Search results

This study aims to assess the effect of water variation on bioethanol production from cassava peels (CP) using Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast as the ethanologenic agent.

The milled CP was divided into three treatment groups in a small-scale flask experiment where each 20 g CP was subjected to two-stage hydrolysis. Different amount of water was added to the fermentation process of CP. The fermented samples were collected every 24 h for various analyses.

The results of the fermentation revealed that the highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency was obtained at 17.38 ± 0.30% and 0.139 ± 0.003 gL⁻¹ h⁻¹. The study affirmed that ethanol production was increased for the addition of water up to 35% for the CP hydrolysate process.

The finding of this study demonstrates that S. cerevisiae is the key player in industrial ethanol production among a variety of yeasts that produce ethanol through sugar fermentation. In order to design truly sustainable processes, it should be expanded to include a thorough analysis and the gradual scaling-up of this process to an industrial level.

This paper is an original research work dealing with bioethanol production from CP using S. cerevisiae microbe.

1. Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

2. Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

3. Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

4. Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹

Hydrolysis of cassava peels using 13.1 M H₂SO₄ at 100 ^oC for 110 min gave high Glucose productivity

Highest ethanol production was obtained at 72 h of fermentation using Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Optimal bioethanol concentration and yield were obtained at a hydration level of 35% agitation

Highest ethanol productivity and fermentation efficiency were 17.3%, 0.139 g.L⁻¹.h⁻¹

The paper explored students-staff classroom co-creation and students' involvement in out-of-class engagements as means of fostering employability skills in higher education institutions (HEIs). The paper aimed to present an alternative but equally effective means that HEIs can leverage to foster relevant 21st Century employability skills among undergraduates using day-to-day in-class and out-of-class activities and other non-formal campus activities.

The study adopted descriptive survey design. A total of 350 undergraduates who participate in out-of-class activities were purposively selected from seven (7) faculties. An instrument designed by the author was used to gather data for the study. The instrument was subjected to Cronbach Alpha analysis for item-by-item consistency and it yielded the reliability co-efficient of 0.88. Data collected from the respondents were analyzed using descriptive statistics of frequency count, mean and standard deviation.

Interactive classrooms, where students and lecturers co-create to provide solutions to problems enhance students' self-esteem, problem solving, analytical, communication and leadership skills amongst others. It was also found that students who got involved in one or more out-of-class activity on campus acquire specific competencies such as networking, collaboration, communication, leadership, multidisciplinary thinking, etc.

Due to a limited sample size, it might be inappropriate to generalize findings. Researchers are encouraged to test this proposition further.

The paper highlights the need for HEIs to leverage student-staff co-creation and out-of-class engagement in their bid to produce employable graduates.

This paper clearly presents alternative but effective means of fostering employability in HEIs.

The purpose of this study is to empirically analyse the fiscal revenue implications for oil-dependent African countries in the face of low-carbon energy transition (LET).

The study combined the novel fully modified ordinary least squares, dynamic ordinary least squares and canonical cointegrating regressions estimators to analyse secondary data between 1990 and 2020 for the three major oil-dependent African Countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria).

The result shows that LET reduces oil revenue and non-revenue for specific countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria) and the panel, suggesting that low-carbon energy transiting is lowering the fiscal revenue of oil-dependent African nations.

The seeming weakness of this study is its inability to broaden the scope to include all oil-producing African economies. However, since the study selected Africa’s top three oil-producing states, the sample can serve as a model for others with lesser crude oil outputs.

Oil-dependent African countries must urgently engage in sincere economic diversification in sectors like industry and manufacturing, the service sector and human capital development to promote economic transformation that will enhance fiscal revenue.

With the pace of energy transition towards low-carbon energy, it is not business as usual for oil-rich African countries (Algeria, Angola and Nigeria) due to fluctuating demand and price. As a result, it becomes worthy to examine how the transition is affecting oil-dependent economies in Africa. Also, this study’s method is unique as it has not been used in a similar study for Africa.

Diabetes is one of the life-threatening chronic diseases, which is already affecting 422m people globally based on (World Health Organization) WHO report as at 2018. This costs individuals, government and groups a whole lot; right from its diagnosis stage to the treatment stage. The reason for this cost, among others, is that it is a long-term treatment disease. This disease is likely to continue to affect more people because of its long asymptotic phase, which makes its early detection not feasible.

In this study, the authors have presented machine learning models with feature selection, which can detect diabetes disease at its early stage. Also, the models presented are not costly and available to everyone, including those in the remote areas.

