Parental Influence on Wards in Escalation of Examination Misconduct in Nigeria

This paper sets out to examine parental influence on wards in examination misconduct in Nigeria. The study uses perceptions of 545 respondents in a Private Christian Mission University in the country to examine the most frequent ways by which parents influence their wards to engage in examination misconduct. Moreover, the study investigates whether there is a relationship between parental influence on ward in examination misconduct and societal value for certificates. It also identified reasons for non implementation of laws on examination misconduct and also proffers solutions to this social ill in the country. The study employs differential association to explain the topic under discussion. It uses questionnaire and in-depth interview to collect information from respondents. Ranking, percentage and 3 ways analysis of variance were used to analyse data collected. However, our result shows that: There is a relationship between parental influence on ward in examination misconduct and societal value for certificates. Respondents’ attributed major reasons for non-implementation of laws on examination misconduct in the country to: involvement of the children of government functionaries, bribery and corruption etc. Lastly, respondents suggested full implementation of laws on examination misconduct, open show of students caught for misconduct in media among others as solutions to this social problem

Impacts of Societal Prejudice on Attainment of Life/Personal Goals of Physically Challenged Persons in Nigeria.

Physically challenged persons seem not to have found enough help from the society in underdeveloped countries. Hence, they are confronted with social constraints, which have not been given adequate attention in the literature. This study is a reaction to this problem in Nigeria. It examines reasons why the society stigmatizes physically challenged individuals, instead of helping them. Drawing on the opinions of respondents from Lagos Island and Friends of Ours Disabled Institute (FODI), Lagos, this paper reported ten reasons why the government fails to implement the UN decisions on disabled persons, in spite of the fact that Nigeria was one of the original eighty signatories to the adoption of these decisions. Relying on the data from a survey of 825 respondents, the study attempted to discover if any significant relationship exists between the societal perception of physically challenged persons and their attainment of life/personal goals. Our findings have sociological, psychological, emotional and economical implications for physically challenged persons in underdeveloped societies

A Study of E-Cheating Habit of Students in Three Selected Universities in Nigeria.

Several studies have emerged on examination misconduct in Nigeria, but „e-cheating‟ habit of students, a new form of examination fraud is yet to be given adequate attention in the literature. This study is provoked to address this problem not only in the country but also in academic scholarship. Using three selected Universities samples, the study examines methods which students are using in engaging ICTs to perpetuate examination misconduct. Relying on raw data of one hundred and ninetynine (199) students retrieved, the study attempted to uncover if a significant difference exists in echeating habit between ICT-compliant students and other students in rubrics not science-oriented. It equally tried to discover if there is a significant difference in e-cheatng habit between male and female students. Drawing on the recorded data in each institution, the study reported five ICT tools associated with examination misconduct. Using chi-square (X2) to test the hypotheses, the study reported a significant difference between ICT-complinat students and other students in rubrics not scienceoriented. Finally, it revealed a significant difference in e-cheating habit between male and female students

Understanding the Escalation of Brain Drain in Nigeria From Poor Leadership Point of View

Migration of people from one place to another in countries of the world in search of better conditions of living predates history. It ignited western societies’ contact with Africa and the rest of the world. Prior the contact, agriculture was the main stay of Africa’s economy. Thus, the movement of farmers from one location to another in search of fertile grounds for cultivation was in vogue. After independence in Nigeria, cattle rearers are known for relocating from the North to South during dry season in search of green grass to sustain their cattle and occupation. In the present day Nigeria, the same scenario still abounds but in a new dimension. It now involves movement of highly skilled manpower from the country to developed societies. Among other things, this paper finds out if there is a relationship between poor leadership of the country and escalation of brain drain. Simple percentage and ranking method was used to analyze the study’s data. Chi-square was used to test its hypothesis. Our result revealed a relationship between poor leadership of the country and brain drain. It equally indicated that students are interested in travelling out of the country to developed societies after their study. Also from the study, twelve causes of brain drain were indentified. Some of them are: mass unemployment, poor salaries and conditions of service, mass poverty, crises-religious, communal, political, education etc. In respect of effects of brain drain on the nation’s economy, eleven factors were identified by the respondents. Some of them are: loss of human capital assets to man various institutions in the country, loss of tax of migrated manpower to foreign countries, loss of capital invested in education of migrated manpower assets etc. Finally, eleven solutions were profiled to the lingering problem of brain drain. The most important ones are: Good leadership, salary and conditions of service as well as rewarding system for diligent staff, mass employment etc

