Financial Sector Reforms and Private Investment in Sub-Saharan African Countries

BABAJIDE FOWOWE 경제연구소 2011 Journal of Economic Development Vol.36 No.3

Financial sector reforms have been undertaken by many countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and one of the key targets of these reforms has been investment. This study conducts an empirical investigation of the effect of financial sector reforms on private investment in selected Sub-Saharan African countries. An index is developed which tracks the gradual progress made with implementation of the phases of the reforms. The results of econometric estimations show that financial sector reforms (measured by the index) have had a positive effect on private investment in the selected countries, thus offering support to the financial liberalization hypothesis.

Identifying immunodominant multi-epitopes from the envelope glycoprotein of the Lassa mammarenavirus as vaccine candidate for Lassa fever

Adekunle Babajide Rowaiye,Ezinne Janefrances Nwonu,Titilayo Mercy Asala,Amoge Chidinma Ogu,Doofan Bur,Chimaobi Chukwu,Angus Nnamdi Oli,Tarimoboere Agbalalah 대한백신학회 2022 Clinical and Experimental Vaccine Research Vol.11 No.3

Purpose: Lassa fever is a zoonotic acute viral hemorrhagic disease caused by Lassa virus (LASV). There is currently no licensed vaccine for the prevention of the disease. This study is aimed at discovering immunodominant epitopes from the envelope glycoprotein of the Lassa mammarenavirus and designing of a multi-epitope vaccine candidate (VC). Materials and Methods: The amino acid sequences of the envelope glycoprotein of 26 strains of LASV from five countries were selected. After evaluation for antigenicity, immunogenicity, allergenicity, and toxicity, immunodominant CD8, CD4, and linear B lymphocytes were also selected. The selected epitopes were modelled and a molecular docking with the appropriate major histocompatibility complex (MHC) proteins was performed. Using an adjuvant and linkers, a multi-epitope VC was designed. The VC was evaluated for its physicochemical and immunological properties and structurally refined, validated, and mutated (disulphide engineering). The complex formed by the VC and the toll-like receptor-4 receptor was subjected to molecular dynamic simulation (MDS) followed by in silico cloning in a plasmid vector. Results: A VC with 203 sequences, 22.13 kDa weight, isoelectric point of 9.85 (basic), instability index value of 27.62, aliphatic index of 68.87, and GRAVY value of -0.455 (hydrophilic) emerged. The VC is predicted to be non-allergenic with antigenicity, MHC I immunogenicity, and solubility upon overexpression values of 0.81, 2.04, and 0.86 respectively. The VC also has an estimated half-life greater than 10 hours in Escherichia coli and showed stability in all the parameters of MDS. Conclusion: The VC shows good promise in the prevention of Lassa fever but further tests are required to validate its safety and efficacy.

The Criminalization of Farmers - Herdsmen Conflicts in Nigeria

Saheed Babajide Owonikoko,Idowu Johnson 한국외국어대학교 아프리카연구소 2022 Asian Journal of African Studies Vol.- No.52

Farmers and Herdsmen conflict has been a recurring decimal across the West African Sub-region. For Nigeria, the conflict has not only hindered the country’s socio-economic development, but also threatens its national unity. The violent nature of the conflict constitutes a source of concern both to the Nigerian government and the international community. While scholarly interest focuses on the ethnic and religious dimension of the conflict, there is the need to analyse the changing pattern of the phenomenon. This paper argues that farmer – herder contestations may have a deep-rooted history of ethnic and religious colouration (as witnessed in North-Central Zone of Nigeria), but the recurrence of the phenomenon around Nigeria is characterized by criminal manifestations, including cattle rustling, rural banditry, kidnapping and attacks on villages. Thus, criminal activities seem to be associated with incessant conflict between farmers and Fulani herdsmen in Nigeria. The paper therefore examines the conflict in terms of its complexity, the causes, its changing forms, and its consequences on Nigeria’s socio-economic and political development. The paper utilized secondary sources of data drawn from books, journals, newspapers and government publications. It concludes that government and security agencies should carry out a thorough investigation to unravel the criminal dimensions of the conflict, in order to resolve or manage its recurrence.

