Search

The study was conducted to evaluate the nitrogen utilization efficiency (NUE) of open-pollinated maize cultivars under low nitrogen soil conditions. It took place at the Lower Niger River Basin Development Authority in Ilorin, Nigeria, during the 2019 and 2020 cropping seasons. The nitrogen treatments (0, 45, and 90 kg N ha⁻1) were assigned as the main plots, while the genotypes were designated as sub-plots in a split-plot design. The NUE of open-pollinated varieties (OPVs) and Topcrosses significantly increased with the application of 45 kg of nitrogen per hectare compared to 0 kg. Similarly, the maize grain yield for both OPVs and Topcrosses ranged from 1.40 to 3.57 t ha⁻1 and from 1.07 to 2.64 t ha⁻1 across the two years with the application of 45 kg of nitrogen per hectare compared to 0 kg. With the exception of days to 50 % silking, all other traits tested exhibited a significant correlation with grain yield. A gene pool for tolerance to low nitrogen may have been present in the cultivars Dmr-Esr Y Cif 2 and Acr 95 Tze Comp 4C3, which combined well with other cultivars to produce high grain yield and NUE. Topcrosses, including Ev Dt-Y 2000 Str C0 × Tze-W Dt Str C4, Dmr-Esr Y Cif 2 × Acr 95 Tze Comp 4C3, Ak 95 Dmr-Esrw × Tzb Rel D4 CO-W, Dmr-Esr Y Cif 2 × Tze-W Dt Str C4, and Br 9922 Dmr Sr × Ev Dt-Y 2000 Str C0, also demonstrated strong potential for maize grain yield and NUE. This suggests that these crosses could serve as promising candidates for developing low nitrogen tolerance in maize for low nitrogen soil environments. A positive relationship between fertilizer levels, NUE, and grain yield indicates that proper nitrogen fertilizer management can enhance both NUE and the grain yield of maize genotypes. Genetic analysis revealed that both phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) and environmental variance (δ2p) were higher than genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV) and genetic variance (δ2g), suggesting that environmental influences were more significant than genetic factors for the tested traits. Consequently, improving these traits may be achieved by manipulating environmental conditions.

The Paris Agreement has mandated drastic decarbonization by developed and developing economies. Many of the top African emitters are now exploring drastic restructuring of the production processes in a way that promotes energy utilization efficiency. This is critical for ensuring an environmentally benign growth process. This study presents a unique addition to the body of existing knowledge by analysing the effect of some indicators of energy efficiency on three indicators of environmental quality among the top five emitters of GHG in Africa. The data were from the World Development Indicators (WDI), covering the 1990–2020 periods for South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria, and Libya. The panel Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model was used for data analysis. The results showed that all the included series were stationary at first difference. The optimum lag lengths were determined independently in STATA 17 software, and the most frequent lags across the countries were selected. The Hausman test revealed that the pooled mean group (PMG) estimation was preferred to other estimators. The results showed that in the long-run, particulate emission damages, CO2 intensity, and energy use intensity positively impacted GHG emissions, while GDP per capita and renewable energy utilization produced mixed results. In the short run, the error correction mechanism parameters were all significant (p < 0.01) in Libya for all emission indicators, while Algeria showed significance (p < 0.01) in total GHG and CO2 per capita models. The coefficient of particulate emission damages significantly reduced (p < 0.01) total GHG emissions in Libya and Nigeria and renewable energy significantly increased (p < 0.01) GHG emissions in South Africa but reduced them in Nigeria. Also, CO2 emission intensity significantly (p < 0.01) and positively impacted GHG emissions in South Africa, Egypt, Libya, and Nigeria, while electricity power transmission losses increased total emissions and CO2 emissions in Libya and Algeria. It was concluded that initiatives to reduce GHG emissions should focus on developing countries’ sensitivity to emission damages, and promotion of initiatives for using renewable energies. Also, promotion of energy efficiency across industries offers a prospect for ensuring environmental sustainability.

