Artificial intelligence and machine learning in environmental impact prediction for soil pollution management – case for EIA process

Scientific predictions are a key component of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA), which can indicate the level of change within an environmental sphere (e.g., soil). As part of the EIA process, decision-making in mitigating complex environmental problems such as maintaining soil quality can be challenging, especially in data-sparse locations. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can ameliorate but the literature suggests that the deployment of Machine Learning (ML) techniques in soil research is concentrated mostly in developed countries. The potential of ML in managing soil pollution from complex mixture of heavy metals, petroleum hydrocarbons, and physicochemical factors is rarely explored. To address this research gap, we built robust models that increase the accuracy of impact prediction based on new experimental soil data from a data-sparse region of Africa (i.e., Nigeria). The algorithms applied are artificial neural networks (ANN), support vector regression (SVR), regression tree (RT), and random forest (RF). The study also implemented a multivariate linear regression (MLR) model as a baseline. Key findings include (a) the MLR model performed less than the machine learning models largely due to the nonlinearity of data; (b) Log-normalization helped to improve the predictive capability of all models as the effects of statistical variability were removed; (c) the RF model had the best performance in terms of correlation coefficient, mean absolute error, and root mean square error, and (d) the machine learning models showed improved performance with increased correlation and lower error between the actual and predicted soil electrical conductivity values. Our results imply that data sparsity may no longer be an excuse for the non-use of quantitative impact prediction in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) processes. This could change how EIAs are conducted and enhance sustainability in natural resource exploitation, globally. Future work will apply algorithms for automated feature selection to obtain optimal subset of soil quality measurements that will further improve the accuracy of the models

Design and Synthesis of Anticancer Agents by Targeting p53 Degradation and Photodynamic Therapy

Anthraquinone Project Previously, we reported a class of MDM2-MDM4 dimerization inhibitors that upregulate p53 and showed potent anticancer activity in animal models. However, water solubility hinders their further development. Herein we synthesized a series of anthraquinone analogs for studying the structure-activity relationship, including BW-AQ-238, a potent anthraquinone analog that enables us to develop a prodrug approach to overcome the solubility problem. The prodrugs of BW-AQ-238 were made by esterification of the hydroxyl group with various natural amino acids. Cytotoxicity in Hela and EU-1 cells, aqueous solubility, and the release kinetics of these prodrugs in buffer and in the presence of hydrolytic enzymes were studied. The results demonstrate that the amino acid prodrug approach significantly improved the water solubility while maintaining the potency of the parent drug. Photosensitizer Project An aryl furan methylene rhodanine compound BW-PS-105 was found to have potent photo-induced cytotoxicity in MCF-7 breast cancer cell and HeLa cervical carcinoma cell lines. Structure-activity relationship in the efficiency of singlet oxygen generation and photo-induced cytotoxicity was studied by changing the substitution on the phenyl ring. The results indicate significant potential for developing such aryl furan rhodanines for photodynamic therapy

Trend and variability in a new, reconstructed streamflow dataset for West and Central Africa, and climatic interactions, 1950 – 2005

International audienc

Military Expenditure And Institutional Quality On BRICS Countries Inclusive Growth Based On World Bank Income Classification

Empirical studies on military expenditure-growth nexus in individual countries and cross-national countries abound, however, to the best knowledge of the authors; there are no studies on the impact of military expenditure and Institutional quality on Inclusive growth. The objective of this paper is to fill the gap by investigate the impact of military expenditure and institutional quality on BRICS inclusive growth from 1984 to 2017. This paper adopted BRICS countries because they account for about 26.11 % of total world military expenditure. Due to the heterogeneous nature of BRICS countries, the countries were grouped into Upper Middle Income countries and Lower Middle Income countries using the World Bank Income Classification. In addition, corruption was adopted as the reliable proxy for institutional quality, since corruption is often a symptom of bad institution. The result of the impact of military expenditure and corruption on inclusive growth in the lower middle-income group indicates that military expenditure and corruption have positive and statistically significant effects on inclusive growth while the interactive term has negative and statistically significant effect on inclusive growth. This implies military expenditure reduces inclusive growth in the face of corruption. However, for the upper middle income, military expenditure is negative and significant as against that of lower middle income. Corruption and interactive term have negative effects on inclusive growth but both are statistically insignificant

