Vertical Electrical Soundings (VES) technique was adopted to map the groundwater flow pattern in Owerri North in order to delineate recharge zones. Twenty VES stations were sited in different communities. Field data was acquired using Omega-500 resistivity meter and processed with Advanced Geosciences Incorporation (AGI) 1D resistivity inversion software. At each VES station, the global positioning system (GPS) was used to measure the coordinates and elevation. Five of the stations were sited near existing boreholes to enhance interpretation. The modelled results revealed multi-geoelectric layers, with the aquifer layers composed mainly of sands and sandstone. Using the ground elevation and water table values, the hydraulic head for the aquifers were obtained. Aquifer resistivity varied from 0.1Ωm determined at Naze (VES 11) to 1208.5Ωm obtained at Azaraegbelu (VES 18). Depth to water table also varied across the study area with values ranging from 8.5m at ChukwumaNwoha (VES 3) to 67.07m determined at Orie Uratta. The aquifer hydraulic head varied from the value of 7.84m recorded at shoprite egbu (VES 19) to 81.50m observed at ChukwumaNwoha. The hydraulic head map shows the drainage pattern of the groundwater from which the recharge zones were delineated. The flow direction is from areas of high hydraulic head to areas of low hydraulic head. Two recharge zones corresponding to high groundwater potential areas for siting standard wells were identified. The results of this study have obvious implications in planning and construction of proper surface drainage to reduce flooding in Owerri urban and environs
Page(s): 01-07 Date of Publication: 29 October 2022
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Plant oils are one of popular starting raw materials of alkyd resin manufacturing and castor oil is well known plasticizer in coating industry. Coconut oil-based alkyd resins and blend of coconut and castor oil-based alkyd resins were synthesized as Bio-based plasticizers to evaluate their properties as plasticizers for nitrocellulose (nc) paint. During synthesis of those resins, variation of acid value, viscosity, oil length and generated water amount was evaluated. Series of nitrocellulose surface coatings (ncscs) were prepared using one alkyd resin at a time according to a dilution series and followed the same procedure for other alkyd resins and commercially available plasticizers (caps). All ncscs were tested for specific gravity, apparent viscosity, reduced viscosity, dry film thickness, dry film gloss, impact resistance, mandrel bending, Erichsen cupping, drying time, pencil hardness. According to the results it was proven that alkyd resins incorporated ncscs are better in viscosity, low drying time, film hardness. Ncscs with commercially available plasticizer (cap) is better in flexibility, impact resistance, dry film thickness, gloss
Page(s): 08-16 Date of Publication: 02 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71001Download PDF
This study analysed cocoa farmers’ attitude to risk and effects on their income in Ondo State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used to select a representative sample (234) for this study. Attitudinal Scale Approach (ASA) model, Gross margin and Likert’s scale were used to analysed the data collected. Results showed that the mean age of the respondents was 50.27 years with an average of 15.98 years of experience. The sources of risks perceived by the cocoa farming households as threats to cocoa production were Natural risks (63.68%), social risks (88.89%), economic risks (75.21%), production risk (52.14%) and marketing risks (76.92%). The result of ASA model using Likert’s scale showed that 37.61%, 36.75% and 25.64% of the respondents were respectively categorized as risk averse, neutral and preferring individuals. Results of costs and returns analysis of cocoa farms in the study area indicated that the average farm’s profitability level wasN185,423,725. Regression result showed that the variables that determine farmer’s income included social risks (p<0.001), economic risks (p<0.001) and production risks (p<0.001) and marketing risks (p<0.001). The study concluded that plant diseases, theft of the crop, low market demand, low labour supply and Instability of price among others are the severe types of risks that affect cocoa productivity and all year source of risk to cocoa production in the study area.
Page(s): 17-23 Date of Publication: 02 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71002Download PDF
The goal of this study is to maximize hydrocarbon reserves by evaluating reservoirs using derived petrophysical parameters, a common practice in the oil and gas industry. In order to complete this task, data (logs) from three Niger Delta onshore wells (OMA01, OMA02, and OMA 03) were used. Gamma-ray, resistivity, and neutron-density well logs were used in this study for lithology identification, fluid delineation, and hydrocarbon identification. Petrel and Rokdoc software were used for lithology identification and petrophysical analysis computation. The qualitative analysis revealed that the wells drilled through various lithologies contained sand and shale intercalations. Three in WellOMA01, Four in WellOMA02, and Two in WellOMA03, reservoirs were delineated. The field’s petrophysical analysis was also produced. Shale’s volume varies from 10% to 24%, its porosity from 14% to 26%, and its water saturation from 16% to 53%, while its permeability was relatively high. The highest hydrocarbon saturation (84%) was found in RES 01 from WellOMA03. The “OMA” field study revealed that there is a sizably high potential for hydrocarbons.
