Significance of Satellite Television Viewing Centres in Makurdi, Nigeria

Satellite television centres in Nigeria have grown with the popularity of foreign football, especially international competitions. This study identifies the social significance especially the uses and abuses of satellite television centres in Makurdi town. Also, the study identifies the strategy that is effective in curbing the abuses of satellite television viewing centres in Makurdi town. Using a survey of two hundred and twenty (220) respondents who patronise satellite television viewing centres in Makurdi, the study finds among other things that: satellite television viewing centres are used to advance sporting interests, however they are abused when criminals use these centres as meeting places and hideouts. Furthermore, the study finds that the dominant use of satellite television viewing centres to televise football matches leads to neglect of local football teams and this has far reaching implications.  The study recommends that proprietors should regulate entry and the police force should step up monitoring of these centres to ensure order and rule of law. Also, proprietors of these centres should explore the profitability of such centres for other purposes such as music videos as an additional income earner to football. Finally, the Nigerian government should utilise the huge gathering of youth at satellite television viewing centres as an opportunity to create awareness on a wide range of issues. Keywords: Satellite Television, Viewing Centres, Football, Use, Abus

Potential Uses of Community Radio in Political Awareness: A Proposal for Nigeria

Political awareness is necessary in democracy- citizens need to know whom they will vote for, the ideals of political parties, dates set for elections, topical political debates, the electoral process, etc. This paper examines the potential uses of community radio in political awareness, especially in Nigeria where community radio is not yet in existence. The existence of community radio in other parts of Africa but not Nigeria leaves a void because there may be a lot of uses to which community radio can be put to. This study explores the “would be” relationship between community radio and political awareness especially at the grassroots in Nigeria. Using a survey of radio producers, announcers, correspondents, reporters and other broadcast professionals who understand the concept and have had some experience with community radio elsewhere, the study finds that effective programme selection and scheduling will be essential to raising political awareness in Nigerian communities when such stations start operation. Also, interactive approaches in radio programme production will give listeners a chance to clear their doubts and seek illumination on complex issues. Radio producers, announcers, correspondents and reporters should realise that community radio will be a viable tool in raising political awareness in Nigeria, only if used appropriately. Lessons from other countries (where strategies in raising political awareness via community radio have been successful) should be learnt and used when community radio sets foot in Nigeria.   Keywords: Community radio, political awareness, democracy, grassroots, citizens, potential, proposa

Cultural heritage and tourism

Kultura i turizam su u Europi vrlo usko povezani pa je na globalnoj razini Europa uvijek imala dominantno mjesto u međunarodnom turizmu zbog bogatog kulturnog nasljeđa. Kulturno je nasljeđe često koncentrirano u gradovima pa predstavlja temelj razvoja turizma mnogih europskih gradova. Iako su turizam i kultura uvijek bili povezani, u gospodarskim interesima razvoja masovnog turizma tijekom više desetljeća, zanemarivala se uloga i mjesto kulture u turizmu. Tek se u posljednjih desetak godina poticanje i posebna pažnja usmjerava na razvoj kulturnog turizma, kako na razini Vijeća Europe, Europske unije i UNESCO-a tako i na razinama pojedinih zemalja. Kulturno nasljeđe se oblikuje kao proizvod i nudi na tržištu, te postaje primarni i sekundarni motiv putovanja sve šireg segmenta rastućeg tržišta kulturnog turizma. Stvaranje i razvoj turističkog proizvoda u kulturnom turizmu temelji se na razvoju menadžmenta kulturnih resursa i primjeni marketinške koncepcije koja polazi od zadovoljstva korisnika, a u kulturnom se turizmu zadovoljstvo postiže očuvanjem kvalitete resursa na kojem se temelji turistička ponuda. U Hrvatskoj kulturni turizam još nije ušao u planove razvoja turizma i još se uvijek kultura razumijeva kao element proizvoda masovnog turizma. Kako se u Hrvatskoj gradski turizam nije razvijao promišljanje razvoja kulturnog turizma još uvijek ne slijedi poticaje europske politike razvoja turizma.Europe has always been an important destination for those attracted by its rich cultural heritage. Cultural heritage is concentrated in cities and is often used in development of European city tourism. Increasing market segmentation created new cultural motives for travel, which became very important for the growing incorporation of cultural heritage into tourism, as basic commodity for tourist consumption has been linked to the growth of the cultural tourism. The development of policy relating to cultural tourism has been more and more evident at European and national levels. Policies, which influence the development of cultural tourism at the transnational level, come mainly from the European Union, Council of Europe and UNESCO. In cultural tourism cultural heritage (as other cultural issues) becomes a product as a result of cultural production of commercial organisations, and resource management and marketing policy. In Croatia cultural tourism has not yet been included into the tourism development strategies and the influence of European policies is not yet evident but there are indications that this is slowly changing for the better

