Microfinance Banks and Entrepreneurship Development in Nigeria: A Case of Ogun State

The purpose of this study was to determine how microfinance impacts on entrepreneurship development in Nigeria with a special reference to Ogun State. The survey research design was adopted and data collected through questionnaires. The impact of microfinance on entrepreneurship development in Nigeria was analyzed using the Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression method. The study revealed the existence of positive relationship between microfinance and entrepreneurship development in Nigeria. It further revealed that microfinance contribute to entrepreneurial activities that can lead to sustainable development in Nigeria. The findings of this study show that microfinance institutions go a long way in the determination of the level of entrepreneurial productivity and development in the Nigerian economy. In order to enhance entrepreneurship which is a potent instrument of activating the economic growth in developing countries, job creation, wealth creation, poverty eradication, innovations, and its related welfare effects by microfinance, the study recommended that in order to enable the beneficiaries of micro finance schemes to fully appreciate the utility of the facility, the monetary authority (CBN) must continue to appraise the credit delivery channels and formulate policies that would facilitate the delivery of the facilities to the rural communities. Microfinance institutions need to put in more effort in financing entrepreneurial activities that can promote economic growth accessible to the poor, reform of the legal system to offer more protection to investors and creditors and also establishment of credit information exchange mechanism that would track all borrowings and repayments in the banking system no matter the size. Key words: Entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, microfinance bank, microfinance, loan

Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) satellite observations of ammonia, methanol, formic acid, and carbon monoxide over the Canadian oil sands: Validation and model evaluation

The wealth of air quality information provided by satellite infrared observations of ammonia (NH3), carbon monoxide (CO), formic acid (HCOOH), and methanol (CH3OH) is currently being explored and used for a number of applications, especially at regional or global scales. These applications include air quality monitoring, trend analysis, emissions, and model evaluation. This study provides one of the first direct validations of Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) satellite-retrieved profiles of NH3, CH3OH, and HCOOH through comparisons with coincident aircraft profiles. The comparisons are performed over the Canadian oil sands region during the intensive field campaign (August-September, 2013) in support of the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM). The satellite/aircraft comparisons over this region during this period produced errors of (i) +0.08 \ub1 0.25 ppbv for NH3, (ii) +7.5 \ub1 23 ppbv for CO, (iii) +0.19 \ub1 0.46 ppbv for HCOOH, and (iv) -1.1 \ub1 0.39 ppbv for CH3OH. These values mostly agree with previously estimated retrieval errors; however, the relatively large negative bias in CH3OH and the significantly greater positive bias for larger HCOOH and CO values observed during this study warrant further investigation. Satellite and aircraft ammonia observations during the field campaign are also used in an initial effort to perform preliminary evaluations of Environment Canada's Global Environmental Multi-scale - Modelling Air quality and CHemistry (GEM-MACH) air quality modelling system at high resolution (2.5 7 2.5 km2). These initial results indicate a model underprediction of 3c 0.6 ppbv ( 3c 60 %) for NH3, during the field campaign period. The TES/model CO comparison differences are 3c +20 ppbv ( 3c +20 %), but given that under these conditions the TES/aircraft comparisons also show a small positive TES CO bias indicates that the overall model underprediction of CO is closer to 3c 10 % at 681 hPa ( 3c 3 km) during this period.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye

Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) satellite observations of ammonia, methanol, formic acid, and carbon monoxide over the Canadian oil sands: Validation and model evaluation

The wealth of air quality information provided by satellite infrared observations of ammonia (NH3), carbon monoxide (CO), formic acid (HCOOH), and methanol (CH3OH) is currently being explored and used for a number of applications, especially at regional or global scales. These applications include air quality monitoring, trend analysis, emissions, and model evaluation. This study provides one of the first direct validations of Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) satellite-retrieved profiles of NH3, CH3OH, and HCOOH through comparisons with coincident aircraft profiles. The comparisons are performed over the Canadian oil sands region during the intensive field campaign (August-September, 2013) in support of the Joint Canada-Alberta Implementation Plan for Oil Sands Monitoring (JOSM). The satellite/aircraft comparisons over this region during this period produced errors of (i) +0.08 \ub1 0.25 ppbv for NH3, (ii) +7.5 \ub1 23 ppbv for CO, (iii) +0.19 \ub1 0.46 ppbv for HCOOH, and (iv) -1.1 \ub1 0.39 ppbv for CH3OH. These values mostly agree with previously estimated retrieval errors; however, the relatively large negative bias in CH3OH and the significantly greater positive bias for larger HCOOH and CO values observed during this study warrant further investigation. Satellite and aircraft ammonia observations during the field campaign are also used in an initial effort to perform preliminary evaluations of Environment Canada's Global Environmental Multi-scale - Modelling Air quality and CHemistry (GEM-MACH) air quality modelling system at high resolution (2.5 7 2.5 km2). These initial results indicate a model underprediction of 3c 0.6 ppbv ( 3c 60 %) for NH3, during the field campaign period. The TES/model CO comparison differences are 3c +20 ppbv ( 3c +20 %), but given that under these conditions the TES/aircraft comparisons also show a small positive TES CO bias indicates that the overall model underprediction of CO is closer to 3c 10 % at 681 hPa ( 3c 3 km) during this period.Peer reviewed: YesNRC publication: Ye