Current Trends In Educational Technology: Implication On Educational Managers In Nigeria

This paper presents the current trends in educational technology and the implication on educational managers in Nigeria. The current trends in the field of educational technology are centred on the influence of information and communication technology on the development of educational management. Various challenges have been created for the educational managers, who are the custodians of educational resources. Some of the challenges include the use of computer management packages, Internet application, teleconferencing and so on. With the proliferation of computer networks and information technology there is increased efficiency in the management of educational resources and decision making hence, the Nigerian educational managers can boast of meeting the expected height of their contemporaries across the globe. The Information Manager Vol. 6 (1&2) 2006: pp. 8-1

An Empirical Examination of the Socio-Economic Consequences of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Outbreak in US, UK, Germany and China: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

This paper critically examines the socio-economic impact of the Corona virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), focusing on four developed nations of the world, including China, Germany, UK and US. Survey data was used to analyze the relationship between eight critical socio-economic variables, including economic stability, daily living, mental health, worry about COVID-19, satisfaction with the national government's response to the COVID-19, people's personal finances, satisfaction with fellow citizens' response to the COVID-19, and satisfaction with hospitals' response to the COVID-19. Considering the complexity of the interrelationship between the variables, a structural equation modelling approach was used to assess the impact of the COVID-19 on these variables.  Result shows that the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the daily lives of people. This is also having negative effect on their ability to contribute meaningfully to economic activities, which ultimately affects the economic stability of their nations as a whole. The result from this study also shows the importance of the health sector in nation-building. The health sector has critical roles to play beyond taking care of the sick that have contracted the COVID-19. The health sector is critical in inspiring confidence in the public and causing citizens to be mentally, psychologically and emotionally stable. Mental stability is needed for citizens to carry out their economic activities and contribute meaningfully to economic stability; therefore, the health sector has important role to play during and after the COVID-19 outbreak. The findings from this paper draws the attention of the government as a critical force in resuscitating the economy post COVID-19. The government would have to formulate and implement policies that will inspire confidence as at present, people are somewhat not satisfied with the national government's response to the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic, as the level of satisfaction is just average. Keywords: corona virus; COVID-19; disease; pandemic, economic stability; socio-economic; wellbeing, structural-equation. DOI: 10.7176/IAGS/68-04 Publication date:July 31st 202

A Policy Analysis of Cybersecurity and Mobile Applications: Implications on the Media Space

This study presents discussion for several examples that illustrates the importance of having a security policy for mobile phones. The study further examines the importance of developing a national security policy created for mobile devices in order to protect sensitive, and personal data to safeguard the media space. By inspection, it was observed from the literature that smartphones are becoming a vehicle to provide an efficient and convenient way to access, find and share information; however, the availability of this information has caused an increase in cyber attacks. Currently, cyber threats range from Trojans and viruses to botnets and toolkits. Presently, 96% of smartphones do not have pre-installed security software. This lack in security is an opportunity for malicious cyber attackers to hack into the various devices that are popular (i.e. Android, iPhone and Blackberry). Traditional security software found in personal computers (PCs), such as firewalls, antivirus, and encryption, is not currently available in smartphones. Moreover, smartphones are even more vulnerable than personal computers because more people are using smartphones to do personal tasks. Nowadays, smartphone users can email, use social networking applications (Facebook and Twitter), buy and download various applications and shop. Furthermore, users can now conduct monetary transactions, such as buying goods, redeeming coupons and tickets, banking and processing point-of-sale payments. Monetary transactions are especially attractive to cyber attackers because they can gain access to bank account information after hacking a user’s smartphone. Lastly, smartphones are small and are easy to carry anywhere. Unfortunately, the convenience of using smartphones to do personal task is the loophole cyber attackers need to gain access to personal data. Keywords: Smartphones, Social Media, Cybersecurity, Computers, E-commerce, Operating Systems, Internets, Browsers DOI: 10.7176/ISDE/13-1-04 Publication date:March 31st 202

An Analysis of the Impact of Computer Based Technologies on Business Communications

