Since the first application of Artificial Intelligence in the field of hydrology, there has been ... more Since the first application of Artificial Intelligence in the field of hydrology, there has been a great deal of interest in exploring aspects of future enhancements to hydrology. This is evidenced by the increasing number of relevant publications published. Random forests (RF) are supervised machine learning algorithms that have lately gained popularity in water resource applications. It has been used in a variety of water resource research domains, including discharge simulation. Random forest could be an alternate approach to physical and conceptual hydrological models for large-scale hazard assessment in various catchments due to its inexpensive setup and operation costs. Existing applications, however, are usually limited to the implementation of Breiman's original algorithm for extrapolation and categorization issues, even though several developments could be useful in handling a variety of practical challenges in the water sector. In this section, we introduce RF and its ...
Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies
The study that directed this article investigated the Covid-19 information behaviour of social me... more The study that directed this article investigated the Covid-19 information behaviour of social media users in Nigeria. Based on the nature of the study population, the data for the study were collected using Google Form to create an electronic questionnaire. Altogether 348 social media users participated in the survey. Findings from the study showed that the participating social media users in Nigeria were interested in knowing everything about Covid-19. Also, they preferred the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) social media platforms as their main sources of Covid-19 information. The study also showed that Covid-19 information was majorly shared among these social media users in Nigeria through WhatsApp. However, data revealed that the participating social media users in Nigeria were satisfied with the available Covid-19 information. Finally, findings indicated that fake news and misinformation, as well as too much information on Cov...
Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial... more Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial to health. The dried powder has potential commercial value and is a convenient source of the juice drink. The quality of spray dried pineapple juice is dependent on the powder moisture content. Spray dried pineapple powders with low moisture contents were produced in a lab-scale spray dryer in this study. Powder production of 25 % of total solids were obtained by use of DE6 maltodextrin to solids ratio of 0.41:0.59. A heat and mass transfer model of the spray drying process was implemented in Matlab and solved to determine its predictive utility. The simulation results showed agreement with experimental data at high inlet air temperatures but widely diverged at other air temperatures. The error size in predicted product moisture varied from 73 % at 165 oC to almost zero at 185 oC while that for the predicted exit air temperatures varied from about 38 % to zero over the same temperature ...
Aldose reductase (AR) is an enzyme of the polyol pathway implicated in long-term effect of diabet... more Aldose reductase (AR) is an enzyme of the polyol pathway implicated in long-term effect of diabetes mellitus. The development of new molecules as drugs for the inhibition of this enzyme is a growing area of research. Several in vivo and in vitro studies have been carried out to test the inhibitory effect of many organic compounds against AR, but the results have been limited due to their weak pharmacokinetic parameters and safety profile. In this study, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation were performed to establish the inhibitory effect of two critical bioactive compounds (astaxanthin and zeaxanthin) that were affirmed to be safe and powerful antioxidants. Docking studies revealed that both astaxanthin and zeaxanthin displays good binding affinity and inhibition to AR with binding energies of −5.88 kcal/mol and −5.63 kcal/mol, respectively. In contrast to epalrestat; the standard inhibitor having a binding energy of −5.62 kcal/mol. Amino acid residue analysis has shown that both compounds, including the standard inhibitor, bind to the same site due to their common interaction with Trp20 and Tyr48 at AR catalytic site. To complement molecular docking results, we performed MD simulations. The results show that the binding energies of the standard inhibitor, astaxanthin, and zeaxanthin are −134.3486 kJ/mol, −186.271 kJ/mol, and −123.557 kJ/mol, respectively. In both cases, astaxanthin displays better inhibition to AR followed by the standard inhibitor and zeaxanthin.
