Flexibility overtime has been known to enhance the peculiarity of a space, making spaces adaptable to multipurpose use, without altering the functional requirements. The design features and techniques that allow for changing situations in the use and operation of spaces are the focus of this paper. Components such as walls, floors and roofs are the design features that affect space in any building. Event centres being hubs for cultural and social activities, attract an unpredictable population, hence the need for flexible venues for event centres which are fast becoming stable and developing features of any city. The study assessed available event centres and the design features used to achieve flexibility, examining their adaptation to inadequacy of event spaces in selected event centres in Minna Niger state. Observation schedules was used as instrument to obtain data, the data collected was then analysed using Microsoft excel. It was observed from the study that all event centres had adaptability as their flexible design approach and this is as a result of the use of large open spaces, however 80% of event centres in Minna, Niger state failed to have flexible design features. The 20% that provided few of these features used curtain as flexible design elements. The paper recommended that design features for flexibility such as moveable walls, retractable roofs and sitting should be used in event centre designs to achieve an effective flexible design.

Background African swine fever (ASF) is a devastating disease of pigs that threatens the livelihood of smallholder pig farmers and the profitability of large-holder pig farmers. Outbreaks are attributed to human activities and practices along the pig value chain. Several outbreaks of ASF occurred in Nigeria in 2020. Hence a questionnaire survey was carried out with one hundred and thirty pig farmers and other stakeholders from 20 pig-producing states of the country on the pig value chain from the 8th – 21st of November 2020. This was to assess farmer knowledge of ASF and biosecurity practices carried out during their business along the pig value chain to suggest or improve control measures for the disease. Results The result showed that 64.4% of the participants had experienced ASF outbreak in 2020. The univariate analysis by Pearson chi-square showed that participants had knowledge of ASF (OR: 9.632, p=0) and how disease spreads (OR: 2.464, p=0.02), and were both significantly (p<0.05) associated with the history of ASF outbreaks. In respect of practices, sharing farm implements (OR: 4.033, p=0.01) and mating boars with other farmers (OR: 2.73, p=0.01) were significantly (p<0.05) associated with the history of ASF outbreak. Logistic regression showed that participants involved with self-medication were three times more likely to have a history of ASF outbreak than those who did not. Conclusions The result showed that though stakeholders were knowledgeable about the causes and spread of ASF, they still had poor biosecurity practices that resulted in ASF outbreak in 2020 — implying that as long as the farmers do not practice good biosecurity, ASF outbreak will continue to be a challenge to the pig industry in Nigeria.

Pharmaceutical factory buildings (PFBs) are expected to provide indoor environmental performance suitable to enhance workers’ well-being and productivity. This study examined the indoor environmental performance of PFBs in Nigeria towards modeling an enhanced worker’s well-being and productivity. Fourteen PFBs were purposively selected as investigation sites with a field survey conducted in Southwest Nigeria. Several types of equipment were used to obtain IAQ data (that is the air temperature, relative humidity, airflow velocity as well as the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), particulate matter, TVOC, and HCHO) along with subjective evaluation of the perception of the factory workers to obtain information on their working environment within the factories. Findings showed that average air temperature (29.42°C); air velocity (0.98 m/s) and formaldehyde (0.87ppm) were beyond the acceptable and recommended threshold by ASHRAE and WHO. However, the values obtained for CO2, PM1.0, PM2.5, and PM10 were satisfactory. The study concludes by suggesting ways to improve the indoor environmental performance of PFBs and proposed a model to enhance the worker’s well-being and productivity.