Historical Background, Development and Standard of Public Libraries: An Overview of the Nigerian Situationrward

It has been observed that public libraries in Nigeria have not developed asexpected. Instead of moving forward, they are still very backward in terms of development. This paper examines the historical background development and standard of public libraries services in Nigeria. It looks at the roles and the sources of funding of these libraries and pinpoints problems bedeviling them. It concludes by recommending ways of revamping the public libraries from their doldrums

Preservation and Conservation of Yoruba Cultural Artifacts: The Place of Nigerian Libraries and Archives

There had been losses of a lot of invaluable Yoruba cultural artefacts and sources of oral information to ignorance, inferno, burglary, and sabotage, biological and chemical "attackers" and to other forms and agents of annihilation. Some of these losses are avoidable and therefore preventable. These avoidable losses have had and will continue to have unquantifiable effects on the rich and cherished traditional values because the richness of the Yoruba cultural values is not unconnected with their cultural artefacts and oral information. The paper briefly examines the origin of Yoruba race and chronicles the history and growth of libraries and their antecedents - writing and printing. Besides, the concerns of this paper are the subjects of preservation and conservation and the dangers inherent in the insecurity of the traditional artefacts. Recommendations that could improve the situation, especially by addressing the problems of gross under-utilization of opportunities provided by libraries and archives in the preservation and conservation of Yoruba artefacts and oral information were offered

Consumers’ Buying Decisions of Foreign and Domestic Products in Nigeria: An Analysis

This study investigates the relationship between buying decisions of foreign products and Domestic products in Nigeria. It specifically studied buyers in six (6) cities; one each from the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. Factor analysis scales was used to examine perceived predicators of consumers’ buying decisions between the two product types, such as personality scales, attitude measurements, ability scales green marketing and innovative drives as well as market orientations. Two separate markets comprising super / departmental stores and open markets were carefully delineated to include all manners of buyers in the analysis. Again, two sets of structured questionnaires were designed to elicit relevant data from the target population. Hence, fifteen (15) copies of structured questionnaire were administered in each segment of the six (6) cities using multi-stage sampling technique. In all, a total of 180 reporters supply relevant data for this analysis. The resultant data was analysed using simple percentage statistics, bar chart and logistic regression model. The study reveals that the major predicators of consumers’ buying decisions between foreign and domestic products in Nigeria, as arranged in the order priority are: ‘Green Marketing drive’, ‘Innovative drive’, ‘Ability scales’, ‘Attitude measurements’ and ‘Personality scales’. The general market performance for the products under review is high, foreign products show higher market performance domestic products in the general market. It shows that at least 6 out of every 10 products sold in Nigerian markets are foreign products. This result reveals a scenario that Nigeria is either a consumption economy or the consumers’ taste for foreign products is high. The study recommends that marketers trading on domestic products must pay attention to consumers’ ‘Green Marketing drive’, ‘Innovative drive’ and ‘Ability scales in order to boast the consumptions of domestic products in Nigeria. It also recommends a combination of ‘responsive’ and ‘proactive’ market-oriented strategies to diversify market opportunities portfolio in Nigerian markets. Furthermore, future research is necessary to tell apart the production and consumption strengths of the Nigerian economy. Indeed, lack of availability of domestic products could predicate consumers’ high demand for foreign products, not withstanding the high prices and governmental restrictions (embargo). Keywords: foreign/domestic products, factors, consumers, buying decisions, market, performanc

Perceived Influences of Consumers’ Choice of Substitute Products in Nigeria: A Study of Dangote Flour-Mills and Maiduguri Flour-Mills Ltd

This study reviewed the impact of the perceived influences of consumers’ choice of substitute products in Nigeria, with particular emphases on consumers of flour mills products of ‘Dangote Flour-Mills Ltd’ and ‘Maiduguri Flour-Mills Ltd’. A questionnaire structured in 5 points Likert scale test was used to examine the impact of eleven (11) predicators on consumers’ buying decisions, such as quality, availability, product weight, packaging, price, transportation facilities, promotional activities, credit facilities, after sales services, user’s guides and delivery time. A total of ninety (90) respondents were sampled and resultant data were analysed with descriptive statistics and Linear Regression Model. It reveals that the major predicators of customers’ choice of substitute products in Nigeria, as arranged in the order priority are: Product price, Availability, Quality, Delivery Time, Packaging, Promotion, Easy of Transportation and Product Weight. It also reveals that the general market performance for substitute products in Nigeria is high. The study further uncovers the fact that ‘Maiduguri Flour-mills ltd’ is experience a decline sales whilst ‘Dangote Flour-mills ltd’ is experiencing an increasing sales in the general market. The study recommends that companies trading on substitute product must examine consumers’ price consciousness, product quality and availability among others, as the necessity to underscore consumer evaluation and purchase decision processes. It also recommends further research to include other substitute products to better the generalisation scope on the subject matter. Keywords: substitute-products, consumers, choice, market, performanc

EVALUATING INTERNET PROTOCOL VERSION 6 (IPv6) AGAINST VERSION 4 (IPv4)