Influence of Traumatization and Category of “Biafran– Nigerian” Civil War Veterans on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among War Survivors

The study examine the long lasting effect of traumatization (Nigeria-Biafra war zone combat trauma) as well as recurrent flooding of traumatic events (ethnic conflict, religious conflict and political conflict) in Biafra “pogrom” survivors. Seventy six Biafran war survivors made up of 18(23.68%) disabled (wounded) combatant Biafran war veterans at Orji township, 30(39.47%) were combatant war survivors and 28(36.85%) were non-combatant war survivors from Anambra and Enugu marginalized cities in Nigeria. The Los Angles symptom checklist (King, Leskin, Foy and David, 1995) was used to assess their levels of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). There were significant differences in the group's experience of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The disabled combatants Biafran war survivors had significantly high experience of PTSD than the combatant and non-combatant Biafran war veterans. The combatant war veterans that had experienced intense ethnic, political or religious conflict following the Biafran war had significantly high PTSD than those that had not. One possible implication of this finding is that episodic or enduring posttraumatic stress disorders can still afflict survivors leading to psychological impairments on the individual long after the initial onset of the traumatic event. Subsequent experience of extreme stress disorder reinforces the PTSD sequels in a survivor. The psychologist, Nigerian government, the multinational humanitarian organizations, and other mental health stake holders are to respond to the findings by providing psychotherapy and psychological rehabilitation to these survivors

Putting the burden of proof in its place: When are differential allocations legitimate?

It is widely assumed that legitimate differential allocations of the burden of proof are ubiquitous: that in all cases in which opposing views are being debated, one side has the responsibility of proving their claim and if they fail, the opposing view wins by default. We argue that the cases in which one party has the burden of proof are exceptions. In general, participants in reasoned discourse are all required to provide reasons for the claims they make. We distinguish between truth-directed and non-truth-directed discourse, argue that the paradigm contexts in which there are legitimate differential allocations of the burden of proof (law and formal debate) are non-truth-directed, and suggest that in truth-directed contexts, except in certain special cases, differential allocation of the burden of proof is not warranted

The Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects (DARE)

Systematic reviews are useful tools for busy decision-makers because they identify, appraise and synthesise the available research evidence on a particular topic. Many thousands of systematic reviews relevant to health care have been published. However, they can be difficult to locate and their quality is variable. DARE (the Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects) contains summaries of systematic reviews which have met strict quality criteria. Each summary also provides a critical commentary on the quality of the review. DARE covers a broad range of health care related topics and can be used for answering questions about the effects of health care interventions, as well as for developing clinical guidelines and policy making. DARE is available free of charge on the internet (http://nhscrd.york.ac.uk), and as part of the Cochrane Library. Alternatively, DARE can be searched, on your behalf, by CRD information staff (tel: 01904 433707 or email [email protected])

Characterization of solutions of the discrete-time algebraic Riccati equation based on quadratic difference forms

This paper is concerned with a characterization of all symmetric solutions to the discrete-time algebraic Riccati equation (DARE). Dissipation theory and quadratic difference forms from the behavioral approach play a central role in this paper. Along the line of the continuous-time results due to Trentelman and Rapisarda [H.L. Trentelman, P. Rapisarda, Pick matrix conditions for sign-definite solutions of the algebraic Riccati equation, SIAM J. Contr. Optim. 40 (3) (2001) 969–991], we show that the solvability of the DARE is equivalent to a certain dissipativity of the associated discrete-time state space system. As a main result, we characterize all unmixed solutions of the DARE using the Pick matrix obtained from the quadratic difference forms. This characterization leads to a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a non-negative definite solution. It should be noted that, when we study the DARE and the dissipativity of the discrete-time system, there exist two difficulties which are not seen in the continuous-time case. One is the existence of a storage function which is not a quadratic function of state. Another is the cancellation between the zero and infinite singularities of the dipolynomial spectral matrix associated with the DARE, due to the infinite generalized eigenvalues of the associated Hamiltonian pencil. One of the main contributions of this paper is to demonstrate how to resolve these difficulties