Colonialism and the Decline of the Traditional Metal Industry of the Igbo, Nigeria

Itinerario ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 59-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
O.N. Njoku

At the close of the nineteenth century, that is on the eve of colonial rule in Igboland, Igbo metal industry was flourishing. Production had attained a high level in the range and the quality of output. The output included agricultural equipment, traps and guns as well as title insignia and ornaments, mosdy made of copper and brass. The demand for die smiths' products were widespread and seemingly insatiable. To serve the need of dieir widely dispersed customers and patrons, Igbo smiths from Abiriba, Agulu Amokwe, Agulu Umana, Awka, and Nkwere undertook regular tours of parts of soudi-eastern Nigeria and even beyond – up to die Niger-Benue confluence area; past die Edo country to Ondo Yorubaland; and to the Bamenda district of die Cameroons. The superiority of Igbo metalworking led, in some of these places, to the demise of the local industry.

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (80) ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrius Gocentas ◽  
Anatoli Landõr ◽  
Aleksandras Kriščiūnas

Research background and hypothesis. Replete schedule of competitions and intense training are features of contemporary team sports. Athletes, especially the most involved ones, may not have enough time to recover. As a consequence, aggregated fatigue can manifest in some undesirable form and affect athlete’s performance and health.Research aim. The aim of this study was to evaluate the changes in heart rate recovery (HRR) and investigate possible relations with sport-specifi c measures of effi cacy in professional basketball players during competition season.Research methods. Eight male high-level basketball players (mean ± SD, body mass, 97.3 ± 11.33 kg; height 2.02 ± 0.067 m, and age 23 ± 3.12 years) were investigated. The same basketball specifi c exercise was replicated several times from September till April during the practice sessions in order to assess the personal trends of HRR. Heart rate monitoring was performed using POLAR TEAM SYSTEM. Investigated athletes were ranked retrospectively according to the total amount of minutes played and the coeffi cients of effi cacy. Research results. There were signifi cant differences in the trends of HRR between the investigated players. The most effective players showed decreasing trends of HRR in all cases of ranking.Discussion and conclusions. Research fi ndings have shown that the quality of heart rate recovery differs between basketball players of the same team and could be associated with sport-specifi c effi cacy and competition playing time.Keywords: adaptation, autonomic control, monitoring training.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (10) ◽  
pp. 106-117
Author(s):  
R. M. Asadullin

The continuous modernization of the education system makes the problems of the quality of teacher training increasingly relevant. Moreover, the measures taken to improve the system of teacher education are largely confined to the introduction of new organizational and managerial mechanisms and practically do not affect the internal content and technological structure of the teacher training process.Modern pedagogical universities are constantly looking for innovative models of training teachers that will be able to solve non-standard social and professional tasks. However, recent studies in this area do not fully take into account the nature of pedagogical activity and conditions of its formation. Thus, the need arises for a special study of the processes and means of updating the content and technologies of teacher training in order to control the level of students’ professional competencies development, as required by educational and professional standards. This means the creation of a special educational system in a pedagogical university, which can provide a harmonious and synchronous mastering by future specialists of both subject knowledge and methods of pedagogical activity.The article provides a theoretical study aimed at identifying key patterns of designing a new content for teacher education, the basis of which is the formation of a future teacher as a subject of his own professional activity. The author describes the experience of using a subject-oriented model of education, implemented at Bashkir State Pedagogical University n.a. M. Akmulla. The effectiveness of this model is confirmed by the high level of students’ mastery of designing methods and constructing the educational process, as well as their positive experience in the implementation of educational activities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 112-129
Author(s):  
Lelly Oktafiana ◽  
Iis Holisin ◽  
Himmatul Mursyidah

