Archives-December 

Many schools have registered violent conflicts that have led to property destruction and disruption of learning activities in the affected schools. This is attributed to poor communication mechanisms between the students and the school administration. In the light of this, this study purposed to assess the influence of prefects’ involvement in communication on conflict resolution in public secondary schools. The study used descriptive survey design with a total of 33 public secondary schools that had 33 school principals, 33 Guidance and counseling teachers, a total of 292 prefects (head boys, head girls and class secretaries) and 1772 Form Three students. This gave a target population of 2130. A stratified sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 10 schools. Piloting was done in two public secondary schools. Split half method was used to ascertain the reliability and the results correlated using Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient. A correlation coefficient of 0.87 was obtained and this was used to ascertain the reliability of the instruments. The researcher applied content validity to measure the relevance of the research instrument. Data collected were coded and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). They were then analyzed using descriptive statistics and the results presented using frequency distribution tables and percentages. The study found out that involving prefects in communication enhances conflict resolution. This was supported by 60% of the principals who strongly agreed while the other 40% agreed to it. Similarly, 50% of the guidance and counseling teachers, 51.79% of the prefects and 35.14% of the students agreed. Based on these findings, it was concluded that involving prefects in communication enhances conflict resolution in public secondary schools. Therefore, it was recommended that prefects be actively and effectively involved in communication in the management and administration of public secondary schools.

Different concentrations of vermicompost such as 25% (25kg vc: 75 kg red soil), 50% (50kg vc:50 kg red soil), 75% (75kg vc:25 kg red soil), and 100% (100 kg vc) produced by earthworm, Eudrilus eugeniae, were added to red soil in polythene bags. Maize plants (Zea mays L.) were grown on vermicompost-enriched soil for 90 days. The plants were harvested at the end of 90 days and the kernels were collected. In the present investigation the number of kernels was counted; the length, breadth, and circumference of kernels were measured; the weight of kernel and total weight of all kernels were calculated. The maximum kernel number of 598.55/corn and the highest length of 1.71cm/kernel were noticed in the plants cultivated on 75% vermicompost concentration whereas the maximum kernel breadth of 1.40cm/kernel, circumference of 3.07cm/kernel, weight of 0.41 gm/kernel and total weight of all kernels (232.43gm/corn) were noticed in the plants grown on 50% vermicompost concentration. At the same time minimum kernel number of 69.42/corn, low kernel length of 0.80cm/kernel, breadth of 0.60cm/kernel, circumference of 2.02cm/kernel, weight of 0.08gm/kernel and total weight of all kernels (5.55gm/corn) were found in the control plants. The present investigation clearly revealed that the addition of vermicompost to soil greatly enhanced the kernel yield in maize.

Today world economy is more concerned about a disease which is much dangerous than swine flu, know as Global Financial Meltdown. The impact of GFM experienced by financial and economic systems around the world. The rising defaults on sub-prime mortgages in the US had triggered a global crisis for the financial markets. Many of the world’s leading investment banks have collapsed .The crisis has become one of the most radical reshaping of the global banking sector, as governments and the private sector battle to shore up the financial system following the disappearance of Lehman and Merrill as independent entities. The impact was so severe that it brought about new challenges for corporate around the world and were forced to initiate measures which left employees jobless and morale nose diving. The measures like salary cut, retrenchment /layoff became tools to tackle GFM.

Smooth and adhesive nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) and microcrystalline diamond (MCD) coatings have been achieved on a chemically etched cemented tungsten carbide (WC-6%Co) substrates, using hot filament chemical vapor deposition (HFCVD) technique. Structural and micro-structural characteristics of these coatings were compared using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy and Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) techniques. The parameters affecting the integrity of these coating-substrate systems were studied and mathematical analysis was carried out for calculating the force of de-lamination and load bearing capacity.

