Archives-December 

The study examined the moderating role of child personality factors in the relation between mothers’ parenting style and child maltreatment in a sample of 330 children aged 7-10 years in Kenya. We found out that mother’s parenting style was a predictor of child maltreatment ?=.25, (p=.01). Mothers who are highly demanding and controlling were more likely to maltreat their children. Extraversion personality factor moderated this relation ?=.29 (p=.04).Thus, children who scored high in extraversion were at a greater risk of child maltreatment by mothers who are highly demanding and controlling. The study highlights the need to train Kenyan parents on positive parenting.

This study considered a method of selecting discrete distributions based on the Katz criterion in fitting an appropriate probability distribution function to available crime data in Nigeria after reasonable transformation. The criterion selected the Negative Binomial distribution for the data under consideration. The adopted distribution provided good fit as evidenced by the Anderson Darling goodness of fit test. This study has therefore applied the Katz criterion to real life data.

In this paper, the application of the Taguchi method with fuzzy logic for optimizing the electrical discharge machining process with multiple performance characteristics has been reported. A multi-response performance index is used to solve the EDM process with multiple performance characteristics. The machining parameters (discharge current (IP), pulse on time (Ton), pulse off time (Toff) and down time) are optimized with considerations of the multiple performance characteristics (electrode wear rate and material removal rate). Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach.

The present study is to investigate the effect of selective Synthetic feed like Zeepromin and Fishmin having some additive components for enhancing on certain metabolic profiles and yield parameters of the cultivable fish species like Catla catla, Labeo rohita, Cirrhinus mrigala. The fishes selected for the study are considered into two groups viz. control group and experimental group .The control group of fishes are fed with control feed i.e. Groundnut cake, rice bran. The experimental group of fishes shall further be divided into two groups, Zeepromin and Fishmin which are commercially available, have been selected for the study. The first group of experimental fish was fed with control feed mixed with Zeepromin . The second groups of experimental fish are being fed with control feed mixed with fishmin. Hence the feed i.e., control feed+ Zeepromin and Fishmin supplied to the two groups of experimental fishes shall be called as synthetic feed. Elevation of rate of fecundity and rate of fertilization was observed when fed with Zeepromin and Fishmin fed fish species. Zeepromin and Fishmin treatment enhanced the fertilization rate and all the changes were found to be statistically significant over their corresponding control values.

Sathe, Y. S. (1977) found a new set of sharp upper and lower bounds on the variance of the UMVUE in the case of inverse sampling motivated by the fact that a close-form expression to capture the actual variance is unavailable. Sahai, Ajit (1985) improved the variance upper bound in Sathe, Y. S. (1977). This note is motivated by their papers and by their inherent desire to capture that variance possibly more closely using their set of the sharp Sahai-Sathe’s upper-and-lower bounds. It was very heartening for the authors to realize that the same is possible. In fact the seminal result achieved by the authors in this note could be used for improving the sharpness of these bounds iteratively till it pleases the one using it for the purpose of being close to the actual variance of the UMVUE in the absence of its capture in the closed-form. The achievement is briefly illustrated through a modest empirical study to bring forth the power of the proposed iterative algorithm for the aforesaid purpose.

In this work, the Adomian decomposition (ADM) and Picards Iterative Methods were used to solve nonlinear ordinary differential equations analytically and numerically using the Trapezoidal rule approach, and the results are compared for accuracy and rate of convergence. Though a little modification by the use of contraction principle was made to the Picard Iteration Method in order to accelerate the convergence of the method it was found out that the ADM converges faster than the Picard’s method.

Pure tibiotalar and subtalar dislocations are uncommon, they are classically associated to fractures. Open pure total talus dislocation is exceptional and results from a high velocity traumatism, especially, in younger population. Reduction and stabilization of open dislocations should be performed promptly to avoid septic and vascular complications. We report the case of a young sportive patient who had sustained a pure open right ankle dislocation associated with vertebral injury after a mountain climbing accident. The results were interesting after reduction and stabilization of tibiotalar, subtalar, talonavicular and calcaneocuboid joints with Kirschner wires, associated to repair of medial capsular and ligamentous structures.

