bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of COVID-19 during lockdown in Nepal
Authors: Mahato Preeti , Tamang Pasang , Simkhada Padam , Shahi Prakash , Teijlingen Edwin van , Aryal Nirmal , Regmi Pramod 
Published: June 2020

Nepal started its full lockdown on March 24, 2020 and has been extended until 14 June 2020 as a precaution for prevention of COVID-19 infection. However, the strict lockdown has been criticised by many as not all the deaths are caused by COVID-19. The long and strict lockdown have had some negative effects in many aspects of health of an individual in the community. Many women are facing barriers to access maternity health care during the lockdown period and there has been rise in the suicidal behaviour such as sucidal attempt and actual suicide itself among the general population. As the lockdown began in Nepal, all the school and colleges were suspended, and children were forced to spend their time indoors and exams has been postponed leaving the students stressed about the uncertainty of their future. Social distancing, isolation and quarantine at home can result in isolated in an abusive home where there could be even more increase in abuse during such crisis. Millions of babies are missing the routine vaccinations which is a threat to global achievement in immunization. Apart from the rise in negative impact on health of Nepali people, there are other impacts related to health such as serious impacts on logistics and supply management including shortage of medicine and food supply; and impacts on farming including both production and sale. Nepal took several precautionary measures as a response towards COVID-19 such as First, limiting international air travel, sealing the land border-crossings with India and introduction of social distancing measures. However, with rise in deaths due to non COVID related causes and negative impacts on economic and financial condition of the country, there is a need for the country to ease its lockdown. Contact tracing, making face mask mandatory along with social distancing measure can be an alternative to lockdown for Nepal while the country is preparing to ease its lockdown. Social distancing, hygiene, lifestyle factors and PPE measures need to continue for long term, whilst we need to keep working on the big public health issues such as poverty reduction, improving access to health service to achieve universal health coverage.
Design and Implementation of a Compact Home Security System
Authors: Guiawa Mathurine , Ofusori Temidayo J , Olusuyi Kehinde O , Ezea Hilary U , Babarinde Adedayo K 
Published: June 2020

This paper presents the design and implementation of a compact home security system. The use of security systems in today’s home where safety is an important issue cannot be over emphasized. The high crime rates and domestic hazards has brought up the need to take proper measures to prevent intrusions and hazards. It is in this regard that the design and implementation of a compact home security system based on the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) comes in. Previous designs have used finger print protection, password protection, speech recognition, sensors with buzzer alarms, SMS and e-mail alerts but the designs were with so much complexities as well as at a cost disadvantage. The system presented here is of a minimal cost and simple design, it consists of one motion sensor, one temperature sensor, and one gas sensor. The system was designed using the ATMEGA 8 microcontroller which controls the sending of SMS to the authorized number. The motion sensor (infrared) detects the movement of people entering the house and when there is a detection of an intruder the owner is notified through an SMS. The temperature sensor in this system also initiates an SMS to the owner when the temperature exceeds a particular value. The gas sensor also works in similar manner when it detects smoke and gas thereby sending SMS alert to the owner of the house. The respective sensors detected the compromise in each situation and sent the corresponding SMS to the user. This device therefore helps to prevent intruders, accidents arising from harmful gases and fire outbreaks in homes, offices and industries.
Risks Comparison between Nuclear Generated Electricity and Other Electricity Generation Sources in Nigeria
Authors: Salawu Abdulhameed , Oche Celestine O 
Published: June 2020

Nigeria with over 0.181 Billion people currently suffers from acute power shortage which has seriously affected the country’s economy for several years with no viable solution thus far. Salvaging this situation brings up the need for a search for more efficient means of generating ‘24/7’ electricity in Nigeria. Several attempts by Government to introduce nuclear generated electricity were faced with a lot of criticism from the Nigerian populace. This paper focuses on the perceptions of Nigerians vis-a-vis electricity production using nuclear energy. It raised valid questions and sampled opinions of Nigerians. The survey carried out in this work shows that a lot of Nigerians do not understand that we have accepted more risky physical facilities or riskier option of electrical energy generation as compared to nuclear energy. Hence it made comparison between the casualty rates from other energy generation sources, accident from various means of transportation and from nuclear power plant. The analysis of data used in this work (as provided in table 6.0), shows that it would take road traffic accidents just about four days to claim as much lives as nuclear reactors in 50 years and that in about three years, aviation industry in Nigeria claim more lives than accidents from nuclear reactors in 50 years. We also observed that electricity production from nuclear energy has the lowest record of accidents and fatalities rate as compared to other major energy generation sources.
Casting and Performance Evaluation of Pump Impeller and Housing using Local Raw Materials
Authors: Olorunfemi Bayode J , Adejuyigbe Samuel B , Adekunle Adefemi A 
Published: June 2020

