Work Impacts on Health: Their Implications and Management Techniques

Adverse conditions in workplaces that impact negatively on the health of workers are legion.  They include Biological, Chemical, Electrical and Mechanical Hazards; as well as Physical Hazards like noise; particulate emissions; thermal stress; poor illumination; pressure and vibration, among others.  These have a couple of fundamental implications. Several exposed workers suffer accidental injuries, occupational diseases, deformity or death.  Management suffers lost-work-time occasioned by absence of incapacitated workers; as well as avoidable financial losses through medical expenses, occasional litigations instituted by families of industrial accident victims, and through the payment of required compensations.  Further implications are that the above conditions make it mandatory that management must protect their employees from the consequences of these Occupational Health Hazards (OHH) by running a comprehensive Occupational Health Services (OHS) programme in their establishments.  The degree of effectiveness of such services rests principally on the flawless adherence of both employers and employees to all industrial legislations that deal with the protection of the health, safety and welfare of workers. Keywords Ergonomic-Stress-Vectors (ESV)   -              Monitoring Threshold-Limit-Values (TLVs)      -              Fixed Guard

At What Levels of Financial Development Does Information Sharing Matter?

Background The purpose of this study is to investigate how an increase in information-sharing bureaus affects financial access. Methods We employed contemporary and non-contemporary interactive quantile regressions in 53 African countries for the period 2004–2011. Information-sharing bureaus are proxied with public credit registries and private credit offices. Financial development dynamics involving depth (at overall economic and financial system levels), efficiency (at banking and financial system levels), activity (from banking and financial system perspectives), and size are used. Results Two key findings are established. First, the effect of an increase in private credit bureaus is not clearly noticeable on financial access, probably because private credit agencies are still to be established in many countries. Second, an increase in public credit registries for the most part improves financial allocation efficiency and activity (or credit) between the 25th and 75th quartiles. Conclusions As a main policy implication, countries in the top and bottom ends of the financial efficiency and activity distributions are unlikely to benefit from enhanced financial allocation efficiency as a result of an increase in public credit registries

Law, Politics, and the Quality of Government in Africa

This article examines interconnections between law, politics, and the quality of government in Africa. We investigate whether African democracies enjoy relatively better government quality (GQ) compared to their counterparts with more autocratic inclinations. The empirical evidence is based on instrumental variable two‐stage least squares and fixed effects with data from 38 African countries for the period 1994‐2010. Political regimes of democracy, polity, and autocracy are instrumented with income levels, legal origins, religious dominations, and press freedom to account for the GQ dynamics of corruption control, government effectiveness, voice and accountability, political stability, regulation quality, and the rule of law. Findings show that democracy has an edge over autocracy while the latter and polity overlap. As a policy implication, democracy once initiated should be accelerated to edge the appeals of authoritarian regimes

New Media and Challenges of Information Control: A Study among Commercial Banks\u27 Information Managers in Nigeria