Climate change remains a major problem confronting agricultural productivity in Ethiopia. Maize and some other cereal crops are susceptible to climatic parameters. This study analyzed the impacts of some climatic variables on the yields of maize crops in Ethiopia using the 1981-2018 dataset. Maize production in Ethiopia is adversely affected by climate change. The augmented Cobb-Douglas Production function was used for data analyses. The results showed that the parameters of long-season rainfall, short-season rainfall, and mean maximum temperature show a negative sign and are statistically significant (p

Background: WHO recommends three or more doses of intermittent preventive treatment of Malaria with Sulfadoxine Pyrimethamine (IPTp-SP) for pregnant women living in areas of moderate-to-high malaria transmission in Africa to protect them and their babies from severe risks by malaria. Despite this, the coverage of utilization of a minimum of three doses of the drug is still very low in Nigeria. This study assessed the knowledge and utilisation of IPTp-SP among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in public health facilities in Osogbo, Nigeria. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional was used, data were randomly collected from 549 respondents through a semi-structured self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive statistics, Pearson chi-square, and logistic regression were used for analysis. Results: About half (49.4%) of the respondents had good overall knowledge of IPTp-SP, 72.2% took a minimum of one dose, and only 10.1 % took a minimum of three doses. Factors influencing the utilisation included drug affordability, SP shortage at the facility, and monitoring of pregnant women’s intake of SP. Logistic regression analysis indicated that pregnant women in primary and secondary healthcare settings were 2.4 times and 1.3 times respectively more likely to utilise IPTp than those in tertiary healthcare settings.Conclusion and recommendation.Almost half of the participants had good knowledge of IPTp-SP, only a few took four doses. Healthcare providers should organize IEC programmes to create more awareness among the public on the use and safety of SP in pregnancy. The government is to establish a mechanism to ensure a consistent supply of SP in all healthcare settings,

Abstract Background and Aims With the global rise in type 2 diabetes, predictive modeling has become crucial for early detection, particularly in populations with low routine medical checkup profiles. This study aimed to develop a predictive model for type 2 diabetes using health check‐up data focusing on clinical details, demographic features, biochemical markers, and diabetes knowledge. Methods Data from 444 Nigerian patients were collected and analysed. We used 80% of this data set for training, and the remaining 20% for testing. Multivariable penalized logistic regression was employed to predict the disease onset, incorporating waist‐hip ratio (WHR), triglycerides (TG), catalase, and atherogenic indices of plasma (AIP). Results The predictive model demonstrated high accuracy, with an area under the curve of 99% (95% CI = 97%–100%) for the training set and 94% (95% CI = 89%–99%) for the test set. Notably, an increase in WHR (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 70.35; 95% CI = 10.04–493.1, p‐value

Child’s poverty remains one of the major concerns in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study analyzed the determinants of child’s multidimensional poverty in South Africa using the 2017, 2018 and 2019 General Household Survey (GHS) datasets. The Alkire-Foster’s methodology was used to compute child’s Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), and its correlates were analyzed using the Tobit regression. The results revealed that some regional and areas of residence factors significantly influenced MPIs across the periods (p

Nursing care of cancer patients has been described as stressful, challenging and emotionally demanding and have significant impact on overall quality of care among cancer patient. This study assess perceived quality and satisfaction with oncology nursing care among patients with cancer in university College Hospital, Ibadan Oyo State Nigeria using standard techniques on a total of 100 oncology patients who met the inclusion criteria. The results showed that larger percentages of the respondents are within the age range of 30-34 years, 66% were females. Majority of the respondents have good perception of oncology nursing care and larger percentage of the oncology patient (87%) are satisfied with oncology nursing care, socio demographic variable based on gender, religion, ethnicity, educational level and occupation show a significant association with overall level of satisfaction with healthcare services at (χ2=7.698, P=0.006), (χ2=30.338, P=0.000), (χ2=4.215, P=0.040), (χ2=10.820, P=0.004) and (χ2=100.000, P=0.000) respectively as p

Health insurance remains a viable option for the promotion of healthcare service utilization and efficiency. Very few studies have analyzed the linkages between health insurance uptake and COVID-19 vaccination decisions. This paper contributes to existing literature by recursively analyzing the effect of health insurance uptake on COVID-19 vaccination status in Nigeria. The data were the second wave of the National Longitudinal Phone Survey (NLPS), comprising 2750 respondents. The data were analyzed with the recently developed Recursive Bivariate Probit and Decomposition Estimation approach. The results showed that 31.50% and 7.78% were vaccinated and health insured, respectively. Health insurance was positively and significantly influenced (p