Casting of pump impeller and its housing was carried out using locally available materials. Performance evaluation was conducted to show if the locally produced pump impeller and its housing could be compared favourably in terms of performances with the imported ones. The sand used for the moulding of the pump housing and impeller was blended in the sand mixer with bentonite, wood dust, water and others as desired in their correct proportions (Bentonite-3.5%, Water 3.5%; Wood dust 4.2%). Pouring of the molten metal unto the assembled mould was done at a temperature of about 1380oC. Portable optical pyrometer was used to measure the temperatures. The charge make ups was 135kg of cast iron scraps, 0.58% FeSi, 0.035% Femn and 0.0045% Inoculants. Replica of the two components were carefully produced in wooden patterns to make the sand mould easy, while the casting was made using grey cast iron because of the need to machine it to its final dimensions with ease. The results obtained from the various test carried out shows no significant difference from the standard result of the imported ones.
Effect of Magnetically Treated Water on Precipitation of some Macro Elements in the Soil for Tomato Growth
Authors: Yusuf Kamorudeen O , Ogunlela Ayodele O 
Published: June 2020

This study was conducted to determine effect of magnetically treated water (MTW) on the precipitation of some macro elements in the soil for tomato growth. Magnetic flux densities used for treating the water were 124, 319 and 719 gauss (G) produced from electromagnet with direct current. A 1.0 litre of MTW was added to sandy loam in a bucket at 3 days interval for 45 days. Each treatment was replicated 3 times and a control experiment in which the soil was treated with 1.0 litre of non–magnetically treated water (NMTW) and replicated 3 times. The mean concentrations of calcium, potassium, sodium, nitrogen, phosphorus, organic matter and organic carbon for MTW treated using 719 G were 3.16 cmol/kg, 2.67 cmol/kg, 1.58 cmol/kg, 0.97 %, 2.39 mg/kg, 2.41 % and 1.39 %, respectively while the corresponding values for NMTW were 2.82 cmol/kg, 2.35 cmol/kg, 1.42 cmol/kg, 0.87 %, 2.26 mg/kg, 2.30 % and 1.32 %. MTW treated by 124 G also gave higher values of concentrations macro elements than the values from soil treated with NMTW. The influence of MTW by 124, 319, 719 G and NMTW on mean heights of tomato plant (growth) at 26 days after planting were 154.3, 178.6190.3 and 137.1 mm while at 47 days the heights were 560.0, 556.4, 588.6 and 469.3 mm, respectively. Mean diameter of the tomato stem at 30 mm above soil level for 124, 319, 719 G and NMTW at 49 days after planting were 8.64, 7.99, 8.21 and 6.96 mm, respectively. Keywords: Magnetically treated water, macro elements, paired t-test, soil
A SONAR-Based Water Level Monitoring System: An Experimental Design
Authors: Amusa Kamoli A. , Opeodu Francis A. , Adewusi Adeoluwawale , Adewunmi Timothy O. 
Published: June 2020