Founded on digital technology, new media forms empower users to easily broadcast or narrowcast at low cost and without intermediary gatekeepers. Arguably, such empowerment may be frowned at by banks\u27 information managers as their industry seem particularly vulnerable in the face of imprudent public dissemination of internal information. For example, negative information that goes viral on social media has the potential to cause grave damage to a bank\u27s reputation and could even lead to a run on the bank. Despite the aforementioned new media empowerment and risk dilemma, the academic literature is surprisingly silent about the challenges facing sensitive industries like banks in the control of information in the new media age. We therefore carried out a study among information managers in selected commercial banks in Nigeria to find out their attitude towards the empowerment and risk dilemma posed by new media and how the latter affects their work as organization\u27s information controllers or gatekeepers. Out of the 22 commercial banks that operate in Nigeria, 13 commercial banks were selected using lottery method. Survey and in-depth interviews were carried out among the banks\u27 information managers. In addition, survey questionnaires were distributed among three other subgroups of stakeholders – bank customers, bank employees and journalists. Twelve of the thirteen information managers studied indicated that they use social media to disseminate organizational information. However, all agree that social media is the media form that poses the greatest challenge in terms of controlling the dissemination of information about their organization. Furthermore, in comparison to customers and employees, journalists were perceived by the information managers as the stakeholders that most undermine the ethics of communication. This position seems corroborated by the finding that majority (76%) of the journalists surveyed affirmed that they\u27ve used their news platform or social media to complain about the banks and 37% say that they\u27ve done so frequently. However, contrary to the perception by the information managers, the journalists (82%) claim that they do so ethically. This disparity suggests the need to harmonize ethical standards between journalists and the banks\u27 information managers. Even though only 36% of customers say that they have used social media to criticize their banks, 23% say that they never put ethics into consideration. This lack of ethical consideration in itself could pose risk for information managers, suggesting the need to educate or sensitize the customers. Results suggest that employees are the least problematic compared to journalists and customers. This may not be unconnected with the proactive measures put in place as indicated by the information managers. These include affirmation of the code of ethics, information scanning/authorization, staff awareness and sensitization, stakeholder engagement, prevention of negative flow of information and speculation, shielding of sensitive information, management approval before publication of any organizational information, procedure/policy framework in place for employee communication. All the information managers were also of the opinion that appropriate sanctions should be in place for defaulting employees. We consider this study as having opened a furrow in research about organizational information gatekeeping in the new media era. In recognition of the empowerment of all stakeholders in the new media space, we suggest that information managers ought to recognize other stakeholders as co-gatekeepers. We recommend that the co-gatekeeper paradigm be further explored as an approach to influencing stakeholders for effective communication and reputational risk mitigation in the new media space

The Standard of Teachers’ Assessment Practices in Three Domains of Learning in Nigerian Secondary Schools

Assessments of students will only be comprehensive and qualitative where all the three domains of learning are adequately tested using any form of testing techniques but the present assessment practices in most schools neglect the assessment of skills, which are normally associated with personality and characteristics of students. This study investigated quality assurance in teachers’ assessment practices in cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains of learning in Nigerian secondary schools. The study was a descriptive survey research. The instrument for data collection was a questionnaire developed by the researchers. The instrument used was validated and its reliability coefficient was computed to be 0.78. The results showed that teachers are not assessing the students comprehensively in the three domains of learning rather they resort to the assessment of cognitive domain alone and paying less attention to affective and psychomotor domains. Based on the findings, the recommended that teachers should be made to be familiar with the major objectives in their subject area and to practice formulating objectives in all the domains of learning for specific topics, and there will be  continuous monitoring of students learning that will provide teachers with feedback about their effectiveness that be used  to enhance teaching. Keywords: Teachers, Assessment, Standards, Domains of Learnin

Investigation on the Background Radiation of Abakaliki Rice Mill in Ebonyi State, Nigeria

This study investigated the background ionizing radiation of Abakaliki rice mills. The requirement to monitor this site is because the prevalent activities in the site suggest that it is a source of ionizing radiation. The activities include fuel stations and excavation sites. Other sources are various chemicals and agrochemicals (like Phosphate, Uranium, Thorium, and Radium) used during the planting of the different rice species. There is, therefore, an urgent need to investigate the radiation level of Abakaliki rice mills in Ebonyi state, Nigeria to ascertain if it has passed the safety standards. The investigation was carried out using the Radalert 100 radiation monitor and a geographical positioning system (Garmin GPSMAP 765). The studied site was split into different points with each representing a mill that houses different grinding plants. This study included all the sections of the mill. The mean background radiation exposure rate ranges from 0.014mRhr-1to 0.0204mRhr-1. The obtained values are higher than the world standard limit of 0.013mRhr-1 recommended by ICRP except point 7 which corresponds to the top of the rice husk dumpsite. The calculated absorbed dose rates for the various sections of the mill ranged from 99.18 nGh-1 to 177.48 nGyh-1. These values of absorbed dose rates were observed to be far higher than the world permissible value of 89 nGyh-1. The annual effective dose equivalent (AEDE) for the exposure values ranged from 0.122 mSvy-1 to 0.218 mSvy-1 which are far lower than the ICRP permissible limits of 1.00 mSvlyr for the public and therefore implies absence of any immediate radiological risk. The excess lifetime cancer risk for the mill users were all above the 0.29 × 10-3 world recommended value. This suggests a possibility of the rice mill workers developing radiation-related illnesses over time

Mitigating externalities of terrorism on tourism: global evidence from police, security officers and armed service personnel