Online purchase of food groceries is a development in the food retail market that is being driven by recent advances in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Consumers are, therefore, complying with these emerging trends by testing some of the online shopping platforms to form a behavioural compliance as required by some cashless economic policies being implemented in some African countries. Although considered to be convenient, online shopping is bewildered with a lot of risks. The aim of this study was to analyse the perceptions of consumers on online shopping risks and determine the factors influencing them to purchase food groceries online. The data were collected from 173 respondents selected by simple random sampling. The data were collected using structured questionnaire that was administered by trained enumerators. Descriptive statistics and logit regression were used for data analysis. The analyses were carried out by STATA software. The results showed that 11% of the respondents were using online platforms to purchase food groceries, 57.2% were aware of the existence of online platforms to purchase food groceries, 84.4% perceived online purchase of food groceries as convenient, and 62.4% perceived it as risky. The results of the Logit regression model showed that delivery fee, level of education, employment status, use of phone tablets for internet browsing, use of laptops to browse the internet, perceived online convenience and perceived online risk had statistically significant relationships (p Key words: Consumers, food groceries, delivery fee, online purchase, South Africa, INTRODUCTION In South Africa, the development of online purchase has exposed quite a number of challenges to the food retail markets. According to a report by the United Nations Industrial [...]

Introduction and objective Oral health is a crucial part of general health and wellbeing to be maintained throughout a life, and the oral health status is usually determined by the level of oral hygiene practices. This study aimed at investigating oral hygiene practices and factors influencing the choice of oral hygiene materials among undergraduates in Osun State, Nigeria. Material and methods A cross-sectional descriptive research design was adopted using a multistage sampling technique to select 440 undergraduates from two universities in Osun State. Osun State is one of the 36 states of Nigeria with an estimated population of about 4.7 million, as of 2016. The research instrument used was a self-structured questionnaire, data retrieved was coded, entered and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Results More than half of the respondents 232 (52.7%) were between 21–25 years. Only 59% perceived that their oral health status was excellent. A small percentage of the respondents (3.2%) visit the dentist regularly and only 26% brush their teeth twice daily and change their toothbrush every six months. Less than half of the respondents (33.9%) exhibited good oral hygiene practices. Gender and institution attended had a significant relationship with oral hygiene practices with P value of.010 and.001, respectively. Conclusions More than half of the respondents perceived their oral health status to be excellent and less than half of the respondents claimed they exhibited good oral hygiene practices. The most identified factor affecting their choice of oral hygiene materials was cost. Socio-demographic variables of significance for the practice of oral hygiene were gender and institution of study. There is need to promote oral health through health education about oral hygiene at various levels of learning and during campaigns to all age groups.

Lipomas of the gastrointestinal tract (GIT) are generally rare. They are rare in children, and when they occur they are usually submucosa. Most of the submucosa lipomas of GIT are present in the colon (65%–75%) and small intestine (25%). In children, intestinal lipoma is a documented cause of pathological lead point intussusception, especially when located in the submucosa. The present case report is of subserosa lipoma in the distal ileum. A 2-year-old boy presented with features of intestinal obstruction which was preceded by a painless abdominal mass. In the absence of computerised tomography scan, he was operated, and histopathology examination confirmed the mass as pedunculated fibrolipoma arising from the subserosa and causing extrinsic compression of the ileum.

The purpose of this study was to analyze the trend and variability of rainfall and temperature parameters in the teff growing belts of Ethiopia. The data were obtained from weather stations and covered 1981–2018. Data analyses were carried out with descriptive statistics and time trend regression model. The results showed that short-season rainfall declined by 0.474 mm, while long-season rainfall increased by 2.72 mm. Also, the short season rainfall showed higher variability when compared to the long season rainfall. The standardized seasonal rainfall anomalies indicated severe and extreme droughts (

Background: Bloodstream infections (BSIs) are a cause of significant morbidity and mortality requiring urgent antibiotic treatment. However, there is widespread antibiotic-resistance from the bacterial causes, necessitating regular surveillance for drug-resistant bacteria and their antibiograms. Objective: This study isolated and identified various bacterial causes of BSIs, determined their antibiotic susceptibility patterns, and determined the best empirical treatment for cases of BSI in the setting. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, Nigeria between June 2020 and February 2021 on 177 blood culture samples from cases of BSI. Identification of isolated bacteria and antibiotic susceptibility testing of the isolates were carried out following the standard protocol. Results: Culture positivity in this study was 19.2%. No significant difference was seen in culture positivity between male and female participants (p = 0.97). Gram-negative enteric bacteria were predominantly isolated (67.6%), including Escherichia coli (29.4%) and Klebsiella aerogenes (20.6%). Staphylococcus aureus was the most common Gram-positive bacterium isolated (23.5%). Three (37.5%) S. aureus isolates were methicillin-resistant. All isolates were sensitive to meropenem, and 97.1% were sensitive to imipenem; other sensitivity patterns were: ceftazidime (85.3%), ciprofloxacin (79.4%), ofloxacin (79.4%), and gentamicin (76.5%). There was low sensitivity to ampicillin (32.4%) and cotrimoxazole (38.2%). All Gram-positive isolates, including methicillin-resistant S. aureus, were sensitive to vancomycin. Conclusion: Regular surveillance of isolate sensitivity patterns, formulation of hospital antibiotic policies based on existing data and compliance with treatment guidelines will promote rational antibiotic use and reduce resistance among bacteria.

