Video Etnografi: Pengalaman Penelitian Sosial dengan Video Kamera di Sulawesi Selatan

Tujuan penelitian ini adalah untuk mengeksplorasi bagaimana video kamera dapat membantu focus pikiran peneliti, mempertajam naluri etnografi, memperbagus hubungan dengan masyarakat dan memperbagus laporan penelitian. Penelitian dilakukan di Sulawesi Selatan selama satu tahun dengan menggunakan handycam Sony DCR-TRV27, handycam Sony yang dilengkapi dengan fitur screen dan layar pengintip untuk siang hari. Kecanggihan teknologi kamera bertemu dengan kekayaan kehidupan social di Sulawesi Selatan, sebagaimana terefleksikan paling baik dalam upacara pernikahan. Video kamera secara sistematik mempunyai tempat yang penting dalam system knowledge/power local. Melakukan hal ini, artikel ini tidak hanya mendiskusikan tentang penggunaan kamera di praktek etnografis, tetapi juga mendiskusikan dunia sosial yang memungkinkan kamera mempunyai peran yang sangat penting didalamnya. In this article, the author explores how a video camera can refocus researcher’s mind, sharpens ethnographic senses, and improve relation with the community. This sophisticated feature of technology has met with the vibrancy of social life in South Sulawesi, best reflected in wedding ceremonies, placing camera nicely in the existing local system of knowledge/power. The research was done for one year using Sony handycam Sony DCR-TRV27. The study is drawn from a year fieldwork experience in South Sulawesi. This article does not only discuss the use of camera in an ethnographic practice, but also discusses the social world that has enabled the camera to have a central place in it

Is population an asset or a liability to Nigeria’s economic growth? Evidence from FM-OLS and ARDL approach to cointegration

The controversial debate on whether high population translates to weak or better economic growth has been a topical discussion in the area of development economics. This study therefore uses the data of the Nigerian economy to investigate the links among population growth, growth in output and income per capita growth for the periods of 1981–2018. The study employs both ARDL bound testing approach to cointegration and fully modified least square methods to evaluate the parameter estimates. We found that there exists a long-run relationship between population growth and economic growth in Nigeria. Further, the study found that the statistical and significant effect of population growth is more on long-run income growth than long-run income per capita growth. Meanwhile, in the short-run, an adverse effect is reported from population growth to economic growth, implying that the former has a detrimental effect on the latter. The reason for the adverse effects of population growth in the short-run results from the high number of dependents, whereas, in the long-run, there is a chance of demographic dividend that makes the young people becomes productive in their adulthood. Our findings, therefore, support the league of many studies that population growth is an asset to the long-run economic growth of Nigeria. In contrast, it has a poor impact on economic performance in the short-run. Thus, there is a need for proper and adequate utilization of the country’s rising population in appropriate areas of the economy where their efforts would be fully utilized towards improving the overall growth of Nigeria

Investment, Public Spending and Income Growth: Implication for Poverty Reduction Policy in Nigeria

This study examines the precise relationship between income and poverty rate in Nigeria within the period of 1970 and 2013. It tests for unit root, cointegration, multiple regression estimation, post-estimation and causal relations among income, government spending on health and education, investment, revenue from oil proceeds and poverty rate. The results showed that government spending on education and revenue from oil proceeds plays a greater role in reducing poverty level in Nigeria. Nevertheless, income, investment, and government spending on health deteriorate the reduction in poverty level in Nigeria. This can be adduced to bad governance and high level of corruption in our public offices which has ruined the country’s resources. Therefore, there is need for good governance that promotes civil and economic liberties as they are essential for the development of citizenry initiatives and opportunity creation. Keywords: Poverty rate, income, public spending, investment, Nigeria

SME Credit Financing, Financial Development and Economic Growth in Nigeria

This paper examines the impact of small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) credit financing and financial market development and their shocks on the output growth of  Nigeria. The study estimated a VAR model for Nigeria using 1970-2013 annual data  series. Unit root tests and cointegration are carried out. The study explores IRFs and  FEVDs in a system that includes output, commercial bank loan to SMEs, domestic  credit to private sector by banks, money supply, lending rate and investment. Findings  suggest that shocks in commercial bank credit to SMEs has a major impact on the  output changes of Nigeria. Money supply shocks also have a sizeable impact on output  growth variations amidst other financial instruments. Lastly, neutrality of investment  does not hold in Nigeria as it also has impact on output fluctuations.Keywords: SMEs financing, financial development, investment, output, Nigeria.JEL Classification:

The Nigerian Law of Evidence and the Emerging Rules of Civil Procedure: Ignoring Validity on the Alter of Expediency?

