The role of social media marketing on e-commerce implementation and SMEs performance in Ibadan City Nigeria

Small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) are known as the fabricators and stimulants of economic growth and national development for developed and developing countries, including Nigeria. This research study was inspired by the poor performance of SMEs in Nigeria, which has resulted in a severe decline in the contributions of SMEs to employment creation, gross domestic product, and export earnings for the country, especially in Ibadan city. However, SMEs’ involvement in social media marketing offers many benefits for their businesses, including enhanced brand value, sales growth, and effective social e-commerce. Thus, this research study investigated the relationship between e-commerce implementation and SME performance in Ibadan as well as the significant role of social media marketing on e-commerce implementation and SME performance. The study adopted quantitative research by using questionnaires as the main research instrument. The sample for this study comprises SMEs that registered with the SMEDAN in Ibadan city, of which 370 of them were selected as the sample size for the study. Then, the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to answer all the objectives of the study, and also, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the relationships between variables, which served as the method of data analysis. This study found that e-commerce implementation has a positive and significant relationship with SMEs performance, whereas social media marketing has a negative but minimally significant moderating effect on the relationship between e-commerce implementation and SMEs performance in Ibadan city. The study could provide success both locally and globally, considering such a dominant advantage through social media marketing. SMEs offering social commerce were able to improve their revenue, focus on new customers, and control their costs to meet the expected pricing and customer needs

The relationship between social media marketing and SMEs performance in Nigeria: a systemic literature review

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are considered as a vibrant and dynamic sector of the world economy including Nigeria. Small and medium scale enterprises prefer the use of social media marketing because of its ability to connect with many potential consumers at a time, low cost, ease of use, and technical manageability. Hence, social media marketing is rapidly growing among businesses and is currently considered a major key to enhancing a better performance. Thus, this paper provides a systematic literature review (SLR) of previous research studies on social media marketing and SMEs performance in Nigeria. In this work, the research procedure focuses on the subject matters related to social media, marketing, SMEs, and performance, which are selected from three major digital databases, namely Scopus, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science. The study selection process consists of research into two factors; i) literature sources, articles, and journal publications between the years 2014 to 2020; and ii) that investigate the direction of the study of SMEs performance in the context of social media marketing. The articles were screened, filtered and duplicates were excluded, followed by the reading of the full-text articles. The final included result is 65 articles, which will be adopted in this study. From the previous results, most studies applied a quantitative approach which is the most popular research method. But this SLR study discovered social media marketing strongly affects the performance of SMEs worldwide and particularly in Nigeria. Therefore, this study suggests that social media marketing studies should be given adequate concentration. The government should cater for financial assistance with a low-interest rate for SME entrepreneurs. Furthermore, this SLR recommends that researchers should investigate and focus more on the effective use of social media marketing in the context of SME performance

Effects of High Intensity Interval Training (Hiit) on Cardiovascular Diseases

High-intensity interval training is easier to stick with and perform in cardiac rehabilitation due to its short-term high oxygen-consumption activity interphased with intervals of low-intensity training or rest for recovery. Time-efficient high-intensity interval training (HIIT), rather than guideline-based moderate-intensity continuous training, has been studied as an exercise training program in complete cardiac rehabilitation. According to research, high-intensity exercise improves aerobic and metabolic performance by stimulating the cardiopulmonary system and skeletal muscles more. In this small study, we looked at the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, improving cardiovascular health through exercise and high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and heart failure and HIIT. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has been identified as an effective exercise protocol for general health and primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention using short exercise sessions. Given the variety of HIIT protocols, which can be divided into aerobic HIIT and anaerobic HIIT [usually referred to as sprint interval training (SIT)], health-care professionals such as primary care physicians and cardiologists may struggle to select an appropriate protocol for their patients. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has emerged as a potentially beneficial alternative, involving brief bursts of high-intensity exercise interspersed with periods of rest, with the goal of increasing cardiovascular exercise intensity in a time-efficient manner. Understanding HIIT protocols and implementing the appropriate type for each participant would result in better VO+ peak improvements with higher adherence and lower risk

Effects of High Intensity Interval Training (Hiit) on Cardiovascular Diseases

High-intensity interval training is easier to stick with and perform in cardiac rehabilitation due to its short-term high oxygen-consumption activity interphased with intervals of low-intensity training or rest for recovery. Time-efficient high-intensity interval training (HIIT), rather than guideline-based moderate-intensity continuous training, has been studied as an exercise training program in complete cardiac rehabilitation. According to research, high-intensity exercise improves aerobic and metabolic performance by stimulating the cardiopulmonary system and skeletal muscles more. In this small study, we looked at the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, improving cardiovascular health through exercise and high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and heart failure and HIIT. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has been identified as an effective exercise protocol for general health and primary and secondary cardiovascular prevention using short exercise sessions. Given the variety of HIIT protocols, which can be divided into aerobic HIIT and anaerobic HIIT [usually referred to as sprint interval training (SIT)], health-care professionals such as primary care physicians and cardiologists may struggle to select an appropriate protocol for their patients. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has emerged as a potentially beneficial alternative, involving brief bursts of high-intensity exercise interspersed with periods of rest, with the goal of increasing cardiovascular exercise intensity in a time-efficient manner. Understanding HIIT protocols and implementing the appropriate type for each participant would result in better VO+ peak improvements with higher adherence and lower risk