Reduction in agricultural land with increasing population has led to a need to combined more than one crop to maximize limited land resources and thus require an improvement. A field experiment was conducted during the growing seasons of 2019 in two locations in Southwest Nigeria to assess the effect of cropping system and fertilizer application on the yield of okra intercropped with jatropha. The experiment was a split-plot arrangement in a Randomized Complete Block design, replicated three times. Fertilizer types were the main plots (NPK, Organic, Organic + NPK (50:50) and control while the cropping systems (sole okra, sole Jatropha and their intercrop) was sub-plot. Data were collected to determine okra growth includes: plant height, number of leaves/ plant, leaf area and the yield by number of days to 50 % flowering, number of fruits/ ha, fruit yield and fruiting duration. Jatropha growth parameters taken include: plant height (cm), number of leaves/plant. Results showed that okra can be intercropped with jatropha without any reduction it its performance. Growth of jatropha as well as okra yield was significantly better in fertilized plots than the unfertilized plots, with complementary use of organic and inorganic fertilizer producing the best results.

This paper was aimed at the techno-economic feasibility assessment of a 25 MW solar photovoltaic (PV) system for electricity generation in Effurun-Warri, Nigeria. The system advisor model (SAM) software was used to design and simulate the solar PV modules for power generation. Furthermore, the standard and validated models inbuilt in the SAM software were employed to analyze the techno-economic performance of the system and the energy losses. Results showed that the extent of energy losses considered in the design of the PV system had significant effects on system performance. For the 25 MW system assessed in this study, the highest monthly energy production was obtained at 3.9 GWh in January and the lowest at 1.9 GWh in July. Also, the total annual energy produced by the PV system was observed to depreciate as the system ages, with about 12% of the initial annual energy production expected to be lost after 25 years of system operation. The obtained capacity factor (12.1 %) and the performance ratio (0.75) revealed that the PV system in its current design would be inadequate to match the energy demand profile of Effurun-Warri, Nigeria. Additionally, the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) was obtained as 0.65 cents/kWh for the system, which is about 85% higher than the current price of electrical energy in Southern Nigeria. Moreover, a negative net present value (NPV) was obtained for the plant, all indicating that the cost of investment would not be offset during the lifetime of the system, and the project would therefore not be profitable in its current design.

Cocoa production is highly vulnerable to fluctuations in some weather parameters and efforts are now channeled at reducing farmers' vulnerability through provision of some adaptive strategies. This study analyzed the effects of climate change adaptation strategies on income inequality among Ghanaian cocoa farmers. The data were collected from cocoa farmers using multi-stage sampling method. Out of the districts where cocoa is grown in the Ashanti region, Ahafo Ano North district was randomly selected. The sampling proceeded with compilation of the names of the villages in the District where cocoa is largely grown. Although 379 cocoa farmers were interviewed with structured questionnaires, this study made use of 349 respondents with completed information on their sources of income. Data were analyzed with factor component income inequality decomposition and regression-based approaches focusing on the Gini coefficient. The analyses were carried out with Distributive Analysis Stata Package (DASP) software. The results showed that high temperature was 69.63% of the farmers in 2015, while 70.20% observed more crop pests. Cocoa farmers tried to adapt to climate change through regular spraying of cocoa (74.9%), planting of hybrid seeds (68.50%) and changing of planting time (66.10%), diversification of livelihood sources (70.60%), monitoring of weather through media houses (59.6%) and indigenous knowledge (59.3%). The results further showed high income inequality among cocoa farmers (Gini = 0.6838). Farmers indicated they were among others spraying cocoa regularly, planting of hybrid seeds and changing cocoa's planting time as means of adapting to climate change. Crop income source was inequality reducing having accounted for 55.34% of all incomes but contributed 48.37% of inequality. Other income sources that reduced inequality were livestock, non-farm wages and remittances. Farmers' incomes were significantly influenced (p JEL Classifications: Q12, Q54, N5 and N57 Keywords: climate change, adaptation, income inequality, gini-coefficient, cocoa, Ghana, INTRODUCTION The role of agriculture as a primary supplier of food and raw materials for industrial development in Africa is now seriously undermined by climate change. In absence of adequate [...]

