Journal of Scientific Research and Reports

Purpose: Patient with strabismus may assume a compensatory posture. Posturology treats patients with abnormal head position through the stimulation of foot, ocular and stomatognathic receptors. As an alternation of one or more receptor occurs, the tonic postural system seeks to carer for this problems by adopting compensatory postures (scoliosis, abnormalities of distribution of the podalic load, abnormal head position). The extrinsic eye muscles, the head, neck and tongue muscles arise from the occipital somites: probably this explains the relationship between the ocular misalignment and abnormal posture. The objective of this work is to evaluate the relationships between oculomotor e postural defects.

Methods: N = 47 patients received a comprehensive ophthalmologic and orthoptic examination. They underwent baropodometric and stabilometric examinations.

Results: Our sample group included 37 patients with exodeviation, 17 patients with esodeviation. We observed: flat foot with an incidence rate of 83.33% (25 out of 33) in exotropic subjects; pes cavus with an incidence rate of 16.66% (5 out of 30) in exotropic subjects; flat foot with an incidence rate of 23.52% (4 out of 17) in esotropic subjects; pes cavus with an incidence rate of 76.47% (13 out of 17) in esotropic subjects. Clinical physiatry observation of patients with Eso/Exo deviations prove a considerable turn-out of postural disorders: lumbar scoliosis (76.47%).

Conclusions: In our sample, patients with exodeviation have flat feet (83.33%); the subjects with esodeviation have pes cavus (76.47%). However, there is a widely recognized need for a further extensive study and evaluation of the results obtained regarding binocular vision and posture.

We examine the multiple dimensions of the effect of public investment in education on agriculture sector output in a multivariate econometric framework. The study is underpinned by the growing interest in empirical investigations on the effects of public education expenditure on economic growth in developing countries to inform the education sector policy environment. The research employed a longitudinal study approach to examine the extent of public investment in education and effects on agriculture sector output in Uganda. The study relied on data from national statistics for the period 1982- 2017. Overall, public expenditure on education has a net positive effect on agriculture sector output. The impact of education on agriculture output has been proven to promote agriculture output through supporting farmer adoption of new productivity-enhancing technologies.

This study aims to analyze the inflation rates by using Vector Autoregressive models. Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Models, Testing Stationary: Unit root test, Estimating the Order of the VAR, Cointegration Analysis (testing of cointegration), and Vector Error Correction (VEC) Models were used in this study for data analysis. Comparisons were made between food price index and nonfood price index using descriptive analysis. The findings of the study suggest that the percentage of food price index in higher than nonfood price index. The results also imply the existence of short-term adjustments and long – term dynamics in the CPI, FPI, and NFPI. Unit root test reveals that all the series are nonstationary at level and stationary at first difference. The result of Johansen test indicates the existence of one cointegration relation between the variables. The final result shows that a Vector Error Correction (VEC) model of lag two with one cointegration equation best fits the data. To contain inflation rates, therefore, the policy interventions aimed at tackling the current situation of inflation rates need to take into account the priorities of the government as the effect of policy instruments and means of solutions.

In this paper, closed forms of the sum formulas for generalized Tribonacci numbers are presented. As special cases, we give summation formulas of Tribonacci, Tribonacci-Lucas, Padovan, Perrin, Narayana and some other third-order linear recurrance sequences.

