Background: In the context of climate variability and the need to increase rice production sustainably, inland valley development is an important means of improving production conditions. Objective: This study provides a descriptive assessment of the effect of hydroagricultural development on the biometric parameters of two rice varieties, Super and CK90, grown in the Yarafè inland valley in Faranah. Methods: Developed and undeveloped plots were compared for plant height, total tiller number, productive tiller number, panicle length, thousand-grain weight and paddy yield. The reported results of the analysis of variance were interpreted at the 5% significance level. Relative gains and tiller fertility rates were calculated from the means. Results: Development was associated with increased plant height: 118 versus 102 cm for Super and 95 versus 85 cm for CK90 (p = 0.013). Tiller number also increased from 9 to 12 for Super and from 8 to 10 for CK90 (p < 0.001). Differences in productive tillers (p = 0.110), thousand-grain weight (p = 0.902) and yield (p = 0.456) were not statistically significant. Nevertheless, the aggregated mean yield was 326.5 kg ha⁻¹ in the developed area versus 278.5 kg ha⁻¹ in the undeveloped area, a descriptive gain of 17.2%, accompanied by lower variability (CV: 12% versus 21%). These results therefore show a clearer association with vegetative growth than with reproductive performance. Conclusion: Optimising fertilisation, planting density and water management during reproductive stages is recommended. In the absence of detailed sample sizes, dispersion measures for each area–variety combination and a complete randomisation protocol, the observed association should be interpreted as an agronomic association supported by the reported analysis rather than a definitively established causal relationship.
The pressurised air volumetric solar receiver, a component of a solar tower, is better suited for high-temperature operation than the surface solar receiver. To predict its behaviour, it is important to model the pressurised air volumetric solar receiver. Several parameters can influence the thermal performance of the volumetric receiver, including variations in the incident solar flux, the receiver's aperture area, and the mass flow rate. This study examines the influence of air mass flow rate on the thermal efficiency of the pressurised air volumetric receiver. The work defines the equations of the physical model and the principles of the numerical simulation. COMSOL Multiphysics 6.2 software was used to simulate performance. Increasing the incident solar flux improves the thermal performance of the receiver. However, increasing the mass flow rate regulates the receiver temperature. At low solar fluxes, the temperature difference ΔT is small, whereas at high solar fluxes, ΔT is significant, on the order of 200 K. Increasing the mass flow rate from 0.009 kg/s to 0.036 kg/s results in a change in the thermal efficiency of the volumetric receiver from 19% to 44%. The concentrated incident solar flux varies from 50 kW/m² to 175 kW/m².
The Niger Delta of Nigeria faces a major environmental problem: crude oil pollution. Agricultural soils have been adversely affected by many years of petroleum activities. The study examined the potential of plantain (Musa paradisiaca) pseudo-stem residues as a low-cost biostimulant for the restoration of crude-oil-contaminated loam soil. Ten treatments, including an unamended control, were incubated for 56 days in a Completely Randomized Design with dry pseudo-stem (DPS), fresh pseudo-stem (FPS), and the combination (DPS + FPS) added to soil spiked with 18,920 mg/kg total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). Soil pH, electrical conductivity (EC), moisture, organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and residual TPH were analysed at 14-day intervals. Degradation kinetics, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation analysis were used to evaluate the treatment effects and relationships among variables. TPH removal was better in pseudo-stem amendments compared to natural attenuation (F(3,6) = 15.79, p = 0.003). The joint application of 500 g DPS + 500 g FPS (T10) achieved TPH removal of 83.4% (3,150 mg/kg) with a degradation constant of 0.025349 day-1 and a half-life of 27.34 days, whereas 21.0% removal and a half-life of 218.4 days were recorded for the control. Amendments also improved soil quality by increasing the pH from 3.92 to 6.03 and decreasing EC from 6,590 to 115 µS/cm in T10, while N, P, and K increased with amendment dosage. There was a positive correlation between the concentrations of nutrients and TPH removal (N: r=0.748; P: r=0.793; K: r=0.769; p<0.05). These results suggest that plantain pseudo-stem residues, in particular DPS and FPS combination, are an efficient and sustainable strategy for petroleum hydrocarbon remediation in tropical soils.
Aims: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of global morbidity and mortality and disproportionately affects low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), including the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region. Traditional risk scores rely on a limited set of linear predictors and frequently fail to detect asymptomatic and subclinical disease. This study aimed to develop and validate an advanced machine learning (ML) model to predict CVD risk using routinely collected demographic and clinical data, integrated with Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS) biomarkers derived from vital signs and laboratory reports. Study Design: A retrospective, cross-sectional analysis of de-identified outpatient electronic medical records (EMR). Methodology: A dataset of 3,840 de-identified outpatient records was extracted from the JKCI EMR database with 18 demographic and clinical features. Age, sex, blood pressure, lipid profiles, BMI, HbA1c, electrolytes, liver and renal markers were preprocessed through cleaning, expert labeling, encoding, and class balancing using the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE). Five supervised algorithms (Logistic Regression, K-Nearest Neighbors, Support Vector Machine, Random Forest, and XGBoost) were trained and evaluated using accuracy, precision, recall, specificity, F1-score, ROC-AUC, and ten-fold cross-validation. Local Interpretable Model-agnostic Explanation (LIME) was applied for interpretability. Results: Random Forest achieved the highest performance (accuracy = 92.5%, recall = 90.0%, specificity = 93.0%, ROC-AUC = 0.94), outperforming all other ML models. Ten-fold cross-validation accuracy consistently exceeded 94%. Feature importance analysis identified age, LDL cholesterol, systolic blood pressure, HbA1c, and BMI as the most influential predictors, consistent with the established clinical evidence. LIME visualization illustrated the trustworthiness and usefulness of the explainable AI outputs for clinical decision support. Conclusion: Leveraging demographics, clinical data, and RAAS biomarkers with machine learning markedly enhances early CVD risk prediction in asymptomatic patients, supporting scalable, data-driven precision cardiology.
Grand Nokoué comprises five municipalities with interconnected economic activities, yet businesses operate across different local administrative settings. This study describes constraints reported by economic stakeholders and examines their preferences for metropolitan coordination. A questionnaire was administered to 58 stakeholders from Abomey-Calavi, Cotonou, Porto-Novo, Ouidah and Sèmè-Kpodji. The sample comprised 42 microenterprises, 12 small enterprises and four medium-sized enterprises. The questionnaire also covered commercial links, public investments and expectations concerning metropolitan services. Responses were summarised using descriptive proportions; Wilson 95% confidence intervals were reported for selected estimates. Access to finance was the most frequently cited obstacle (47/58; 81.0%), followed by the informal sector (36/58; 62.1%), administrative complexity (33/58; 56.9%), taxation (32/58; 55.2%) and logistical difficulties (28/58; 48.3%). Both the harmonisation of procedures and the establishment of a metropolitan authority were supported by 49 stakeholders (84.5%; 95% CI: 73.1–91.6). Thirty-six respondents (62.1%) reported a positive perception of Government Action Programme projects. Regarding financial contributions, 12 respondents expressed voluntary willingness to contribute, while 29 would contribute if benefits were clear. The findings suggest that respondents' support for metropolitan coordination is associated with practical expectations concerning finance, administrative procedures and logistics. Because the sample was non-probabilistic and relatively small, these findings describe the surveyed stakeholders and do not establish population-wide preferences or causal effects.