Page(s): 24-31 Date of Publication: 04 November 2022
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As concern over the twin challenges of climate change and energy security intensifies, numerous potential methods are being investigated for the production of energy and chemicals to satisfy global demand in an environmentally friendly manner. In light of this, catalytic conversion of furfural from hemicelluloses of Citrullus colocynthis (melon) seed husk to liquid hydrocarbons over NiO/SiO2 was investigated. Furfural was produced by acid-catalyzed hydrolysis/dehydration of melon seed husk at temperature (2200C), acid concentration (10% H2SO4), and reaction time (55 minutes) which was subsequently converted to liquid hydrocarbons via furfural-acetone condensation followed by hydrodeoxygenation of furfural-acetone adduct. FT-IR spectrum of the produced furfural showed absorption at 1670 cm-1 and 2800 cm-1 indicating a conjugated carbonyl functional group and aldehydic hydrogen. The hydrodeoxygenation was carried out in a stainless-steel reactor at 1500C for 8 hours and 2bar hydrogen. The NiO/SiO2 catalyst for the hydrodeoxygenation reaction was prepared by the wet impregnation method. XRF analysis of the NiO/SiO2 revealed a percentage metal Composition of 73.939% SiO2 and 24.641% NiO. The hydrodeoxygenation using NiO/SiO2 in water at 1500C for 8 hours yielded liquid hydrocarbons with 86.61% hydrocarbons yield (C9-C12) and 1.46% 2-propenylidenecyclobutene. The result revealed that Citrullus coloncythis. (Melon) seed husk is a good source for liquid hydrocarbons production and could be used as a feedstock in industries for fuels and the production of the like chemicals.
Page(s): 32-37 Date of Publication: 04 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71003Download PDF
Lifetime modeling and predicting for power semiconductor devices has become important due to higher demands on reliability and economy, i.e. to save time and money. Understanding the degradation mechanisms of such devices in a complex interplay of thermal, mechanical, and electrical loading in often harsh environment is a very challenging task, involving the competences of electronic engineers, simulation experts, materials scientists, physicists and mathematicians – with the final goal to permit accurate prediction of failure probabilities in the ppm-range as a function of time. In this review paper, I’ve discussed previously published literature on degradation mechanisms, experimental results obtained in several studies, lifetime prediction procedure, lifetime model and some preventive measures that can be taken against permanent damage.
Page(s): 38-42 Date of Publication: 04 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71004Download PDF
Customer retention is a challenging and critical issue in telecommunication and service-based sectors. Various researchers have established the need for a service-based company to retain their existing customers much cheaper than acquiring new ones. However, the predictive models for observing customers’ behavior is one of the great instruments in the customer retention process and inferring the future behavior of the customers. Selecting the right and best model is another herculean task because the performances of predictive models are greatly affected when the real-world dataset is highly imbalanced. The study analyses the performance of homogeneous ensembles; bagging, boosting, rotation forest, cascade, and dagging. These ensembles were applied to both raw and balanced datasets to compare the performance of the models. The data sampling method (oversampling) was adopted to balance the raw dataset. The primary metric used for the evaluation of the performance of the models was Accuracy and ROC/AUC (Receiver Operating Characteristics/Area Under Curve). Weka 3.8.5 machine learning tool used to analyze and develop the models. The study reveals that Bagging had the best performance having an AUC of 0.987, followed by boosting and Rotation Forest both with an AUC of 0.985.
Page(s): 43-49 Date of Publication: 09 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71005Download PDF
This study examined guidance service as a predictor of students’ academic achievement in Mathematics in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The research design used was the ex-post facto design. A total of 1,000 selected by stratified random sampling were studied. Data collection instruments were a structured questionnaire and mathematics achievement tests. Reliability of the instruments determined by Cronbach Alpha reliability estimate and Kuder Richardson formula K-R20 respectively, ranged from 0.85 to 0.89 for the Questionnaire and 0.76 for Mathematics achievement test. The results of analysis using linear regression showed that educational guidance services and vocational guidance services significantly predicted students’ academic achievement in Mathematics. It was therefore recommended that guidance programmes should consistently be embedded in the curriculum of schools as part of the efforts to enhance students’ academic achievement in Mathematics
Page(s): 50-54 Date of Publication: 09 November 2022
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Universities in Kenya need to be aware of the impact of curriculum and course sharing in order to become world-class academic institutions and to help one another during this period of COVID-19 pandemic. This research filled an unexplored gap in regards to the impact of curriculum and course enablers; trust, knowledge self-efficacy, reciprocal benefits, top management support, organizational rewards, organizational culture, curriculum system infrastructure and curriculum system quality, openness in communication, and face-to-face (F2F) interactive communication on knowledge sharing that supports teaching, learning and research collaboration by University faculty members. The study further classified these enablers into a six point pyramid of variables on adoption; personal volition, education resource availability, technical capability, conceptual awareness, legal permission, infrastructure access. The purpose of this study was to research factors associated with curriculum sharing that University management should leverage to ensure a strong innovation management process and successfully deliver quality teaching and learning to the intended customer. No prior research has focused on the impact of curriculum enablers that influence research university members to share knowledge, research findings, and curriculum and course materials via a virtual environment. Virtual education environment is a standard and accepted way of life, and many people prefer the virtual system as it comes with numerous advantages such as saving on costs and time spent. A self-administered questionnaire was employed on members of fourteen universities in Kenya using the google form for survey. The usable responses were analysed and review results discussed. This review work proposes the development of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to capture the strengths of all the three Virtual platforms and this review work.
