Volume 8, Issue 4, April 2020 Edition - GSJ Journal Publication

[1]   [2]  [3]  [4]  [5]  [6]

The Observations of Pre-Service Teachers during Teaching Practice: A Case for Serving Teachers to be Modelers of Practice []


Abstract In this study, some instructional activities of serving teachers in cooperating schools as observed by the pre-service teachers during their period of teaching practice were surveyed. This is to determine the extent to which service teachers could act as modelers of practice to the pre-service teachers, with respect to those activities A purposive sample of 200 final year students (in both the NCE and degree Programme) of the College of Education, Agbor, was used for the study. A research question and two hypotheses guided the study. A structured (four – point Likert) questionnaire was constructed and validated (Cronbach alpha (α) =.65). The quantitative data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics of weighted mean (M) and standard deviation (s.d). The results showed that generally the Pre-service teachers observed the serving teachers: (i) using charts/pictures/posters to teach (M=3.6), (ii) using variety of methods in addition to “chalk and talk” (M=3.5), (iii) using real objects as teaching aids (M=3.2), (iv) taking learners on nature walk (M=2.7) and (v) carrying out project work with learners (M=3.0). They did not observe them: (i) using the laboratory (M=2.4) and using ICT gadgets (M=2.1). the respondents posted to primary schools differed significantly from those posted to secondary schools in their observation on: (i) use of variety of methods of teaching {t=3.4; p=0.001}, (ii) Use of laboratory {t= -4.5, p=.000}; (iii) carrying out projects {t= -3.4, p=.001} and (iv) Use of ICT gadgets {t= -2.5, p=012}. The pre-service teachers who did their T.P in Public schools differed in their observations from those who were in the private schools in the following activities: (i) use of charts {t=3.6; p=.000}, (ii) taking learners on a nature walk {t=2.5, p=0.015} and (iii) Use of laboratory in teaching {t= -2.2, p=.033}. Based on the power of observation in acquiring practical skills such as pedagogy during teaching practice exercise, recommendations are made on how to obtain environment of cooperating schools which can give teacher trainees opportunity to observe and develop key instructional activities they should practice as professional teachers. Keywords: Cooperating Schools, Instructional Activities, Mentoring, Observation, Pre-Service Teachers, Serving Teachers, Teaching Practice.

SOCIO ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF ARTISANAL MINING ON IGUN GOLD MINING COMMUNITY, SOUTHWESTERN NIGERIA []


ABSTARCT Artisanal small scale mining is characterized by the use of locally fabricated tools and exposes the miners and mining communities to several hazards and extreme environmental degradation. The study area, Igun, is located within Ilesa schist belt of South Western Nigeria. In this study, the socio-environmental impact of artisanal mining in the area was evaluated from field observations and geochemical analysis of seven surface water samples collected from current mining pits. Parameters analyzed include color, pH, conductivity, total dissolved solids, turbidity, total hardness, total alkalinity, calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, carbonate, bicarbonate, sulfate, nitrate and chloride. The results showed average concentration of the parameters in the water as Ca (26.48mg/l), Mg (23.04mg/l), Na (7.77mg/l), K (4.00mg/l), CO3 (28.00mg/l), HCO3 (140.00mg/l), SO4 (22.14mg/l), NO3 (0.57mg/l) and Cl (27.32mg/l) while pH (7.26), TDS (841.42) and electrical conductivity (248.57s/m). The concentrations of Ca, Mg, Na, K, CO3, HCO3, SO4, NO3 and Cl in the water fall within the permissible limit of World Health Organization Standard for Drinking water. However, the TDS exceeds WHO permissible limit which makes the water unsuitable for drinking. The environmental and social damages observed in the area include deforestation, land degradation, urban migration of the indigenous farming settlers, health and social vices. The study revealed that the farming communities are virtually deserted by the indigenous residents and farming activities abandoned. Artisanal mining in the communities induced different levels of human abuse, environmental degradation and artificial population growth arising from the presence of artisanal miners in the villages. KEYWORDS: Artisanal mining, Water contamination, Land degradation, Urban migration, Gold mining. Igun, Potable water.