The national total expenditure of a country is precipitated on several factors of which revenue g... more The national total expenditure of a country is precipitated on several factors of which revenue generated could be one and very significant. This paper therefore examines the contribution of some selected sources of Nigerian government revenue to total national expenditure. Secondary data sourced and collected from Nigerian Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank for a period of thirty nine (39) years were used. Statistical and econometric techniques used for the data analysis are unit root test, cointegration test and the error correction model (ECM). Results showed that the original variables are non stationary but are stationary at first difference. Further investigations resulted into the use of the error correction model whose parameters’ estimation was improved by the use of Feasible Generalized Linear (FGLS) Estimator. Findings revealed significant contribution of oil revenue, federation account (federal allocation) and federal retained revenue to the Nigeria total expenditu...
The discovery of vast deposits of various ranks of coal in Nigeria presents significant opportuni... more The discovery of vast deposits of various ranks of coal in Nigeria presents significant opportunities to address the nation’s persistent energy crises. However, the lack of comprehensive data on the physicochemical, calorific, microstructural, mineralogical, and thermal properties of Nigerian coals remains a significant challenge. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate the fuel characte ristics and energy recovery potential of a newly discovered coal from Duduguru in Obi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Results revealed that Duduguru (DDG) coal contains high carbon (59.6%), oxygen (32.9%), volatile matter (76.4%), fixed carbon (16.6%) and higher heating value (HHV = 26.6 MJ/kg), but low nitrogen (1.3%), sulphur (0.6%), moisture (6.5%), and ash (0.5%) content. Based on these properties, DDG is classified as a non-agglomerating, sub-bituminous, grade “A” coal with potentials for electricity generation, cement production, among others. The mineralogical analyses re...
There is considerable interest and research into the intensification of processing methods that o... more There is considerable interest and research into the intensification of processing methods that offer better product quality and energy efficiency at reduced costs and better yield. Microwave-assisted spray drying is one such potential process. Microwaves were integrated into the spray drying process of juice feeds in a laboratory scale spray drier to produce dried powder. The juice feeds comprise pineapple-maltodextrin mixtures that were spray dried in a concurrent air flow using microwave frequencies of 915 MHz and 2450 MHz and an inlet air temperature range of 105 oC – 130 oC and. The powder yield using the different microwave frequencies were analyzed for moisture content, bulk density and solubility. The differences in the dried powder yield was negligible while observed differences in the measured powder properties for the microwave frequencies used varied from 2% to 5% for similar inlet drying air conditions.
To preserve the petroleum feedstock and eliminate the environmental problems peculiar to polyethe... more To preserve the petroleum feedstock and eliminate the environmental problems peculiar to polyethene terephthalate (PET) bottles littering the environment. Chemical recycling method was adopted to convert PET into useful products of prosperous sizeable industrial application. This work employed ASPEN PLUS V8.8 to simulate chemical glycolysis depolymerisation process of PET plastic wastes, using plug flow reactor for commercial production of pure bis (2- hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET). The data for modelling were gotten from the experimental PET glycolysis depolymerisation work. Excess ethylene glycol (EG) was used to degrade PET waste with zinc acetate (Zn(Ac)2) as the active catalyst. The optimum operating conditions ofthe reaction were mean particle size PET of 127.5 µm, EG:PET (w/w) ratio of 5:1,469 K temperature, 101325 N/m2 pressure and 3 h residence time. Reaction results were 100 % depolymerisation of PET, 85.24 % yield of BHET and 14.76 % Oligomer. Purification of the BHE...