Identification of Fungal Isolates from Steeped Yam (Gbodo): Predominance of Meyerozyma guilliermondii

Joan Modupe Babajide,Solomon Maina,Benjamin Kiawa,Robert Skilton 한국식품과학회 2015 Food Science and Biotechnology Vol.24 No.3

Gbodo is a traditional Nigerian fermented dried yam food using tubers or slices. Identification of microbes using conventional methods reveals only a fraction of the true microbial community. Forty-five fungal isolates associated with gbodo at 0, 6, 12, 18, and 24 h of steeping/ fermentation were identified using molecular techniques. Ribosomal RNA-ITS fragments of genomic DNA were amplified using ITS1 and ITS4 primers and subjected to nuclecotide sequence determination. Meyerozyma gulliermondii represented 56-78% of isolates during 24 h of yam steeping. Sixty-seven percent of all identified isolates were members of the genera Meyerozyma and Pichia. The biodiversity index of fungal isolates increased from 0.33 at 0 h to 0.56 at 12 h. M. guilliermondii exhibited a resilient presence in isolates.

Catalytic and Fertilizing Potentials of Blood-Meal as Applicable to Accelerated Compost Maturity /Quality and Performance of Sesame (sesamum Indicum Linn.), under Degraded Soil Conditions

Peter Akintoye Babajide,Olajire Fagbola 한국토양비료학회 2014 한국토양비료학회 학술발표회 초록집 Vol.2014 No.6

A novel slit-integration method of graft urethroplasty in the prevention of ring recurrence: Short-term results of a pilot study

Abdulwahab Akanbi Ajape,Sulyman Alege Kuranga,Hamid Babajide Olanipekun,Taofiq Olayinka Mohammed 대한비뇨의학회 2019 Investigative and Clinical Urology Vol.60 No.4

Purpose: To describe and evaluate the efficacy of the slit-integration method in the prevention of ring recurrence after graft substitution urethroplasty. Materials and Methods: This was a pilot study of selected patients with urethral stricture disease who required urethroplasty from January 2016 to December 2018. Patients were recruited into the study after they granted informed consent about the procedure. Results: A total of eight patients were involved in this pilot study. The mean age (±standard deviation, SD) of the patients and the mean stricture length (±SD) were 44.25 (±11.07) years and 3.88 (±1.25) cm, respectively. The peno-bulbar region was the most frequently involved. The majority of the patients, 7 of 8 patients, underwent buccal mucosal graft repair with a mean graft length of 5.88 cm (range, 4–8 cm). There was leak during pericatheter urethrography in one patient. The mean (±SD) urethral calibers of the distal and proximal urethral anastomotic sites following urethroplasty were 26.00 (±1.85) and 25.25 (±1.83) at 1 week after removal of the urethral catheter stent and 27.75 (±0.71) and 27.75 (±0.71) at 12 months postoperatively, respectively. The mean maximum flow rate (±SD) at the 6- and 12-month follow-up was 20.25 (±1.83) and 21.88 (±1.73) mL/s, respectively. Conclusions: A slit-graft appropriately quilted into the corresponding urethrotomy incisions at the proximal and distal summit of the urethral stricture segments appears to mitigate the occurrence of ring contracture after urethroplasty. A randomized controlled trial of this technique with additional outcome assessment will be required to validate this observation.

ANALYSING SENTIMENTS OF ONLINE REVIEWS ON RESTAURANTS IN MALAYSIA USING PREDICTIVE TEXT ANALYTICS

Kok Wei Khong,Fon Sim Ong,Babajide AbuBakr Muritala,Ken Kyid Yeoh 글로벌지식마케팅경영학회 2018 Global Marketing Conference Vol.2018 No.07

This study aims to analyse the overall sentiments of online reviews on restaurants in Malaysia using predictive text analytics. As we know in opinion mining, sentiment analysis is a prominent technique in predictive text mining. It is a technique that categorises opinions in unstructured text format into binary classification (ie. good or bad). The authors attempt to go beyond the binary classification by viewing texts as empirical entities derived using the Term Frequency - Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) weighting algorithm. These empirical entities, based on online reviews of restaurants in Malaysia, are then manifested into hypothetically defined constructs closely reflecting their thematic and semantic nature. The were 4914 customer reviews from restaurants across 20 towns and cities in Malaysia scraped off TripAdvisor.com using web crawler tools. Then a series of analytical tests were carried out. First the online reviews were parsed, filtered and clustered using SAS Text Miner. Then the online reviews underwent the TF-IDF process to identify significant terms and weightages were assigned according to their importance. The TF-IDF process resulted in a series of important nouns and adjectives from the text corpus. Using these weightages of nouns and adjectives, the authors went on to thematise these terms based on their semantic nature to manifest hypothetical constructs. These constructs were based on the Mehrabian–Russell Stimulus Response Model. Subsequently the authors tested the associations among the constructs using variance-based and covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). The authors were encouraged by this exploratory methodological approach in formulating predictive text analytics using SEM. Results indicated that sentiments were generally positive towards restaurants and the important terms derived were price, hospitality, location, waiting time, availability of parking and size of food portion.