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Organisational Communication, The Panacea For Improved Labour Relations
Get PDFThis paper examined the importance of organisational communication to overall
effective labour relations. It looked at organisational communication and its role in labour
relations between the parties involved in Labour relations for better business procedures and
relationships. It explained the importance of organisational communication in enhancing better
labour relations within the organisation and with people outside the organisation. It enumerated
the various groups that are involved in industrial relations and how they could use organisational
communication for better industrial relations. It established the importance of organisational
communication to the overall success of any organisation. Communication is vital to all human
relations including labour relations but it seems to have been taken for granted or treated as
inconsequential. When good organisational communication is not given its pride of place in
organisation, it would affect labour relations negatively. This paper looked at the importance of
organisational communication to labour relations, its effects on organisational performance, and
negative effects of lack of good communication between stakeholders in labour relations and
concluded that organisational communication should be properly used by all concerned in
industrial relation matters for better performance of the organisation and improved labour
relations both within and outside the organisation
Antioxidant effects of methanol extract of Allium cepa linn on cyanide-induced renal toxicity in male Wistar rats
Get PDFSummary: The protective effects of onion was assessed in the Kidney of rats following sub-acute exposure to cyanide. These effects were compared to those of sodium thiosulphate (Na2S2O3), a classical antidote of cyanide toxicity. The rats were divided into 6 groups of 6 animals each. Group 1 was administered distilled water, Group 2,3,4, 5, and 6 were administered 600 mg onion/kg bwt/day, 7 mg KCN/kg bwt/day, 300 mg onion/kg bwt/day+ 7 mg KCN/kg bwt/day, 600 mg onion/kg bwt/day+ 7mgKCN/kg bwt/day, 600mg Na2S2O3/kg bwt/day+ 7mgKCN/kg bwt/day respectively for 2 weeks. Group 3, 4 and 5 were pre-administered with 300mg onion/kg bwt/day, 600mg onion/kg bwt/day and 600mg Na2S2O3 /kg bwt/day respectively for 2 weeks. Serum and urine creatinineand urea level were assessed as a measure of kidney function. Oxidative stress and antioxidant parameters were estimated in Kidney. Serum creatinine and urea levels were significantly higher in the cyanide treated rats compared with control. This was accompanied by significant reduction in the urine level of creatinine and urea. Co-administration with onion extract and Na2S2O3 reverse the situation in both the serum and urine. The level of malondialdehyde (MDA) in rats treated with cyanide (3.846±0.20μg/g) was significantly increased in the kidney relative to control (0.691±0.15μg/g). This was accompanied with a decreased in antioxidant enzymes Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) (2.0±0.09U/mg), Catalase (CAT) (0.014±0.001katf), Glutathione-S-Tranferase (GST) (0.015±0.009nMol/mg) and non-enzymatic antioxidant Reduced Glutathione (GSH) (4.006±0.09μg/ml) compared with control (4.8±0.13 U/mg, 0.047±0.001 katf, 0.022±0.0013 nMol/mg, 6.802±0.2 μg/ml respectively). Co-administration with onion extract and Na2S2O3 significantly increased these antioxidant enzymes and significantly decreased the concentration of malondialdehyde in the kidney. The results indicate that onion extract reduced lipid peroxidation in the kidney and increased antioxidant status of animals exposed to cyanide in a dose dependent manner
Hardware Implementation of ANFIS Controller for Gas-Particle Separations in Wet Scrubber System
Get PDFWet scrubber system has been used for the control of gas and particulate matter (PM)
emissions from production industries. Due to non-linear characteristics, wet scrubbers
are limited to the control of PM that is less than 5μm. In this study, an intelligent control
technique based on Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) has been designed
using MATLAB software. The ANFIS Controller has the advantage of solving nonlinearities in the proposed wet scrubber system by manipulating the scrubbing liquid droplet size for the effective control of particulate matter that is less than 5μm. From the simulation results, the controller was able to set PM concentration below the setpoint and provides smooth control response within short settling time. Hardware implementation of
the ANFIS controller was performed using prototype wet scrubber system by considering Arduino Duemilanove microcontroller and MATLAB interface. The results show that the intelligent controller has achieved the desired objectives of controlling the PM concentration effectively by setting the value below the set point (20μg/m 3) which is the allowable PM concentration standard recommended by World Health Organization
Studies on ethnoveterinary practice of ruminants in Ekiti State Nigeria
Get PDFA survey was conducted in Ekiti State on ethnoveterinary practice used in rural areas against parasitic
diseases of ruminants. A questionnaire was used for the survey among the rural people and pastorals.