Obesity is a chronic disease often associated with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and metabolic syndrome. Coexistence of diabetes and hypertension have adverse clinical outcomes with micro and macrovascular complications. This study investigates the relationship of oxidative stress markers and antioxidants with occurrence of hypertension in obese type 2 diabetic subjects in Osun State, Nigeria. Four hundred and forty-five participants made up of 138 non-obese diabetics, 107 obese diabetic subjects attending two tertiary Hospitals in Osogbo in addition to 100 obese non-diabetes (positive controls) and 100 non-obese non-diabetes (negative controls) were enrolled in this study. FBS (9.55±0.13 mmol/l) and HbA1c (9.51±0.15 %) showed highest significant increase in obese diabetic subjects compared to other groups. Mean serum MDA was highest among obese diabetics (p

This study is aimed at comparing the environmental performance of a solar-only and hybrid solar-biomass organic Rankine cycle (ORC) plant using the exergoenvironmental method. The system studied adopts the design features of a real ORC plant currently running at Ottana, Italy, rated nominally at about 630 kW. Established procedures of the exergoenvironmental methods were applied, which integrate the principles of exergy and life cycle analyses. The method quantifies the yearly environmental impact rates of each of the plant components. The eco indicator-99 impact assessment method was adopted to quantify impact rates. Results showed that implementing the biomass hybridization scheme would improve the annualized exergetic efficiency of the existing solar ORC plant by about 3 percentage points, from about 7% with solar-only to about 10% with hybrid solar-biomass heat sources, although a small increase in the relative irreversibility rate is observed (from 49% to 51%). It would as well improve the capacity factor of the plant. However, the environmental impacts would be impacted negatively. Particularly, the specific exergoenvironmental impact rates were obtained as 27.4 Pts/MWh for the hybrid solar-biomass ORC plant, as against 20.3 Pts/MWh obtained for the solar-only plant, implying that the hybridization strategy would increase impact rate by about 35%. Similarly, it was obtained that biomass hybridization would increase the overall exergoenvironmental impact rates of the ORC plant by about 92,000 Pts/year, due majorly to increased exergy destruction in the plant components and the polluting emissions of the combustor.

The importance of organic Rankine cycle (ORC) plants to the development of future energy infrastructure is widely acknowledged, due largely to their ability to exploit low-temperature thermal energy sources such as industrial waste heat and renewable energy resources. In this regard, different schemes are being proposed in the literature for the technical and economic developments of ORC plants. Also, the environmental feasibility assessments of ORC-based energy systems have been gaining gradual attention recently, but relative to the technical and economic aspects, the life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on ORC are at an infancy stage. It is therefore aimed in this study to systematically review and collate in a single document, the conventional and exergy-based life cycle assessment studies applied to ORC plants. Doing so, it was found that less than 3% of the over 7000 documents available on ORC in the SCOPUS database analyzed the environmental impact. Also, the ecoinvent was observed as the LCA inventory database most frequently in use, usually in the SimaPro software. Additionally, literature data revealed that the choice of the organic working fluid and the consideration of its leakage over the plant's lifetime have significant effects on the environmental impacts of ORC plants. Moreover, the common methods of conducting the exergy-based LCA (exergoenvironmental analysis) of ORC plants are succinctly reported in this manuscript, including the definitions of the most relevant exergoenvironmental performance metrics. It is hoped that this effort would spur the inclusion of LCA in future analyses of ORC plants, towards the achievement of a more sustainable energy conversion technology.