The study result shows that feature selection helps in getting better model, as it prevents overfitting and removes redundant data. Hence, the study result when compared with previous research shows the better result has been achieved, after it was evaluated based on metrics such as F-measure, Precision-Recall curve and Receiver Operating Characteristic Area Under Curve. This discovery has the potential to impact on clinical practice, when health workers aim at diagnosing diabetes disease at its early stage.

This study has not been published anywhere else.

This study was carried out to examine the volume and annual growth pattern of research on e-health literacy research, investigate the open-access types of e-health literacy research and perform document production by country and by sources. The study also mapped the keywords used by authors to represent e-health literacy research and performed an analysis of the clusters of the keywords to reveal the thematic focus of research in the area.

The research was guided by a bibliometric approach involving visualization using VosViewer. Data were sourced from Scopus database using a syntax that was tested and verified to be capable of yielding reliable data on the subject matter. The analysis in this study was based on bibliographic data and keywords.

A total number of 1,176 documents were produced during 2006 and 2022. The majority of the documents (18.90%) were published based on hybrid open-access processes, and the USA has the highest contributions. The Journal of Medical Internet Research is the venue for most of the documents on the subject. The 1,176 documents were described by 5,047 keywords, 4.29 keywords per document, and the keywords were classified into five clusters that aptly capture the thematic structure of research in the area.

e-Health literacy has experienced significant growth in research production from 2006 to 2022, with an average of 69 documents per year. Research on e-health literacy initially had low output but began to increase in 2018. The majority of e-health literacy documents are available through open access, with the USA being the leading contributor. The analysis of keywords reveals the multifaceted nature of e-health literacy, including access to information, attitudes, measurement tools, awareness, age factors and communication. Clusters of keywords highlight different aspects of e-health literacy research, such as accessibility, attitudes, awareness, measurement tools and the importance of age, cancer, caregivers and effective communication in healthcare.

This study has practical implications for health promotion. There is also the element of patient empowerment in which case patients are allowed to take an active role in their healthcare. By understanding their health information and having access to resources that help them manage their conditions, patients can make informed decisions about their healthcare. Finally, there is the issue of improved health outcomes which can be achieved by improving patients' e-health literacy. Visualisation of e-health literacy can help bridge the gap between patients and healthcare providers, promote patient-centered care and improve health outcomes.

Research production on e-Health literacy has experienced significant growth from 2006 to 2022, with an average of 69 documents per year. Many e-health literacy documents are available through open access, and the USA is the leading contributor. The analysis of keywords reveals the nature of e-health literacy, including access to information, attitudes, measurement tools, awareness and communication. The clusters of keywords highlight different aspects of e-health literacy research, such as accessibility, attitudes, awareness, measurement tools and the importance of age, cancer, caregivers, and effective communication in healthcare.

This study aims to examine the volume of ehealth literacy documents during 2006–2022, and the nature of citation of ehealth documents by country, organizations, sources and authors.

The study adopted a bibliometric approach. Bibliographic data was collected on citation of ehealth documents by country, organizations, sources and authors from Scopus and mapped and visualized the citations using VosViewer.

A total of 1,176 documents were produced during 2006–2022, indicating a high rate of document production in this sub-discipline. Among the 102 countries that contributed documents on the subject, 58 qualified for the analysis. The USA had the highest number of cited documents on eHealth literacy, followed by Canada and Australia. The average publication year for the USA was 2018, with 348 publications and an average of 24.12 citations. Canada had a high average citation count of 44.69. Furthermore, the document examined citations by organizations.

The research implications of the study suggest that eHealth literacy is an actively growing field of research, with a substantial impact on the academic community, and researchers should focus on collaboration with high-impact institutions and journals to increase the visibility and recognition of their work, while also paying attention to the need for more research representation from African countries.

The study’s findings indicate a high rate of document production and growing interest in eHealth literacy research, with the USA leading in the number of cited documents followed by Canada, while Canadian eHealth literacy research receives relatively higher citation rates on average than the USA.

The study’s originality lies in its examination of citation patterns and global contributions to eHealth literacy literature, offering valuable insights for researchers. It identifies key authors, high-impact journals and institutions, providing valuable guidance for collaboration. The research highlights a growing interest in eHealth literacy, underscoring its potential impact on public health and digital health interventions.

Upholding assessment ethics are common concerns during annual public examination performance appraisal. Previous studies have focused more on examination stakeholder: testees outside proctors however, assessment ethics cannot be studied excluding proctors variables therefore, the study investigated consistency of a structural equation modelling of security, environment, professionalism, testing and assessment ethics.

Ex-post facto design was adopted. Simple random sampling technique was employed to choose 90 proctors drawn from 45 colleges. Proctors Examination Ethics Questionnaire (reliability = 0.86) was used to collect data for the study. Data collected were analysed using path analysis at 0.05 significant levels.