Structure and interdependence of the marketing system of touroperators

Na temelju određenih spoznaja iz područja turističkog marketinga i primjenom teorije sustava u ovom se prilogu, dekomponiranjem sustava turizma, izdvaja element turoperatora i turističkih agencija, te njihovih proizvoda i usluga. Određuje se marketinški sustav turoperatora kao sustav za sebe, koji nastaje u odnosima s raznim subjektima na tržištu u svrhu stvaranja, plasiranja i realizacije turističkih aranžmana kao proizvoda. Istraživanjem i određivanjem funkcija turoperatora i turističkih agencija, te njihovih odnosa i veza s pojedinim relevantnim subjektima na turističkom tržištu, određuje se struktura te međuzavisnost i svrhovitost marketinškog sustava turopertora.Following the current insights into the tourism marketing spheres and applying the systems theory, this paper takes into account the decomposition of the tourism system and aims at separating the touroperators’ and travel agencies’ component and their respective products and services. The touroperator’s marketing system is defined as a separate system formed through relationships with various subjects present on the market for the purpose of creating and placing at the market individual package arrangements as products. The structure and interdependence of the touroperator’s marketing system is determined through research and description of touroperators’ and travel agencies’ functions and their respective relationships and connections with the relevant subjects on the tourism market

Hotel image and branding and characteristics of Croatia\u27s hotel industry

Na europskom i svjetskom tržištu hotelske ponude, te u stručnoj i znanstvenoj literaturi razvijena su, utvrđena i definirana načela marketinške koncepcije o stvaranju hotelskog proizvoda te o hotelskom menedžmentu kvalitete koja je temelj razvoja imidža imena hotela kao marke. U razvoju hrvatskog hotelijerstva nisu se razvila razumijevanja o hotelu kao prizvodu čije se ime u svijesti korisnika povezuje s kvalitetom usluge i ponude. U radu se ističu važnosti obilježavanja hotela kao proizvoda. Ističu se specifičnosti razvoja hrvatskog hotelijerstva u kojem se hoteli nisu razvijali kao marke već kao ujednačena hotelska ponuda za masovni turizam. Jedan od ključnih aspekata u rješavanju problema razvoja hrvatskog hotelijerstva je školovanje menedžera i marketinških stručnjaka.On the World and European market, and in scientific and trade publications marketing principles for creating the hotel product, as well as quality hotel management have been developed, confirmed and defined, and form firm foundations for hotel image and branding development. An understanding for the hotel as a product whose name is connected with quality of services and offer in the customer’s mind is not made use in the development of Croatia’s hotel industry. The paper emphasises the importance of representing the hotel as a product. The development characteristics of Croatia’s hotel industry for which hotels were not developed using branding, instead as a single hotel offer for mass tourism, are underlined. The education of managers and marketing experts will play a major role in solving the development problems of Croatia’s hotel industry

Uses of Social Media among Selected Labour Unions in Abuja during Nigeria’s (January 2012) “Oil Subsidy” Removal Protests

The removal of oil subsidy in Nigeria (January 2012) sparked protests across the country and a nationwide strike action organised by the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). This study examines the role of social media during these protests. This study ascertains why people in Nigeria used social media during the protests instead of other pre-existing media- radio, television, newspapers, magazines, etc. Furthermore, it identifies the purposes for which social media was used (and by whom) during the protest whether intended or otherwise. For instance, in what ways can social media influence public opinion/mobilise people and groups to protest? Using a survey the study finds that: social media was used during these protests because restrictions in other media stifle expressions of individual opinion in the public sphere. A significant percentage of the opinion expressed via social media during these protests was of frustration due to mismanagement and corruption by the Nigerian government. Pictures, factual/statistical evidence and intelligent analysis of issues were a persuasive force on social media which shaped public opinion and mobilised people to go out on the streets

Hotel marketing and price policy

U članku se upućuje na osnovne metode i elemente formiranja i primjene politike cijena u hotelskom marketingu i ističe važnost tržišne orijentacije u formiranju politike cijena kao i važnost istraživanja cjenovne percepcije korisnika za formiranje politike cijena i proizvoda. Kako se razvoj hrvatskog hotelijerstva (kao i turizma) temelji na sezonskom poslovanju i na plasmanu ponude, poglavito putem stranih turoperatora, politika se cijena nije razvijala za strateško ponašanje na tržištu i nije se usklađivala s politikom proizvoda. Na teorijskom primjeru koji se temelji na primjenjivanim cijenama u hotelima u turističkim lokalitetima, pokazuje se da bi hoteli koji se odluče na primjenu tržišne orijentacije formiranja politike cijena mogli primijeniti metodu prosječnih cijena i poslovnu godinu dijeliti u dva razdoblja, odnosno održavati iste cijene tijekom cijele godine.The paper discusses basic methods and means for forming and applying a price policy in hotel marketing and emphasizes the importance of market orientation in forming the price policy as well as the importance of researching user perception of the price in forming a price policy for the product. As the development of Croatia\u27s hotel industry (as well as tourism) is based on seasonal business and the booking offer mostly realised via foreign tour operators, price policy did not develop as per strategic behaviour of the market and in harmony with product policies. Using a theoretical example based on application of prices for hotels in tourism locations it is shown that hoteliers who decide for the application of market orientated price forming policies, can use the method average prices and divide the financial year into two periods, i.e. use the same prices throughout the whole year