Page(s): 55-61 Date of Publication: 09 November 2022
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Resource use efficiency and food safety are key features of agricultural sustainability. In this study, two sets of experiments were conducted to evaluate the impact of, 1. amending potting media and 2. adding different fertilizers on the growth and yield of gherkin. Two potting media were considered (conventional potting media: M1, field soil: M2) in experiment 1. The corncob (CC); 5%,10%,15% and corncob biochar (CCBC); 5%, 10% were mixed with potting media. Experiment 2 was conducted by incorporating a homemade organic fertilizer (T1), market-available organic fertilizer (T2), and conventional inorganic fertilizer (T3). The experiments were conducted in a controlled environment. In experiment 1, the days taken to first flowering, days taken to first fruit settling, the weight of the harvest, the number of fruits in both media and relative growth rate were comparatively high in 5% CCBC amended potting media. In experiment 2, the best vegetative growth rate was observed in T3and T2 (mean plant height of the last week 148.8 and 147.9 cm, mean leaf growth 4.9 and 5.6 cm, and mean node growth 16 and 15 respectively), whereas the lowest was reported in T1 (97.1, 5.1, 10.5). However, the highest average yields were recorded in T3 and T1 without showing a significant difference. T1; the homemade organic fertilizer resulted in a substantial yield at a low cost.
Page(s): 62-69 Date of Publication: 13 November 2022
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A river’s physical, chemical and biological states indicate the quality of the aquatic system. This study assessed the level of total hydrocarbon content (THC) and other water and sediment characteristics in the Koniju-toru River of Okrika – an estuary of the Bonny River – for three months. Surface water, sediment and fish samples were collected from three stations (upstream, midstream and downstream) for three months. Composite samples of each station were tested for pH, total dissolved solids (TDS) and dissolved oxygen (DO) in-situ using HANNA multi-parameter meter while conductivity, nitrate, sulphate, phosphate, chloride and biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) were determined in the laboratory. Spectrophotometry was used for the determination of hydrocarbon content in the samples. The hydrocarbon content in surface water, sediment and fish ranged from 0.05 -0.12 mg/L, 2.13 – 3.83 mg/kg and 0.24 – 0.35 mg/kg, respectively. Other results characterizing the surface water included; pH (6.62 – 6.73), temperature (26.10 – 26.53 ℃), TDS (8888.3 – 10972.3 mg/L), chloride (6697.6 – 7598.3 mg/L), sulphate (259.1 – 346.5 mg/L), nitrate (0.17 – 0.29 mg/L), phosphate (0.002 – 0.066mg/L), DO (4.10 – 4.86 mg/L) and BOD (2.02 – 2.22 mg/L). Parameters in sediment ranged as follows; pH (5.12 – 5.60), alkalinity (50.3 – 100.3 mg/kg), chloride (504.7 – 604.8 mg/kg), sulphate (125.2 – 183.6 mg/kg), nitrate (0.11 – 0.30 mg/kg) and Total Organic Matter (0.60 – 0.73 mg/kg). Statistical tests showed significant difference (p < 0.05) between stations for all parameters. The study concluded that the physicochemical characteristics of water and sediment were within regulatory limits of WHO and other national standards excluding TDS, chloride and sulphate. levels of THC in surface water, sediment and fish were low suggesting little or no impact of industrial waste which may not be unassociated with the fact that the refinery with the most impact on the community was under rehabilitation.
Page(s): 70-75 Date of Publication: 16 November 2022
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In this work, a system for the characterization of materials using transmission and scattering of gamma rays is described and used to assess the attenuation properties of some liquid materials. The apparatus consists of a 45 mCi point source of 124Am and thin NaI (Tl) detector. Measurements are presented for sucrose solutions with densities ranging from 1 to 1.86 g/cm3. For the absorbance, the solution Z (0.66 g/cm3) with the lowest density has higher absorption with chances to attenuate more than some higher density absorber solution like the sucrose (1.37 g/cm3) while sucrose (1.86 g/cm3) solution with the highest density possessing highest absorption and attenuation capabilities. This however did not fully accord to the conformity with the theory in low-density absorber which will give rise to less attenuation than a high-density absorber since the chances of an interaction between the radiation and the atoms of the absorber are relatively lower. Consequently, the variation of the ratio of scattered and transmitted intensity against the density of the solutions display some arbitrary dependence with energy of the photons interacting with the density of the absorber solution with some little deviation to the exact ideal scattering and transmission case. With gamma rays, most likely the scattering is in the forward direction and that the probability of scattering backwards or in larger angles is relatively constant as the angle approaches 90.