Nigeria, as a commonwealth country operates an adversarial system of justice, a system that requires judges to remain unbiased umpires with minimum or no interference in the conduct of cases by the parties, especially in civil litigation. All the rules of civil procedure in Nigeria have always been premised on the strict adversarial philosophy but this had only succeeded in creating room for unnecessary delay and congestion in civil litigation in the country. A set of new civil procedure rules aimed at giving the judges firmer control over proceedings before them were therefore recently enacted. However, these rules, in a bid to promote speedy trial, seem to have ignored the issue of validity in respect of some of their provisions which appear to challenge the existing law of evidence in the country. Evidence is one of the maters under the Exclusive Legislative List of the country’s Constitution[1] with the result that only the federal legislature can make law on the subject. On the other hand, all the new rules, with the exception of that of the Federal Capital Territory, were made by the states. Therefore, any provision in the rules which touches on evidence may constitute an encroachment on the federal legislative power and as such may not be valid. The object of this paper is to examine those provisions in the new rules which appear to deal with evidence and to evaluate the extent of the validity such provisions. Keywords: Nigerian law of evidence, new rules of civil procedure, validity. [1] Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999

A Multi-Agent Architecture for the Design of Hierarchical Interval Type-2 Beta Fuzzy System

This paper presents a new methodology for building and evolving hierarchical fuzzy systems. For the system design, a tree-based encoding method is adopted to hierarchically link low dimensional fuzzy systems. Such tree structural representation has by nature a flexible design offering more adjustable and modifiable structures. The proposed hierarchical structure employs a type-2 beta fuzzy system to cope with the faced uncertainties, and the resulting system is called the Hierarchical Interval Type-2 Beta Fuzzy System (HT2BFS). For the system optimization, two main tasks of structure learning and parameter tuning are applied. The structure learning phase aims to evolve and learn the structures of a population of HT2BFS in a multiobjective context taking into account the optimization of both the accuracy and the interpretability metrics. The parameter tuning phase is applied to refine and adjust the parameters of the system. To accomplish these two tasks in the most optimal and faster way, we further employ a multi-agent architecture to provide both a distributed and a cooperative management of the optimization tasks. Agents are divided into two different types based on their functions: a structure agent and a parameter agent. The main function of the structure agent is to perform a multi-objective evolutionary structure learning step by means of the Multi-Objective Immune Programming algorithm (MOIP). The parameter agents have the function of managing different hierarchical structures simultaneously to refine their parameters by means of the Hybrid Harmony Search algorithm (HHS). In this architecture, agents use cooperation and communication concepts to create high-performance HT2BFSs. The performance of the proposed system is evaluated by several comparisons with various state of art approaches on noise-free and noisy time series prediction data sets and regression problems. The results clearly demonstrate a great improvement in the accuracy rate, the convergence speed and the number of used rules as compared with other existing approaches

InSb avalanche photodiodes on GaAs substrates for mid-infrared detection

We present indium antimonide-based devices for mid-infrared (mid-IR) detection with enhanced sensitivity. InSb devices will be useful for many applications, such as gas sensing and imaging. InSb avalanche photodiodes (APDs) monolithically integrated with GaAs substrates were fabricated with diameters ranging from 90 to $200~\mu \text{m}$ and extensively characterized at temperatures ranging from 77 K to 300 K. At 120 K a zero-bias responsivity of 2 A/W was measured, corresponding to a quantum efficiency of 55%. An experimental gain value of 10 at a reverse bias of −3 V was obtained at 120 K, which to the best of our knowledge, is the highest ever reported for InSb APDs. These results pave the way for the development of a monolithically integrated mid-IR array with added gain and wavelength tunability

Introducing the Dark Energy Universe Simulation Series (DEUSS)

In this "Invisible Universe" proceedings, we introduce the Dark Energy Universe Simulation Series (DEUSS) which aim at investigating the imprints of realistic dark energy models on cosmic structure formation. It represents the largest dynamical dark energy simulation suite to date in term of spatial dynamics. We first present the 3 realistic dark energy models (calibrated on latest SNIa and CMB data): LambdaCDM, quintessence with Ratra-Peebles potential, and quintessence with Sugra potential. We then isolate various contributions for non-linear matter power spectra from a series of pre-DEUSS high-resolution simulations (130 million particles). Finally, we introduce DEUSS which consist in 9 Grand Challenge runs with 1 billion particles each thus probing scales from 4 Gpc down to 3 kpc at z=0. Our goal is to make these simulations available to the community through the "Dark Energy Universe Virtual Observatory" (DEUVO), and the "Dark Energy Universe Simulations" (DEUS) consortium.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the AIP proceedings of the 'Invisible Universe International Conference', UNESCO-Paris, June 29-July 3, 200

The Role of Dukun Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan in Curing Diseases in Kediri Community

Finding a cure when people get sick is an important thing. One of the efforts done by Kediri people in finding for a cure is to come to a Dukun (Shaman/traditional healer) Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan. The purposes of this research are to know the profiles and methods of Dukun Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan, and their role in curing diseases. This research used descriptive qualitative method. The results of this research show that (1) the process of healing and problem solution performed by Dukun Suwuk uses prayer as a key source of power. And Dukun Prewangan uses the help of supernatural beings who become their working partners to cure or resolve the problem, (2) Dukun Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan has an important role in society because of their presence is needed and respected. In addition, Dukun Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan who have been offering the services had experienced a lot of things as a living experience, (3) healing process performed by Dukun Suwuk and Dukun Prewangan is one solution for patients to be free from the ambiguous conditions of liminal stage. Choosing to go to a traditional healer healing is a rational choice for each patient