This paper evaluates the performance of IPv6 against IPv4. IPv4 has address space shortages. The use of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) and Network Address Translation (NAT) helped to address these shortages. However, Featuresbuilt into IPv6 such as autoconfiguration, IPSec, Mobility, Multiple addresses for hosts and networks, Multicastcommunication make it well worth the cost, time and effort required to migrate to it. Performance metrics used in order toanalyze the protocols are network delay, network drop, and throughput. Results showed that IPv6 is not better in terms ofpacket management than IPv4. The results also showed that IPv6 has higher delay, and packet drop than IPv4; though themargin between the values are however small. It was also found that IPv6 has a higher throughput. It is hereby concluded,that even though IPv4 is performing better, it will not solve the address limitation problem. This has made it inevitable torecommend IPv6 as a replacement for the IPv4.Keywords: Latency, Throughput, PacketDrop, NAT, Mobility, Autoconfiguration

Poor Reading Culture: A Barrier to Students’ Patronage of Libraries Selected Secondary School in Ado Local Government Area of Ekiti-State, Nigeria

The paper examined poor reading culture: A barrier to students’ patronage of Selected Secondary School Libraries in Ado Ekiti Local Government Area of Ekiti State. The design for the study is descriptive survey which utilizes questionnaire to collect data. Oral interview was also conducted. Tables and simple percentages were adopted in the data analysis. Results of the analysis show that computer and other media, harsh economic reality, societal demand for materialism, inadequate library materials among others are causes of poor reading culture of students in secondary schools. It was also revealed that materials in secondary school libraries are not organized, inadequate, not relevant, school librarians not readily available among others constitute the reasons for poor patronage of secondary schools libraries. It concluded by giving recommendations towards the improvement of reading culture of secondary school students and the enhancement of the patronage of their school libraries

Ownership Structure and Organizational Performance: An Investigation of Food and Beverage Companies in Nigeria

This study examines the influence of ownership structure dimensions on organizational performance with specific reference to Nigerian Food and Beverage Companies. Ex-post facto research design was adopted for this study because Ex-post facto is a methodological verifiable investigation which cannot be manipulated. The population of this study consist of all the companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The companies listed are classified into twelve industrial sectors, and each sector comprises of homogenous companies.  The sample size of the study was selected based on Nigerian Stock Exchange classification of the listed companies into industrial stratum of homogeneous companies of same or similar characteristics, which the food and beverage industry forms a strata. Purposive sampling technique was used to select sixteen (16) listed food and beverage companies. The data collected for this study were extracted from the audited annual financial reports and accounts of the listed food and beverages companies in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) from 2012-2016. Both Pearson Moment Correlation Coefficient and Linear Regression techniques were employed to analyse the data. Result reveals that managerial ownership, institutional ownership, government ownership and family ownership have no significant influence on organizational performance. Result also indicates that foreign ownership has significant influence on organizational performance. Study concluded that foreign ownership structure is strong predictor of organizational performance, while, managerial ownership structure; government ownership structure and family ownership structure are weak predictors of organizational performance. Subsequently, study recommends that the policy that will encourage foreign direct investment in Nigeria should be aggressively pursued by government

A Survey and Evaluation of Medical Libraries in Ekiti State, Nigeria

The paper takes a look at the medical libraries of selected health establishments in Ekiti State, Nigeria and critically examines the levels of fitness of these libraries in supporting the objectives of their parent bodies.The paper seeks to find out the extent to which the libraries satisfy the information needs of the health workers, patients and students. Questionnaires were designed for each category of the respondents and 50copies of the questionnaires were distributed to each category. Also the researcher visited the selected libraries for on-the-spot assessment andconducted oral interviews with few respondents. Findings showed that medical libraries in Ekiti State have not been given the right priorities in the scheme of things as they are assessed to be in doldrums in term of funding and staffing. Recommendations capable of improving the situation were offered

MIGRATING BUSINESS SERVICES AND APPLICATIONS INTO THE CLOUD

Cloud computing has attracted a lot of hyperbole since it became a trendy topic for IT managers to talk about. Companiesfrequently trumpet their cloud enabled services but rarely give up details on precisely how they achieved this or how muchof their infrastructure has been fully migrated. Security and reliability of cloud services are often raised as concerns. Byunderstanding the basics of cloud computing and knowing how to assess important factors such as security and theidentification of systems that are suitable for migration, it becomes much easier to design and implement a cloud strategy.This paper provides the essential facts about the cloud computing, list some factors to prepare for when adopting cloudcomputing, consideration for managers migrating their services and applications into the cloud. It also discussed the meritsof going into the cloud.Keywords: Cloud Computing, Public Cloud, Service as a Service, Application Migration, Decision Makin

ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION PREDICTION SYSTEM USING A RADIAL BASIS FUNCTION NEURAL NETWORK

The observed poor quality of service being experienced in the power sector of Nigeria economy has been traced to non-availability of adequate model that can handle the inconsistencies associated with traditional statistical models for predicting consumers’ electricity need, so as to bridge the gap between the demand and supply of the energy. This research presents Electricity Consumption Prediction System (ECPS) based on the principle of radial basis function neural network to predict the country’s electricity consumption using the historical data sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) annual statistical bulletin. The entire datasets used in the study were divided into train, validation and test sets in the ratio of 13:3:4. By the above, 65% of the entire data were used for the training, 15% for validation and 20% for testing. The train data was presented to the constructed models to approximate the function that maps the input patterns to some known target values. The models were also used to simulate both validation and the test datasets as case data on the consistency of results obtained from the training session through the train data. Experimental results showed that RBF network model performs better than equivalent Backpropagation (BP) network models that were compared with it and provides the best platform for developing a forecast system.