39 research outputs found
The conventional versus a constructionist Scratch programming and first-year students' achievements in higher education classes: experimental data.
No full textGlobally, learning or teaching the first programming (popularly called CS1) remains a significant educational challenge. Indicators such as CS1 students' engagement, failure and attrition rates, and lack of diversity, continue to show the need for innovating the learning or teaching of novice computer science students. To ease initiating novices to programming, Scratch, a visual programming language, has become a staple of K-12 CS1 classes.
As outcomes of a research project aiming to explore a constructionist Scratch pedagogy with novice CS students in higher education, we present these datasets. In the research lasting two successive academic sessions, we conducted two quasi-experimental studies involving four intact CS1 classes in selected public polytechnic in the north central Nigeria. In each study, we randomly assigned the classes to the experimental and control groups, constituting the constructionist Scratch and the conventional CS1 classes, respectively.
Instruments for collecting data include a student profile questionnaire, a pretest, and posttest. Sequel to ethical clearance and permission from the selected schools, we conducted each study during the first semester of each academic session, in the first seven to eight weeks. During the first to second week, we administered students who consented to take part with the questionnaire and the pretest. Learning or teaching in the two classes lasted six weeks. Then both classes took the posttest. An independent CS educator who is not part of this research marked all the achievement tests, following a rubric prepared by the first author. To strengthen the research design and the possibility of arriving at valid causal evidence, we employed a Coarsened Exact Matching (CEM) algorithm to generate matched samples of experimental and control data, which we used in the analysis.
Data presented here includes the raw, unmatched and matched experimental datasets from both studies. A researcher can make use of the data:
To explore if some background variables not addressed in the original research may moderate CS1 students' achievements. For instance, their prior achievements in mathematics, physics, or English.
To uncover some interesting patterns using machine learning algorithms.
To validate the outcome of the original experiment by using the unmatched, matched or newly generated matched samples.
The authors welcome further research collaborations in using the data or the accompanying research instruments.
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Modelling particle transport in gas-oil-sand multiphase flows and its applications to production operations
Get PDFPublic perception of climate change and its impact on health and environment in rural southwestern Nigeria
No full textEsther O Asekun-Olarinmoye,1 James O Bamidele,2 Olusola O Odu,2, Adenike I Olugbenga-Bello,3 Olugbenga L Abodurin,3 Wasiu O Adebimpe,1 Edward A Oladele,4 Adeleye A Adeomi,3 Oluwatosin A Adeoye,3 Ebenezer O Ojofeitimi31Department of Community Medicine, College of Health Sciences, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria; 2Department of Community Medicine, College of Health Sciences, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Nigeria; 3Department of Community Medicine, College of Health Sciences, Faculty of Clinical Science, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomosho, Nigeria; 4SIDHAS Project, Family Health International, Abuja, NigeriaBackground: Climate change (CC) has received extensive media attention recently, and it is currently on the international public health agenda. A study of knowledge and attitudes to climate change, most especially from rural Nigerian communities, is important for developing adaptation strategies. This is a study of public perceptions of CC and its impact on health and environment in rural southwestern Nigeria.Methods: This was a community-based descriptive cross-sectional study of 1,019 rural respondents using a multistage sampling method. The research instrument used was a pretested, structured, interviewer-administered questionnaire. Data were analyzed using SPSS software. χ2, Cramér's V, and Kendall's τ-c statistics were employed in addition to fitting the data to a logistic regression model to explore associations found significant on bivariate analysis.Results: Mean age of respondents was 36.9 (±12.4) years. About 911 (89.4%) of respondents opined that there has been a change in climate in the last 10 years. Supernatural reasons were prominent among respondent-reported causes of CC. Identified risky behavior contributing to CC included smoking (10.7%), bush burning (33.4%), and tree felling (41.0%). Poor knowledge of causes but good knowledge of effects of CC were found in this study. About two-thirds of respondents had a positive attitude to causes of CC, while half had a positive attitude to the effects of CC. A significant association was found between educational status (P<0.001, Kendall's τ-c=-0.042), occupational status (P<0.01, Kendall's τ-c=0.088), and attitude to causes of CC. Further analysis using logistic regression showed that occupational status was significantly associated with likelihood of having a positive attitude, but educational status and marital status were not.Conclusion: Rural areas of Nigeria are vulnerable to the adverse effects of CC. Respondents' poor knowledge but positive attitude to CC calls for dissemination of adequate information on CC in sustained health-promotion programs.Keywords: climate change, global warming, public perception, rural child health, environmental effec