The International Journal of Business & Management, 2019
Impact of Knowledge Management Practices on University Lecturers' Performance in Bauchi and Gombe... more Impact of Knowledge Management Practices on University Lecturers' Performance in Bauchi and Gombe States 1. Introduction Over the past few decades, the need for information and development of knowledge in organizations has progressed from an evolving concept to increasingly essential activities in virtually every organization. This is as result of a shift in strategic thinking from the resource-based view of the firm to the knowledge-based view. Knowledge is considered an organization's most strategic resource and one of the most highly valued commodity in the modern economy (Tajali, Farahani & Baharvand, 2014; Hegazy & Ghorab, 2014). In order to keep abreast with the rapid societal changes, educational institutions especially at the tertiary level, need to understand and master the art of effective creation, collection, dissemination, application and sharing of information (Krubu& Krub, 2011)in ways that strive to improve performance at both individual and organizational level(Oliver, Handzic, & Van Toorn, 2003; Cheng, Ho, & Lau, 2009). One possible way to do so is to ensure that those concerned with managing knowledge are to make certain that the right knowledge get to the right people just in time (Snowden, 2002). The universities are considered as "Knowledge Houses" where knowledge flows among lecturers and down to students through teaching, learning and research and new knowledge is created. Like other organizations, Universities thrive to stay relevant in this knowledge society (Loh, et al., 2003). Any institution of learning is considered relevant due to its all-embracing commitment to knowledge. Lecturers are regarded as the most vital resources of the universities and equally their performance is an important issue in the light of increasing demand for knowledge in the current economy. Effective lecturers' performance remains one of the major determinants of any educative process in the universities
The thermal behaviour and decomposition kinetics of pelletized oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB)... more The thermal behaviour and decomposition kinetics of pelletized oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) was investigated in this study using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The OPEFB pellets were heated from room temperature to 1000 ºC at different heating rates; 5, 10 and 20 °C min-1 under inert atmosphere. Thermal degradation occurred in three steps; drying, devolatization and char decomposition. Subsequently, the Popescu method was applied to the TG/DTG data to determine the kinetic parameters of the OPEFB pellets. The activation energy, E, for different degrees of conversion, α = 0.05 to 0.7 are 36.60 kJ/mol to 233.90 kJ/mol with high correlation R2 values. In addition, the drying and decomposition of lignin reactions displayed lower E values compared to the devolatization characterized by high E value of 233 kJ/mol at α = 0.2. This indicates that the devolatization process is slower and requires higher energy requirement to reach completion than the other stages of thermal decompos...
The separation of an azeotropic mixture such as ethanol/ethyl acetate in distillation process can... more The separation of an azeotropic mixture such as ethanol/ethyl acetate in distillation process can be enhanced by ultrasound wave. The application of ultrasound wave creates bubble cavitation in the mixture and shifts the vapour-liquid equilibrium favouring the separation of the azeotropic mixture. This study investigates the formation of bubbles in the mixture through modelling and simulation. The results obtained show that bubble formation at low ultrasound frequency is favoured by the increase in intensity, which has a direct relation to sonic pressure. The optimal sonic pressure for bubble formation at equilibrium is 5 atm and conforms to the model for small bubble formation with radius of 0.14 /
Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial... more Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial to health. The dried powder has potential commercial value and is a convenient source of the juice drink. The quality of spray dried pineapple juice is dependent on the powder moisture content. Spray dried pineapple powders with low moisture contents were produced in a lab-scale spray dryer in this study. Powder production of 25% of total solids were obtained by use of DE6 maltodextrin to solids ratio of 0.41:0.59. A heat and mass transfer model of the spray drying process was implemented in Matlab and solved to determine its predictive utility. The simulation results showed agreement with experimental data at high inlet air temperatures but widely diverged at other air temperatures. The error size in predicted product moisture varied from 73% at 165 oC to almost zero at 185 oC while that for the predicted exit air temperatures varied from about 38% to zero over the same temperature ra...
The study examined the physico-chemical characteristics and combustion kinetics of petroleum coke... more The study examined the physico-chemical characteristics and combustion kinetics of petroleum coke or petcoke (PCK). The results revealed that PCK contains significantly high carbon, fixed carbon, and calorific value with low sulphur, and ash content. The combustion characteristics of PCK revealed the temperatures of ignition ranged from 764 to 795 K; peak decomposition from 808 to 875 K and burnout from 857 to 933 K. The combustion performance and reactivity analyses were examined based on the ignition ratio, devolatilization ratio, burnout ratio, and combustion characteristic factor were performed. The activation energy and preexponential factor were determined also. The results revealed that PCK is highly reactive during combustion contrary to previous reports in the literature. Overall, the findings demonstrate that combustion is a practical approach for energy recovery from petcoke.
Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its r... more Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its role in improving the situation of kidneys remains to be well established. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of the extract of U. pilulifera on the expression of iNOS in kidneys of diabetic rats. Methodology of the present study included collection of U. pilulifera fromvarious places in Jordan, air dried and extracted by Soxhlet cold extractor using absolute methanol as solvent and remained for three consecutive days. Extracted juice was kept in refrigerator at 4°C. Diabetes was induced through administration of alloxan 150 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally. Study model included 4 groups: control group, diabetic group, diabetic group treated with 1.25 mg/kg body weight, and diabetic group treated with 1.88 mg/kg body weight. Study findings showed increased significant expression of iNOS in diabetic group compared with control group (P 0.000). The extract of U.pilulifera significantly decreased the expression of iNOS in diabetic kidneys at both doses used, but more reduction of iNOS was observed using the large dose 1.88 mg/kg of body weight. Taken together, the present study confirmed the findings of other studies in which the expression of iNOS plays a role in diabetic kidney.
Biomass devolatilization is an important phenomenon in the thermochemical conversion of biomass i... more Biomass devolatilization is an important phenomenon in the thermochemical conversion of biomass into clean fuels through pyrolysis, gasification and combustion. In this paper multicomponent model fitting (MMF) was carried out to analyse the devolatilization kinetics of Imperata cylindrica using non-isothermal thermogravimetry (TG) to determine the pre-exponential factors (k0), activation energies (Ea) and fractional contribution. The TGA of Imperata cylindrica was carried out in the temperature range of 30-1,000 °C at four heating rates of 5, 10, 15, and 20 K/min using Nitrogen at a flow rate of 20 mL/min as purge gas. Evaluation of the kinetic parameters involved the numerical regression of the non-isothermal TGA data in MATLAB 2013a based on the pseudocomponent modelling method. The pseudocomponents number used in the modelling was limited between 3 and 10, and the overall quality of fit (QOF) for eight pseudocomponents was found to be the lowest with the value of 1.89 %. The corresponding average values for pre-exponential factor, activation energy and fractional contribution were 791.63 s-1 , 12.13 kJ/mol and 0.13. The results proved that pseudocomponent reaction modelling method can be successfully employed to accurately predict the experimental devolatilization rates.
Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its r... more Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its role in improving the situation of kidneys remains to be well established. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of the extract of U. pilulifera on the expression of iNOS in kidneys of diabetic rats. Methodology of the present study included collection of U. pilulifera fromvarious places in Jordan, air dried and extracted by Soxhlet cold extractor using absolute methanol as solvent and remained for three consecutive days. Extracted juice was kept in refrigerator at 4°C. Diabetes was induced through administration of alloxan 150 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally. Study model included 4 groups: control group, diabetic group, diabetic group treated with 1.25 mg/kg body weight, and diabetic group treated with 1.88 mg/kg body weight. Study findings showed increased significant expression of iNOS in diabetic group compared with control group (P 0.000). The extr...
The moisture contents of powders is an important parameter that affects the quality and commercia... more The moisture contents of powders is an important parameter that affects the quality and commercial value of spray dried products. The utility of predicted moisture content values from two droplet drying models were compared with experimental data for spray dried pineapple juice, using the Ranz-Marshal and its modified variants for the heat and mass transfer correlations. The droplet Diffusion model, using the Zhifu correlation, gave estimates with errors of about 8% at 165 oC, 9% at 171 oC, 26% at 179 oC and 2% at 185 oC. The Ranz-Marshal correlation also gave comparable results with this model while results using the Downing and modified Ranz-Marshall correlations widely diverged. The Energy balance model predicted completely dried juice particles, and short drying times, in contrast to the experimental data. The small error sizes of the Diffusion model improves on the wide error sizes of an earlier process model, making is useful as a first approximation choice, for spray drier de...