Bioconversion of Aspergillus niger KM treated rice and wheat bran for experimental rat feed formulation

This study investigated the nutritional value of pre-treated rice and wheat bran wastes as feed formulation in experimental rats. Aspergillus niger KM isolated from decomposing organic matter was tested for cellulase assay. The lignocellulosic agricultural residues (wheat bran and rice bran) were pretreated with ammonia and diluted sulfuric acid after which solid substrate fermentation with Aspergillus niger KM was carried out. Determination of reducing sugar was carried out and the fermented residues were included as components in feed formulation and were fed to different groups of rats for four weeks. The proximate analysis of the feed formulation showed that the NH3 pretreated feeds gave higher protein content of 21.94%, relative to the control or other groups. Growth performances of animals fed with NH3 pretreated wheat bran significantly increased from 158.25 to 201.66 g throughout the feeding periods. Evaluation of the various feeds’ effect on tissue marker enzymes revealed inconsistent alterations relative to the control. Bioconverted wheat or rice bran has nutritive value to support animal growth and could be explored in animal feed preparation

Stem Cell Research: An Afro-Cultural Evaluation

Stem cells are undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into specialized cells, divide to produce other cells and have been found useful in curative, preventiveand regenerative medicine. While some have argued for sustained researches using stem cells because of their curative and regenerative abilities, many others have countered-argued primarily because they believe the embryo is a potential source of life that should not be destroyed because of seemingly medical usefulness. This has generated controversies on the moral status of the embryo, the propriety of using cells obtained from embryos for research, the use of stem cells for therapeutic cloning, the place of human experimentation in African culture and the African view towards modern medical technologies. Moreover, is it just to destroy an embryo cell if it has the potential to cure many more people? Are human embryos means to an end? This paper argues that adult stem cells should be induced with pluripotent capacity and should be used as means of obtaining stem cells for research instead of embryonic stem cells because the use of adultstem cells is less controversial. This paper concludes that Africans should stop living in the shadows of the past and adjust to the current trends in the new global medical advances

Ethical Assessment of Women and Violence in Nigeria

This paper examines the various forms of violence and discrimination against women in Nigeria which includes sexual violence, domestic violence, political violence etc. it pointed out that women are subjected to various inhuman torture (physical, emotional and psychological)  in the past and presently they are still under various form of oppressions. This account for the reason why we rarely find them in core area of decision making and in places where they are, they are given little or no recognition. This paper criticizes all the forms of violence against women most especially sexual violence and argues that it is degrading, dehumanizing, and therefore it should be totally discouraged. It argues that women has an epistemic privilege that may be useful in developing African nations more specifically Nigeria, reason being that they see from a unique viewpoint and they played many roles in various societies throughout the history. She has been a wife, a mother, a farmer, a laborer, business executives, a teacher, a volunteer worker; no doubt women can successfully combine two or more of these roles without one lagging behind. But unfortunately, their ideas do not go well with their male counterparts. This paper opines that there is a need to make a conscious effort to see to the urgent needs of women so that this could serve the purpose of a psychotherapeutic to redeem victims of violence from continuous deprivation. Keywords: Violence, Oppression, Women, Discriminatio

Religion as a Tool of Political Manipulation in Nigeria

The Nigerian political system exemplifies manipulation of all sorts and in various forms with religion serving as one of the structuresthrough which this manipulation takes place. This paper intends to address the role of religion in serving as a means through which members of the political class manipulates the country’s polity and undermine the nation’s political framework. While some have argued that since religion is an integral part of the society, it has a role to play to deterring the political destiny of a nation, others on the hand vehemently oppose this claim assertion claiming that religion has been hijacked by political elites and has become an instrument to further their political plans, perpetuate political ills, manipulate political decisions of Nigerians and ultimately enslave the people. This paper argues that there is an urgent need for de-politization of religion and separation of politics from religion if Nigerians are to achieve freedom from political manipulation andenslavement by the Nigerian politicians