This article utilizes Information Communication Technology (ICT) frameworks to investigate the impactful effect of Information Communication Technology (ICT) such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) and electronic commerce (e-commerce) on businesses in general. A narrative literature review analysis (or type) of research has been adopted, while a Boolean search of 24 articles met the criteria for inclusion. As part of the literature search, the data collection procedure took into account the first and second authors of the completed simultaneous electronic and ancestral searches for peer-reviewed articles by using the online database, Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), and five databases from A Database Management System (DBMS): Oracle Database Software (ODS), A Relational Database Management System (RDMS), Journal Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery (JDMKD) as well as Google scholar and advanced Google scholar. As part of the findings for the study utilized for the article, many scholars made specific inferences to the ICT applications in firms and businesses. Out of the twenty-four articles, six of the researchers, thus 24%, underscored and also perceived that e-commerce has become a widely accepted method for business operation. Researchers of 4 articles—thus 17% -- explicitly stated in their research that the use of e-commerce in the business world has benefited companies greatly. A total of 7 (29.5%) researchers –provide detailed discussion in the literature about labor productivity and ICT applications in businesses, mass communications, firms, and organizations, as well as the effective implementation of ERP in firms, businesses, and organizations. Above all, the article has unearthed implications as well as made cogent suggestion for future research in order to contribute to overall educational policy of society. Toward this end, three (12.5%) researchers provide a discussion about Supply Chain Management (SCM) performance and the components of an ERP system as well as ERP successful implementation emphasizing on the application and importance of ICT to businesses. Keywords: ICT, Enterprise, Resource, Planning, Businesses, Firms, E-commerce, Computers, Database DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/14-2-04 Publication date:March 31st 202

Detecting transit signatures of exoplanetary rings using SOAP3.0

CONTEXT. It is theoretically possible for rings to have formed around extrasolar planets in a similar way to that in which they formed around the giant planets in our solar system. However, no such rings have been detected to date. AIMS: We aim to test the possibility of detecting rings around exoplanets by investigating the photometric and spectroscopic ring signatures in high-precision transit signals. METHODS: The photometric and spectroscopic transit signals of a ringed planet is expected to show deviations from that of a spherical planet. We used these deviations to quantify the detectability of rings. We present SOAP3.0 which is a numerical tool to simulate ringed planet transits and measure ring detectability based on amplitudes of the residuals between the ringed planet signal and best fit ringless model. RESULTS: We find that it is possible to detect the photometric and spectroscopic signature of near edge-on rings especially around planets with high impact parameter. Time resolution $\leq$ 7 mins is required for the photometric detection, while 15 mins is sufficient for the spectroscopic detection. We also show that future instruments like CHEOPS and ESPRESSO, with precisions that allow ring signatures to be well above their noise-level, present good prospects for detecting rings.Comment: 13 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables , accepted for publication in A&

Declining Budgetary Allocation to Higher Education in The United States: Causes and Consequences for Economic Development

In recent times, there has been a consistent decrease in the amount of state budgets for higher education in the United States of America. This calls for great concern as higher education must compete with several other state budget items for funding. Also, more individuals need to possess workforce credentials and college degrees for the country to remain competitive in today’s economy. In the light of the critical role of education in socio-economic development, this paper elaborates on the importance of prioritizing education and increasing state funding for higher education. The study revealed in the literature that higher education is a foundation for productivity improvement and economic growth, and that countries that invest heavily in education and skills, benefit economically and socially from that choice. As a result, the study calls on lawmakers and policy formulators to make provisions for high-quality, affordable and accessible higher education by increasing the funding to pursue college education. As the world continues to change and becomes increasingly interdependent, the United States of America cannot afford to rest on its historic record as the world’s leader in educational attainment. Keywords: Higher Education, Budget, State, Funding, Expenditure, Economics, Development DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-10-12 Publication date:May 31st 202

A Review of the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (Chipra) and its Implementation in Louisiana, USA

