An Improved Stock Price Prediction using Hybrid Market Indicators

In this paper the effect of hybrid market indicators is examined for an improved stock price prediction. The hybrid market indicators consist of technical, fundamental and expert opinion variables as input to artificial neural networks model. The empirical results obtained with published stock data of Dell and Nokia obtained from New York Stock Exchange shows that the proposed model can be effective to improve accuracy of stock price prediction

Interoperability of Information Systems and Heterogenous Databases Using XML

Interoperabilily of information systerrrs is the most critical issue facing businesse! that need to access information from multiple idormution systems on tlifferent environments ancl diverse platforms. Interoperability has been a basic requirement for the modern information systems in a competitive and volatile business environment, particularly with the advent of distributed network system and the growing relevance of inter-network communications. Our objective in tltis paper is to develop a comprehensiveframework tofacilitate interoperability smong distributed and heterogeneous information systems and to develop prototype software to validate tlte application of XML in interoperability of infurmation systems and databases

TOWARDS A FUTURISTIC EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA

Majority of the nations of the world were colonized and went through wars at various times, but had turned around their fortunes through economic and educational reforms. In Nigeria however, there had been series of educational reforms from: 7/6-5-4 to 6-3-3-4 and now 9-3-4 system. Similarly, the recent reform in the higher education sector which has resulted into the conversion of the nation’s higher technical educational institutions to degree awarding universities, which arose largely from the disparity between the graduates of the two institutions in the labor market and the fallen standard of education. This paper presents a critical review of the various educational reforms with a view to designing a viable educational model based on the examples of some developed and developing nations. It attempts to proffer solutions to some of the existing problems

Assessment of Vehicular Pollution of Road Side Soils in Ota Metropolis, Ogun State, Nigeria

Vehicular emission has been found to constitute one of the major sources of soil pollution. We have investigated the influence of vehicular emissions on the accumulation of heavy metal in the roadside soils of Ota metropolis, Ogun State, Nigeria. The main objective of this research was to determine the impact of heavy metals such as copper, cadmium, lead, manganese, nickel and sulphate from vehicular pollution on soil around Ota. Seven locations were selected on the basis of their high concentration of vehicular traffic. Three sites with low traffic concentration were also selected outside the seven locations to act as control sites. Samples were taken in a period of three months in the dry season. The concentrations of five heavy metals and sulphate in the samples were determined with an atomic absorption spectrometer. The concentrations of the heavy metals from the seven main sites were higher than in the control sites. The concentration of each heavy metal and sulphate in the seven locations was below the European Union regulatory standard. Although these concentration are below the European Union regulatory standard, these heavy metals and sulphate, which over time are washed by erosion into the local areas used for farming, may pose health hazards. The enhancement of fuel quality and the adoption of emission standards to mitigate the impact of vehicular emissions on human health should be made mandatory

Climate models miss most of the coarse dust in the atmosphere.

Coarse mineral dust (diameter, ≥5 μm) is an important component of the Earth system that affects clouds, ocean ecosystems, and climate. Despite their significance, climate models consistently underestimate the amount of coarse dust in the atmosphere when compared to measurements. Here, we estimate the global load of coarse dust using a framework that leverages dozens of measurements of atmospheric dust size distributions. We find that the atmosphere contains 17 Tg of coarse dust, which is four times more than current climate models simulate. Our findings indicate that models deposit coarse dust out of the atmosphere too quickly. Accounting for this missing coarse dust adds a warming effect of 0.15 W·m-2 and increases the likelihood that dust net warms the climate system. We conclude that to properly represent the impact of dust on the Earth system, climate models must include an accurate treatment of coarse dust in the atmosphere

E-VOTING IMPLEMENTATION IN NIGERIA: The Success Factors

The proposed adoption of e-Voting in Nigeria by the electoral body. the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), was resisted by the law makers and a sizeable portion of the populace. The reasons may not be unconnected with the previous unsuccessful attempts by government to implement such magnificent projects, particularly, the National ID card scheme; and lack of basic infrastructures to implement the system. This paper reviews thee-Registration exercise by INEC with a view to using it as a springboard fore-Voting implementation in Nigeria; and the experiences of some developed countries to serve as lessons. Similarly, the paper proposes solutions to some of the problems encountered in countries where e-Voting had been adopted. Finally, arising from the perceived apathy between the elect and the electorate, which has resulted to low turnout of voters during elections, an integrated voting system that incorporates an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), Internet Voting (i-Voting) and mobile Voting (m-Voting) is proposed for enhanced participatory democracy

Development of Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) System for Nigeria Public Sector.

Business-to-business electronic procurement success in business organizations (private sectors) has been a major driving force for government organizations (public sectors) in developed nations to adopt electronic government procurement in order to reduce cost and improve administrative efficiency. E-procurement within the government is recognized to be the main area of government-to-business that needs to be exploited by government of developing nations. In this paper, we examined the drawbacks of existing procurement process in Nigeria with a view to offering an improved approach. A prototype e-GP system was designed and developed to eliminate the associated bottlenecks with existing system and showcase the attendant benefits of the proposed system which can lead to an improved procurement cycle process flow

A Model for Stock Price Prediction Using the Soft Computing Approach

A number of research efforts had been devoted to forecasting stock price based on technical indicators which rely purely on historical stock price data. However, the performances of such technical indicators have not always satisfactory. The fact is, there are other influential factors that can affect the direction of stock market which form the basis of market experts’ opinion such as interest rate, inflation rate, foreign exchange rate, business sector, management caliber, investors’ confidence, government policy and political effects, among others. In this study, the effect of using hybrid market indicators such as technical and fundamental parameters as well as experts’ opinions for stock price prediction was examined. Values of variables representing these market hybrid indicators were fed into the artificial neural network (ANN) model for stock price prediction. The empirical results obtained with published stock data show that the proposed model is effective in improving the accuracy of stock price prediction. Also, the performance of the neural network predictive model developed in this study was compared with the conventional Box-Jenkins autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model which has been widely used for time series forecasting. Our findings revealed that ARIMA models cannot be effectively engaged profitably for stock price prediction. It was also observed that the pattern of ARIMA forecasting models were not satisfactory. The developed stock price predictive model with the ANN-based soft computing approach demonstrated superior performance over the ARIMA models; indeed, the actual and predicted value of the developed stock price predictive model were quite close

Visually Impaired Education: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow

The actual formal education of the visually impaired persons started in Nigeria in the 40s by the Sudan Interior Mission, that was a century after their sighted counterparts had embraced Western Education. The main aim of the Missionaries was to train persons with Visual impairment to read the Bible and learn skills which would make them to be self reliant. The establishment of the first school for the blind in Gindiri was an eye opener to the emergence of other special education institutions in Nigeria. In Nigeria, Visually impaired education has passed through different stages of educational development. despite, progresses made, obvious challenges also emerged. This paper therefore sheds light on the achievement, challenges and future of persons with Visual impairment with Recommendations to improve their tomorrow