THE EFFECT OF VECTOR AND RASTER DATA MODELS ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT IN SOME ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH CONCEPTS OF SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS []


This study focused on the effect of vector and raster data models on academic achievement in some environmental health concepts of senior secondary schools in Zaria metropolis. The study relates to a senior secondary school module delivered using traditional lectures and ICT based methods. The paper also examines the data for the presence of interaction effects between the GIS data models and socio-demographic characteristics. This is undertaken to identify whether or not sociodemographic characteristic differences influence the extent to which students benefit from the Vector and raster data modeling. The methodology that was employed in this study was systematic random sampling for students under traditional study mode and purposive sampling in identification of students under the GIS model usage study mode. The study recommends that critical factors such as institutional issue, management issue, pedagogical factors, technological issue, interface design issue, evaluation issue, and resource support issue and the factors within each issue have not yet been investigated with detail coverage. It further suggests that there is need to carry out detail research involving case studies based on survey questionnaires involving various learning institutions which will ultimately give a better understanding of impact of vector and raster data models within implementation process.

Covid-19: Biological Origin and Phylogenetic Analysis []


Effective management and response to the Covid-19 pandemic requires an ideal understanding of the biology of Corona viruses with borrowing from previous experiences drawn from epidemics by related viruses. Among the human Corana viruses are the OC43, NL63, HKU1 and the 229E viruses. Besides them, are other Corana viruses of a zoonotic origin that have been shown to infect humans such as MERs and SARs-Cov. These viruses have the ability to exhibit inter and intra species transmission and like most other viruses, Corana viruses have also been shown to adapt very fast to environmental and host variability in an effort to foster natural selection and escape available natural immune responses and conventional therapy. For instance, most current epidemics are characterized by a unique selection of hosts with mutations that make it relatively hard to trace the original host organism. The Covid-19 pandemic caused by the SARs-Cov-2 virus is an example of a viral infection where natural selection has empowered the virus to effectively challenge efforts geared at drug design and the rapid identification of the primary host, but there is evidence pointing to a very high sequence similarity to a Corana virus in the Rhinolophilid bats hence suggesting a zoonosis. The variable regions as reported in the RBD within the S protein of this virus could have occurred as a result of a recombination event in an intermediate host prior to infection of a human host or as result of a natural selection event in the virus upon infection of a human host. This review will shed light on the biology of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, the history and the myths and misconceptions about Covid-19, the emergence and spread across the globe, disease prevention and diagnosis and phylogenetics where we provide an analysis of sequences from 257 Covid-19 isolates in the viral database as at the time of writing this paper. The analysis presents evidence that the virus is mutating, and that the USA has sequences that much more closely related to the Wuhan virus than the rest of the world.

Maturity indicators and fruit quality attributes of mandarin orange varieties []


Mandarin orange is an important export oriented horticultural commodities in Bhutan. The maturity and harvest time is based on fruit colour and harvesting calendar which may not be accurate in terms of ensuring market quality. Hence, the study was conducted at Citrus germplasm block at ARDC Wengkhar from 2015 to 2017 to determine maturity indicators and fruit quality attributes of three mandarin orange varieties. Three uniform trees for each of Clementine Nules (Wengkhar Tshelu Dukchu) Tarku (Wengkhar Tshelu Ngarm) and Local Mandarin Selection (49-50) were used as treatment varieties. Five fruits from each sample tree of each variety were collected for fruit quality analysis. The fruit quality analysis was done at fortnightly interval starting from 3rd November to 23rd January in each year. Different quality attributes such as Total Soluble Solids (TSS), Acid content, TSS: Acid ratio and Juice content were determined. The data was analyzed using Analysis of Variance technique on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 20 for Windows and fruit quality attributes was compared with standard in export market using One Sample t-test. The variation in TSS: Acid ratio and juice content were highly significant between the varieties at the 0.05 level of significance. The trend analysis showed that Clementine Nules (Wengkhar Tshelu Dukchu) can be harvested from 3rd week of December while Local Mandarin Selection (49-50) and Tarku (Wengkhar Tshelu Ngarm) can be harvested from 4th week of January under Wengkhar condition. Further, the fruit quality attributes observed in three mandarin varieties was compared with quality standard in export market. All three varieties showed significantly higher TSS and Clementine Nules exhibited significantly higher TSS: Acid ratio than export market at the 0.05 level of significance. However, it may be important to introduce and evaluate non-destructive method to predict fruit maturity accurately and minimize unnecessary loss along the supply chain.

