Microbes are well known source for the production of extracellular enzymes and industrial important secondary metabolites. Since fruits contain pectin, hence any microorganism that will involve in their spoilage must naturally possess cell wall destroying ability. This study was aimed at isolation and characterization of pectinase producing fungi from Tomato fruits. Tomato fruits were collected from Bodija. Market, Ibadan, Nigeria. Spoilage fungi were isolated and characterized with standard techniques. Six (6) fungi were isolated from the fruits: Aspergillus niger, Penicillium nigricans, Rhizopus stolonifer, Fusarium oxysporium and Trichoderma harzanium. The fungi were screened for the pectinolytic enzyme production on solid media. Among the isolates, Aspergillus niger, Penicillium nigricans, Rhizopus stolonifer and Fusarium oxysporium were selected for pectinase production using solid state fermentation (SSF) with Orange peel. Crude enzyme production was optimized with pH, temperature, substrate concentrations and incubation period. All the isolates produced maximally at pH 7, 1.5 substrate concentration , 50 0C and 72Hr incubation except Penicillium nigricans at pH(5) and temperature of 40oC. These organisms can further be studied for their enzymes to be purified and characterized.
Page(s): 01-09 Date of Publication: 28 February 2023
The study examined the theory of demographic transition in the context of the Nigerian economy. This follows findings from literature that population in its entity does not translate to economic growth, rather specific demographic partitions. Using such demographic transition theory variables as Birth Rate, Death Rate, Female Primary School Enrollment (proxy for education) and Mobile Cellular Subscription (proxy for technology) as explanatory variables and Gross Domestic Product (proxy for economic growth) as dependent variable, the study adopted the econometric tools of ADF unit root test, Johansen Cointegration test and Parsimonious ECM to treat data from World Bank indicators and Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin for a period of 30 years (1990 – 2019). The data output confirms a positive but insignificant relationship between birth rate and economic growth. Technology has a positive and significant relationship with economic growth while education and death rate have negative relationship with economic growth. The study suggests amongst other things adoption and deliberate investment in technological advancement in Nigeria, complete overhaul of the primary school system in country as this is the bedrock of education world over. Also, adequate investment should be made in the health sector to improve the current health outcomes which have resulted in very high death rate.
Page(s): 10-18 Date of Publication: 10 March 2023
Dynamic lighting requires a support system to set and control lighting according to the design. With advances in lighting technology and the internet, lighting settings do not need to be done manually. This article will discuss the Internet of Things (IoT) based applications, namely Blynk and WiZ. In the installation process, Blynk effectively connects the lamps used for research with the WiZ application. The WiZ application is needed to arrange the illuminance level, correlated color temperature (CCT), and the lights’ placement for creating dynamic lighting. This advantage makes Blynk and WiZ potentially effective for everyday use, including in the workplace. However, there are limitations to both applications that must be considered and anticipated to maximize their utilization.
Page(s): 19-28 Date of Publication: 10 March 2023
The study assesses the impact of Mandatory Continuous Professional Development Program on nurses in the provision of quality nursing care nurses at Kwara State, Nigeria. It employed cross-sectional descriptive designed method. The study participants included all nurses and midwives that attended the Kwara State Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Programme. A total of 87 questionnaires were administered using availability and purposive sampling technique, but 75 filled questionnaires were valid for data analysis. The instrument used for data collection in this study was a self-structure questionnaire. Data collected were analyzed through the use of descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that majority of the nurses and midwives, 49 (65.3%), attended the workshop for the purpose of equipping self for better service delivery, 33 (44%) attended Mandatory Continuous Professional Development Program workshop for the purpose of licensure renewal while others 29 (38.7%) attended so as to broaden their knowledge. It was also revealed that majority of the respondents, 72 (96%), believe the program added to their knowledge of care, and most 69 (92%) of the respondents said the knowledge gained changed their orientation towards patients’ care, while good number 70 (93.3%) of them believe that the knowledge gained during the program can improve the nursing care they would render. It was concluded that the mandatory continuous professional development programme has a lot of benefits the major motive behind the attendance of nurse and midwives at the mandatory continuous professional development programme workshop is for the purpose of equipping self for better service delivery.
Page(s): 29-37 Date of Publication: 10 March 2023
Judging from the caption, this article, using the qualitative research approach, interrogates an interesting social phenomenon that the global community may not easily accept. The data collection sourced from relevant literature review comprised of articles, books, journals, and the web paged. From the structural-functionalist or functionalism, and the conflict perspective termed as the theoretical frameworks, this paper doubts not the efficacy of sports, precisely the County Meet observed in Libera as a unifying force bringing together but a miscalculated prescription for reconciliation in Liberia. It sees sports as an emotional strategy or intervention but unrelated to the root causes of conflict that does not remove the semblances underlying the causes of the very conflict. The paper argues that, as a context-driven concept, reconciliation is dictated by a society based on the nature, gravity, or complexity of the conflict. In the case of Liberia, this article argues that evidenced by the demand for justice, the Liberian society does not place a premium on sports (County Meet) as a pillar and strategy for reconciliation. Judging from other societies that are still struggling with the ugly legacy and semblances of violent conflict despite the observance of sports as a tool for reconciliation, the paper concluded that although the Liberian society embraced the County Meet as a unifier but does not see it as a durable solution because it has nothing to do with the root causes of the 14 years of civil war. In other words, the civil war was not about the denial of sports. So, why use it as a strategy or invention to reconcile Liberia? Instead, the war was also about the issue of justice. Finally, the paper through recommendation called upon practitioners and experts in the theater of peace and conflict studies to rethink sports as a unifying force to reconcile society emerging from violent conflict.