This work entails a palynostratigraphy and palynoclimatic study of Ochigbo – 1 well, offshore Niger Delta. A total of Sixty-two (62) ditch samples were composited at intervals at an average of 100ft. The well covered total depth of 3,405-10,640ft. These samples were subjected to standard procedure for palynological study. Recovered palynomorph were rich, diverse and well preserved. The recovered palynomorphs were used for identifying four main palynological zones. These are: Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni/P700 Zone characterized by the quantitative base occurrence of Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni and co-occurrence of Belskipollis elegans, Crassoretitriletes vanraadshooveni, Echiperiporites estalae, and Verrutricolporites rotundiporus; dated Middle Miocene; Magnastriatites howardii/P600 Zone characterized by quantitative base occurrence of Peregrinipollis nigericus and co-occurrence of Praedapollis flexibilis, Magnastriatites howardii and Monoporites annulatus; dated Early Miocene – Late Oligocene; Retibrevitricolporite obodoensis/protudens/P500 Zone characterized by the co-occurrence of Arecipitesexili muratus, Retibrevitricolporite obodoensis/protudens, Verrucatosporite susmensis and Gemmamonoporite ssp dated Late – Early Oligocene and Racemonocolpite shians/P400 Zone characterized by the base occurrence of Racemonocolpite shians. The palaeoclimatic investigation showed that the sediments were deposited predominantly under wet climate in a mangrove setting and the palaeoenvironment ranges from brackish to deep marine environments.

The purpose of this research is to investigate the use of varied steel fibres with different aspect ratio in structural concrete to enhance the mechanical properties of self compacted concrete(SCC). The objective of the study is to determine and do the comparative study of the properties of concrete containing no fibres and concrete with fibres, as well as the comparison on the effects of different type and aspect ratio of fibres to the self compacted concrete. This investigation was carried out using several tests, which included workability tests of SCC, shear test, torsion test, moment etc

This study was carried out to assess the performance, haematological, biochemical indices and bacteria load of broiler chickens fed diets supplemented with copper sulphate (CuSO4) at 0%, 100ppm, 200ppm and 300ppm inclusion levels. A total of one hundred and twenty (120) broiler chicks were careful selected and assigned to four (4) dietary treatments. The experiment was performed in three (3) replicates with ten (10) chickens per replicate making a total of thirty (30) chicks per diet. The birds were randomly selected using the Completely Randomized Design (CRD). The birds were fed ad libitum and given clean and cool water. At the end of the feeding trial, at four (4) weeks, birds fed diet 1 had the highest total fed intake (g/bird) of (34.64) and at 8 weeks, diet 2 containing 100ppm of copper sulphate has the highest feed intake (g/bird) of (180.67). The highest total weight gain (g/birds/day) in birds fed diet 2 containing 100ppm CuSO4 (1632.96) at eight (8) weeks of age. The highest feed conversion ratio was observed in the birds fed diet 3. The results obtained showed that all the haematological indices measured were not significantly (p>0.05) influenced by the treatments as the birds fed the supplemented diets were not different from birds fed the control diet which fall within the normal range. The serum biochemical values showed that cholesterol, albumin, total protein, bilirubin, aspartate aminotransferase (AST), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT), Alkaline phosphate (ALP), creatinine and globulin were not significantly affected by the dietary treatment. The blood cholesterol level of the birds ranged between 25.09g/l in the 100ppm CuSO4 inclusion to 40.12g/l in the control diet. A decrease at 100ppm CuSO4 inclusion level was observed followed by an initial increase in blood cholesterol was recorded in 200ppm and 300ppm CuSO4 inclusion level. The fact that values obtained for both alkaline phosphatase and globulin concentration did not differ significantly among treatment means showed that the utilization of CuSO4 in the diets of broiler birds will have no detrimental effects on their physiological functions. The bacterial load of liver, spleen and duodenum in birds fed diets 1, 2 and 3 decreased as the levels of inclusion of CuSO4 increases but got higher in those fed diet 4. Keywords: Copper Sulphate, Performance, Haematological indices, Biochemical properties and Bacterial loads