Salinity level Analysis of Coastal Soil at Satkhira District in Bangladesh []


This study tries to trace out salinity level and pH level in coastal soil. The research was performed around Jabakhali mauza under Shyamnagar Upazila, Satkhira district in Bangladesh. Salinity increase has been one of the major problems for traditional agricultural practices in coastal Bangladesh for several decades, but very few studies have been conducted on impact of salinity on agriculture in this area. This area was selected because it is one of the most vulnerable areas for high exposure to salinity intrusion and widespread many problems. The study was collected primary and secondary data different methods had been adopted which were soil sample collection, water and soil test in field, field observation and survey, FGD, questioner survey, mauza map, satellite image, other secondary sources and 100 personal interviews. In the case of data analysis; Parameter, Geo-spatial analysis, Salinity Metter, Microsoft tools, Geo-spatial analysis in Arc GIS systems have been used. Parameter ECe with HANNA Model HI 933100 have been used for salinity measuring. The findings of the research show that the severity of salinity problem in study areas increases with the desiccation of the soil. It affects crops depending on degree of salinity at the critical stages of growth.

Emotional and social intelligence education: Prerequisites for social changes in the 4th IR []


Emotional and social intelligence education: Prerequisites for social changes in the 4th IR Abstract The world is gradually shifting towards another era where interaction between human and human is nearly going to be invisible and artificial intelligence substitutes for majority of human activities, with robot and automation activities forming the module of oparandi. While this transformation embraces high productivity as well as many benefits across all disciplines (education inclusive), and even human ideas, the negative outcomes should not be unheeded. Some of the negative effects include increased level of unemployment, deepened social inequalities/disintegration, high cyber terrorism, reduced human interaction leading to increased mental illness and increased suicide tendencies, depression and several other psychosocial problems. Thus, this paper proposes emotional and social intelligence education for social change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th IR). To meaningfully function in the new era, societies, industries and employers of labour require highly skilled individuals. Consequently, it becomes imperative for education providers as change agents to adequately equip learners with needed skills in emotional and social intelligence. Education stakeholders need to focus on curriculum upgrading so as to accommodate these skills, most especially in high institutions of learning, owing to the fact that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be characterised by complex problems that require complex solutions with a lot of emphasis on emotional and social intelligence education which are required for social change.

Factors associated with Knowledge towards the Integrated Early Childhood Development Services among Caregivers of Children aged under six years in Rwanda []


This study was conducted to examine the knowledge and attitude towards integrated early childhood development (IECD) among caregivers of children aged under-six years in Rwanda. In this cross-sectional study structured questionnaires were used to collect data from respondents. This study involved 300 caregivers of children below 6 years of age. The results shows that half of caregivers (50%) had good knowledge on IECD, and 90.7% demonstrated positive attitude towards IECD. We found in the study that married caregivers were less likely to have poor knowledge on IECD service [AOR=0.065; 95%CI: 0.008-0.539, p=0.011]; Caregiver’s from a household with 2-4 household members were nearly four times more likely to have good knowledge on IECD services [AOR=3.710; 95%CI: 1.420-9.694, p=0.007]; Father’s as secondary caregiver’s were less likely to have good knowledge on IECD services. Being married, having less than four household members and being fa-ther as caregiver’s were associated with IECD service knowledge.

Midwives experiences in maternal health litigations: A perspective from a rural district hospital in South Africa []