Since the first application of Artificial Intelligence in the field of hydrology, there has been ... more Since the first application of Artificial Intelligence in the field of hydrology, there has been a great deal of interest in exploring aspects of future enhancements to hydrology. This is evidenced by the increasing number of relevant publications published. Random forests (RF) are supervised machine learning algorithms that have lately gained popularity in water resource applications. It has been used in a variety of water resource research domains, including discharge simulation. Random forest could be an alternate approach to physical and conceptual hydrological models for large-scale hazard assessment in various catchments due to its inexpensive setup and operation costs. Existing applications, however, are usually limited to the implementation of Breiman's original algorithm for extrapolation and categorization issues, even though several developments could be useful in handling a variety of practical challenges in the water sector. In this section, we introduce RF and its ...
Mousaion: South African Journal of Information Studies
The study that directed this article investigated the Covid-19 information behaviour of social me... more The study that directed this article investigated the Covid-19 information behaviour of social media users in Nigeria. Based on the nature of the study population, the data for the study were collected using Google Form to create an electronic questionnaire. Altogether 348 social media users participated in the survey. Findings from the study showed that the participating social media users in Nigeria were interested in knowing everything about Covid-19. Also, they preferred the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) social media platforms as their main sources of Covid-19 information. The study also showed that Covid-19 information was majorly shared among these social media users in Nigeria through WhatsApp. However, data revealed that the participating social media users in Nigeria were satisfied with the available Covid-19 information. Finally, findings indicated that fake news and misinformation, as well as too much information on Cov...
Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial... more Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial to health. The dried powder has potential commercial value and is a convenient source of the juice drink. The quality of spray dried pineapple juice is dependent on the powder moisture content. Spray dried pineapple powders with low moisture contents were produced in a lab-scale spray dryer in this study. Powder production of 25 % of total solids were obtained by use of DE6 maltodextrin to solids ratio of 0.41:0.59. A heat and mass transfer model of the spray drying process was implemented in Matlab and solved to determine its predictive utility. The simulation results showed agreement with experimental data at high inlet air temperatures but widely diverged at other air temperatures. The error size in predicted product moisture varied from 73 % at 165 oC to almost zero at 185 oC while that for the predicted exit air temperatures varied from about 38 % to zero over the same temperature ...
Aldose reductase (AR) is an enzyme of the polyol pathway implicated in long-term effect of diabet... more Aldose reductase (AR) is an enzyme of the polyol pathway implicated in long-term effect of diabetes mellitus. The development of new molecules as drugs for the inhibition of this enzyme is a growing area of research. Several in vivo and in vitro studies have been carried out to test the inhibitory effect of many organic compounds against AR, but the results have been limited due to their weak pharmacokinetic parameters and safety profile. In this study, molecular docking and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation were performed to establish the inhibitory effect of two critical bioactive compounds (astaxanthin and zeaxanthin) that were affirmed to be safe and powerful antioxidants. Docking studies revealed that both astaxanthin and zeaxanthin displays good binding affinity and inhibition to AR with binding energies of −5.88 kcal/mol and −5.63 kcal/mol, respectively. In contrast to epalrestat; the standard inhibitor having a binding energy of −5.62 kcal/mol. Amino acid residue analysis has shown that both compounds, including the standard inhibitor, bind to the same site due to their common interaction with Trp20 and Tyr48 at AR catalytic site. To complement molecular docking results, we performed MD simulations. The results show that the binding energies of the standard inhibitor, astaxanthin, and zeaxanthin are −134.3486 kJ/mol, −186.271 kJ/mol, and −123.557 kJ/mol, respectively. In both cases, astaxanthin displays better inhibition to AR followed by the standard inhibitor and zeaxanthin.
The national total expenditure of a country is precipitated on several factors of which revenue g... more The national total expenditure of a country is precipitated on several factors of which revenue generated could be one and very significant. This paper therefore examines the contribution of some selected sources of Nigerian government revenue to total national expenditure. Secondary data sourced and collected from Nigerian Statistical Bulletin of the Central Bank for a period of thirty nine (39) years were used. Statistical and econometric techniques used for the data analysis are unit root test, cointegration test and the error correction model (ECM). Results showed that the original variables are non stationary but are stationary at first difference. Further investigations resulted into the use of the error correction model whose parameters’ estimation was improved by the use of Feasible Generalized Linear (FGLS) Estimator. Findings revealed significant contribution of oil revenue, federation account (federal allocation) and federal retained revenue to the Nigeria total expenditu...