This study aims to describe the quality of the 2018 Mathematics National Examination (UN) in the HOTS types at the junior high level in terms of the level of validity, reliability, problem differentiation power, level of difficulty and distractor. This type of research is a descriptive study. The research was conducted at SMP Muhammadiyah 4 Surabaya and SMP Negeri 13 Surabaya for students in class VIII. The data collection technique used is a test. The test was taken from the 2018 math UN questions in odd semester VIII grade material including HOTS type. The number of UN mathematics questions in 2018 in the odd semester VIII class material consisted of 12 questions with 25% including LOTS types and 75% including HOTS types. The results showed: (1) 100% valid test questions, (2) high question reliability, (3) good problem differentiation power, (4) the difficuly level of the question 77,77% categorized as moderate and 2 question 22,23% are categorized as difficult, (5) there are 2 questions with one of the answer options do not work.


Author(s):  
Roger Ekirch

Although a universal necessity, sleep, as the past powerfully indicates, is not a biological constant. Before the Industrial Revolution, sleep in western households differed in a variety of respects from that of today. Arising chiefly from a dearth of artificial illumination, the predominant form of sleep was segmented, consisting of two intervals of roughly 3 hours apiece bridged by up to an hour or so of wakefulness. Notwithstanding steps taken by families to preserve the tranquillity of their slumber, the quality of pre-industrial sleep was poor, owing to illness, anxiety, and environmental vexations. Large portions of the labouring population almost certainly suffered from sleep deprivation. Despite the prevalence of sleep-onset insomnia, awakening in the middle of the night was thought normal. Not until the turn of the nineteenth century and sleep’s consolidation did physicians view segmented sleep as a disorder requiring medication.


Agronomy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 937
Author(s):  
Francisco Javier López-Moreno ◽  
Santiago Atero-Calvo ◽  
Eloy Navarro-León ◽  
Begoña Blasco ◽  
Teresa Soriano ◽  
...  

Green asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) is a widely grown and consumed crop which provides high-level nutritional interest. In recent years, the decline syndrome in asparagus plantations has been rapidly augmenting. This syndrome causes the early death of whole plants, also negatively affecting the new replanting. Decline causes notable economic losses in the sector. The objective of this work was to verify the effect of different treatments against asparagus decline syndrome on the physiological parameters and nutritional quality of the spears. To meet the objective, four different treatments were applied to asparagus plots strongly affected by decline syndrome: (T1) untreated control soil, (T2) biofumigation with Brassica pellets, (T3) biofumigation with chicken manure pellets, and (T4) disinfestation of the soil with Dazomet. The cumulative yield and physiological and quality parameters of green asparagus spears were studied. Thus, malondialdehyde (MDA), photosynthetic pigments, glutathione (GSH), ascorbate (AsA), total phenols, flavonoids, anthocyanin, antioxidant test, mineral nutrients, and the amino acid profile were measured on asparagus spears. The results showed that the Brassica pellets and Dazomet treatments were the most effective against the damage caused by the decline syndrome. However, it would be necessary to monitor the evolution in the following years.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ha Min Son ◽  
Wooho Jeon ◽  
Jinhyun Kim ◽  
Chan Yeong Heo ◽  
Hye Jin Yoon ◽  
...  

AbstractAlthough computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) is used to improve the quality of diagnosis in various medical fields such as mammography and colonography, it is not used in dermatology, where noninvasive screening tests are performed only with the naked eye, and avoidable inaccuracies may exist. This study shows that CAD may also be a viable option in dermatology by presenting a novel method to sequentially combine accurate segmentation and classification models. Given an image of the skin, we decompose the image to normalize and extract high-level features. Using a neural network-based segmentation model to create a segmented map of the image, we then cluster sections of abnormal skin and pass this information to a classification model. We classify each cluster into different common skin diseases using another neural network model. Our segmentation model achieves better performance compared to previous studies, and also achieves a near-perfect sensitivity score in unfavorable conditions. Our classification model is more accurate than a baseline model trained without segmentation, while also being able to classify multiple diseases within a single image. This improved performance may be sufficient to use CAD in the field of dermatology.