Maternal health litigations have become a public concern. Necessarily, various strategies are to be established to manage litigations and improve quality of care. The study explored the experiences of midwives on maternal health litigations in a rural district hospital in South Africa. Data was collected through eight (8) individual unstructured face to face interviews of midwives on maternal litiga-tions in a rural district hospital in Eastern Cape, South Africa. A qualitative research design was utilised, which was explorative, de-scriptive, and contextual. Data analysis revealed three themes: (1) the experiences of midwives on litigations, which emanated from poor working conditions; (2) midwives’ lack of competence, which is a leading cause of maternal incidences; (3) shortage of mid-wives and high admission of pregnant women, which contribute to poor recording. The study revealed that the experiences of mid-wives were conceptualised negatively, although the interview questions were intentionally neutral. This is believed to be due to the fact that the subject of the topic is a daily song in maternal health; indeed, there are many litigations and midwives are so negative in government delays to manage litigation issues. It is recommended that primary health care be strengthen as sources of these patients delivering in public hospitals. This will would help to minimise late bookings and unnecessary incidences in the maternal health facili-ties that later turn into litigations. Lastly, the study recommended that staff coverage should be considered such as employment of highly skilled midwives and in-service trainings to the current ones to improve their skills that will reduce medical malpractice and litigations.

CHALLENGES OF ENGLISH TEXT RECOGNITION FROM NATURAL SCENES []


Reading text in natural scenes called scene text recognition (STR), was an important task. The maturity of Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems led to its successful application on cleaned documents, but STR tasks were not carried out by most traditional OCR methods because of the various text appearances in the real world and because of these scenes are captured in imperfect conditions. Photographs and digital multimedia texts are the best communication way in the universe. However, text in an item provides details regarding the world in a concise and attractive format, such as warning, traffic signals, company contents, etc. Text is any material can help us to understand more quickly the intent. Detection of text is quite a challenging issue especially for the pictures comprising of the natural scene because of multiple differences and uncontrollable variables as opposed to scanned record text detection. This paper reflects various issues and obstacles which may include multi-script text on an image, various font text with text-size variations, sun, dark, reflection, text color, background text, blur, low resolution, skew, and neon signboard. Furthermore, this study detects the text from natural scenes with the help of an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) algorithm and also shows the challenging images results faced during the complete process of detection.

THE PUBLIC OPINIONS OF CONSIDERING THE OPENING OF CLASSES IN AUGUST 2020 []


While the Department of Education abruptly suspended the classes at the mid of March due to the unprecedented Novel Corona Virus Disease (NCOVID-19) outbreak, there are unconsolidated issues that come along the way on how to set the next School Year’s opening of classes. This uncertainty comes to originate as influenced by the rapid cases of infected individuals increased exponentially. In the advent of this situation, a conducted study initiated to gather public opinion if August 2020 is favorable and advantageous. It uses a convenient sampling reasonably because the social media Platform used primarily. Those who have access online on Facebook (FB) and friends of the researcher were the direct respondents. It was an open country of interest; however, the participants in the Philippines dominated to respond to the survey. They have the general opinions and figured out August 2020 will be of the best choice. Looking at the advantage of the government, and seems all schools’ documents and forms are ready to facilitate. They are much fascinating to know how the government solves this virus. Much they are confident to send their children to school if the contamination dramatically drops to zero. But the study found a condition that if the problem arises and tending to affect the school children even during this month of classes, they are on the government side and whatever decision to be made, they honestly depend on it. The sex of the respondent has nothing to do with the opinions of the participants. Notably, there is no significant relationship between these two variables. The findings relevantly contributed to the overall effort of the DepEd in acknowledging all the valuable suggestions to unlock the complexity in the final decision making.

CONSUMER CHARACTERISTIC AND CONSUMER PREFERENCE ANALYSIS OF FISH PRODUCT (CASE STUDY KOBE JAPANESE & CHINESE FOOD RESTAURANT) []


This research aims to analyze the attributes of the processed fishery products that became consumer preferences and analyze the most considered attributes by the consumers on the decisions to buy processed fish products at Kobe Chinese & Japanese Food. This research was conducted at Kobe Chinese & Japanese Food) on August–September 2019. Primary data collection technique used purposive sampling as many as 50 respondents while secondary data obtained from Central Agency on Statistics of Bandung City. The analytical tool used to determine consumer preferences was attitude measurement using a Likert Scale. Based on the consumer characteristic shown that consumers dominated by female consumers, aged 19-27 years old, students, income of > Rp. 4,000,000. Consumer preferences analysis shown the consumers like fish jelly products (steamboat), processed shrimp, processed squid, processed crabs, and processed fish.

