Logistics and performance in the shipping industry

This paper conceptually investigates the effects of Strategic Human Resources Management on the performance of shipping firms within the global shipping industry. The paper's conceptual findings show that all three components of strategic HRM, i.e. selection and recruitment, retention and staff termination, have a positive effect on the operational performance of shipping firms. However, implementation of each aspect of strategic HRM is important. The employee must be placed at the centre of the implementation process. Ignoring the employee’s needs can have a negative effect on operational performance

Government Agricultural Credit Policy and Macroeconomic Fundamentals: a case study of Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) in Nigeria

The study established the relationship between amount of loan guaranteed by the Agricultural Credit Guarantee Scheme Fund (ACGSF) and some key macroeconomic variables in Nigeria. Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit root test and improved ADF-GLS unit root test conducted on the specified time series showed that all series were integrated of order one. The short-run and long-run elasticities of amount of loan guaranteed by ACGSF with respect to some key macro-economic fundamentals were determined using the techniques of co-integration and error correction models. The empirical results revealed that in the long run, the coefficients of interest rate charged by commercial banks and value of oil revenue has a significant negative and positive relationship respectively with the amount of loan guaranteed by the ACGSF in the country. Whereas in the short run, the coefficients of the previous amount of loan guaranteed and value of oil revenue as well as the real GDP has a positive association with the current amount of loan guaranteed by ACGSF while the external debt has a negative association. The results were further substantiated by the variance decomposition and impulse response analysis of the dependent variable with respect to changes in the explanatory variables. The findings call for appropriate short and long term economic policy packages that should focused on the stabilization of the identified significant macroeconomic shifters of amount of loan guaranteed by ACGSF in the country. Special attention should be given to the interest charged on agricultural loan by participating banks. Also, diversification of the country’s economy and drastic reduction in external debt would boost the operation of ACGSF in the country and enhances credit availability to Nigerian farmers. Keywords: Credit, policy, macroeconomic, external debt, interest rate, ACGSF, Nigeri

Influence of firm related factors and industrial policy regime on technology based capacity utilization in sugar industry in Nigeria

The study analyzed the technology based capacity utilization rate in sugar industry in Nigeria in the period 1970 to 2010. Data used in the study were obtained from the sugar firms, publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria and National Bureau of Statistics. Augmented Dicker Fuller unit root test was conducted on the specified data to ascertain their stationarity and order of integration. The result reveals that some variables were stationary at level while some were stationary at first difference. The diagnostic statistics from the multiple log linear regression on the specified variables confirmed the reliability of the model. The empirical result reveals that sugar cane price and sugar industry’s real energy consumption have significant negative relationship with the technology based capacity utilization in the sugar industry in Nigeria. On the other hand, the wage rate of skill workers, industry’s, real research expenditure, human capital and period of import substitution have significant positive influenced on the technology based capacity utilization rate in the industry. Our findings suggest that policy measures aim at expanding the hectares of industrial sugarcane and increase production of refined petroleum fuel in the country will promote capacity utilization in the industry. Also policies targeted on the intensification of research and improved worker’s remuneration in the sub-sector is strongly advocated.Sugar, firm, capacity, utilization, industry, technology, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, GA, IN,

Caregivers’ Perceptions of Burden and Health- Promoting Behaviours among Informal Caregivers of Cancer and Stroke Patients Attending Tertiary Care Facilities in South- South Nigeria

Family caregivers’ role in cancer and stroke care is overly burdensome. Studies have considered burden and predictors of burden but the influence of caregiving burden on health - promoting behaviours among cancer and stroke family caregivers in Nigeria is scarce. The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of caregivers’ perceptions of burden and health-promoting behaviours on informal caregivers of cancer/ stroke patients attending tertiary care facilities in South- South Nigeria. A descriptive cross-sectional survey was employed among 410 purposively selected cancer/ stroke patients’ family caregivers in tertiary care facilities, South- South Nigeria. A standardized Zarit burden interview scale and structured questionnaire were used to measure burden and determine health-promoting behaviours respectively. Descriptive (means, standard deviation and percentages) and inferential (ANOVA) statistics with a Fisher’s protected t- test at 0.05 level of significance were used for data analysis. The respondents experienced severe (F= 14.02; P= 0.810) burden in caregiving to cancer/ stroke patients. The influence of health- promoting behaviours (primary, secondary and tertiary preventions) among caregivers of cancer/ stroke is significantly high in the tertiary care facilities, South-South, Nigeria. Caregivers of cancer and stroke patients experienced severe levels of burden and health-promoting-behaviours in terms of prevention at the primary, secondary and tertiary activities were significantly high among respondents. This calls for knowledge mobilization and dissemination in Nigeria and beyond