Storage of water is common to all human for domestic and industrial utilization. Today, water tanks are the conventional and a major component in water storage systems as they have the capacity to hold large volume of water over a long period of time. They come in different shapes and sizes. However inadequate monitoring of water level in this storage facility may lead to either shortage of water supply when needed or its wastage during lifting process. Hence, there is need for proper monitoring of water level in a storage facility. This need motivates this work, which is the development of water level monitoring system that based on sonar technology. Materials employed in the development include ultrasonic sensor module, ATmega-328P microcontroller, 16MHz crystal oscillator, 12V dc water pump among others. The developed system monitors the water level and activates the pump as appropriate based on the input the ultrasonic sensor gives to the microcontroller which occupies the centre of the system. The developed system has potential of mitigating the attendant problems that usually arise from wastage or shortage of water supply with respect to water storage facility. Keywords—SONAR, water storage, monitoring system
Wireless Network Planning and Optimal Radio Placement Using Egly Empirical Model
Authors: Abolade Olatilewa R , Oyedeji Ajibola , Osifeko Martins , Adekoya Oluwatobi 
Published: June 2020

Path loss and outages are crucial in networking and need to be put into consideration in wireless network planning. The recommendation of a network layout for a particular area should be given careful thought and analysis. Preparing the design of wireless communication networks require a detailed understanding of radio propagation over the specific environment. In general, there are two basic problems of multipath fading of the radio link and interference from other users in the cellular reuse environment. In this paper, Egly propagation model was used for network planning and management to achieve optimum resource usage and minimize outages by effectively reducing path loss through empirical transmitter and receiver placement. Keywords- Empirical Model, Network Planning, Path Loss, Radio Placement
Development of a Solar Aided Crib for Drying and Storage of Maize Cobs
Authors: Falayi Folayan R , Benjamin Ojo 
Published: June 2020

The aim of this study was to design, construct and evaluate the performance of solar aided crib for storage of freshly harvested maize (Zea mays) in a humid tropical climate. A crib with two drying chambers of size 600 mm x 685 mm x 1500 mm with moisture emission chamber of 600 mm x 115 mm x 1500 mm was designed, constructed and evaluated using appropriate design procedures at the department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. The roof of the crib is made of perspex which transmits the sun's energy into stored maize in the crib for effective drying purpose. The crib was raised at 50 mm above the ground surface and wire netted against rodents. It has two doors for easy loading and off-loading. Freshly harvested Maize weighing 500 kg of 30.5% moisture content (wet basis) was stored for three months. Moisture content of the maize was taken on weekly basis while relative humidity and temperature were measured on daily basis. Readings were taken at three positions (top, middle and bottom) in apertures that were made in those positions but were immediately covered up at the end of every reading. The ambient temperatures varied from 20.90C to 380C and also relative humidity varied from 41% to 91% throughout the period of the experiment. The moisture content at the point of storage was 30.5 % but was reduced to 4 % after three months. The final weight of maize in cobs was 362 kg which implied that the Perspex roof significantly aided in the drying process. The structure is structurally balanced and there was no grain deterioration either by fungal invasion or insects attack during the storage period. Keywords: Crib, Drying, Moisture content, Storage, Temperature
Development of a Sludge Dewatering Filter and Utilization of Dried Sludge in Brick Making
Authors: Ewemoje Oluseyi E , Bademosi Tinuadeji T 
Published: June 2020

These A dewatering filter was designed and constructed to dewater sludge collected from Eleyele waterworks using slow sand filtration. Washed sand passing through sieve mesh size of 1.18 mm was used as the filter media. The flow rate of the filtrate was monitored for six (6) days and readings were taken at 30-minute intervals for 6 hours after each sludge loading of 15 L. The dewatered and dried sludge was investigated for use as brick material. The sludge and laterite samples were characterized using Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy. The major chemical components of the sludge and laterite samples were silicon, aluminium and iron oxides. The laterite soil sample consisted of 60.47% SiO2, 17.77% Al2O3 and 8.18% Fe2O3 while the sludge sample consisted of 52.98% SiO2, 29.46% Al2O3 and 3.63% Fe2O3. Batching method by weight was used in mixing the materials in the ratios of sludge at 0%, 15% and 30% to produce laboratory scale bricks with dimensions of 70 mm by 70 mm by 70 mm and the properties of the bricks were investigated. The average compressive strength of the laterite bricks with dried sludge content of 0%, 15% and 30% were 3.15 N/mm2, 3.08 N/mm2 and 2.64 N/mm2, respectively. The results of this research demonstrated that a locally constructed sludge dewatering filter can be used to thicken waterworks sludge and laterite-sludge can be made from dewatered water works sludge.Keywords—Compressive strength, bricks, filter, media slow sand filtration, waterworks sludge
Performance Evaluation of Manhattan and Euclidean Distance Measures For Clustering Based Automatic Text Summarization
Authors: Salihu Shakirat A , Onyekwere Ifeoma P , Mabayoje Modinat A , Mojeed Hammed A 
Published: June 2020