Semantic segmentation by means of language embeddings

Računalni vid ima široku primjenu u stvarnom svijetu. Semantička segmentacija jedan je od njegovih temeljnih, ali i najzanimljivijih, zadataka. Ovaj rad predstavlja CLIP multimodalni sustav za ugrađivanje slika i teksta u isti vektorski prostor te ga iskorištava za generiranje jezičnih ugrađivanja koja se dalje koriste za semantičku segmentaciju. U tu svrhu prenamjenjuje se, modificira i nadograđuje naduzorkovateljem predtrenirani ConvNext-Base vizualni koder CLIP modela koji zatim individualne piksele kodira u isti vektorski prostor kao i CLIP model te, na temelju sličnosti tih kodiranja, ih klasificira. Korišten je CamVid skup podataka. Postupak izgradnje, rezultati i evaluacija pažljivo su i precizno opisani u radu. Dodatno su opisanu dijelovi i postupci treniranja dubokih modela, semantička segmentacija te korištene tehnologije i metrike.Computer vision has found many applications in the real world. Semantic segmentation is one of its most basic components, but arguably one of the most interesting too. This paper presents the multimodal CLIP model for embedding images and text into the same vector space and uses it to generate language embeddings to further use in semantic segmentation. To that purpose, its ConvNext-Base visual tower is repurposed, modified and upgraded with an upsampling module so that it may embed individual pixels into the aforementioned space and exploit that for classification. All of this is done on the CamVid data set. The process of building such a model, evaluating it and the results are described with precision and detail. Additionally described are: deep neural network training, semantic segmentation and the used technologies and metrics

Semantic segmentation by means of language embeddings

Računalni vid ima široku primjenu u stvarnom svijetu. Semantička segmentacija jedan je od njegovih temeljnih, ali i najzanimljivijih, zadataka. Ovaj rad predstavlja CLIP multimodalni sustav za ugrađivanje slika i teksta u isti vektorski prostor te ga iskorištava za generiranje jezičnih ugrađivanja koja se dalje koriste za semantičku segmentaciju. U tu svrhu prenamjenjuje se, modificira i nadograđuje naduzorkovateljem predtrenirani ConvNext-Base vizualni koder CLIP modela koji zatim individualne piksele kodira u isti vektorski prostor kao i CLIP model te, na temelju sličnosti tih kodiranja, ih klasificira. Korišten je CamVid skup podataka. Postupak izgradnje, rezultati i evaluacija pažljivo su i precizno opisani u radu. Dodatno su opisanu dijelovi i postupci treniranja dubokih modela, semantička segmentacija te korištene tehnologije i metrike.Computer vision has found many applications in the real world. Semantic segmentation is one of its most basic components, but arguably one of the most interesting too. This paper presents the multimodal CLIP model for embedding images and text into the same vector space and uses it to generate language embeddings to further use in semantic segmentation. To that purpose, its ConvNext-Base visual tower is repurposed, modified and upgraded with an upsampling module so that it may embed individual pixels into the aforementioned space and exploit that for classification. All of this is done on the CamVid data set. The process of building such a model, evaluating it and the results are described with precision and detail. Additionally described are: deep neural network training, semantic segmentation and the used technologies and metrics

Semantic segmentation by means of language embeddings

Računalni vid ima široku primjenu u stvarnom svijetu. Semantička segmentacija jedan je od njegovih temeljnih, ali i najzanimljivijih, zadataka. Ovaj rad predstavlja CLIP multimodalni sustav za ugrađivanje slika i teksta u isti vektorski prostor te ga iskorištava za generiranje jezičnih ugrađivanja koja se dalje koriste za semantičku segmentaciju. U tu svrhu prenamjenjuje se, modificira i nadograđuje naduzorkovateljem predtrenirani ConvNext-Base vizualni koder CLIP modela koji zatim individualne piksele kodira u isti vektorski prostor kao i CLIP model te, na temelju sličnosti tih kodiranja, ih klasificira. Korišten je CamVid skup podataka. Postupak izgradnje, rezultati i evaluacija pažljivo su i precizno opisani u radu. Dodatno su opisanu dijelovi i postupci treniranja dubokih modela, semantička segmentacija te korištene tehnologije i metrike.Computer vision has found many applications in the real world. Semantic segmentation is one of its most basic components, but arguably one of the most interesting too. This paper presents the multimodal CLIP model for embedding images and text into the same vector space and uses it to generate language embeddings to further use in semantic segmentation. To that purpose, its ConvNext-Base visual tower is repurposed, modified and upgraded with an upsampling module so that it may embed individual pixels into the aforementioned space and exploit that for classification. All of this is done on the CamVid data set. The process of building such a model, evaluating it and the results are described with precision and detail. Additionally described are: deep neural network training, semantic segmentation and the used technologies and metrics