Background and Objective: Carnage on roads is a growing concern in Nigeria. Over 27 persons, equivalent to more than 4 families, die daily from road traffic crashes. Two direct factors of a road crash are road quality and vehicle quality. To interrogate and compare both factors to road traffic accidents, the longitudinal study regressed secondary data on death tolls against road quality and vehicle quality.
Materials and Methods: Data on the estimated number of vehicles imported into Nigeria (1992-2021) served as the indicator of vehicle quality on Nigerian roads. The longitudinal study regressed secondary data on death tolls (2013-2019) against road quality (2006-2019) and vehicle quality (1992-2021).
Results: Results showed that road quality is degenerating as well as vehicle quality in Nigeria, resulting in increases in the number of road traffic crashes and the attendant death tolls. For every 1% decrease in road quality, death tolls from road traffic crashes in Nigeria increased by 0.00642% at 5% significance, and for every decrease in vehicle quality, death tolls from road traffic crashes in Nigeria increased by 0.327% at 5% significance.
Conclusion: The study recommended increased advocacy on the sanctity of life and the need for the federal, state and local governments to prioritize policy and implementation of improving the road quality and vehicle quality to reduce road traffic crashes and save lives on Nigerian roads.
The major challenge facing renewable energy systems in Nigeria is the lack of appropriate, affordable, and available meteorological stations that can accurately provide present and future trends in weather data and solar PV performance. It is crucial to find a solution to this because information on present and future solar PV performance is important to renewable energy investors so that they can assess the potential of renewable energy systems in various locations across the country. Although Nigerian weather provides favorable weather conditions for clean power generation, there is little penetration of renewable energy systems in the region, since over 95% of the power is fossil-fuel-generated. This is because there has been no detailed report showing the potential of clean power generation systems due to the dysfunctional meteorological stations in the country. This paper sought to fill this knowledge gap by providing a machine-learning-inspired forecasting of environmental weather parameters that can be used by manufacturing companies in evaluating the profitability of siting renewable energy systems in the region. Crucial weather parameters such as daily air temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind speed, and rainfall were obtained from NASA for a period of 19 years (viz. 2004–2022), resulting in the collection of 6664 high-resolution data points. These data were used to build diverse regressive neural networks with varying hyperparameters to find the best network arrangement. In summary, a low mean-squared error of 7 × 10−3 and high regression correlations of 96% were obtained during the training.
The design and utility of mobile handheld devices have developed tremendously, from being initially intended for audio calls only to the recent incorporation of augmented reality in smartphones. Recent smartphone functions are power intensive, and cause excessive heating in phone parts, primarily batteries and processors. Left unmanaged, phone temperatures would exceed the threshold temperature of discomfort, negatively affecting user experience. The use of phone casings has simultaneously become common in recent years. They form an additional barrier to heat dissipation from mobile devices, which has not been considered in existing studies. In this work, the thermal profiles of two identical smartphones were assessed during common tasks, including music playing, voice calling, video streaming and 3D online gaming. One of the phones (the test case) was operated while enclosed in a plastic phone casing, while the other (the control case) was bare. Transient surface temperature distributions were obtained with infrared imaging and thermocouple sensors, while processor and battery temperatures were obtained from inbuilt sensors. Test results showed that casings generally redirect the dissipation of the heat generated within the phone. For tasks involving contact with users' hands, this will protect the user from high phone surface temperatures. However, the processor and battery temperatures are increased as a result. This user protection was not achieved in the online gaming task, for which the heat generated exceeded the insulating capacity of the plastic casing. The range of protection offered to phone users could be extended by using phone casings which incorporate phase change materials.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Targets 12.4 and 3.9 aim to reduce deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and to achieve environmentally friendly management of chemical and wastes. Electronic wastes, which contain hazardous chemicals, are rapidly generated in poor countries due to demand for affordable near-end-of-life internet-enabled gadgets that soon wear out and are improperly disposed due to ignorance, throw-away mentality and dearth of waste management infrastructure. This study identified hazardous chemicals contained in significant quantities in e-waste items, described their public health challenges and suggested mitigation measures. Results showed that mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), cadmium, lead and beryllium oxide were hazardous chemicals contained in significant quantities in e-waste items. The study recommended the formulation of appropriate environmental health education technology policy (AEHETP) to guide stakeholders to design education, preventive, therapeutic and decontamination plans for awareness creation and raising to address the toxic effects of e-waste items on users in poor countries.
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