BACKGROUND: Mismatch between classroom furniture and the students' anthropometry have been identified as a major cause of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among students. Such discomforts can affect students' performance. OBJECTIVE: This paper is aimed at investigating the prevalence of MSDs and the effect of furniture intervention among students of tertiary institutions in Northwest Nigeria. METHODS: The Cornell's MSD questionnaire was used to investigate the prevalence of MSDs in twelve body regions of students aged between 16 and 25 years. Eleven students' anthropometric dimensions were also measured and used to compute the ergonomically compliant furniture dimensions for the participants. A new set of furniture was introduced, and the questionnaire was used to investigate if the intervention made was significant or not. The academic performance of some of the students before and after the intervention was analyzed using the t-test statistical technique. RESULT: None of the furniture in use was suitable for the majority of the students. MSDs prevalence ranges from 14% to 67.3% among the body regions with the students reporting that low back pain is the most prevalent (67.3%), severe (19.4%) and interfering with their studies (15.8%). The intervention also reduced MSDs in all body regions except at the upper arm and the right side of the forearm. Only sitting, knee, and popliteal heights were significantly associated with MSD occurrence. There was also a significant improvement in the students' academic performance after the intervention (t = -3.239, p = 0.002). CONCLUSION: The limited success of the intervention is an indication of the need to carry out a more holistic intervention that incorporates other inputs such as continuous enlightenment and classroom facility design.

Aside from human factors, tire blowouts and other tire imperfections are major contributors to the persistently high road accident rate. While tire imperfections are categorized as part of the mechanical factors affecting road accident, the tire maintenance personnel and the vehicle owners' human behavior plays a significant role in ensuring that accidents due to tire imperfections are minimized. Therefore, this study aims to determine the accuracy of the pressure gauges used by tire maintenance personnel, popularly called vulcanizers in Nigeria, and to determine the level of awareness of vehicle owners about the basic information that affects the safe use of tires on the road.  The study consists of two stages. The first stage investigates the accuracy of the pressure gauges used by twenty vulcanizers in four different districts in Birnin Kebbi, the northwestern part of Nigeria. The second stage was an online survey regarding the tire maintenance behavior of 87 participants, who were formally educated from Diploma to Ph.D. level. The study's findings showed that about 25% of the vulcanizers do not use pressure gauges to measure air pressure during tire inflation, and less than 17% of the readings taken were accurate. Yet about 60% of the respondents believe that vulcanizers' pressure gauges are reliable and less than 30% of the respondents know that the expiring date of tires is four years in Nigeria. Therefore, there is an urgent need for proper awareness about tire usage and maintenance among the general population. It would also be appropriate to include such basic road safety information in the school curriculum at all levels.

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The localized irrigation is the artificial application of water to the root zone of plants for the purpose of supplying the essential moisture requirement for plant growth. The system makes the production and availability of food crops, citrus and vegetables possible throughout the year on small and medium scale basis at an affordable cost. In places and periods of water scarcity, low-cost drip irrigation can be used for the economic growing of vegetables, citrus and food crops all –round the year. This paper aimed at developing a low-cost drip irrigation system to empower the small and medium scale farmers to produce crops during offseason at minimum operational cost with less human efforts. The field area of 126.4 m2 was properly cleared, stumped, ploughed, harrowed and leveled. The leveling was carried out to allow unobstructed flow and evenly distribution of water to the root of plants. The system does not only reduce water loss but also conserve water during the period of scarcity. The controlled moisture available to the plant at low soil tension results in faster growth, higher yields, better quality and more environmentally and health friendly. The system improves the penetration of water into problematic soils and reduces substantially deep percolation and runoff losses. The system also saves water, money, time and makes provision for all- season farming. The topography of the field was flat with its suitable soil texture, texture, retention capacity and pump for this work was designed and selected to be 1 hp. The system was developed using a simple principle of water flow through gravity to drip out water at regulated interval to irrigate farmland. The drum has 214 litres capacity and 121 emitters. The total cost of production was estimated to be ₦50, 790 which is affordable by small and medium scale farmers.

Anthropometric data remain an essential requirement for designing safe and comfortable facilities and workstations. Anthropometric data collection using manual measuring instruments employs many measurers because they are generally slow and time-consuming. Using multiple measurers introduces the challenge of inter-rater reliability because the measurers may be selected from different professions and cadres despite the initial training for the measurement exercise. This study analyzes the inter-rater reliability of the anthropometric data measured by lecturers and students to determine if the different cadre affects the measurement's reliability. Two lecturers and two final-year students participated in the measurement test. After the initial two-day training, fifteen anthropometric dimensions for 38 students were measured using the standard anthropometric measuring instrument. The students were divided into two groups, and each group of measurer measured both groups at different sessions. A retest was conducted on 5-6 days after the first test. An average measure two-way random effect with absolute agreement at a 95% confidence interval was selected for the analysis. The results show that the vertical anthropometric dimensions such as stature, shoulder height, and sitting height have excellent inter-rater correlation coefficient (ICC) of 0.9 to 0.98. Other vertical anthropometric dimensions such as knee height, popliteal height, and eye height have ICC ranges of 0.8 to 0.9. However, dimensions that have to do with body length, such as buttock to popliteal and knee lengths, shoulder breadth, etc., have ICC values of 0.4 to 0.8. All dimensions that require a change of posture during measurement also recorded low ICC. The study shows that inter-rater reliability was affected by the availability of landmarks, posture, and participants' orientation. Therefore, if possible, professionals should measure dimensions with significant variability.