Page(s): 38-47 Date of Publication: 14 March 2023
The study sought to identify the level of participation of the visually impaired persons in the electoral process in Zambia. A phenomenological research study design was used. Data was collected using interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs). Purposive sampling procedure was used to sample thirty participants. The key findings were that the level of participation of the persons with visual impairment in the electoral process was very low. The low voter participation by the visually impaired was attributed to low information being disseminated to the disabled persons regards elections and lack of sensitization. The study recommends that adequate and appropriate civic education should be delivered to the visually impaired persons. In this regard, there is need to adopt a human rights model that takes cognizance of the equality principles and thus, will guarantee the participation of the visually impaired persons at all levels of the electoral process.
Page(s): 48-52 Date of Publication: 14 March 2023
Babulu Laut Village is an area where there is a brackish water river that is used by local residents as a source of water for pond cultivation. Until now, there is no information about the types of brackish water fish found in the river. This research aims to find out the diversity of brackish water fish in several rivers in Babulu Laut village, sub-district Babulu, district Penajam Paser Utara (PPU), East Kalimantan. This research conducted on October-December 2021. Sampling used purposive sampling and random sampling methods at three research stations. Fish sampling conducted by installing gill nets for 2 hours with checking every 30 minutes and using fishing rods for 1-2 hours. The results of the research was found 17 species of fish which represented 12 families among others Otek fish (Ariidae), Barokang fish (Ariidae), Keting fish (Ariidae), Terkulu fish (Carangidae), Bandeng fish (Chanidae), Bulu Ayam fish (Engraulidae), Teri fish (Engraulidae), Bungo fish (Gobiidae), Gerot fish (Haemulidae), Arut fish (Haemulidae), Kakap Merah fish (Lutjanidae), Bulan-Bulan fish (Megalopidae), Belanak fish (Mugilidae), Kiper fish (Scatophagidae), Gelama fish (Scianidae), Tetet fish (Scianidae), and Sumpit fish (Toxotidae). The results of the diversity index of fish species in the Babulu Laut Village River were classified as moderate with a diversity index (H’) value of 2.26, an evenness index of 0.80 and a dominance index of 0.16.
Page(s): 53-62 Date of Publication: 15 March 2023
Multiple Regression Models are used in prediction the nature of relationship between one dependent variable and more than more independent variables. There are so many assumptions the guide the estimation of the parameters of the model. The interpretations of parameters are always subjected to the nature of data involved. Missing values tends to limit the fullness of information in analysis. It is therefore necessary to check for the effect of missing data on the parameters of the Multiple Regression Model. Data were simulated using Binomial, Geometric, Normal and Exponential Distribution. The simulation was done at different sample sizes of 15, 25, 50 and 100. The level of missingness was moderated at 5%, 10%, 25% and 35%. Two methods of handling missing data were employed, listwise deletion and Mean imputation. Data were analysis using multiple regression and Analysis of Variance. The results shows that the least Mean Square Error (MSE) were obtained at different level of missingness depending of the distribution. There was a significant effect on the parameters of the multiple Regression base on sample sizes.
Page(s): 63-73 Date of Publication: 21 March 2023
Online sources enable users to get their information needs. But, finding the relevant information, in such sources, became a big challenge and time consumption due to the massive size of data those sources contain. Automatic text summarization is an important facility to overcome such a problem. To this end, many text summarization algorithms have been proposed based on different techniques and different methodologies. Text features are the main entries in text summarization, where each feature plays a different role for showing the most important content. This study introduces the polynomial networks (PN) for Arabic text summarization problem. The role of the polynomial networks (PN) is to compute optimal weights, through the training process of PN classifier, where these weights were used to adjust the text features scores. Adjusting the text features scores creates a fair dealing with those features according to their importance and plays an important role in the differentiation between higher and less important ones. The proposed model produces a summary of an original document through classifying each sentence as summary sentence or non-summary sentence. Six summarizers (Naïve Bayes, AQBTSS, Gen–Summ, LSA–Summ, Sakhr1 and Baseline–1) were used as benchmarks. The proposed model and benchmarks were evaluated using the same dataset (EASC – the Essex Arabic Summaries Corpus). The results shew that the proposed model defeats the all six summarizers. In addition, the rate error results of both the proposed model (PN classifier) and Naïve Bayes (NB classifier), it is a clear that the proposed model (PN classifier) works better. In general, the proposed model provides a good enhancement indicating that the polynomial networks (PN) are a promising technique for text summarization problem.
Page(s): 74-84 Date of Publication: 21 March 2023
The study focused on establishing the relationship between accounts payable management and financial performance in Kazire Health Products Company Limited. It was based on the following objectives; to find out the accounts payable management strategies used by Kazire health products ltd, to assess the level of financial performance in Kazire health products Ltd and to establish the relationship between accounts payable management and financial performance of Kazire health products Ltd The researcher used a cross sectional research design consisting of quantitative approaches of data collection and analysis. The study population consisted of the management and operational staff consisting of employees from administration, marketing department, accounts, Sales Department and customers of Kazire health products limited. A sample size of 66 respondents was used. Questionnaires were used to collect data. Data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study revealed that Kazire health products limited has an effective accounts payable Management Policy. It was further revealed that as much as the company is earning profits, her profitability levels in the past three years have been declining compared to the past years. The study findings established that there is a positive significant relationship between accounts payable management and financial performance of Kazire health products Ltd at r=0.872(**) with P-value = 0.000. Accounts payable is one of the major sources of unsecured short-term financing resulting from transactions in which merchandise is purchased.
Page(s): 85-100 Date of Publication: 24 March 2023