In the past few years, there has been an explosion in the amount of text data from a variety of sources. This volume of text is a valuable source of information and knowledge which needs to be effectively summarized to be useful. In this paper, automatic text summarization with K-means clustering techniques is presented by employing two different distance measurement methods (Euclidean and Manhattan). The dataset extracted from African prose was preprocessed using stopwords removal and tokenization. The preprocessed document is converted into vector representation using tf-idf technique and k-means clustering is applied using Euclidean and Manhattan distance measures to generate summary. There are different distance measures for k-means which has been used in several works. However, there is dearth of work on the performance evaluation of these distance measures in text summarization. The experimental analysis was performed on Waikato Environment for Knowledge Analysis (WEKA). The results obtained showed that the Euclidean variation produced an extractive summary of sentences amounting to 72% from three different clusters while the Manhattan variation produced an extractive summary of sentences that made up 94% of the total document all in one cluster using compression ratio as the performance metric. Keywords— Text summarization, Euclidean distance, k-means clustering, Manhattan distance
Performance Evaluation of Selected Cost Functions in Non Negative Matrix Factorization Based Decomposition of Acoustic Mixture
Authors: Adewusi Adeoluwawale , Amusa Kamoli A , Are Aliu S 
Published: June 2020

Interaction of acoustic signals when several audio sources are active simultaneously results in the disturbance of estimation of an individual source by co-occurring sounds. Data decomposition therefore constitutes one of the core tasks in monaural source separation. Particularly, in semi-supervised learning approach, viable means of achieving this is through the application of Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF). Owing to a paucity of information on the application of this method, especially in a speech system, evaluation of some cost functions in NMF-based monaural speech decomposition was investigated in this study. A generalized gradient descent algorithm is derived for the minimization while three cost functions: Euclidean Distance, Kullback-Leibler Divergence and Itakura-Saito divergences are applied to the derived separation NMF algorithm. These divergences are evaluated using experimental data while the performance of each of these is evaluated based on the cost values and convergence rate. Itakura-Saito divergence yields optimal performance over the other two divergences for given number of iterations and number of channels. Keywords— Cost functions, non-negative matrix factorization, speech separation, evaluation
A Modified Energy-Efficient Clustering with Splitting and Merging for Wireless Sensor Networks using Cluster-Head Handover Mechanism
Authors: Tekanyi Abdoulie M.S. , Braimoh Jinadu A , Bajoga Buba G 
Published: June 2020

Energy efficiency is one of the most important challenges for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This is due to the fact that sensor nodes have limited energy capacity. Therefore, the energy of sensor nodes has to be efficiently managed to provide longer lifetime for the network. To reduce energy consumption in WSNs, a modified Energy Efficient Clustering with Splitting and Merging (EECSM) for WSNs using Cluster-Head Handover Mechanism was implemented in this research. The modified model used information of the residual energy of sensor nodes to select backup Cluster Heads (CHs) while maintaining a suitable CH handover threshold to minimize energy consumption in the network. The backup CHs take over the responsibilities of the CHs once the handover threshold is reached. The modified model was validated in terms of network lifetime and residual energy ratio with EECSM using MATLAB R2013a. Average improvements of 7.5% and 50.7% were achieved for the network lifetime and residual energy ratio respectively which indicates a significant reduction in energy consumption of the network nodes. Keywords— Clustering, Energy-Efficiency, Handover, Lifetime, Wireless Sensor Network
Experimental Evaluation of Optimum Water to Air Flow Ratio in an Induced Draft Wet Cooling Tower
Authors: Ahmadu Talib O , Dandajeh Hamisu A 
Published: June 2020