The traditional method of quantifying reinforced concrete steel reinforcements via taking off can be tedious, time consuming and prone to errors which can affect project success due to cost and schedule overruns, disputes and in certain cases, outright abandonment. In Nigeria, some quantity surveyors have developed ‘rule of thumb’ techniques to quantify reinforcements in order to beat pre-contract datelines based on their past experience, but there are still not widely accepted and a unified formulae or empirical basis of generating these quantities is still lacking. This study thus, developed easy-to-apply, time saving regression models for predicting the quantities/weight and material cost estimates of 16mm, 12mm and 8mm diameter high yield reinforcement bars in beams of varying sizes, using the volume of beam concrete as the independent or predictor variable. Data on concrete volume, weight of Y16, Y12 and Y8 reinforcement was collected via taking off/measurement process from 30 structural drawings of frame buildings of varying nature obtained from registered structural engineers and analyzed using correlation and regression statistics. Results indicate high coefficients of determination (R²) ranging from 0.82 to 0.92 which indicate that the predicted values from a forecast models fit with the real-life data. Thus, 3 predictive models were advanced as follows: W_Y16= -811.265+ 177.339 (Vc) ;W_Y12= -510.189 + 63.218(Vc); W_Y8  = -43.273+ 22.533 (Vc), where: W = reinforcement weight and Vc = volume of concrete. The study concludes that concrete volume is a good predictor variable when establishing the weight of reinforcement in beams. The import of these predictive models for construction cost professionals cannot be overemphasized for ease and accuracy of feasibility estimating, preparation of bills of quantities, material ordering, auditing construction costs, vetting consultants’ estimates and contractors’ quotations.

The method of water harvesting is very crucial to the collection of the volume of water required for sustainable water supply. Most physical water scarcity remote rural areas worldwide are characterized by a reasonable amount of rainfall. These areas lack the suitable Surface Rainwater Harvesting System (SRHS) to collect the required water volume. To address this problem a remote sensing data based Surface Rainwater Harvesting Approach (SRHA) was proposed. The proposed approach was tested on existing surface rainwater harvesting systems (SRHS) in residential and agricultural areas inside the study area. The study area is bounded by latitudes 11°-12° N and longitudes 33°-34° E, with an approximate area of 11,000 km². The SRTM90 DEM data of the study area was processed using QGIS application program hydrological modules. The hydrological model of the area was created, the catchment areas were derived and draining capacities for the specific test sites were calculated. The results revealed that the remote sensing data based approach is capable of locating sites with draining capacities 82 and 8 times those of the traditional systems in the residential and agricultural areas respectively. These results demonstrated that the proposed approach can facilitate locating optimum surface rainwater harvesting sites that would provide sustainable water supply and mitigate physical water scarcity problem in remote rural areas.

Dating violence is a complex problem determined by multiple factors. Poverty, cultural and social environmental factors are a major contributor to the gender based violence. The aim of this study was to examine the nature and extent of dating violence experienced by students at the University of Zambia. Eighteen students (nine males and nine females) aged fifteen to thirty years were recruited from the University of Zambia hostels. In-depth interviews with semi-structured interviews were used for data collection. This study has found that various forms of dating violence exists at the University of Zambia. The study further found risk factors that were associated with dating violence such as consumption of alcohol and/or use of entertaining substances, as well as being involved in aggressive activities such as fighting or insulting; other factors included; poverty, experiencing of inter-parental violence and prior experience with violence. The psychological and emotional implications were that some students became depressed and stressed, insecure, ideated suicide, feared sex, distrusted people and were worried and uneasy. Under physiological and health outcomes, some students contracted STDs and HIV, body injuries, became pregnant, and others lost or terminated their pregnancy. Furthermore, social implications were that some students became aggressive, went into self-isolation, and began living recklessly. Physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and psychological or emotional abuse where the most common types of dating abuse found at the University of Zambia. Conclusively, In addition to awareness against gender based violence, youth friendly corners should be considered during the treatment of gender based violence in universities.

Information communication technology as a business-enhancing strategy to improve business is on the ascendancy. However, a survey in 2016 visualises that 70% of the hotels especially the small hotels across the globe follow the old marketing practices due to poor marketing. Ghana is not exempted from these strategies, as small hotels appears to be operating but in reality, are just adding to hotels number. With a population size of three hundred and sixty-nine, the study seeks to investigate the strategic uses of information communication technology as a resource and its influence on hotel business. The result from respondents indicates that, the strategic use of information technology as a resource by the small size hotels influence performance. Some of the business information communication technology impact is online reservations, communication with guests and improvement in service quality that leads to customer satisfaction. Above all, it offers many options for small hotels in capturing their market space online using information communication technology.

