Perception of Female Undergraduates on Drug Abuse in Kano State, Nigeria: Implications for Counselling

The abuse of drugs by female undergraduate students is becoming alarming, posing serious repercussions for society in general. This study examined the perception of female undergraduates on drug abuse by female university students as perceived by female undergraduate students in Kano State. The study used a sample size of 306 female undergraduate students (selected using proportionate sampling technique) from Faculty of Education in BUK1, KUST2 and YUMSUK3. A validated instrument, DAI4 was used to collect relevant data. The reliability of DAI was established using the test-retest method. PPMC was used to compute the correlation coefficient of the instrument and reliability index of 0.79 was obtained. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer research questions, while t-test for independent sample and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the three null hypotheses of the study. The findings of the study indicated that Benylin is the most commonly abused drug among female university students in Kano State, there is a difference in the perception of female undergraduates on drug abuse prevalence among female university students in Kano State based on university, in favour of BUK with the highest mean score of 8.04. Based on the findings, it is recommended among others that: the sales of benylin and other commonly abused drug within university campuses should be controlled by university authorities

Nigeria’s public service and new public management reform / Ahmad Sanusi and Abubakar Abdullahi

The seeming failure of public service in Nigeria is demonstrated by a series of reforms introduced by successive governments to redefine and reinvigorate it. While some of these reforms are internal, some were externally induced. The climax of such reform initiatives in contemporary democratic Nigeria was the introduction of New Public Management commonly known as NPM. New Public Management reforms offer many alternatives towards efficient service delivery. However, because of its market-cum-democratic characteristics, it seems very difficult to operate in an unstable democratic system. Premised on the apparent desire to achieve efficient service delivery, Nigeria implemented New Public Management reform as a catalyst to redefining and retransforming its public service. This paper investigates the implementation of NPM in Nigeria and argues that minimal if any results are likely to be achieved. This is largely because of the inherent contradictions between the main requirement of NPM and the structure and the context of Nigeria’s public service and its political system. Putting it in another way, the features of NPM are at variance with the main structure and the character of Nigeria’s political environment. From the period of active colonialism up to today, the government has set up different public service review commissions to restructure, invigorate and reorganize the battered public service but her dream is yet to become a reality

An Empirical Investigation into Literature in English as a Support to Students Improved Performance in English Language at the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination in Yobe State - Nigeria

Language and literature are both methods of knowledge linguistic. Language provides man his intelligent form, categorization and consistency. Language creates culture, whereas literature functions as the collection house of culture. In fact relatively few researchers’ appear to focus on literature as an aid to learning of language as assert by (Adeniyi, 2010). The purpose of this investigation therefore, is with the former. That is, it asks the question “How does the study of English Literature aid performance in English Language at the School Certificate Examination in Yobe State?" It is hoped that the outcome of the research on factors affecting attainment in English Language in Yobe State and the recommendations may offer a working tool for tutors and supervisory authorities and general public. Especially, with current public outreach and disappointment about the poor performance of students in English Language at the Secondary School level of the state

Early detection and containment of network worm

This paper presents a network security framework for containing the propagation of network worms. The framework employs a detection mechanism at the network layer to identify the presence of a network worm and a data-link containment solution to block the infected host. A prototype of the mechanism has been used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed framework. An empirical analysis of network worm propagation has been conducted to test the framework. The results show that the developed framework is effective in containing network worms with almost no false positives

Online Payment Choice, Customer Trust and Accessibility of E-Commerce in Somalia

Electronic payment refers to the use of electronic means of cash and related transactions, usually involving the use of computer networks such as the Internet and digital preserved value systems. Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa lack statistical information on the current state of the e-commerce market. Besides, a lack of trust in service providers also hinders the development of e-commerce. As such, this paper aims to examine e-commerce payment choice among e-commerce users and to determine the relationship between the factors to assess e-commerce payment and the accessibility of e-commerce in Somalia. The research method used is quantitative with a survey design. The questionnaire was distributed to 384 respondents, who are Hormuud Telecom subscribers residing in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The findings indicated that there is a positive relationship between online payment choice and accessibility of e-commerce, as well as a positive relationship between customer trust and accessibility of e-commerce. In conclusion, this study suggests that electronic payment can replace the paper payment method and customer trust plays an important role in e-commerce accessibility in Somalia

Intuitionistic L-fuzzy sets and Intuitionistic N-fuzzy sets

In this paper we prove that the concept of intuitionistic N-fuzzy sets (briefly INFS) proposed by Akram et al in [5] is equivalent to ILFS and it’s not a generalization of IFS we concluded that IFS, ILFS, INFS and L-fuzzy sets are all equivalent

Corporate Reputation on Performance of Banking Industries in Nigeria: Using PLS-SEM Tool of Analysis

This analysis examines the influence of corporate reputation on performance of banking industries in Kano state North-West of Nigeria. A survey with 384 qualified observations from financial institutions’ customers in Kano was conducted. Partial Least Squares (PLS-SEM) was used as an alternative to covariance-based SEM, which provides researcher with some flexibility in terms of model complexity and relationship specification.. The model shows corporate reputation that is a reflective construct that has a significant direct effect on performance. The results, besides indicating the suitability of the PLS in statistical analysis, has also contributed to a better understanding of Banking customer in Kano which hitherto has not been tested. Findings are useful for policy makers, management of banking industries and practitioners to enhance corporate reputation, Implications for research and practice and future recommendations are discussed. Keywords: Corporate Reputation, Performance, Banking Industries, PLS-SEM, Nigeria

Jatropha curcas oil as a bio-based rejuvenating agent for reclaimed asphalt pavement mixtures

Recycled asphalt pavement (RAP) is the most effective way to reduce the use of fresh asphalt binder and to consider its application at a higher percentage for the preparation of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA). Use of RAP in HMA helps to lower the consumption of virgin aggregates and binder, consequently the construction cost and conservation of energy. This research investigates the performance of Jatropha curcas oil (JCO) as a bio-based rejuvenating agent for reclaimed asphalt binders and mixtures. The optimum JCO content was determined through asphalt binder test. A total of 4% JCO by mass of asphalt binder (40% RAP + 60% virgin binder) was incorporated into the binder and mixtures. The effects of JCO on asphalt binder and mixture were investigated via physical properties test, bleeding test, diffusion test, rheological properties, chemical properties and mixtures performance test, respectively. The test results show that the incorporation of JCO with virgin binder decreased the viscosity and improved the visco-elastic properties of the rejuvenated binder. Viscosity reduction was also observed when JCO incorporated with reclaimed asphalt binder. Hence, this indicates the potential to reduce the production temperature of the RAP mixture. From the rheological master curves, the addition of JCO decreased the complex modulus values compared to the virgin binder sample. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) test results showed the ability of JCO to reduce the effects of aging. The performance of recycled asphalt mixtures was improved in terms of workability, while reducing the fuel requirement and GHG emissions gas released during the production of the mixtures. Moreover, the addition of JCO improves the adhesion between the recycled binder and aggregate, therefore, providing more resistance to moisture damage

Evolutionary Nature of the Definition of Educational Technology

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