Cooling towers are devices used to dissipate waste thermal heat to the ambient environment. Appropriate cooling water and air flow rates are necessary to ensure optimum cooling power and cooling efficiency. Also, a simple design is required for cost effectiveness and minimal maintenance issues. This paper experimentally evaluates the cooling power, cooling efficiency, as well as the optimum water to air flow ratio in a spray type induced draft wet cooling tower. The cooling tower, 6 kW cooling capacity, was developed to operate without packings. The experiments were conducted for three different air flow rates and six different water flow rates. Four different inlet water temperatures of 35, 40, 45 and 50 oC were used. The temperature range is a typical range for inlet water temperature to the cooling tower for an absorption cooling system. For each of the inlet water temperatures, air and water flow rates were varied. The effects of this variation on cooling power and cooling efficiency were studied. Effect of varying water to air flow ratio on cooling power and cooling efficiency were studied. Results showed that the cooling power increased with increasing water flow rate, while the cooling efficiency decreased with increasing water flow rate. Decreasing the air flow rate was seen to cause a decrease in both cooling power and cooling efficiency. Maximum cooling power and cooling efficiency of 5.33 kW and 63% respectively were obtained. An optimum water to air flow ratio of 1.6 was obtained. The cooling tower was seen to have operated satisfactorily without packings. Keywords— cooling tower, cooling power, cooling efficiency, flow ratio, thermal energy
Study of High Viscous Multiphase Flow Using OLGA Flow Simulator
Authors: Baba Yahaya D , Chat Amina S , Aliyu Aliyu M , Okereke Ndubuisi N , Ogunyemi Adebayo , Owolabi John O 
Published: June 2020

The continuous depletion of conventional reserves of the world oil and gas has spurred investigation towards the exploration and production from unconventional sources of hydrocarbons such as heavy oil. However, heavy oils are known for their high liquid viscosities making them even more difficult and expensive to produce and transport in pipelines at ambient temperatures. As a consequence of this, a critical understanding of multiphase flow characteristics is vital to aid engineering design it has become imperative to investigate the rheology of high viscosity oils and ways of enhancing its production and transportation. In this study, the characteristics of high viscous oil flows were studied using OLGA flow simulator. A comparison between simulation results from the flow simulator and those of data acquired for high oil-gas viscosity experiments (i.e. for oil viscosity ranging from 0.7-5.0 Pa.s) for two phase flow parameters such liquid holdup and pressure gradient exhibited huge discrepancies and under prediction. Keywords— High viscosity oil, Liquid holdup, OLGA, Pressure gradient
Effect of Plantain Peel Ash on Gradation and Compaction Characteristics of Tropical Soil
Authors: Ishola Kazeem , Agbolade Ifeoluwa C , Yohanna Paul 
Published: June 2020

This study investigated the gradation and compaction properties of lateritic soil treated with plantain peel ash (PPA). PPA was used to improve lateritic soil with up to 10% PPA by dry weight of soil. Tests carried out to include specific gravity, particle size distribution, consistency tests, and compaction (using British Standard light, BSL and West African Standard, WAS) compaction energies. XLSTART 2018 Software was used to develop regression models for the test conducted between the self-determining factors and the dependent factors. The results of the study show that the specific gravity of the soil significantly decreased from its natural value of 2.55 to 2.43 at 4% PPA and thereafter increased to 2.48 at 10 % PPA. The fines content reduced from 59.9 % at the 0 % PPA to 5% at 10% PPA respectively. MDD (BSL and WAS) reduced to 1.76 Mg/m3, 1.84 Mg/m3 at 4%, 6 % PPA content and subsequently increased to 1.91 Mg/m3, 2.0 Mg/m3 at 10 % PPA content respectively. OMC for BSL decreases to 11.8 % at 10 PPA content while WAS was decreased to 8.6 % at10 % PPA content. Regression models for MDD show that self-determining factors, primarily influence the MDD of treated soil. However, in the case of OMC model, Gs and CE with higher coefficients have much more effect on the OMC compared to other variables. Based on the obtained results Gs, CE and PPA significantly affect grading and compaction characteristics of PPA treated the soil. Keywords—Compaction Characteristics, Grading Properties, Lateritic soil, Plantain Peel Ash, Regression Models