The discovery of vast deposits of various ranks of coal in Nigeria presents significant opportuni... more The discovery of vast deposits of various ranks of coal in Nigeria presents significant opportunities to address the nation’s persistent energy crises. However, the lack of comprehensive data on the physicochemical, calorific, microstructural, mineralogical, and thermal properties of Nigerian coals remains a significant challenge. Therefore, this paper seeks to investigate the fuel characte ristics and energy recovery potential of a newly discovered coal from Duduguru in Obi Local Government Area of Nasarawa State, Nigeria. Results revealed that Duduguru (DDG) coal contains high carbon (59.6%), oxygen (32.9%), volatile matter (76.4%), fixed carbon (16.6%) and higher heating value (HHV = 26.6 MJ/kg), but low nitrogen (1.3%), sulphur (0.6%), moisture (6.5%), and ash (0.5%) content. Based on these properties, DDG is classified as a non-agglomerating, sub-bituminous, grade “A” coal with potentials for electricity generation, cement production, among others. The mineralogical analyses re...
There is considerable interest and research into the intensification of processing methods that o... more There is considerable interest and research into the intensification of processing methods that offer better product quality and energy efficiency at reduced costs and better yield. Microwave-assisted spray drying is one such potential process. Microwaves were integrated into the spray drying process of juice feeds in a laboratory scale spray drier to produce dried powder. The juice feeds comprise pineapple-maltodextrin mixtures that were spray dried in a concurrent air flow using microwave frequencies of 915 MHz and 2450 MHz and an inlet air temperature range of 105 oC – 130 oC and. The powder yield using the different microwave frequencies were analyzed for moisture content, bulk density and solubility. The differences in the dried powder yield was negligible while observed differences in the measured powder properties for the microwave frequencies used varied from 2% to 5% for similar inlet drying air conditions.
To preserve the petroleum feedstock and eliminate the environmental problems peculiar to polyethe... more To preserve the petroleum feedstock and eliminate the environmental problems peculiar to polyethene terephthalate (PET) bottles littering the environment. Chemical recycling method was adopted to convert PET into useful products of prosperous sizeable industrial application. This work employed ASPEN PLUS V8.8 to simulate chemical glycolysis depolymerisation process of PET plastic wastes, using plug flow reactor for commercial production of pure bis (2- hydroxyethyl) terephthalate (BHET). The data for modelling were gotten from the experimental PET glycolysis depolymerisation work. Excess ethylene glycol (EG) was used to degrade PET waste with zinc acetate (Zn(Ac)2) as the active catalyst. The optimum operating conditions ofthe reaction were mean particle size PET of 127.5 µm, EG:PET (w/w) ratio of 5:1,469 K temperature, 101325 N/m2 pressure and 3 h residence time. Reaction results were 100 % depolymerisation of PET, 85.24 % yield of BHET and 14.76 % Oligomer. Purification of the BHE...