Nigella sativa conserved hippocampal oxidative and neurogenic activities to salvage neuro-cognitive integrities in chlorpyrifos insult

Chlopyrifos (CPF) is an organophosphate, implicated in brain damage and cognitive deficits, whose consistence deposit in the environment has contributed to the toxicity burdens of xenobiotics. This study investigated the efficacy of Nigella sativa oil (NSO) against CPF insults on the hippocampus. Thirty-two rats were randomly divided into four groups of eight rats each, exposed to 1 ml/kg of Normal saline, 14.9 mg/kg of CPF, 14.9 mg/kg of CPF plus 1 ml/kg of NSO and 1 ml/kg of NSO respectively for 14 consecutive days. The rats were exposed to 3 trials each on the 11–13 days in the Morris water maze, and subsequently latency to hidden platform and time in the platform quadrant were recorded as measures of long term memory (LTM), short term memory (STM) and reference memory (RM) on the 14th day. The rats were euthanized on day 15, the brains excised, and the hippocampus of five brains removed, homogenized to analyze for total reactive oxygen species (ROS), nitric oxide (NO) levels and acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activities, while the other three were processed for histology and Ki67 immunohistochemistry. CPF caused a marked increase in hippocampal NO and ROS activities, depleted AChE activities and Ki67 expressions, delayed escape latency and reduced visit to the platform quadrant. Intervention with NSO depleted ROS/NO levels, improved neurogenic proteins, AChE activities and neuro-cognitive markers depletions in CPF exposure. Altogether, our findings showed that NSO is a potential therapeutic drug for the treatment of CPF-induced cognitive deficit through its antioxidant property and adult neurogenesis in rats. Keywords: Nigella sativa oil, Organophosphates, Oxidative damage, Acetylcholinesterase, Cognitio

Agronomic evaluation of citrus (Cleopatra mandarin) rootstock seedlings to various herbicides used in the nursery in Ibadan, Nigeria

Weeds are a major problem in citrus nursery. A trial was conducted to evaluate weed control options in citrus root stock (Var. Cleopatra mandarin) seedlings. Prior to transplanting the root stocks herbicides were applied into treatment plots replicated three times and laid out in Randomised Complete Block Design. There were 10 Treatments: Metolachlor at 1.0 kg ai ha-1 , Metolachlor at 1.5 kg ai ha-1, Metolachlor 1.16kg ai ha-1+ Atrazine at 1.48kg ai ha-1, Metolachlor at 1.33 kg ai ha-1+ Terbutryn at 0.66 kg ai ha-1, Metolachlor at 1.67kg ai ha-1 + Terbutryn at 0.83kg ai ha-1, Diuron at 1.5 kg ai ha-1, Diuron at 2.0 kg ai ha-1, Pendemethalin at 1.0 kg ai ha-1, Monthly weeding (control 1), No weeding (control 2). Six months old root stocks seedlings were transplanted two weeks after herbicide application. Data were collected on seedling survival and growth rates and weed infestation fortnightly. Application of Diuron at 2.0 kg a.i. ha-1 and tank mixture of Metolachlor plus Atrazine at 1.16 + 0.83 kg a.i ha-1 caused high seedling motality of 19.12 and 13.97 % respectively while tank mixtures of Metolachlor plus Terbutryn at 1.67+0.83kga.i/ha caused the lowest mortality of 4.2%. Stem diameter at 20 weeks after ransplanting (WAT) was largest (1.09 cm) with Metolachlor plus atrazine at 1.16+1.48 kga.i ha-1 but smallest (0.72 cm) with Metolachlor at 1.0 kg a.i ha-1. Application of Metolachlor with Terbutryne at 1.67 + 0.83 kg a.i ha-1 resulted in the tallest plants (91.26 cm) while the shortest plant (73.23cm) were caused by Metlachlor at 1.0 kg a.i/ha. Number of leaves was highest (137) with diuron application and lowest (74) in the weedy check. Application of diuron at 2.0 kg a.i/ha and pendimethalin at 1.0 kg a.i/ha as well as hoe weeding effectively reduced weed population in the trial and enhance growth of citrus seedlings by reducing competitions

SARS-COV-2 antibody responses to AZD1222 vaccination in West Africa.

Real-world data on vaccine-elicited neutralising antibody responses for two-dose AZD1222 in African populations are limited. We assessed baseline SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence and levels of protective neutralizing antibodies prior to vaccination rollout using binding antibodies analysis coupled with pseudotyped virus neutralisation assays in two cohorts from West Africa: Nigerian healthcare workers (n = 140) and a Ghanaian community cohort (n = 527) pre and post vaccination. We found 44 and 28% of pre-vaccination participants showed IgG anti-N positivity, increasing to 59 and 39% respectively with anti-receptor binding domain (RBD) IgG-specific antibodies. Previous IgG anti-N positivity significantly increased post two-dose neutralizing antibody titres in both populations. Serological evidence of breakthrough infection was observed in 8/49 (16%). Neutralising antibodies were observed to wane in both populations, especially in anti-N negative participants with an observed waning rate of 20% highlighting the need for a combination of additional markers to characterise previous infection. We conclude that AZD1222 is immunogenic in two independent West African cohorts with high background seroprevalence and incidence of breakthrough infection in 2021. Waning titres post second dose indicates the need for booster dosing after AZD1222 in the African setting despite hybrid immunity from previous infection