Impact of Informal Organization on Job Performance: A Case Study from Bahrain []


The aim of this research is to identify the impact of informal organization on job performance (i.e. knowledge of job requirements, quality of job, quantity of job, persistence & reliability) at Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO) in the kingdom of Bahrain. A sample of 327 employees were surveyed through a comprehensive inventory method. The analysis is based on the outcome of the questionnaire survey that was given out to a representative sample in BAPCO Company in Bahrain. The researchers hypothesized that there is a positive significant impact for informal organization on job performance (knowledge of job requirements, quality of job, quantity of job, persistence & reliability) of the employees in the company in question. The findings reveal that there is a positive significant impact for informal organization on job performance (knowledge of job requirements, quality of job, quantity of job, persistence & reliability) of the employees at the company in question. Moreover, the results indicate that there is no significant differences relating to the impact of informal organization on job performance of employees in the company in question due to demographics (gender, age, qualification & years of experience).

Detail Analysis On Pepsi & Coca Cola Co. []


detail analysis of two companies swot analysis structure of the companies

GREEN MARKETING AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS IN RIVERS OF NIGERIA []


This paper investigates the influence of green marketing on sustainable development. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire that was administered to a total sample of 200 management Staff of four Local Government Areas (Port-Harcourt, Obio-Akpor, Emohua, and Ikwerre) in the Rivers State of Nigeria. The sample selection was based on the purposive sampling technique. The demographic data were analyzed using mean, and standard deviation. The analysis involved statistical methods such as reliability and validity tests and regression tests between independent and dependent variables. The research findings supported the hypothesis that green marketing significantly affects economic sustainability, green marketing significantly affects environmental sustainability and green marketing significantly affect social sustainability. The study recommends that Local government administrators should adopt green marketing practices that will enhance economic, environmental and social sustainability to enable them to achieve sustainable development.

Cluster Economies, Productivity and Technical Efficiency - A Narrative Review []


Productivity and efficiency studies abound in research, academia, industry and business to facilitate the assessment of the efficiency and effectiveness of input-use, and to measure efficiency and output levels against an optimum production frontier. Empirical studies have established links between cluster economies, productivity and technical efficiency – links that enable investigations into correlations between industry-size and the implications/externalities that arise from clusters. This paper discusses the concept of cluster economies, the different proxies that have been used to represent the concept, the possible linkages between cluster economies, productivity and efficiency, and the different methods for measuring and analyzing these concepts.

TECHNO-ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF OFFSHORE OFFTAKE SYSTEMS []


This research evaluates the techno-economic constraints associated with the transport technologies and examined the comparative merits and demerits of the technologies. Three offshore offtake technologies which include oil and gas pipeline, LNG ship and shuttle tankers were evaluated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) tool. The AHP is a multi-criteria decision making method that achieves ratio scales from paired comparisons. From the Analytic Hierarchy Process analyses and given the importance/weight of each criterion (cost, volume, time, distance and environmental impact), the Pipeline technology came out as the best and optimum oil and gas transport technology with an overall priority score of 0.8437. LNG ships came second with an overall priority score of 0.8292 while the Shuttle Tanker came third with an overall priority score of 0.6673. This study has evaluated all the pros and cons associated with each transportation technology and this report will serve as a reliable future reference material to operators, researchers and other key stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.

Corrosion Inhibition of Mild Steel in Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) Solution Using Moringa Leaf Extract []


Corrosion inhibition capability of mild steel in hydrochloric acid by moringa leaf extract observed using weight loss and electrochemical method showed that the leaf extract act as a good corrosion inhibitor for mild steel in all concentrations of the extract. The inhibition action depends on the concentration of the moringa leaf extract in the acid solution. Results for weight loss and electrochemical measurements indicate that inhibition efficiency increases with increasing inhibitor concentrations. The adsorption of moringa leaf extract on the surface of the mild steel specimens obeys Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The result shows through electrochemical method that the extract concentrations of 1g, 2g, 3g, 4g and 5g produced 90.86%, 93.11%, 94.99%, 95.62%, and 96.54% efficiencies respectively. Also through weight loss method, concentration of moringa leafs extract of 0.2g, 0.4g, 0.6g, 0.8g and 1.0g produced 47.37%, 88.57%, 78.91%, 91.18% and 86.02% respectively.