B P International

Medicinal plants have been known for centuries and are highly valued all over the world as a rich source of therapeutic agents of medicinal plants for public health care in developing nations [65]. Even today, the WHO estimates that up to 80 percent of the world population still relies mainly on traditional remedies such as herbs for their primary health care [13]. Ahmed et al. mentioned that according to a survey conducted by W.H.O., traditional healers treat 65% patients in Sri Lanka and 80% in India [3]. According to the WHO, around 21,000 plant species have the potential for being used as medicinal plants. Different ethnic and different language speaking peoples are living in Asian countries. Plants are commonly known by their local names in every part of the world. These local names play a very important role in ethno-botanical study of a specific tribe or region. Local names given to plants by indigenous people in their local dialects often reflect a broad spectrum of inf...

It is well known that pre-school age is the period of significant importance for psychological development and for preparation of children for learning at school. The process of learning and achievements at school depend on the types of activities selected at pre-school level. Unfortunately, it is often to find out that introduction of writing and reading is among the most common activities in pre-school institutions all over the world. The goal of our article is to share a formative experience of drawing as suitable activity for children development at preschool age. Mexican and Colombian preschool children were included in the study aged between 5 and 6 years. All children belonged to suburban area of the cities state of Tlaxcala (Mexico) and Bogota (Colombia) and assisted to pre-school official level without any kind of previous experience in drawing. The original program for gradual formation of drawing by stages was applied for 8 months daily for 1 hour. The program is based on ...

African cultures have undergone transformations from the colonial period to the present, often to the detriment of its cultural evolution and within the larger global community. As it were, colonial education subordinated African communalism and created in its place an anti-African spirit evident in the assimilation of western values. This did not only end up in a kind of cultural betrayal, but also posed as a serious threat to the dignity and identity of the people. Those who fall prey to this kind of cultural imperialism are the young people who are often irrationally carried away by western fashion and modes that they tend to neglect and/or forget their cultural ways of life as they join the race of “progress.” This situation has given rise to a conscious effort by creative writers to re-assert and protect African values while at the same time liberating themselves from the longstanding western effort at suppressing, controlling and dominating their thoughts particularly through n...

According to conception of historical and cultural psychology, introduced by L.S. Vigotsky, early childhood should be understood as a specific period of development or specific psychological age. Appropriate ways of care, communication, developmental procedures and organization of life should be taken into account by parents, teachers and other specialists. In the reality of Mexican Institutions such aspects are not always considered as important guidelines for treatment of children with normal and abnormal development. Only medical and hygiene aspects are normally respected. The objective of the article is to describe general information about early childhood institutions in Mexico and to present original proposal for organization of specialized attention for early development. The authors present experience in attendance of newborns and young children during first two years of life in Hospitals and Institutions of the city of Puebla.  Special attention is directed to original p...

Aims: This paper aims reporting the perception Brazilian and Canadian public universities professors have of the level of stress they experience at work and the perception of their work–life balance, taking into account their workload and the number of hours they usually work per week. Another objective is to test the relations work-related stress and work-life balance might have with the professors’ mental health. The final objective is to compare the perceptions of Brazilian professors with those of Canadian professors, to look for differences. Study Design: To achieve these objectives, this paper assesses Mental Health, Work-related Stress and Work-Life Balance for professors working in these two countries and test for their differences. The sample consists of 274 Brazilian professors and 252 Canadian professors. Data were collected through an online questionnaire using Survey Monkey Platform. The questionnaire was designed for assessing the following indicators: Psycholog...

Reading at school traditionally is based on isolated training of this cognitive ability. Common methods are repetition, memorization and reproduction of given information. In public schools in Mexico, children never read entire books and only pages or paragraphs from the official programs. Even in private schools reading acquisition is a mechanic process, which starts from the first grade of pre-school age and continues up to the sixth grade of primary school. Cognitive tests measure the quantity of words read loudly in a minute with no attention to understanding of meaning. Alternative methods within active school and global reading can’t solve this problem, because of lack of attention for orientation, analysis of content of actions and reflexive participation of the children in their own school actions. Our aim is to present an example of usage of orientation for initial introduction of reading process in primary school and to compare results of the method with results of traditio...