The result revealed the effect of socioeconomic characteristics such as age, sex, marital status,
educational status, religion and occupation on the ethnoveterinary practice by the rural people of Ekiti
State. The rural people should be more educated on how to improve on the use of traditional method to
treat diseases to provide better health care for the animals. The most common diseases of goat in Ekiti
State include mange and diarrhea. A total of 51 plants were observed to be in used by the people of
Ekiti State. These plants came from 28 families. The various ethnoveterinary practice used in the study
includes: palm oil, medicinal plants, cold water, hot ash, palm kernel oil, sand from stream water,
kerosene, fire, Locust bean to treat diseases such as mange, respiratory diseases, neck problem,
lameness, lice, diarrhea, parasite in the hoof, swollen body, mouth problem and so on. The government
should fund research to test the findings (validation) in this study to further clarify them. And there
should be biodiversity conservation
A real valued neural network based autoregressive energy detector for cognitive radio application
Get PDFA real valued neural network (RVNN) based energy detector (ED) is proposed and analyzed for cognitive radio (CR) application. This was developed using a known two-layered RVNN model to estimate the model coefficients of an autoregressive (AR) system. By using appropriate modules and a well-designed detector, the power spectral density (PSD) of the AR system transfer function was estimated and subsequent receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves of the detector generated and analyzed. A high detection performance with low false alarm rate was observed for varying signal to noise ratio (SNR), sample number, and model order conditions. The proposed RVNN based ED was then compared to the simple periodogram (SP), Welch periodogram (WP), multitaper (MT), Yule-Walker (YW), Burg (BG), and covariance (CV) based ED techniques. The proposed detector showed better performance than the SP, WP, and MT while providing better false alarm performance than the YW, BG, and CV. Data provided here support the effectiveness of the proposed RVNN based ED for CR application
EFFECTS OF LIBRARY INSTRUCTION ON SATISFACTION WITH THE USE OF LIBRARY AND ITS SERVICES: A STUDY OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS IN FIVE UNIVERSITIES IN THE SOUTHERN PART OF NIGERIA
Get PDFUser education is an academic programme that is designed by higher institutions to educate library users on how to effectively utilize library resources and its services. The saying that a University is a library surrounded by other buildings is a clear pointer to the centrality of library to educational pursuits. User education and use of library remain one huge challenge. It is established that library users all over the world face various challenges which impact the extent to which the resources available are put to maximum and effective use. This paper is an exploration to evaluate the effect of library education programme on Undergraduate Students of Southern Part of Nigeria. It attempts to answer questions like how have Librarians positioned the library for effective use of students? Are library users given adequate and impactful user education? The paper discovered that although user education programmes exist and users are of the opinion that they helped boost their use of library, the library still needs to intensify its efforts to educate library users through setting up of additional methods of user education in order to achieve excellence in educational pursui
Anticholinesterase and Antioxidative Properties of Aqueous Extract of Cola acuminata Seed In Vitro
Get PDFStaff PublicationBackground. Cola acuminata seed, a commonly used stimulant in Nigeria, has been reportedly used for the management of neurodegenerative diseases in folklore without scientific basis. This study sought to investigate the anticholinesterase and antioxidant properties of aqueous extracts from C. acuminata seed in vitro. Methodology. The aqueous extract of C. acuminata seed was prepared (w/v) and its effect on acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase activities, as well as some prooxidant (FeSO4, sodium nitroprusside (SNP), and quinolinic acid (QA)) induced lipid peroxidation in rat brain in vitro, was investigated. Results. The results revealed that C. acuminata seed extract inhibited AChE (IC50 = 14.6 μg/mL) and BChE (IC50 = 96.2 μg/mL) activities in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, incubation of rat’s brain homogenates with some prooxidants caused a significant increase in the brain malondialdehyde (MDA) content and inhibited MDA production dose-dependently and also exhibited further antioxidant properties as typified by their high radicals scavenging and Fe2+ chelating abilities. Conclusion. Inhibition of AChE and BChE activities has been the primary treatment method for mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Therefore, one possible mechanism through which the seed exerts its neuroprotective properties is by inhibiting cholinesterase activities as well as preventing oxidative-stress-induced neurodegeneration. However, this is a preliminary study with possible physiological implications
Development of an intelligent scorpion detection technique using vibration analysis
Get PDFA possible solution to address the problem of Scorpion stings is the capability of detecting its presence earlier before it stings. This paper presents efforts in Scorpion detection using substrate vibration modelling approach. An eight stage approach has been presented in this work. Using sinusoidal signal, signal representing Scorpion behaviour was firstly sampled and then amplified before transmitting to a nearby receiving module. The received signal undergoes filtering for noise removal before being modelled for coefficients determination. The computed coefficients were then clustered for analysis of behavioural determination. Results obtained in this work show that the proposed technique can be used for Scorpion detection
Design, fabrication and testing of a cassava pelletizer
Get PDFThis paper reports on the design of fabrication and testing of a machine for cottage level production of pellets from cassava mash. The pelletizer consists of a barreled screw auger which compresses cassava mash against perforated end plate, through which the pellets are pelletized. The result derived from the calculated design parameters (shaft diameter, tensile stress, torque, screw length, volumetric capacity mass flow rate and power rating) were used for the fabrication. The testing of the pelletizer was determined in terms of throughput of the machine, against the moisture content of the mash (18, 20 and 22% wb), die size (4, 6 and 8 mm) and the auger speed (90, 100 and 120 rpm). Test results showed that the pellets with the best quality attributes were obtained from cassava mash at 18% moisture content (wb) through the 4 mm die at 90 rpm and a maximum throughput of 54 kg/h
Occupational Health and Safety among Street Traders in, Nigeria
Get PDFThis study examined two important types of occupational hazards in the street trading activities in Nigeria which
are (i) injuries sustained from road traffic accident and (ii) harassment of traders through indiscriminate arrest,
seizure and confiscation of merchandise and occasional incarceration of sellers in police cells. The data for the
study was generated from a 2011 national survey of 3,873 street traders in Nigeria which was made possible
through a research grant provided by the Covenant University’s Centre for Research and Development. In
addition to the descriptive statistics used in profiling the street traders, the binary logistic regression approach
was also used to estimate the log of odds of experiencing occupational hazards in street trading activities. The
study found out that 25 percent of the traders have suffered injury, while 49.1 percent have experienced
harassment from public authority officials. Given these findings, policy measures that would focus on integrated
national development, provide alternative selling points off the main streets for traders who cannot hire a shop,
create more decent jobs for educated youths who are forced to take up street trading due to long spell of
unemployment, among others, were proposed