Assessment of Citizens’ Charter Implementation Status in Oromia Region of Ethiopia: The Case of Selected Regional State Bureaus

It is believed that a citizen charter is necessary to bridge governance dynamics with citizen interest. The Ethiopian government has introduced the citizens’ charter (CC) scenario as a new reform to improve the civil service delivery. However, some empirical evidences indicate that though the new reform is introduced, the civil service delivery effectiveness is inhibited by many administrative bureaucracies. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine the concrete contribution of the citizens’ charter to enhance the quality of service delivery in the selected bureaus of Oromia regional state of Ethiopia. Relevant data were collected both from primary and secondary sources. Findings indicate that the citizens’ charter contribution to service delivery in the selected regional state bureaus was found low. Majority of service providers do not have enough knowledge of CC contents and capacity building was not organized on regular bases. Even though office supplies are found sufficient, there is still lack of adequate skilled personnel. It also indicated that service delivery transparency and accountability were ineffective. Feedback mechanism was found inadequate. Concerning the service quality, service processing time was not maintained as the stated service standards of the charter and better performers are not rewarded, Celebration of success is almost not practiced. Hence, the reality of the citizen charter concepts and goals need to be well communicated, follow-up should be in place to make uniform the application of the new practice, civil service leaders and process owners have to internalize and play their active role in leading the practice of CC. Keywords: Citizen’s charter, Public Service Delivery, Service Provider, Custome

Improved Security in Nigeria: Is State Police the Solution?

Since the return to civil rule in 1999, after a long interregnum of military rule, the call for the devolution of powers to the lower levels has become more strident. While the more extremist agitators have called into question the very existence of the Nigerian federation, demanding that it be dismantled, others have been more tempered, urging that a confederal arrangement should be put in place, whittling down the powers of the government at the centre. However, even among those not disposed to either of these two positions, there appears to be some support for the view that the Nigeria Police require some radical reform, including the creation of State Police to be fully under the charge of state governors. This paper explores the debate for the creation of state police, arguing that the call is but symptomatic of the poverty of leadership in the Nigerian state. Keywords: Security, State Police, Nigeria, Refor

Identifying The Traits Of Entrepreneurs In A University Setting: An Empirical Examination Of Saudi Arabian University Students

The study of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship has recently attracted the attention of scholars from diverse fields such as sociology, anthropology, and business. Much of the research conducted has been focused on entrepreneurial motivation and personal characteristics in developed countries. In this paper, we examine the relationship between four personality characteristics - Innovativeness, risk-taking, locus of control and energy level, and the likelihood of owning or starting a business.Utilizing a sample of 600 students attending three universities in Saudi Arabia and a self-administered questionnaire, the present studys results show systematic variation in entrepreneurial characteristics across groups of university student entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. Student entrepreneurs are more likely to be innovative, risk-takers, and exhibit high levels of energy and locus of control than their non-entrepreneurs counterparts.The results of the study raise important questions about the identification and targeting of potentially successful entrepreneurs and the appropriate mechanism for aiding them in realizing their dreams to become successful business owners capable of creating new jobs and fueling economic growth