This paper discusses quality attributes of the family planning programme towards a successful family life. It highlights the barriers preventing most families from utilizing family planning facilities in Nigeria. The article went further to explore the quality attributes associated to family planning. The characteristics of a quality family planning programme were discussed and attributes of a well planned family life x-rayed. The quality family life and national development were examined and suggestions were proffered for achieving a good family planning program in any community in Nigeria. Family planning programme is a lifesaving scheme to families and investing in it is a necessity in today’s world. The continuous increase in the Nigerian population has aggravated the level of poverty among the populace. This is most devastating to families, preventing them from living a qualitative family life. This phenomenon is a drain to the nation’s human resources in national development. T...

According to psychological and neuropsychological research, the pre-school age is the age of significant changes and transformations. Attention deficit disorder is one of developmental syndromes frequently detected at pre-school age. The present study shows the methods and procedures of neuropsychological assessment and correction. Methods and procedures of correction are based on the conception of activity applied to game activity. The study includes results of neuropsychological correction obtained in the group of Mexican pre-school children with diagnosis of deficit of attention. Neuropsychological correction was designed and applied in individual therapeutic sessions. The method of qualitative neuropsychological clinical analysis based on Luria’s neuropychological theory was applied. The subjects of the study were Mexican pre-school children with diagnostic of ADDH from private urban zone. The previous neuropsychological assessment showed the necessity of inclusion of specific me...

The case study included an adolescence male diagnosed with Autism. It also investigated the impact of using drawing representations when solving math word problems with a maximum of three steps. Math achievement during three phases periods: before treatment, during treatment, and after treatment were compared and concluded that there was an improvement in math achievement during and after treatment compared to before treatment. Moreover, the study showed the participant had problems comprehending several words with mathematical connotations. The study involved a male student who was diagnosed to have autism by school official and psychologists. The study showed that the student exhibited a significant improvement in solving mathematics word problems when the participants used pictorial representations to better understand them. Another important finding was that the participants had difficulty understanding some English word with mathematical connotations; for example, he had proble...

Organizational structure forms the interaction and responsibilities among duties, individuals and resources in an organization. Traditional organizational structures are generally categorized as functional, separated, strategic work unit, matrix and product set structure. Successful institutions give importance to informal organizational factors along with formal organizational factors. Informal organizational factors are mostly people oriented topics. Organizational managers are expected to be leaders and coordinate the staff in accordance with the organizational purposes in order to use the material and human resources of the organization rationally. Managers play a fundamental role in school quality and they have an impact on school and classroom management with the management approaches they perform. Educational organizations are social open systems and they make great effort to maintain their existance and to acheve their goals. Despite their effort, some may be defined as “effe...

This study investigated the level of Nigerian Universities’ leadership compliance with the National Universities Commission’s benchmark on minimum academic standard, and its impact on the quality of Nigerian university education. This is consequent upon the observations of some stakeholders in university education, that the failure of universities’ leadership to comply with the National Universities Commission (NUC) benchmark on minimum academic standard, has been the major problem of quality decline in Nigerian university education. Descriptive research of survey design was employed in the study. The population consisted of the staff members from public universities in south-west Nigeria, while the sample consisted of 50 members of staff each from 3 federal and 3 state universities. The finding revealed a moderate level of universities’ leadership compliance with the NUC benchmark on minimum academic standard. The finding was compared with the table on quality of Nigerian universit...