In this paper, we investigate the role of security officers, the police and armed service personnel in dampening the effect of terrorism externalities on tourist arrivals. The temporal and geographic scopes are respectively 2010-2015 and 163 countries. Four terrorism measurements are used. They include the number of: incidents, injuries, fatalities and property damages. The main findings indicate that armed service personnel can effectively be used to modulate the damaging influence of all four terrorism externalities in order to achieve a positive net effect on tourist arrivals. Conversely, the corresponding moderating role of security officers and the police is not statistically significant. Moreover, violent demonstrations and homicides have a harmful effect on tourist arrivals while the number of incarcerations displays the opposite effect. Policy implications are discussed

Urban Environmental Pollution 2010: Trace Metal Dispersion in Soil from Auto-Mechanic Village to Urban Residential Areas in Owerri, Nigeria

Due to poor waste management in mechanic villages (MVs), average metal concentration (mgkg-1) is Pb 1162±572; Mn 864±531; Cu 385±202; Fe 49259±4770; Cd 20±13; Zn 824±190; and Ni 40±35, causing ecological and public health risks in parts of Nigeria. Average metal dispersion (mgkg-1/m) from MVs to residential areas was estimated at 9.2 for Pb; 6.7 for Mn; 6.1 for Zn; 1.5 for Cu; 197 for Fe; 0.3 for Ni; and 0.04 for Cd. This represents a mobility order of Fe\u3ePb\u3eMn\u3eZn\u3eCu\u3eNi\u3eCd, and a pollution order of Pb\u3eNi\u3eMn\u3eZn\u3eFe\u3eCu\u3eCd. MV advantages as a capacity building, and in poverty alleviation notwithstanding, its practice must be environmentally friendly

Stimulation Modelling of the Effect of Internal Migration on Urbanization in Rivers State, Nigeria

Internal migration is defined as “a movement of people from one area of a country (especially one local government area) to another area of the same country for the purpose or with the effect of establishing a new residence” either temporarily or permanently, is a complex and multidimensional process. In this study we are expected to determine the impact of internal migration in Port Harcourt city and Bori town respectively and to show the effect of the variation of some parameters that affect the growth of Port Harcourt city, through Simplified Assumptions and Mathematical Formulations. The internal migration of effective working population from Port Harcourt city to Bori town is lesser than that of Bori town to Port Harcourt city due to lesser jobs and social infrastructural facilities in Bori than Port Harcourt. Method of Analysis used is a non-linear ordinary differential equation of order 45 which otherwise is called O.D.E 45(Matlab ODE 45). It is evident from the results of the study that the variation of the rate of internal migration can produce either a positive or a negative effect on the population growth patterns of the two interacting population predictions

Extent of Role Conflict Among Principals and Teachers on the Administration of Secondary School in Ebonyi State

This study set out to investigate the impact of role conflicts among principals and teachers on the administration of secondary schools in Ebonyi State. It was a descriptive survey. The study was guided by two (2) research questions and two (2) hypotheses, all derived from the purpose of the study. The population of the study consists of five thousand and forty seven (5047) teaching staff in the 221 secondary schools in the three education zones of Ebonyi State. A total sample of one thousand four hundred and seventy (1470) teachers and ninety eight (98) principals were sampled and was used for the study. A stratified proportionate random sampling technique was adopted by the researcher to select a sample of 98 principals and fifteen (15) teachers in each of the ninety eight (98) secondary schools from Afikpo, Onueke and Abakaliki respectively; given 1470 teachers for the study. Researcher developed instrument titled Principals Teachers role Conflict Questionnaire (PTRCOQ) was used for data collection The data were analysed using arithmetic mean and z-test statistics. The findings showed that there are no significant differences in the mean opinion scores of principals and teachers on the extent conflict between them arising from the role' performance of a principal in the areas of supervision, finance management, discipline and decision making affect secondary school administration. Based on the findings, appropriate recommendations were made regarding the various strategies to reduce conflict in secondary school administration which include among others; there should be very clear job description for both teachers and principals as this will help to reduce role confusion in secondary school. Principals should also strive to adopt democratic principles in school administration. This will help to promote team work and also enhance teacher's commitment in teaching and learning activities. Keywords: Role Conflict, Principals and Teachers, Administration, Secondary Schoo