sabastian
    • Parasites, Hosts and Diseases
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    • v.60 no.3
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    • pp.173-179
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    • 2022
  • Malaria remains a global health threat. Approximately 97% of the population is at risk in sub-Saharan countries, particularly Nigeria. This study compared the performance of 2 diagnostic methods in assessing malaria endemicity in the rural communities of Ebonyi State, Nigeria. A total of 1,140 study participants were screened for malaria parasite using Rapid Diagnostic Test kits (RDT) in the field, while thick and thin films for microscopy were examined in the laboratory. Our result showed that malaria prevalence was 56.8 by RDT and 38.6% by microscopic test. Age group under 10 years had the highest prevalence of 28.9% (RDT) and 23.6% (microscopy), respectively. The highest prevalence of 19.5% by RDT was recorded in Onicha Local Government Area, while the highest prevalence of 13.4% with microscopy was recorded in Ezza North Local Government Area. The sensitivity and specificity of microscopic examination were both 100%, while those of RDT were 95.5% and 75.9%, respectively.

Organisational Politics on Job Impetus Among Library Personnel in Selected Public Universities in South-West Nigeria

  • Bibire Nurat Badmus;Olatokunbo Christopher Okiki
    • International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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    • v.13 no.2
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    • pp.51-70
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    • 2023
  • Nowadays, the growth rate of organisational politics in the library system is a cause of concern for library and information professionals. This has negatively impacted service delivery, most especially in public uni- versity libraries. This study examined the effect of organisational politics on job impetus among library personnel in selected public universities in South-west Nigeria. Three federal and three state universities were purposively selected such that one university was selected in each of the six states in South-west Nigeria. Total enumeration was used for all 187 library personnel in the six universities investigated. Using a descriptive survey of correlational type, a structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from respondents through survey monkey. Of 187 copies administered, 143, representing 76.5%, were retrieved and used for analysis. The results revealed a high level of organisational politics with low impetus. A strong inverse relationship was established between organisational politics and job impetus among library personnel in selected public universities in South-west Nigeria. Based on these, recommendations were made that Library personnel be encouraged to focus on their job specifications and limit organisational politics adhering to rules and regulations in the library and code of conduct for library staff.

Morphological Variations in Tetrapleura tetraptera Taub. (Fabaceae) Fruits and Seed Traits from Lowland Rainforest Zones of Nigeria: A Keystone Non Timber Forest Tree Species in the Tropics

  • Aishat Adeola Olaniyi;Samuel Olalekan Olajuyigbe;Musbau Bayo Olaniyi
    • Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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    • v.40 no.2
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    • pp.111-117
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    • 2024
  • An evaluation was carried out on variability in morphology of fruits and seeds (number and weight) of Tetrapleura tetraptera (Schumach. and Thonn.) Taub. from different populations across its distribution range in Nigeria. Bulk fruit samples were collected and examined for variations in morphological characters. Differences in morphological character of fruits and seeds among the populations were determined using analysis of variance at 5% level of probability. The relationships among morphological characters were determined using Pearson correlation coefficient (r). Significant variations (p<0.05) existed among T. tetraptera populations for all the evaluated characters: fruit length, fruit width, number of seeds per fruit and seed weight. A positive significant strong correlation (r=0.96) was found between seed weight and number of seeds per fruit, while no correlation existed between fruit length, width and number of seeds. Seed weight was positively correlated with minimum altitude (r=0.97) and maximum altitude (r=0.99) of seed populations. Number of seeds was also significantly correlated with maximum altitude (r=0.965). There was no significant correlation between geo-climatic variables and fruit dimensions (length and width). Observed variations in morphological traits within and across populations of T. tetraptera may be used as proxy to estimate genetic diversity and selection of superior trees for improved productivity.