Platelets rich plasma (PRP) is reported to facilitate muscle regeneration both in vitro and animal studies. The aim of the study was to evaluate the intramuscular of PRP on growth factors and the regeneration of exercise induced muscle damaged (EIMD).Volunteers were assigned to a control (n=6) or PRP (n=6), and performed exhaustive exercise with one repetition maximum (1RM-80%) maximal voluntary contraction of the elbow. The arms were treated with saline or PRP post-24h exercise and blood samples were obtained in the morning to establish a baseline value and also 1-4 days post-exercise. The baseline levels of plasma insulin-like growth factor 1(IGF-1), insulin-like growth factor-binding protein 3 (IGFBP-3), vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) were different whilst growth hormone (GH) and platelet-derived growth factor (PDGF-BB) levels were similar in both groups. However, 24 h following exercise increased levels of IGF-1, GH and IGFBP-3 in control were observed. PRP up-regulated PDGF-BB and VEDF, it also inhibited GH, IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 levels post-exercise.

Enzymatic potentials of thermo-tolerant bacteria from waste dumpsites were analyzed. 30 soil samples were collected using sterile spatular into sterile universal bottles, labelled and taken to the laboratory analyses. The soil samples were serially diluted and inoculated by spread plate method on different media and incubated at 30oC for 48 hrs. The pure isolates were stored in agar slants in the refrigerator for further use. Isolates with thermophilic ability were screened for amylase, protease and lipase activity. Effects of temperature and pH on enzyme activity of the thermophilic bacterial isolates were also assessed. Bacillus subtilis (70.0%), Bacillus licheniformis (43.3%), Bacillus cereus (56.7%), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (56.7%), Streptomyces species (36.7%), Bacillus brevis (43.3%) and Norcadia species (30%) were isolated from the soil samples. All the bacterial isolates tolerated 55oC temperature while only Bacillus cereus, Bacillus brevis and Norcadia species were isolated at 60oC. All the isolates except Pseudomonas aeruginosa gave amylase activity while all the isolates gave protease activity. All the isolates except Bacillus licheniformis and Nocardia species showed lipase activity. Temperature and pH had varied effects on the enzyme activity of the isolates. These bacteria are good sources of enzymes at thermophilic temperatures and varied pH for commercial use.

Table of contents for the month of January 2020

Much has been said about the Universalism of Chomsky and his so-called revolutionary theories in the field of Modern Linguistics, but little has been done in the way of bringing in line the roots, origins and the historical bases of such a bundle of theories with Modern Western Literary Movements and the way they go back to their historical, cultural and literary tradition in describing their philosophy and assumptions. To be more specific, the present study intends to carry out a comparative study between New Criticism- as the first modern Anglo-American school of criticism- and Chomsky’s Universalism, by going to deeper levels of their priori and structure in an attempt to find a common background, as they both owe much to the heritage from which they emerge: the Old Western Tradition of Philosophy.

Mentoring is a relationship between an experienced person and a less experienced person for the purpose of helping the one with less experience. The mentee seeks the advice and support of the more experienced person. Coaching is the way in which people with vast experience help those in the same job or field of endeavor who have less experience. Coaching usually deals with specific skills and tactics, while mentoring often is a long-term process and a more personal relationship is formed. In both coaching and mentoring the goal is to help people to reach their full potential. In a basic sense it is a method of training, directing or instructing a person or group of people to do a specific task, achieve a goal or develop certain skills. Coaches are usually paid for their work, and their relationship with those being coached is a professional one. In this paper I would like to discuss various aspects of Mentoring and Coaching for the development of employees in the organization.

Utility mining is to discover the itemsets in a transaction database with utility values over a given threshold. Utility of itemsets are based upon user’s perception such as cost, profit or revenue and are of significant importance. Utility-based data mining intends discovering the itemsets with high total utility is called High Utility Itemset mining. High Utility itemsets may contain frequent as well as rare itemsets. Classical utility mining considers items alone as discrete values. In real world applications, such utilities can be described by fuzzy sets. In this paper, proposed an algorithm, FHUI (Fuzzy High Utility Itemset) Mining is presented to mine high utility itemsets effectively from large databases, by fuzzification of utility values. FHUI extracts fuzzy high utility itemsets by integrating fuzzy logic with high utility itemset mining. This algorithm finds all utility-frequent itemsets within given threshold value. The experimental result shows that, it performs efficiently in terms of speed and memory on large databases.