BMC Surgery ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Shen ◽  
Xiaochi Hu ◽  
Rui Qu ◽  
Youming Guo ◽  
Libo Luo ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Compared with conventional open surgery, endoscopic thyroidectomy via the oral vestibular approach (ETVOA) and endoscopic thyroidectomy via the areola approach (ETAA) avoided scarring of the skin, which may help patients achieve a better quality of life (QOL). However, the benefit of the QOL from this technique has not been adequately investigated, therefore this study compared the QOL outcomes between ETVOA and ETAA. Methods 131 patients were enrolled in this study. ETAA surgery and ETVOA surgery were performed in 74 patients and 57 patients, respectively. These patients were followed up at 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 8 weeks, and their QOL was evaluated using a thyroid surgery-specific questionnaire and a short-form health survey (SF-36). Results There were no differences in clinical characteristics such as gender, age, body mass index (BMI), and tumor size between the two groups. The volume of intraoperative blood loss, cost of hospitalization, and complications between the two procedures showed no differences. Compared with ETAA, ETVOA has a longer operation time, no drainage, and shorter hospital stay. In the QOL questionnaire, several parameters in ETVOA were better. The satisfaction scores of patients undergoing ETVOA were higher. In addition, the cosmetic satisfaction in patients who received ETOVA was significantly better than that of patients who underwent ETAA. The degree of neck movement disorder in patients with ETVOA was milder. Patients who received ETVOA had higher score on the SF-36. Conclusions The trans-oral endoscopic approach can acquire better cosmetic results and achieved high-level QOL.


Smart Cities ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 894-918
Author(s):  
Luís Rosa ◽  
Fábio Silva ◽  
Cesar Analide

The evolution of Mobile Networks and Internet of Things (IoT) architectures allows one to rethink the way smart cities infrastructures are designed and managed, and solve a number of problems in terms of human mobility. The territories that adopt the sensoring era can take advantage of this disruptive technology to improve the quality of mobility of their citizens and the rationalization of their resources. However, with this rapid development of smart terminals and infrastructures, as well as the proliferation of diversified applications, even current networks may not be able to completely meet quickly rising human mobility demands. Thus, they are facing many challenges and to cope with these challenges, different standards and projects have been proposed so far. Accordingly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been utilized as a new paradigm for the design and optimization of mobile networks with a high level of intelligence. The objective of this work is to identify and discuss the challenges of mobile networks, alongside IoT and AI, to characterize smart human mobility and to discuss some workable solutions to these challenges. Finally, based on this discussion, we propose paths for future smart human mobility researches.


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 204062232110243
Author(s):  
Federica Guerra ◽  
Jessica Ranieri ◽  
Domenico Passafiume ◽  
Diana Lupi ◽  
Daniela Maccarone ◽  
...  

Background and aims: The increase in innovative and personalized medicine solutions in kidney surgery can improve patients’ chances of survival; however, during the transplantation process, patients are exposed to many psychological challenges. This study aimed to evaluate the role and impact of personality dimensions on the behaviour of waiting-list patients towards the post-surgery adaptation process. Method: The participants were 113 out-patients aged 18–70 years (mean age 54.7 years, SD ± 9.9) who had received a kidney transplant at least 3 years prior to the study. Results: The results of the study revealed that personality dimensions can predict mental health-related quality of life after kidney transplantation; in particular, the dimensions play an important role in patients’ behavioural ability to manage their quality of life both during end-stage renal disease and after kidney transplantation. Psychological distress and anxiety were associated with a low level of the conscientiousness dimension, while a high level of the openness dimension was associated with a high level of psychological distress and stress. In addition, body self-perception was associated with personality dimensions. Conclusion: Personality dimensions were found to predict behavioural reactions when emotional traits and body self-perception for each patient were combined; clinical psychologists could apply personalized intervention by modeling the treatments step by step and mitigating the negative effects of the whole kidney transplantation disease, thus helping the individual to adapt to a new life.


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