The batting backlift technique in cricket

The batting technique in cricket consists of various elements such as the grip, stance, backlift, downswing, impact with the ball and follow through. Whilst there has been an extensive amount of research into these batting elements, there is little research specifically on the backlift technique. Therefore, we aimed to investigate and provide a scientific understanding of the batting backlift technique (BBT) in cricket. We aimed to investigate the BBT of the most successful batsmen (n = 65) in the last 120 years as well as players in the Indian Premier League (IPL) (n = 30). It was found that these batsmen did not conform to the current cricket coaching method that advocates a straight batting backlift technique (SBBT). Instead, 77% of successful batsmen and 90% of IPL batsmen employed a lateral batting backlift technique (LBBT) in which they lifted their bats in the direction of second slip or beyond with the bat face towards the off-side. Using this technique, both the toe of the bat and face of the bat points directly towards the off-side (usually between slips and point). The number of players using the LBBT was significantly greater than those using the SBBT (χ2 = 19.2, df = 1, p < 0.001). Given these findings, we were curious to determine whether this finding was similar at other levels of cricket. The second study therefore employed biomechanical and video analyses to evaluate the BBT of current semi-professional, professional and international cricketers (n = 155) from South Africa and the United Kingdom. The backlift of these batsmen was then compared to their career statistics. It was found that a LBBT is more prevalent at the highest levels of the professional game and a likely contributor factor for successful batting at the highest level (p≤0.05). The LBBT was also found to positively affect other components of the batting technique such as the stance and scoring areas. We then proceeded to investigate the BBT amongst the lower levels of cricket (junior and adolescent cricketers). The third study consists of an intervention study that employed a biomechanical analysis of coached and uncoached cricketers (n = 80). It was found that more than 70% of uncoached cricketers adopted a LBBT, whereas more than 70% of coached cricketers adopted the SBBT. Having found that the LBBT is a likely contributing factor for past and current successful batsmen, it was then important to understand what BBT the current cricket coaches are teaching at various proficiency levels. The fourth study explored the teachings of the BBT among international cricket coaches (n = 161) using a mixed methods approach through an online evaluation survey. This study was able to show that a majority of cricket coaches teach what is advocated in coaching manuals and mostly coach the SBBT as opposed to the LBBT at various levels of the game. In the fifth and sixth studies, this thesis further describes two innovative coaching tools that can improve and assist with the coaching of the LBBT. Firstly, a novel coaching cricket bat was investigated through a pilot and intervention study. In the pilot group, cricketers using the coaching bat scored approximately 1 more run per ball or an average of approximately three more runs in total when using the coaching bat than the normal bat (F = 6.70, df = 1, p = 0.012). In the intervention study, the experimental group scored double the total number of runs (an additional 16 runs) and an average of approximately 3 more runs per player in the post-match than in the pre-match, which showed a large effect (ES = 5.41) (t = 3.32, df = 5, p = 0.021). The coaching cricket bat might be used to coach young cricket players to hit the ball more effectively as well as how to adopt a more LBBT. Secondly, a mobile application was developed, which can be used by players, coaches and scientists to analyse and improve the BBT among cricketers at all levels. In summary, this thesis has shown that the LBBT is a likely contributing factor to successful batsmanship at all levels of cricket ability (junior cricketers, adolescent cricketers, semi-professional cricketers, professional cricketers, international cricketers and former elite/successful cricketers). Coaching a LBBT to young batsman may be challenging and therefore a coaching cricket bat has been developed and has shown to be a promising training aid for coaching the LBBT to young cricketers. A mobile application has also been designed and tested to assist in the coaching of the BBT in cricket. A way forward for further research in this area of cricket batting is documented at the end of the thesis

A Novel Concrete-Based Sensor for Detection of Ice and Water on Roads and Bridges

Hundreds of people are killed or injured annually in the United States in accidents related to ice formation on roadways and bridge decks. In this paper, a novel embedded sensor system is proposed for the detection of black ice as well as wet, dry and frozen pavement conditions on roads, runways, and bridges. The proposed sensor works by detecting changes in electrical resistance between two sets of stainless steel poles embedded in the concrete sensor to assess surface and near-surface conditions. A preliminary decision algorithm is developed that utilizes sensor outputs indicating resistance changes and surface temperature. The sensor consists of a 102-mm diameter, 38 mm high, concrete cylinder. Laboratory results indicate that the proposed sensor can effectively detect surface ice and wet conditions even in the presence of deicing chlorides and rubber residue. This sensor can further distinguish black ice from ice that may exist within concrete pores

QAM-DWT-SVD Based Watermarking Scheme for Medical Images

This paper presents a new semi-blind image watermarking system for medical applications. The new scheme utilizes Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) and Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) to embed a textual data into original medical images. In particular, text characters are encoded by a Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM-16). In order to increase the security of the system and protect then the watermark from several attacks, the embedded data is submitted to Arnold Transform before inserting it into the host medical image. To evaluate the performances of the scheme, several medical images have been used in the experiments. Simulation results show that the proposed watermarking system ensures good imperceptibility and high robustness against several attacks

An Energy Dissipating Seismic Connector for Precast Concrete Shear Walls

In this study, several steel connector shapes were analytically evaluated as potential new seismic energy dissipating devices between vertical precast concrete shear wall panels. Based on the results of analytical and experimental studies, a multiple yield zone (MYZ) connector is proposed due to its improved performance (in energy dissipation) when compared to the conventional U-shaped flexure plate (UFP) device. Unlike the UFP, the MYZ connector provides stiffness and energy dissipation in both horizontal and vertical directions. The response of a shear wall building system utilizing the MYZ or UFP connectors was evaluated using a simplified frame model. The MYZ connector performed better than the UFP alternate both in terms of energy dissipation in the device and with respect to improved structure response. The use of multiple (distributed) yield zones through circular cut-outs is key in the performance enhancement observed with the MYZ connector

Quelques indices d'appreciation de la pollution mercurifere dans le milieu eco-geagraphique de la depression de Azzaba-Nord Est Algerien.

Sin resume