Globally, the concrete is the vastly used material in the construction sector. It is a product of naturally available materials with the some chemical processes that generates solid waste, and GHG gases from the factory that pollutes soil, air and water. The demand for cement is gradually rising due to urbanization, industrialization and modernizations, and augmented it is short supply. The sustainable partial or fully replaced products used for  replacement of cement is to be invented to  obtain from recycled wastes and must be  non-pollutant of atmosphere and ecofriendly. Researches must be made with the low cost waste materials like red mud, GGBS, fly ash and many others. The present research is the ousting element sugarcane bagasse ash (SCBA) as a partial replacement of cement. To improve the tensile properties of concrete, attempts are made to add small closely space out and evenly discrete natural organic Siyalifibre with the SCBA concrete which can provide better properties to concrete like crack remover and mends some static/dynamic characteristics of concrete. The concrete composites made from SCBA and Sialifibre are both environment friendly materials having both cementing and fibre reinforcing properties. Present study is to prepare of a concrete composite with a mix design of M40 grade and study compressive, tensile and split tensile strengths. The study should try with a composite concrete with Sialifibre and SCBA at various proportions and verify its crack resistant and strength improving/ deteriorating properties.  For the present work of concrete, it is found to be advantageous with 10% ,20% SCBA with a partial substitute of cement and Siyali Fiber at various dosages like 0%, to 2.0% with increment of 0.5%added to cement volume.

This paper details an empirical investigation of the factors that determine the intention of adopting and using electronic health records (EHR). The paper’s goal is a study aimed at examining the possibilities and intents towards EHR amongst healthcare professionals in Nigeria. In this study, an extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) that incorporates Subjective norm, Social influence, Result demonstrability, Computer self-efficacy and System quality to the original TAM constructs was proposed. The proposed model was empirically tested using data collected from a sample of 126 healthcare professionals across 14 healthcare delivery institutions in Oyo State, Southwestern, Nigeria by applying structural equation modeling (SEM). These data were collected by administering a questionnaire containing 30 items. The results of the evaluation showed that all constructs have significant effect on healthcare professionals’ behavioural intention to use EHR.

This study examines the sensitivity of the posterior mean to change in the prior assumptions. Three plausible choices of prior which include informative, relative-non informative and non-informative priors are considered. The paper considers information level for a prior to cause a notable change in the Bayesian posterior point estimate. The study develops a framework for evaluating a bound for a robust posterior point estimate. The Ellipsoid Bound theorem is employed to derive the Ellipsoid Bound for an independent normal gamma prior distribution. The proposed modification ellipsoid bound for the large prior was establised by varrying different variance co-variance sizes for the independent normal gamma prior. This bound represents the range for the posterior mean when is insensitive and when it’s sensitive in both location and spread. The result shows that; for a large prior parameter value (greater than the OLS estimate) with a positive definite prior variance covariance matrix, and prior parameter values interval which contains the OLS estimate then, the posterior estimate will be less than both the OLS and the prior estimates. Similarly, if the lower bound of the prior parameter values range is greater than the OLS estimate then: The posterior estimate will be greater than the OLS estimate but smaller than the prior estimate. Furthermore, it is observed that no matter the degrees of confidence in the prior values, data information is powerful enough to modify it.

Post-harvest losses and food shortage has remained endemic to most Sub-Saharan African communities. The reality of COVID-19 in these countries has unfurled the weakness of agricultural sector in containing long lasting effect of such natural disaster. In most developed countries, the impact of COVID-19 is minimal on the agricultural sector because of their functional robust food supply chain structure unlike most developing countries. The effort of most African countries in this sector is yet to come to fruition; this will not happen without sustainable agricultural mechanization. This would further enhance food supply chain mechanism in the agricultural sector. In this paper, the impact of COVID-19 on food supply in Nigeria was discussed, as well as the proffered approaches in combating similar future disaster.