Out of the six hypothesised paths significantly explaining the consistency of the causal model. Test security, environment and professionalism accounted for both direct and indirect effects on assessment ethics. All model fit indices were established to explain testing and assessment model.

Few proctor variables were studied, therefore assessment ethics may not be explained other than through proctor variables considered in this study.

Assessment ethics may not be violated if test security, testing environment and professionalism are not cared for during test administration as shown in the study.

It added to knowledge base in ethical areas of assessment, a 21st-century proctors in upholding testing and assessment ethics, security, environment and professionalism are to be considered.

There was a positive causal effect of security, environment and professionalism on testing and assessment ethics among proctors in public examinations.

The study examined the personal information management (PIM) challenges encountered by faculty in six universities in Ghana, their information refinding experiences and the perceived role of memory. The study tested the hypothesis that faculty PIM performance will significantly differ when the differences in the influence of personal factors (age, gender and rank) on their memory are considered.

The study was guided by a sample survey design. A questionnaire designed based on themes extracted from earlier interviews was used to collect quantitative data from 235 faculty members from six universities in Ghana. Data analysis was undertaken with a discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model to investigate how memory intermediates in the relationship between age, gender and rank, and, refinding of stored information.

The paper identified two subfunctions of refinding (Refinding 1 and Refinding 2) associated with self-confidence in information re-finding, and, memory (Memory 1 and Memory 2), associated with the use of complimentary frames to locate previously found and stored information. There were no significant multivariate effects for gender as a stand-alone variable. Males who were aged less than 39 could refind stored information irrespective of the memory class. Older faculty aged 40–49 who possess Memory 1 and senior lecturers who possess Memory 2 performed well in refinding information. There was a statistically significant effect of age and memory; and rank and memory.

This study was limited to faculty in Ghana, whereas the study itself has implications for demographic differences in PIM.

Identifying how memory mediates the role of personal factors in faculty refinding of stored information will be necessary for the efforts to understand and design systems and technologies for enhancing faculty capacity to find/refind stored information.

Understanding how human memory can be augmented by technology is a great PIM strategy, but understanding how human memory and personal factors interplay to affect PIM is more important.

PIM of faculty has been extensively examined in the literature, and limitations of memory has always been identified as a constraint. Human memory has been augmented with technology, although the outcome has been very minimal. This study shows that in addition to technology augmentation, personal factors interplay with human memory to affect PIM. Discrete multivariate Generalized Linear Model applied in this study is an innovative way of addressing the challenges of assimilating statistical methodologies in psychosocial disciplines.

This study aims to construct alternative models to establish the dynamic relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability by estimating both the short- and long-run relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability for 18 OECD countries from 1975Q1 to 2022Q4. After that, this study demonstrates how this nexus behaves during high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

This study uses the panel autoregressive distributed lag technique to examine the nexus between housing affordability to capture the distinct characteristics of the sample countries and estimate various short- and long-run dynamics in the relationship between housing affordability and exchange rate.

Exchange rate appreciation improves housing affordability in the short run, whereas this connection tends to dissipate in the long run. Moreover, inflation can worsen housing affordability during turbulent times, such as the global financial crisis, in both the short and long run. Ignoring these changes in the relationship between exchange rates and housing affordability during turbulent times can lead to incorrect conclusions.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the association between exchange rates and housing affordability by demonstrating how these variables behave in high and low inflation regimes and turbulent times.

The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate the primary constraints that quantity surveying firms in Nigeria encounter while integrating indoor environmental quality (IEQ) principles into building designs.

The study used a quantitative approach by administering a well-structured questionnaire to 114 quantity surveyors. The collected data were analyzed using methods such as frequencies, percentages, mean item scores, Kruskal–Wallis test and exploratory factor analysis.

The top five ranked constraints were limited access to funding or financing options, limited availability of green materials, limited availability of insurance for sustainable buildings, limited availability of sustainable design resources and limited diversity and inclusivity within the design profession. Based on the factor analysis, the study identified six clusters of constraints: structural-related constraints, technical-related constraints, financial-related constraints, capacity-related constraints, legal-related constraints and culture-related constraints.

This study has several practical implications for quantity surveying firms, policymakers and industry stakeholders involved in building design and construction in Nigeria. The findings of this study can also inform future research on the integration of IEQ principles into building designs.

By identifying and structuring the clusters of constraints faced by quantity surveying firms in Nigeria when implementing IEQ principles, this study provides a novel approach to understanding the challenges associated with IEQ implementation in the building sector. This understanding can guide policymakers, industry stakeholders and quantity surveying firms in developing effective strategies to overcome these constraints and promote IEQ principles in building design and construction.