Evaluation of facilities performance on students’ satisfaction in Northern Nigerian Universities

Performance evaluation of academic facilities of HEIs is very critical to educational effectiveness. Presently, there is limited or no research/data in Nigeria to assess how extensively the use of or lack of academic facilities benchmarking practices. The aim of this research was to develop a facilities performance framework for HEIs academic facilities in order to serve as a reference model for policy makers while designing HEIs facilities standard targeted towards improving facilities performance for enhanced student satisfaction. Quantitative research approach using survey design was adopted. Data was collected using closed-ended questionnaires distributed to a sample of 1000 student randomly selected from three universities in the northern Nigeria out of which 735 were considered valid for the analysis. Research questions were answered by testing the proposed research hypothesis which were developed for the research. The descriptive analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Science Software (SPSS version 23) while the inferential statistics were analyzed using a Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling software (SmartPLS version 3.0). Overall, the result found that facilities performance significantly influenced student satisfaction. The R-square value indicated that performance of the HEIs component facilities explained 63 percent of the variance in students’ satisfaction. Furthermore, it was found that 66.7 percent of the performance of HEIs components facilities was explained by the performance of both physical and non-physical facilities that constitutes the HEIs academic facilities. The implication of this results points to the importance of including students’ feedback in the facilities management aspect of HEIs. This is for the fact that students’satisfaction was shown to be significantly related to the condition of the university facilities. It is recommended that future research should focus on identifying students satisfaction with academic facilities in the HEIs using experience as a measure of facilities performance to promote the concept of best practices benchmarking for the institutions to esterblished quality facilities in their institutions

Sustainability Practices And Corporate Performance: A Case Of Malaysia Companies

Kajian ini dijalankan adalah bagi mengkaji tahap dan faktor yang mendorong kepada amalan kelestarian yang dijalankan oleh syarikat-syarikat senaraian awam di Bursa Malaysia serta melihat perhubungan amalan tersebut dengan prestasi syarikat. This study investigates the extent of sustainability disclosure and also the factors of sustainable practices among Malaysian Public Listed companies on Bursa Malaysia as well as the relationship between sustainability practices and company performance

Impacts and Losses Caused By the Fraudulent and Manipulated Financial Information on Economic Decisions

Nowadays the effects of the fraudulent and manipulated financial information have been more controversial. We should take into consideration that the financial losses caused by fraudulent or manipulated financial information are remarkable. Preventing the fraud in the financial information has been an important issue by auditors all over the world. As the American economy is the dominant economy may cause and affect the capital market mostly all over the world. In the last decade we can see the financial losses caused by the fraudulent and manipulated financial information rather big. Today’s world has been affected by frauds and manipulation of the financial information. An investment decision based on false financial information causes the investors to suffer losses as was experienced in Enron and WorldCom cases. Financial information has, certainly, an important positive or negative effect in economic decisions. Positive or negative effects of financial information on economic decisions depend on reliability of the financial information. This paper aims to show the impacts of fraudulent on the financial information, effects on economic decision and what we should do for preventing the fraudulent or manipulation on the financial information.Financial information, fraudulent, manipulation, decision.

Tax reform in emerging transition: Is Kosovo’s Government and NGOs mathematical economics rational?

Tax reform in small emerging democracies is difficult to measure what effects is likely to produce due to countries’ aggregate political and economic vulnerabilities. If both are taken as remaining relatively stable, then it is easier to discuss what impact the reform introduced may have in the economy and her stakeholders. In absence of a monetary policy, the Government of Kosovo in mid-2008 adopted the changes in tax rates taking effect from January 2009, with the aim to foster economic growth and improve business competitiveness at least in the regional market of the Balkans. This article critically assesses the proposed and approved changes by the Government that were in line with the proposals made by business community Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs), and concludes that this tax reform is not well thought-out and properly analyzed to expect the benefits for which it was too optimistically hoped for, especially in relation to key stakeholders such as the Government’s budget, business development, and consumers.Kosovo, Ministry of Economy and Finance, tax reform, business associations, value added tax

Self-management socialism compared to social market economy in transition: Are there convergent paths?

Despite considerable and miscellaneous research in transition economics, some of its aspects have yet to evolve and come up with a more standard theory. After the initial systemic change in two versions of socialist systems - centralist in the former Soviet Union (FSU), and self-management in the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), and rush towards a market-based system, setbacks in economic performance were marked by a sharp decline in living standards for the majority of population. A soar in socio-economic trauma during economic transformation from self-management to a (full) market economy along with civil wars, has mostly hit the middle class bringing them around the poverty line. Although economic recovery and growth picked up after a decade of downturn to reach the pre-transition level, the rise in income differentiation has not changed much the situation of poverty which in the former SFRY countries (except Slovenia) remains widespread, whereas it has made a tiny minority better-off, namely private entrepreneurs, politicians and professionals. Yet, this polarisation may be natural after ownership transformation and privatisation in the short to medium run. But among majority who slide towards poverty, there were, and still are, nostalgic attitudes about economic welfare in the previous system. The pressure for more socially-oriented economic reforms has mainly come from this group, though policy makers too, were aware that this approach which is necessary to fix structural-adjustment problems, is more likely to be successful at aggregate level for sustainable and long term development, ceteris paribus. By looking back at the previous system and exploring current social and economic reforms in the former SFRY, this paper aims at investigating common points and theoretical convergences between self-management socialism and social market economy (SMEC) in line with the challenge of economic development. --SFRY,self-management socialism,transition,social market economy,development

Black vine weevil and other wingless weevils: are there any effective conrol methods applicable in outdoor strawberry in Nordic countries?

The black vine weevil (Otiorhynchus sulcatus) is a common pest in Central Europe but rather new on outdoor crops in Finland. Spreading of enthomopathogenic nematodes against weevils by drip irrigation was tested at MTT during 2003-2004. The results proved that at least in small-scale use the nematodes were easily spread through the irrigation system into the field. We were not able to prove the efficiency of the nematodes against larvae because of too low level of both species populations in the experimental cages in the field

Performance evaluation of electrical discharge machine on titanium alloy using copper impregnated graphite electrode

Electrical discharge machining (EDM) which is very prominent amongst the non conventional machining methods is expected to be used quite extensively in machining titanium alloys due to the favorable features and advantages that it offers. This thesis presents the EDMing of titanium alloy (Ti-6246) using copper impregnanted graphite electrode with diameter of 8 mm. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the influenced of various parameters involved in EDM on the machining characteristics, namely, material removal rate (MRR), electrode wear ratio (EWR), surface roughness (Ra) and overcut. In this investigation, the machining trials were performed using a Sodick linear motor EDM sinker series AM3L The experimental plan for the processes were conducted according to the design of experimental (DOE) and the results were statistically evaluated using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results showed that current was the most significant parameter that influenced the machining responses on EDM of Ti-6246. Confirmation tests were also conducted for the selected conditions for each machining characteristics in order to verify and compare the results from the theoretical prediction using Design Expert software and experimental confirmation tests. Overall, the results from the confirmation tests showed that the percentage of performance was acceptable due to all results obtained were within the allowable values which was less than 15% of marginal error