Solutions of Schr\"odinger Equation with Generalized Inverted Hyperbolic Potential

We present the bound state solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation with generalized inverted hyperbolic potential using the Nikiforov-Uvarov method. We obtain the energy spectrum and the wave function with this potential for arbitrary - state. We show that the results of this potential reduced to the standard known potentials - Rosen-Morse, Poschl - Teller and Scarf potential as special cases. We also discussed the energy equation and the wave function for these special cases.Comment: 20pages, 5figure

Consumers Attention and Interactivity towards Online Visual Advertisements: The Graphic Designers’ Peremptory Challenges.

Although new media graphic design is relatively new in Nigeria, compared to advertising, their scale, scope and immediacy have increased substantially with the diffusion of new technologies like mobile network, cable television and the Internet.  This rapid development of information and communication technologies has enabled easy and rapid interaction between the graphic designer, advertiser and consumer. As a result, designers and advertisers are increasingly relying on various modes of interactive technology in new media to advertise and promote their products and services in Nigeria, thus, forcing the traditional design and advertising practices into relative obsolesce. In studying new media graphic design and advertising, this paper appraises online ads in Nigeria to highlight how designers and advertisers can effectively deliver messages to targeted audience.  The major new media ad formats and their peculiar advantages over the traditional media are equally highlighted in the context of current design and advertising trend in general. Keywords: New Media, Graphics Design Formats, Advertising Trend, Online Advertising

Energy Crisis in Nigeria: A Golden Way for Building Other African Economies with Particular Reference to Ghana in the 21st Century

Structurally, functional infrastructural facilities are one of the stimuli for the development of any nation. For long, Nigerian has been experiencing energy crisis, with negative impact on the national economy. Power is perhaps the infrastructural axis in which economy revolves. Towards the beginning of this century, the power situation in Nigeria deteriorated each passing day forcing productive industries to generate private power through the use of generators. The production cost become too burdensome to bear and often times resorted to huge losses. This was as a result of persistent power outages, closure of businesses etc. Some African countries especially Ghana then, and even now, are doing well in the power sector. In this connection many industries in Nigeria have since relocated and some are planning to relocate to Ghana and elsewhere. Besides power, it is also contended that other environmental factors such as security, good tariff regime are favourable to business development and growth in Ghana. The paper therefore examines the impact of the power crisis in Nigeria and the benefits the Ghanaians are deriving from this crisis. It concludes that Nigerians are suffering economically and socially. The movement of key industries to Ghana have increased the unemployment ratio in Nigeria, reduced the level of taxes to states; these and others have generated social and insecurity problems and aggravated underdevelopment. Ghanaian economy is receiving a boost and potentials for growth at the expense of Nigeria caused by ineptitude of Nigerian leaders.LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 8(1), 232-240, 201

Migration, Marriage and the Narrative of (Dis)location in African Short Stories

This paper interrogates marriage and family reunion not only as a strategic site of negotiating and mediating legibility of migrants, but also where residency and citizenship in their destination countries are politicised and contested in Chimamanda Adichie’s “Arrangers of Marriage”, a story in The Thing Around your Neck and some selected stories in Chika Unigwe’s Better Never than Late. As literary research, this paper relies on close reading and analysis of some extrapolations in some selected stories in the two collections, using Postcolonial concepts of ‘othering’ and unhomliness’. The study reveals that, order than its cardinal purposes of reunification and family formation, some migration marriages are fraught terrains for negotiating and formalising citizenship and permanent residency at migration destinations. It is against this backdrop that the paper concludes that migration processes could be regulated, if potential migrant couples are always made to prove the authenticity of their union, which could be detectable by examining their care-giving commitments and/ or procreation intentions