Deregulation: the Effect of Market-led Approach to Nigerian Universities Management

This paper examines the effects of market-led approach Nigeria universities management concept deregulation from a market-led point of view to evaluate its effect on the management of university education in Nigeria. From many debates and argument put forward on the discussion of deregulation, it is very clear that deregulation policy was introduced for the purpose of enhancing productivities of public sectors or government-owned establishment. The establishment of deregulation policy has created opportunities for different individuals and groups to participate or take ownership of some public sectors in the quest for providing better services and making profits.  However, widens the gap in knowledge about whether or not taking ownership of public sector business has generated profit or not. This paper is desk research and intends to review issues unturned in the past literature on how deregulation has now suddenly become a market-led approach to the Nigerian Universities Management. The paper revealed that Nigerians are keen on getting the best quality education irrespective of how the education systems are put up to be achieved. Likewise, the government has not been able to deregulate any of the public universities they owned rather university provisions have been commercialized and extended to private individuals

SPARC 2018 Internationalisation and collaboration : Salford postgraduate annual research conference book of abstracts

Welcome to the Book of Abstracts for the 2018 SPARC conference. This year we not only celebrate the work of our PGRs but also the launch of our Doctoral School, which makes this year’s conference extra special. Once again we have received a tremendous contribution from our postgraduate research community; with over 100 presenters, the conference truly showcases a vibrant PGR community at Salford. These abstracts provide a taster of the research strengths of their works, and provide delegates with a reference point for networking and initiating critical debate. With such wide-ranging topics being showcased, we encourage you to take up this great opportunity to engage with researchers working in different subject areas from your own. To meet global challenges, high impact research inevitably requires interdisciplinary collaboration. This is recognised by all major research funders. Therefore engaging with the work of others and forging collaborations across subject areas is an essential skill for the next generation of researchers

A mathematical model for predicting the cutting energy of cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta)

Information on the optimum energy requirements for cutting vegetables is useful in order to estimate the amount of energy needed to cut given products with known physical characteristics. This will aid engineers and product designers in the development of appropriate cost effective cutting systems consuming minimum amount of energy while still providing high quality cut products. In this study, predictive equations were developed for describing the cutting energy of cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) cormels. Dimensional analysis based on the Buckingham pi theorem was used to obtain the functional relationship between the cutting energy of the selected vegetable and the independent variables such as tool weight (w), height of tool drop (Hd), tool edge thickness (t), cutting speed (v), crop size(s), crop moisture content (φ), crop contact area (A) and crop density (σ). The developed model was validated with experimental data and a high coefficient of determination of R2 = 0.982 between the predicted and measured values was established. The obtained predictive model proved appropriate for determining the cutting energy required for cocoyam cormels up to 98%.         &nbsp