Artificial geothermal energy potential of steam-flooded heavy oil reservoirs
No full textThis paper explores the concept of harnessing geothermal energy from heavy oil fields that have undergone steam flooding and so accumulated substantial heat from steam injection. Once the steam flooding process reaches economic cut-off resulting from high water cut and/or high steam-to-oil ratio, the reservoir would be abandoned, leaving behind stored energy in the form of heat. From this point, the reservoir could be regarded as an artificial geothermal system and its intrinsic heat from the steam flooding stage recovered by water circulation. This study shows the results of numerical reservoir simulations to quantify the energy that can be recovered by water injection after steam flooding. The results of the simulations, together with those of a sensitivity analyses on key reservoir parameters, suggest the feasibility of this concept. The results for the synthetic case used in this work show that the average produced energy rate during the water injection phase is approximately 11 MMBTU/day for 3,800 days, after which the operations stop. At that time, a cumulative net energy production of 3.02 × 104 MMBTU is recovered
Comparative analysis of SVM and logistic regression for classifying diagnostic microRNA signatures in colorectal cancer
Get PDFAbstract
The selection and classification of genes are critical for determining which ones are linked to a particular illness, especially cancer. As a result, it's critical to use machine learning algorithms to analyze relevant statistical data to aid biomedical researchers and end-users in the work of selection and classification. Few researches have been done on the early diagnosis of CRC using machine learning techniques to detect biomarkers, which are very important in colorectal cancer disease diagnoses. We therefore conduct a comprehensive gene selection and classification functionality using SVM and Logistic Regression algorithms on high-dimensional datasets. The results show that under the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve, the SVM and Logistic Regression models' discriminative capacities for classification were 83.5% and 73.2 %, respectively. This study thus reveals that the SVM algorithm outperforms the Logistic Regression algorithm in classifying data in the detection of Colorectal Cancer.
Keywords: Algorithm, Biomarkers, Classification, Colorectal Cancer, Disease Diagnosi
Methanolic Extracts of Cochorous olitorous (L.) and Adansonia digitata (L.) Leaves Against Irradiation-Induced Atherosclerosis in Male Wistar Rats
Get PDFThe present study investigated the anti-atherosclerotic and antioxidative effect of the methanolic extracts (MExt) of Cochorous olitorous (CO) and Adansonia digitata (AD) leaves on irradiation-induced atherosclerosis in male Wistar rats. Atherosclerosis was induced in male rats by a single dose of 6 gray whole body gamma radiation. MExt of C. olitorous and A. digitata leaves at 500 and 1,000 mg/kg bwt were administered as treatment for 7 days. Blood serum was analysed for lipid profile, MDA (malondialdehyde) and liver tissue for antioxidants enzymes, whereas the therapeutic potential was compared to the lipids-lowering drug lovastatin at 10 mg/kg/bwt. The phytochemical studies showed the presence of polyphenols, flavonoids, tannins and saponins. Treatment with MExt of CO and AD normalized the elevated MDA level, whereas the activities of superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase in the treated rats increased. Pronounced changes were observed at 1,000 mg/kg bwt mixture of MExt of CO and AD for 1 weeks and it was more potent than the standard drug. The current study provided strong evidence that MExt of CO and AD might be important in the treatment of atherosclerosis and ROS without any side effects at the studied dosage and duration
Capacity building needs of poultry farmers for quail production in Kwara State, Nigeria
No full textThis paper investigated the capacity building needs of poultry farmers for
quail production in Kwara State, Nigeria. A questionnaire was used to elicit
information from 80 randomly sampled poultry farmers from the Poultry
Association of Nigeria, Kwara State Chapter. The findings revealed that the
majority (70.0%) of the poultry farmers were male with a mean age of 44
years, married (75.0%) and formally educated (98.75%). The poultry farmers
were mostly (78.75%) small-scale producers rearing less than or equal to 500
birds on their farms. Capacity building was highly needed for quail husbandry
and management practices, feeding and nutrition, housing and equipment,
processing and marketing of products, among others. Seven challenges were
identified by the poultry farmers as severe challenges militating against the
diversification of their poultry enterprise to include quail production.