The International Journal of Business & Management, 2019
Impact of Knowledge Management Practices on University Lecturers' Performance in Bauchi and Gombe... more Impact of Knowledge Management Practices on University Lecturers' Performance in Bauchi and Gombe States 1. Introduction Over the past few decades, the need for information and development of knowledge in organizations has progressed from an evolving concept to increasingly essential activities in virtually every organization. This is as result of a shift in strategic thinking from the resource-based view of the firm to the knowledge-based view. Knowledge is considered an organization's most strategic resource and one of the most highly valued commodity in the modern economy (Tajali, Farahani & Baharvand, 2014; Hegazy & Ghorab, 2014). In order to keep abreast with the rapid societal changes, educational institutions especially at the tertiary level, need to understand and master the art of effective creation, collection, dissemination, application and sharing of information (Krubu& Krub, 2011)in ways that strive to improve performance at both individual and organizational level(Oliver, Handzic, & Van Toorn, 2003; Cheng, Ho, & Lau, 2009). One possible way to do so is to ensure that those concerned with managing knowledge are to make certain that the right knowledge get to the right people just in time (Snowden, 2002). The universities are considered as "Knowledge Houses" where knowledge flows among lecturers and down to students through teaching, learning and research and new knowledge is created. Like other organizations, Universities thrive to stay relevant in this knowledge society (Loh, et al., 2003). Any institution of learning is considered relevant due to its all-embracing commitment to knowledge. Lecturers are regarded as the most vital resources of the universities and equally their performance is an important issue in the light of increasing demand for knowledge in the current economy. Effective lecturers' performance remains one of the major determinants of any educative process in the universities
The thermal behaviour and decomposition kinetics of pelletized oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB)... more The thermal behaviour and decomposition kinetics of pelletized oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) was investigated in this study using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The OPEFB pellets were heated from room temperature to 1000 ºC at different heating rates; 5, 10 and 20 °C min-1 under inert atmosphere. Thermal degradation occurred in three steps; drying, devolatization and char decomposition. Subsequently, the Popescu method was applied to the TG/DTG data to determine the kinetic parameters of the OPEFB pellets. The activation energy, E, for different degrees of conversion, α = 0.05 to 0.7 are 36.60 kJ/mol to 233.90 kJ/mol with high correlation R2 values. In addition, the drying and decomposition of lignin reactions displayed lower E values compared to the devolatization characterized by high E value of 233 kJ/mol at α = 0.2. This indicates that the devolatization process is slower and requires higher energy requirement to reach completion than the other stages of thermal decompos...
The separation of an azeotropic mixture such as ethanol/ethyl acetate in distillation process can... more The separation of an azeotropic mixture such as ethanol/ethyl acetate in distillation process can be enhanced by ultrasound wave. The application of ultrasound wave creates bubble cavitation in the mixture and shifts the vapour-liquid equilibrium favouring the separation of the azeotropic mixture. This study investigates the formation of bubbles in the mixture through modelling and simulation. The results obtained show that bubble formation at low ultrasound frequency is favoured by the increase in intensity, which has a direct relation to sonic pressure. The optimal sonic pressure for bubble formation at equilibrium is 5 atm and conforms to the model for small bubble formation with radius of 0.14 /
Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial... more Pineapple juice is one of the known natural sources of bromelain, a bioactive compound beneficial to health. The dried powder has potential commercial value and is a convenient source of the juice drink. The quality of spray dried pineapple juice is dependent on the powder moisture content. Spray dried pineapple powders with low moisture contents were produced in a lab-scale spray dryer in this study. Powder production of 25% of total solids were obtained by use of DE6 maltodextrin to solids ratio of 0.41:0.59. A heat and mass transfer model of the spray drying process was implemented in Matlab and solved to determine its predictive utility. The simulation results showed agreement with experimental data at high inlet air temperatures but widely diverged at other air temperatures. The error size in predicted product moisture varied from 73% at 165 oC to almost zero at 185 oC while that for the predicted exit air temperatures varied from about 38% to zero over the same temperature ra...
The study examined the physico-chemical characteristics and combustion kinetics of petroleum coke... more The study examined the physico-chemical characteristics and combustion kinetics of petroleum coke or petcoke (PCK). The results revealed that PCK contains significantly high carbon, fixed carbon, and calorific value with low sulphur, and ash content. The combustion characteristics of PCK revealed the temperatures of ignition ranged from 764 to 795 K; peak decomposition from 808 to 875 K and burnout from 857 to 933 K. The combustion performance and reactivity analyses were examined based on the ignition ratio, devolatilization ratio, burnout ratio, and combustion characteristic factor were performed. The activation energy and preexponential factor were determined also. The results revealed that PCK is highly reactive during combustion contrary to previous reports in the literature. Overall, the findings demonstrate that combustion is a practical approach for energy recovery from petcoke.
Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its r... more Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its role in improving the situation of kidneys remains to be well established. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of the extract of U. pilulifera on the expression of iNOS in kidneys of diabetic rats. Methodology of the present study included collection of U. pilulifera fromvarious places in Jordan, air dried and extracted by Soxhlet cold extractor using absolute methanol as solvent and remained for three consecutive days. Extracted juice was kept in refrigerator at 4°C. Diabetes was induced through administration of alloxan 150 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally. Study model included 4 groups: control group, diabetic group, diabetic group treated with 1.25 mg/kg body weight, and diabetic group treated with 1.88 mg/kg body weight. Study findings showed increased significant expression of iNOS in diabetic group compared with control group (P 0.000). The extract of U.pilulifera significantly decreased the expression of iNOS in diabetic kidneys at both doses used, but more reduction of iNOS was observed using the large dose 1.88 mg/kg of body weight. Taken together, the present study confirmed the findings of other studies in which the expression of iNOS plays a role in diabetic kidney.
Biomass devolatilization is an important phenomenon in the thermochemical conversion of biomass i... more Biomass devolatilization is an important phenomenon in the thermochemical conversion of biomass into clean fuels through pyrolysis, gasification and combustion. In this paper multicomponent model fitting (MMF) was carried out to analyse the devolatilization kinetics of Imperata cylindrica using non-isothermal thermogravimetry (TG) to determine the pre-exponential factors (k0), activation energies (Ea) and fractional contribution. The TGA of Imperata cylindrica was carried out in the temperature range of 30-1,000 °C at four heating rates of 5, 10, 15, and 20 K/min using Nitrogen at a flow rate of 20 mL/min as purge gas. Evaluation of the kinetic parameters involved the numerical regression of the non-isothermal TGA data in MATLAB 2013a based on the pseudocomponent modelling method. The pseudocomponents number used in the modelling was limited between 3 and 10, and the overall quality of fit (QOF) for eight pseudocomponents was found to be the lowest with the value of 1.89 %. The corresponding average values for pre-exponential factor, activation energy and fractional contribution were 791.63 s-1 , 12.13 kJ/mol and 0.13. The results proved that pseudocomponent reaction modelling method can be successfully employed to accurately predict the experimental devolatilization rates.
Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its r... more Although the extract of U.pilulifera has been used since a long time to treat diabetes, but its role in improving the situation of kidneys remains to be well established. The main objective of the present study is to investigate the effects of the extract of U. pilulifera on the expression of iNOS in kidneys of diabetic rats. Methodology of the present study included collection of U. pilulifera fromvarious places in Jordan, air dried and extracted by Soxhlet cold extractor using absolute methanol as solvent and remained for three consecutive days. Extracted juice was kept in refrigerator at 4°C. Diabetes was induced through administration of alloxan 150 mg/kg body weight intraperitoneally. Study model included 4 groups: control group, diabetic group, diabetic group treated with 1.25 mg/kg body weight, and diabetic group treated with 1.88 mg/kg body weight. Study findings showed increased significant expression of iNOS in diabetic group compared with control group (P 0.000). The extr...
The moisture contents of powders is an important parameter that affects the quality and commercia... more The moisture contents of powders is an important parameter that affects the quality and commercial value of spray dried products. The utility of predicted moisture content values from two droplet drying models were compared with experimental data for spray dried pineapple juice, using the Ranz-Marshal and its modified variants for the heat and mass transfer correlations. The droplet Diffusion model, using the Zhifu correlation, gave estimates with errors of about 8% at 165 oC, 9% at 171 oC, 26% at 179 oC and 2% at 185 oC. The Ranz-Marshal correlation also gave comparable results with this model while results using the Downing and modified Ranz-Marshall correlations widely diverged. The Energy balance model predicted completely dried juice particles, and short drying times, in contrast to the experimental data. The small error sizes of the Diffusion model improves on the wide error sizes of an earlier process model, making is useful as a first approximation choice, for spray drier de...
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Papers by Aliyu Bello