Business-to-consumer e-commerce in Nigeria: Prospects and challenges

The growth of Internet usage in Nigeria continues to increase, recording over 90% growth rate between 2000 and 2008. While businesses in Nigeria are reported to have online access with opportunity for ecommercial activities, customers in the country however access business websites only to source for information but make purchases the traditional way. This paper aims at assessing the prospects and challenges of Business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce implementation in Nigeria from the consumers’ perspective. Survey research was adopted for this study. Research hypotheses were formulated and questionnaire designed and administered randomly to 900 respondents. Collected data was used to evaluate the acceptance of B2C e-commerce using the extended technology acceptance model (TAM). The extended TAM combines task-technology fit, relationship related construct: trust and risk, and the two TAM constructs to determine factors influencing consumer acceptance of B2C e-commerce in Nigeria. Findings revealed that there are significant relationships between the model variables. Tasktechnology fit and perceived usefulness have significant relationships with intentions to use, having a correlation coefficient of 0.2623 and 0.2002 respectively. Similarly, the interrelationship among trust, perceived risk, and behavioral intention are significant. The effect of risk on trust was statistically showing that risk is a predictor of trust. Risk has a high significant on trust and trust in turn has low significant effect on behavioral intention. Adding TTF and its relationships to the TAM also fit the data. The relationship between task-technology fit, perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness and intention are significant

Improving the Dependability of Destination Recommendations using Information on Social Aspects

Prior knowledge of the social aspects of prospective destinations can be very influential in making travel destination decisions, especially in instances where social concerns do exist about specific destinations. In this paper, we describe the implementation of an ontology-enabled Hybrid Destination Recommender System (HDRS) that leverages an ontological description of five specific social attributes of major Nigerian cities, and hybrid architecture of content-based and case-based filtering techniques to generate personalised top-n destination recommendations. An empirical usability test was conducted on the system, which revealed that the dependability of recommendations from Destination Recommender Systems (DRS) could be improved if the semantic representation of social attributes information of destinations is made a factor in the destination recommendation process.Content-based filtering; Recommender Systems; Ontology; Social Attributes, Destination recommendation

Microbial and Physicochemical Qualities of River Owena Sediments

Microbial quality, physicochemical parameters and heavy metals determination of sediment samples from River Owena, Oriade local government area, Owena, Nigeria. For period of dry and wet seasons. The pH of the sediment samples ranged from 6.44 to 8.00±0.01, organic matter ranged from 17.15 to 35.31%; water holding capacity ranged from 0.323 to 1.779±0.01 ml/g; composition of sand: clay: silt were 75:12:13 %, 33:17:50 %, 62:18:20 % and 50:20:30 %; 82:2:16 %, 48:22:30 %, 32:25:43 % and 43:27:30 % wet and dry seasons respectively indicated more of loamy sand, clay loam, silt clay and loam. Mean concentrations of heavy metals measured in the sediment samples included iron, zinc, manganese, lead, chromium, cadmium, nickel and copper, iron had highest values of 1.89 to 4.1±0.01 mg/kg and cadmium lowest values of 0.01 to 0.12±0.01 mg/kg. A total of fifteen bacterial species were isolated from River Owena sediments, which included Escherichia coli, Enterobacter aerogenes, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis, Salmonella enteritidis, Bacillus subtilis, Serratia marcescens, Shigella sonnei, Bacillus cereus, Micrococcus luteus, Micrococcus varians, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Proteus vulgaris and Erwinia amylovora. A total of ten fungal species were isolated, which included Aspergillus Niger, Aspergillus flavus, Aspergillus fumigatus, Penicillium chrysogenum, Cladosporium herbarum, Mucor mucedo, Mucor plumbeus, Fusarium oxysporum, Rhizopus stolonifer and Rhizopus oryzae. The total bacterial count of the sediment ranged from 4.1 x103 to 3.02 x 103 cfu/g while the total fungal count of the sediment ranged from 4 x 103 to 7.6 x 103 cfu/g. However, the pollution level due to the presence of some pathogenic microorganisms which are of public health significance, but it could be improved upon with appropriate treatment and sanitation

Effect of Taurine on Chronic Restraint Stress Induced Behavioural Deficits in Rodents

Stress is an aversive stimulus capable of altering physiological homeostasis and the ability to cope with such stressful stimuli is a crucial determinant of health and disease. Taurine (2-aminoethanesulphonic acid) constitutes about 0.1 % of body weight, it is a sulphur-containing amino acid present in virtually all cells throughout the animal kingdom. It is an important ingredient used in energy drinks. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the effects of taurine in preventing the restraint stress induced memory deficit in passive avoidance test, spatial learning, motor coordination and exploratory behaviour. Three different doses of taurine were administered (100, 200 and 400 mg/kg) to rodents subjected to chronic restraint stress (6 h/day for 21 days). The treatments were administered once daily by oral gavage. Twenty four Wistar rats were divided into four groups of six rats each also; twenty four mice were divided in to four groups of six mice each. Learning and memory in the chronic restraint-stressed Wistar rats was assessed using step down passive avoidance test, learning and memory in mice was assessed using elevated plus maze for memory, exploratory activity was assessed using hole board apparatus and motor coordination in mice was assessed using beam walk assay method. In the present study it was observed that taurine improved learning and short-time memory in chronic restraint-stressed rodents it also improved motor coordination and increased exploratory behaviour in mice. Keywords: stress, taurine, deficit, exploratory, oral gavage, memor

Development of a Mobile Airline Reservation System

Current~v, many people and companies are embracing the mobile air line reservation system. Reservation systems had been implemented in many parts of the world for decades, initially from manual to computerized reservation system. Mobile, airline, bus ticketing and automated reservation systems are effectively increasing in the market. As a result of the fierce competition in the airline sector, organizations within this sector are in the process of developing systems that will improve their services to customers. Consequently, an automated seat reservation system has continued to be an open area of research. The objective of this paper is to develop a mobile airline seat reservation system that will assist the public in gaining an easier and faster way for seat reservation and providing them with more options to book a ticketfor traveling on real time. The system was developed using the Wireless Markup Language (WML) asfrontend, MySQL 4.0 database management system as back-end and PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) as the server-side scripting language. The developed system will assist the airline customers and operators in providing cost-effective system that will make possible bookings and seat reservation on real-time using a mobile phone, irrespective of location of a user

E-PROCUREMENT USE IN THE NIGERIAN BUILDING INDUSTRY

Since the mid-1990s, the use of the electronic procurement aspect of electronic commerce (e-commerce) in the different business and industrial sectors has increased globally. However, the extent of its adoption in the Nigerian building industry is not clearly understood. This study investigated e-procurement use in the Nigerian building industry with a goal to improve the general understanding of the extent of its adoption in this country. The research involved a questionnaire survey of 213 respondents drawn from consulting and contracting firms, client organizations in the private sector, and government institutions conducted in Nigeria in 2015. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Chi-square test, and multiple regression analysis. The results show that the main users of e-procurement were quantity surveyors and construction/project managers in consulting firms. The most frequently used e-procurement technologies for advertising/announcing or receiving invitation to tender, exchanging project briefs and specifications, submitting/receiving tender/bids, and sourcing for materials and equipment were e-mails and websites. The type of organizations, top management support, and attitude towards current trends in e-procurement use in construction had the most significant influence on e-procurement adoption in the survey. The study concluded that only organisations with top management support and favourable attitudes towards the current trend in e-procurement use in construction, a good financial base, and information-technology-savvy staff would most likely adopt it in the Nigerian building industry