Chi-square analysis revealed a significant relationship between the poultry
farmers’ capacity building needs for quail production and their age (X2 =
5.545), educational level (X2 = 11.859) and years of farming experience (X2 =
9.604). It was recommended that extension agencies should package a robust
training programme for poultry farmers on the areas of capacity deficiencies
indicated for quail production
Inhibition and Compressive-Strength Performance of Na₂Cr₂O₇ and C₁₀H₁₄N₂Na₂O₈.2H₂O in Steel-Reinforced Concrete in Corrosive Environments
No full textThis paper studied corrosion-inhibition and compressive-strength performances of NaThe accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author
Hepatoprotective Potential and Histological Studies of Effects of Celosia Argentea L. on Paracetamol-Induced Liver Damage
Get PDFCelosia argentea L. is a common vegetable known to possess anti-oxidative and other therapeutic properties. This study evaluates the hepatoprotective activities and histological effects of aqueous extract of Celosia argentea L. on acetaminophen-induced liver damage in rats, compared to the effects of a standard drug –silymarin. Twenty-five male rats were used in this study. These were divided into five groups of five animals each. Animals in group 1 were given 1ml/kg body weight (b.w) distilled water (control [C]), group 2 were given 100mg/kg b.w silymarin for 4 days plus acetaminophen for 3 days [SL], groups 3 and 4 were given 250 and 500mg/kg b.w aqueous extract of C. argentea for 4 days plus acetaminophen for 3 days (CA1 and CA2, respectively) and group 5 were given 1 ml/kg b.w. distilled water for 4 days and 1g/kg b.w acetaminophen (PCM) for 3 days. Serum alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and total bilirubin activities were assessed on day 8, values of mean and standard error were compared at significance level of p < 0.05. Overall, mean ALT, AST and ALP levels in CA2 (21.8 ± 1.4, 84.2 ± 8.2 and 175.9 ± 36.9 U/L, respectively) was lower than PCM group and similar to SL group (37.6 ± 3.9, 97.2 ± 5.2 and 151.1 ± 21.91, respectively, p > 0.05). Mean values in control group were similar to CA2 but significantly lower than PCM and CA1. Total bilirubin was higher but not significantly different compared to C group, suggesting a lack of effect on total bilirubin. C. argentea ameliorates and protects against acetaminophen-induced liver damage in rats, with a comparable effect with silymarin at a dose of 500mg/kg b.w. A regular consumption of the vegetable can play a role in sustaining health and can be used in place of long term therapy in individuals with compromised liver or actively exposed to chemotherapeutic drugs with adverse effects on liver
Hydraulic Analysis of Gas/Oil/Sand Flow in Horizontal Wells
No full textThe limited knowledge and understanding of three-phase gas-oil-sand flow behaviour and transport processes has hampered the design, safe operation and project profitability of horizontal wells deployment in unconsolidated hydrocarbon reservoirs. This work presents analytical equations for calculating pressure drop characteristics and optimal flow rate to avoid sand particles deposition and accumulation in a horizontal production well under steady state conditions. The analysis is based on multiphase transport fundamentals and mechanics of particle motion in three-phase flow. The pressure gradient results predicted by the proposed model show a satisfactory agreement with a published model. A sensitivity study is then made (after model validation) using the new model to investigate effects of operating, design and system parameters on pressure gradient and optimal transport velocity under wide-ranging conditions found in practice. The potential advantages of the new methodology are also reported