Sustainable cocoa production is the hub of economic development and growth in Ghana. Climate change has been implicated in the dwindling productivity of the Ghanaian cocoa sub-sector, although deforestation for cocoa farmland expansion poses significant long-term risks to ecosystem stability and environmental conservation. This study assessed farmers’ perception of climate change, their adaptation methods and the factors explaining involvement in the renovation/rehabilitation of old cocoa farms. The data were collected from 378 cocoa farmers in Ahafo Ano North District in the Ashanti region. The data were analysed with Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Ordinary Least Square regression, Negative Binomial regression and Two-stage Probit regression. The results showed that the majority of the farmers were older than 50 years and attained primary education. High temperature (64.29%), too stormy rainfall (64.29%) and too much rainfall (61.90%) were largely perceived by cocoa farmers in 2015. The farmers were adapting to climate change through diversification into other crops (70.63%), planting of hybrid varieties (71.69%), commitment to spray cocoa pods regularly (74.87%) and initiation of some changes in the planting and harvesting times (71.96%). The adaptation was significantly influenced (p < 0.05) by cocoa farming experience, number of children under the age of 5 years, perception of extremely high temperature, perception too low rainfall, perception of delay in commencement of rainfall, cultivation of cocoa as the primary crop, perception of delay in rainfall stop and delay in regular farm clearing and rented farm. Cocoa rehabilitation decision was influenced by climate change adaptation indicator, monthly income, perception of extreme temperature and sharecropping. The implications of the results were that promotion of climate change perception would facilitate adaptation, and the form of cocoa farmland ownership as well as climate change adaptation indicator influenced farmers’ involvement in cocoa farm rehabilitation.

Obesity is one of the major public health epidemics that the world currently faces. The environmental implication of obesity is reflected in its impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions due to increased pressure on food production system, oxidative metabolism, and combustion of fossil fuels during transportation. However, few studies exist on the linkage between GHG emissions and obesity. This seeks to fill this gap by analyzing the effect obesity total GHG emission, carbon dioxides emissions, per capita carbon emissions, and emissions of carbon dioxide from liquid fuel. The data were from 45 African countries for the period 1990-2016. The data were analyzed with panel corrected standard error (PCSE) after positive feedbacks from cross-section dependence, and cointegration tests. The results showed that obesity, urban population, and GDP per capita were generally positively related to GHG emissions, while renewable energy, livestock production index and utilization had negative association. It was recommended that initiatives to reduce obesity promise some environmental benefits. Also, there is the need to promote renewable energy utilization and facilitate sustainable agricultural production, to reduce environmental damages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maize (Zea mays L.) is a staple food for millions of people across the globe, and it supplies more than 30% of total dietary calories. However, the normal endosperm lacks a sufficient quantity of the nutritive precursor of vitamin A. To achieve food security and avert malnutrition, there is a need to adopt the cultivation of the early multiple stress-tolerant pro-vitamin A maize hybrid. The objective of this study was to assess the agronomic performance and yield of the newly developed maize hybrids. Fifteen improved maize hybrids and one commercial hybrid used as a local check were evaluated in a randomized complete block design with two replications for two years at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching and Research farm in Ogbomoso, Nigeria. Hybrids exhibited significant variation (P < 0.01) for grain yield, number of days to anthesis and silking, ear height and husk cover. Across the years, the grain yield of hybrids ranged between 4,780.8 kg ha-1 (PVAEH-19) and 7,886.9 kg ha-1 (PVAQEH-1), with a mean of 6,354.2 kg ha-1. PVAEH-15 ranks the best on the basis of superiority in grain yield, early flowering and tight husk cover. Fourteen hybrids out-yielded the local check (4,947.2 kg ha-1), and five hybrids had a significant (P < 0.05) yield advantage of > 26% over the local check. The consistent performance of PVAEH-15 and PVAEH-16 in the two years of evaluation indicates potential for the adaptability of the hybrids to the agroecology. Farmers' adoption of these maize hybrids will boost maize production and prevent malnutrition in the derived savanna agro-ecology of Nigeria.

One major characteristic of data is completeness. Missing data is a significant problem in medical datasets. It leads to incorrect classification of patients and is dangerous to the health management of patients. Many factors lead to the missingness of values in databases in medical datasets. In this paper, we propose the need to examine the causes of missing data in a medical dataset to ensure that the right imputation method is used in solving the problem. The mechanism of missingness in datasets was studied to know the missing pattern of datasets and determine a suitable imputation technique to generate complete datasets. The pattern shows that the missingness of the dataset used in this study is not a monotone missing pattern. Also, single imputation techniques underestimate variance and ignore relationships among the variables; therefore, we used multiple imputations technique that runs in five iterations for the imputation of each missing value. The whole missing values in the dataset were 100% regenerated. The imputed datasets were validated using an extreme learning machine (ELM) classifier. The results show improvement in the accuracy of the imputed datasets. The work can, however, be extended to compare the accuracy of the imputed datasets with the original dataset with different classifiers like support vector machine (SVM), radial basis function (RBF), and ELMs.