The study reviews the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) and its implementation in Louisiana, USA. The Act was enacted at the Federal level to assist the various States to provide health care coverage to the eligible children only, through either Medicaid or the CHIP programs. The CHIPRA through the CHIP was managed by states, according to the federal requirements, set rules and measures. At the same time, the CHIP program through the CHIPRA was both financed by the various states and the federal government to ensure a healthy growth among America’s children. The Act (CHIPRA) paid little or no consideration to the great number of the non-immigrant and immigrant children in the United States of America, thereby exposing the less disadvantaged immigrants’ and non-immigrant children at the school going age to high risk of infectious diseases whenever there is an outbreak. Meanwhile, from the policy review perspective the Act and its associated programs are likely to be failed in terms of recurrent cost of treating diseases and fighting eradication in the near future. Perhaps, this is true because it has been observed over the years that the entire non-immigrant and immigrant children of school-going-age population group mingled-up with the native American Children in classrooms, playing grounds and many other recreational centers for fun, which makes it impossible to eradicate any outbreak of infectious diseases. For the purposes of the review of the CHIPRA and CHIP program, the study adopted Chi-Square analytical techniques, and also utilizes primary sources of data to evaluate or review CHIPRA from the perception of the American residents. As a result the study found out that it is very difficult for CHIP to embark on disease eradication among all school going age children (or infants) when an outbreak occurred. Additionally, the study underscored that majority of the respondents were of the view that CHIP through the CHIPRA is seen as a high-cost intensive program-which is also likely to be inefficient in operation based on it purposes of establishment (i.e. disease eradication or controls outbreak among children). Therefore, this current study highly recommends that at the State-level, legislative-bodies, policymakers and governors should re-package the CHIP and also review the CHIPRA to cover all the school going age children at the state-level in order to protect the children from any outbreak of disease for eradication to be possible. KEYWORDS: Medicaid, Health Insurance, CHIPRA, Equality, CHIP, and Epidemiology DOI: 10.7176/PPAR/10-2-07 Publication date: February 29th 202

Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Mental State, Personal Finance and the Economy: Evidence from the United States

This paper investigated the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the mental state of the US residents, as well as the impact of mental state on personal finance and the US economy. The objectives of the current study were to: (i) determine the factors affecting the psychological state of US residents following COVID-19 outbreak; (ii) evaluate the impact of mental state and personal life on economy and finance. By deploying quantitative research design, secondary survey data relating to the US were analysed using descriptive statistics and structural equation modelling. Result shows that a sizable proportion of people are worried about their mental health because of the COVID-19. Furthermore, the level of satisfaction with the national government's response to the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic in the United States is low, while people are generally not satisfied with fellow citizens' response to the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic in the United States. However, the level of Satisfaction with hospitals' response to the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic in the United States is generally high. The two factors affecting the psychological state of US residents are the impact of the COVID-19 / coronavirus pandemic on personal finances and the level of hospitals' response to the COVID-19 (research objective one). Worry and mental state both affect people's everyday life, however, the impact of worry is more pronounced on everyday life, as this may affect people’s productivity (research objective two). Considering that US residents/ citizens are generally satisfied with the measures taken by hospitals to tackle the spread of COVID-19 and treat COVID-19 pandemic, the study recommends that more public funds should be pledged to upscaling the quality and capacity of health infrastructure in the US. This becomes important considering that hospitals have a great impact on the psychological state of residents. Keywords: COVID-19, mental health, personal finance, US economy, social distancing DOI: 10.7176/JESD/12-6-09 Publication date:March 31st 202

Effects of the South African IP Regime on Generating Value from Publicly Funded Research: An Exploratory Study of Two Universities

This study analyses evidence from two South African universities of how innovation activity and research dissemination are being influenced by a new intellectual property (IP) commercialisation law for publicly funded research outputs. The study sought to understand the ways in which the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development (IPR-PFRD) Act of 2008 and its Regulations influence the generation of value from research. The study was positioned within a theoretical frame which holds that maximalist approaches to IP protection tend to be sub-optimal for certain long-term socio-economic objectives inherent in research funding. The research found evidence of adaptation by both of the universities studied (UCT and Wits University) to the requirements of the Act, and evidence that the Act can have a positive influence on South Africa’s innovation nexus provided that the Act’s patenting orientation continues to be complemented by openness-oriented research dissemination and collaboration practices, including open access (OA) scholarly publishing