Page(s): 76-81 Date of Publication: 17 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71006Download PDF
Workers in the ceramic industry were exposed to high heat stress every day, that can caused dehydration. Dehydration can be identified by urine color, urine pH, and urine specific gravity (USG). It is also necessary to know urine quality to indicate the health condition of workers, including by turbidity, presence of protein, epithelium, bacteria, and leucosit. This research is analytic and descriptive, with a cross-sectional. The population and sample are all workers in the ceramic industry center in Klampok Village, Banjarnegara Regency, Central Java, are 55 workers. The variables studied were heat stress, amount of drinking water consumption, dehydration status, and urine quality. Heat stress is measured using a heat stress meter, the amount of drinking water consumption is identified through interviews, dehydration status is measured through urine examination taken after work and analyzed in the Banjarnegara District Health Office laboratory, including color (with standard urine color indicator), pH (with digital pH), and the USG (with a refractometer). The quality of urine is seen from the turbidity, the presence of protein, epithelium, bacteria, and leucocyte levels that analyzed in the laboratory. Based on the urine pH no worker is dehydrated. However, based on the urine colour, 60% of the workers were dehydrated, and based on the USG, 76.4% of the workers were dehydrateded. The relationship between the amount of water consumption based on urine color, p value = 0,013, and based on USG p value= 0,863. 21,8% urine were cloudy, 91% positive protein, 91% positive leucosite, 96,4% normal epithel, 100% positive contains bacteria. There is a relationship between the amount of drinking water consumption with dehidration status based on urine color.
Page(s): 82-86 Date of Publication: 23 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71007Download PDF
Trace elements composition of granite and tropical soils formed by in-situ weathering over the basement complex of Ikere-Ekiti, Ado-Ekiti and Igbrara-Odo areas of SW Nigeria is evaluated and reported. The granitoids exhibit chemical features such as is common to other granite bodies across the basement areas. The soil profiles typically have four different horizons with contrasting physical characteristics. Analytical result from ICP-MS technique revealed compositional variation along vertical direction within depth of the profiles. Trace element as average for the granite reveals low Tm (0.5 ppm), Eu (2.1 ppm), Co (5.1 ppm), Sc (7.2 ppm), Hf (7.6 ppm), Sm (12.6 ppm), and Th (30.5 ppm) values, while La (110 ppm), Ce (216 ppm), Cr (235.5 ppm), and Ba (963 ppm) show enrichments. All the soils have Sm, Eu, Th, Hf and Co contents below 10 ppm; Sc, La and Ce values fall between 10-100 ppm, while Cr and Ba contents fall between 200-1500 ppm. Variation between trace contents in granite and the derived soils as revealed along depths of the profile indicates greater mobility of Th, Sc and Ba during chemical weathering while Eu and Tm are least mobile. Pronounced compositional variation occur at relatively shallow (0-1m) depth in near surface area all the profiles.
Page(s): 87-93 Date of Publication: 23 November 2022
DOI : 10.51584/IJRIAS.2022.71008Download PDF
This research is focused on Petrophysical properties of Kala Field Eastern Niger Delta and reservoir modeling. Data used for this research include 3-D Seismic in Seg-Y and suites of well logs. Normal faults trending NW-SE has been delineated on the seismic data of Kala Field. The lateral extent of reservoirs E and F have also been delineated in blocks (A, B and C) and modeled with the results of the petrophysical analysis. The results of the average petrophysical values of Reservoirs E and F in the delineated blocks are as follows porosity (25% for Block A, 25% for Block B, and 23% for Block C), permeability 291md for Block A, 300 md for Block B, 1990 md for Block C), Net-to-Gross ratio (for Block A is 0.74, for Block B is 0.80 and for Block C is 0.66 respectively), water saturation (for Reservoir A is 45%, , for Block B is 39%, and Block C is 37% respectively) and the Stock tank oil initially in place for Reservoirs E and F in Block A is 54.71 mm stb, B is 26.83 mm stb , and C is 15.47mm stb respectively. The results of the petrophysics petrophysical analysis shows that the porosity and permeability values within the Reservoirs E and F indicate significant accumulation of hydrocarbon in the studied reservoirs.
Page(s): 94-105 Date of Publication: 25 November 2022
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