Aims: To estimate the prevalence of psychosomatic symptoms among traumatized Palestinian adolescents in Gaza Strip.  Methods: The study sample consisted of 380 adolescents randomly selected from secondary schools in Gaza Strip, of whom 171 were boys and 209 were girls between 15-18 years. Data was collected using a socio-demographic checklist, the Gaza Traumatic Events Checklist, and the Psychosomatic Symptoms Scale. For statistical analysis, questionnaire data was normally distributed, for this reason independent t-test was used to investigate differences between two groups. Associations between continuous variables were measured by the Pearson's correlation coefficient test. One-way ANOVA post hoc Tukey was used to investigate differences between more than two groups. Results: The most common reported traumatic events due to the war on Gaza were: watching mutilated bodies and wounded people in TV (92.3%), and hearing shelling of the area by artillery (89.4...

The study on soil morphology, classification, suitability and capability classification was carried out on Dabora-Yelwa toposequence with the view of improving soil management practices and increase the productive capacity of the farmers of the study area. Soil sampling units were delineated using GIS and the study area was categorized into 3 different slope positions on the toposequence and each slope position was recognized as a sampling unit. Two soil types were identified and classified into Typic Plinthustalfs (Yelwa and Sangba’a respectively) and Psammentic Paleudalfs (Dabora). Generally, structural development increased along the slope from upper slope to the lower slope position. Capability classification in the upper slope resulted in class C3 (IIIse) with limitations in texture and erosion hazards while the soils at the lower slope resulted in class C2 (IIsw). Suitability classification indicated that these soils were moderately suitable for sorghum at the upper slope whil...

Predicting the infiltration characteristics for soils is crucial for proper management and sustainable use of soil and water resources for prevention of soil erosion. The study was carried out to evaluate the infiltration models by measuring the field infiltration rate on sandy loam soils in Zing. Kostiakov, Modified – Kostiakov and Horton infiltration models were evaluated by comparing the measured and predicted infiltration rate of the soils. Fifteen infiltration runs were made by ponding water into double ring infiltrometer which was used to carry out the measurements. Parameters were developed from measured infiltration data and laboratory analyses of soil samples. Horton and Kostiakov models with an RMSE (0.0372 and 0.0365) and the R2 value of 0.999 and 0.998 respectively, closely predicted the measured infiltration rate, and can as well stimulate infiltration under the field conditions. Author(s) Details Mr. H. J. Philip Department of Agronomy, Federal University, G...

Nitrogen is one of the major essential plant nutrients and a key input required for better crop yields and therefore scarcity of nitrogen fertilizer has been a major constraint to rice production particularly in developing countries. Low soil fertility prevalent in farmer’s fields has led to low rice yields and the ever escalating fertilizer prices have made this important input unaffordable to most smallholder farmers who have limited resources for purchasing the required inputs. There has been concerted efforts to identify rice varieties that are tolerant to low soil nitrogen since varieties differ in their ability to impact productivity and some varieties can perform well under low nitrogen input.The Mwea Upland rice (MWUR) varieties have been bred under low fertilizer input environment while other authors have indicated that the New Rice for Africa (NERICA) gives high yields under low input conditions. There is therefore need to identify the superior rice varieties that are adapt...

To better understand nutrient transport in vegetable, a pot experiment was carried out at the nursery site of the Department of Crop Production, Federal University of Technology, Minna (9°36’ N, 6°33’ E) Niger state, Nigeria. The study aimed at determining the effect of age of celosia plant at harvest on the yield and nutritional composition of the plant as well as the concentration of nutrients at different leaf positions. The experiment was a 3 x 3 factorial combination of three harvest periods (5, 7 and 9 weeks after sowing) and three leaf positions on the mother plant (upper, middle and basal) arranged in a completely randomized design. Harvested leaves were analysed for the nutritional composition. The results showed that the whole plant fresh weight, varied significantly (p<0.05) with the age of plant at harvest, having the maximum and the minimum values at 9 weeks after sowing (266.19 g/pot) and 5 weeks after sowing (96.12 g/pot) respectively. The leaf fresh weight and lea...