Archives-j  

The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) is making a frantic effort in stamping out widespread examination malpractices, which has threatened its credibility for many years. To this the board is considering introducing e-exams for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Nigeria amidst a low level of computer literacy, Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and epileptic power supply in Nigeria. This research sets out to examine the modalities and viability of this venture, thereby suggesting a workable platform; a means of achieving this implementation.

In this article, the authors propose that relationship quality model for retail banking should consist of antecedents and consequences. The antecedents proposed are relational selling behavior and positive emotional display, while the consequences are future interaction and positive word of mouth. The authors will argue that the inclusion of both antecedents and consequences will help retail banks to refine their relationship quality model.

Language is of paramount importance and a useful tool in the development of any nation. It is that variable in the development process that coordinates all other elements of development towards the growth of the human society. However, no society as it were, can claim to be totally monolingual due to the ease of mobility of peoples across the globe. Thus languages, which are means of cultural identity of peoples, have to coexist in a particular geopolitical entity. Rather than the multilinguistic nature and its attendant multiculturalism of nations serving as impediment to the development of nations it should be considered as part of the nations’ natural resource for growth and development. The diverse languages in countries should be made to serve as a means of integration and source of strength. People must wake up to the reality of their multilingual identity by ensuring that languages co-exist to bring about the needed popular participation in national development. Multilingualism is therefore, a veritable tool in the development process of nations.

Water is one of the important natural resource available to mankind. Proper utilization of this resource requires assessment and management of the quantity and quality both spatially and temporally. A mathematical model provides quantitative mathematical description of the processes which includes a collection of mathematical equations expressing relationships between input and output variables through establishing and estimating the relevant parameters. The ANN models have been used successfully to model the complex non-linear input-output relationship. An ANN can be defined as data processing system consisting of a large number of samples. Artificial neural networks (ANN) have found increasing applications in various aspects of hydrology. The study revealed that a feed-forward artificial neural network with back propagation algorithm having a single hidden layer with two neurons in the hidden layer was able to model the rainfall-runoff transformation quite accurately. The correlation coefficient during the training varies between 0.88 and 0.93 and during testing varies between 0.78 and 0.95 respectively whereas the model efficiency varies between 73.70% and 85.77% with an overall efficiency of 81.18% during training and between 52.62 % and 90.01 % with an overall efficiency of 66.71% during testing.

The aim of this paper is to prove that the infinite family of pure octic field L = Q( ?8 m) is non-monogenic if m ? 1 (mod 4), ultimately, to complete the classification of pure octic fields L = Q( ?8 m) with respect to monogenity. We prove our results by considering the relative norms of the partial differents ? ? ? ?j of an integer ? from the Galois closure L˜ of L to Dirichlet optimum subfields of L, ˜ where ? is the isomorphism which maps ?8 m to ?8 ?8 m of L with ?8 = e 2?i/8 , i = ? ?1 and j = 4, 2, 1

The aim of this study was to evaluate the nutients content and antioxidant capacity of fresh immature fruits of twelve varieties from Okra (Abelmoschus esculentus L.). Protein and utilizable carbohydrate contents were evaluated by the method of Gornall (1949) and Dubois (1956), respectively. Atomic absorption spectrophotometry was used to determine the quantities of minerals present in the samples. The antioxidant activity was measured using FRAP test.The highest protein content is observed in the variety V3 (36.055 ± 0.017 g/100 g). That in utilizable carbohydrate is observed in the variety V19 (9.2418 ± 0.014 g/ 100 g). The zinc, iron and copper contents are relatively low. Varieties V19 (60mg/kg), V52 (40 mg/kg) and V42 (14 mg/kg) showed the high contents of zinc, iron and copper, respectively. Evaluation of antioxidant activity in vitro of the extracts, from the different varieties of okra, by the reduction’s method of the ferric ion (FRAP), showed interesting activities. The highest ferric ion reduction capacity was observed with the V42 variety (62.93 mmol EAA / g). All the results obtained revealed that immature fruits of okra’s varieties V5, V16, V52 and V42 presented the higher nutritional and antioxidant potentials among all the varieties and could thus be recommended to children, women and older people for their diet.

Several compression for 3-D medical images have been proposed in the past year, some of which proved resolution and quality scalability up to lossless reconstruction. A novel 3-D scalable compression method for medical images with optimized volume of interest (VOI) coding were presented in this paper. The method is presented within the framework of interactive telemedicine applications, where different remote clients may access the compressed 3-D medical imaging data stored on a central server and request the transmission of different VOIs from an initial lossy to a final lossless representation. The VOI are decoded at the highest quality possible at any bit-rate, while allowing for the decoding of background information. The objective and subjective quality evaluation on various medical volumetric datasets shows that the proposed algorithms provide competitive lossy to lossless compression. The modified version of the embedded block coder with optimized truncation (modified EBCOT), tailored according to the characteristics of the data, encodes the residual data generated after prediction to provide resolution and quality scalability. The Digital watermarking is the process of embedding information into a digital signal which may be used to verify its authenticity or the identity of its owners, in the same manner as paper bearing a watermark for visible identification. Performance evaluations based on real 3-D medical imaging data showed that the proposed method achieves a higher reconstruction quality, in terms of the peak signal-to-noise ratio, than that achieved by 3D-JPEG2000 with VOI coding, when using the MAXSHIFT and general scaling-based methods.

An off-grid hybrid energy system consisting of SPV - diesel generator – converter – battery is considered with zero percent loss of load for different electrical loads at a particular location of Jaipur, Rajasthan. Electrical loads of 1 kW, 2 kW, 3 kW, 5 kW, 8 kW, 10 kW, 20 kW and 50 kW are considered to analyze the system economically, electrically and emission point of view and optimized using HOMER software. LCOE decreases with increase in load up to 5 kW and it is almost constant between 5 kW to 20 kW and increases sharply beyond 20 kW electrical load

Higher quality and cost effective welds can be achieved by understanding the weld metal properties and influence of welding parameters. Submerged arc welding is preferred process for the higher productivity and better finishing of deposited metal. Welding input parameters have significant role in determining the quality of a weld joint. The joint quality can be assessed in terms of weld bead geometry and weld metal properties. Investigation has been made on influence of welding input parameters on weld bead geometry and metallurgical properties.

The physicochemical parameters and some contaminants of crude oil samples from the Jubilee oil field at Cape Three Points, western region and Saltpond oil field in Central region of Ghana were analyzed to classify and assess the quality of the crude oils. The physicochemical parameters determined were density, specific gravity, API, pour point, total sulphur content, salt in crude, total acid number, viscosity, reid vapour pressure and ash weight whereas the contaminants measured were water and sediments. Results from the physicochemical parameters for both samples showed a perfect Pearson’s correlation (r ?1). Low water and sediments levels (<1%) were recorded for both crude oils. This is an indication of low or minimal microbial growth and reduced ability of both crude oils to serve as a collector of water soluble metals and salts. This enhances the quality of the crude oils making them less fouling and corrosion resistant at high temperatures. High API values (API>30), coupled with low specific gravity, viscosity and pour point for both crude oils make them light crude oils. The sulphur concentration for both samples were low and within globally accepted range of 0.1-0.5 wt. % for sweet crude oil.