Information systems framework for enterprise agility

Modern day enterprises operate and transact in an increasingly dynamic business environment. As a result, they are vulnerable to spontaneous changes and uncertainties. These usually reduce effectiveness and optimal performances in enterprises, and can have negative impacts such as loss of competitiveness, and bankruptcy. Enterprise agility, i.e., the ability of enterprises to respond to changes, is a core imperative for effective change management. Yet, it is challenging, difficult to achieve, and a major concern for corporate executives. Enterprises would thus require novel approaches to manage changes and enhance agility. In order to facility or achieve enterprise agility, it would be necessary and vital to develop frameworks or processes that can support effective change management. Such frameworks or processes should include techniques for modelling enterprises changes explicitly, so as to enhance the understanding of how changes relate to or affect enterprises. In addition, there should be techniques for deriving the elements of an enterprise, e.g., business process and data entities, that are required to adapt a given enterprise change. However, concepts, constructs, and techniques for representing changes are often neglected, if available at all, in the existing enterprise modelling approaches such as TOGAF and ZACHMAN. This contributes to the difficulty in applying the existing enterprise modelling approaches to enhance enterprise agility and effective change management. The work described in this thesis provides a novel approach for supporting enterprise agility and change management. Therefore, this thesis contributes a conceptual process or framework for representing enterprise changes, and deriving enterprise elements such as data entity, business goal, and business process required to adapt a given change. Other contributions made by this approach include a novel conceptual modelling language for representing enterprise changes, an enterprise modelling language, and a set of procedures and rules that can be used to derive the new domain elements required to adapt changes. An industry case study has been used to test the utility of this framework. The results obtained from this case study shows that this framework supports enterprise agility and change management in a number of ways

Symbiotic Caregivers: A Qualitative Case Study of African American Custodial Grandparents and Their Grandchildren

Data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005-2007 American Community Survey show that there are 11,436 grandparents in Shelby County, Tennessee, who are responsible for grandchildren. In Memphis only, there are 9,213 grandparents who are responsible for their grandchildren (U.S. Census Bureau, 2000). The Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) 2003 report (2003) showed that 42% of Tennessee grandparents who were responsible for grandchildren who are living with them live in households where the children’s parents are not present. Casper and Bryson (1998) noted that grandparent-headed households are more prevalent in African American communities and are at high risk for poverty. Circumstances surrounding grandparents’ assuming the role of parent include grandparents’ sense of responsibility, parents’ neglect of the grandchild’s needs, sexual abuse of the child by a parent, parents’ need to work, parents’ need for a break, economic problems, inadequate housing, and teenage pregnancy (CWLA, 2003; Kennedy & Keeney, 1988; Minkler & Fuller-Thompson, 1999; Poe, 1992; Ruiz, 2000; Tompkins, 2007). In addition, the authors noted other circumstances for the parents of these grandchildren, including drug-addiction or alcohol problems, incarceration, divorce, inadequate parenting skills, and health problems such as AIDS or physical disability, mental illness, and parent death. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe the symbiotic caregiving of African American custodial grandparents (i.e., grandmothers) and their grandchildren. Symbiotic caregiving will be defined as two way caregiving activities and experiences that exist between both grandparents and grandchildren or between custodial grandparents and their grandchildren. It is a reverse and reciprocal relationship where grandparents, especially custodial grandparents feel a sense of responsibility and attachment to their grandchildren and vice versa. The sample was 18 African American grandmothers ages 65-85 years and 18 grandchildren ages 8-17 years. The sample was recruited through the Shelby County Relative Caregiver Program in Memphis, TN. The findings show that different circumstances led to grandparents assuming caregiving for their custodial grandchildren. Some of these circumstances are related to the instability of the grandparents’ biological children. These biological parents most times are not involved in their children’s lives and do not help with rearing their children. Harper and Hardesty (2001) described the grandparent/grandchild relationship as puervitic. The term puervitic is used in the context to show that grandparents are raising their grandchildren without assistance from their own biological children. Caregiving activities performed by grandchildren include both instrumental and emotional tasks. Grandparents saw the activities of their grandchild as a way to prepare the grandchildren for adult roles, while the grandchildren assumed their roles in order to help with their grandparents’ physical inability. Grandparents’ caregiving activities included daily rearing of their grandchildren, ensuring that their grandchildren have adequate nutrition, education, health care and moral support. Both members of the dyad had a different perception of their roles as caregiver to each other. Grandparents envisioned themselves as parents helping to mold their grandchildren as they would with their own children. In contrast, the grandchildren saw their own roles as helping their grandmother, who was the only person who cared about them when other people around them did not. Financial stress was one of the major concerns of the grandparents. They echoed the sentiments of other grandparents in the literature that grandparents need financial rescue to raise their grandchildren effectively. The results indicated that the grandparents and their grandchildren form a close and reciprocal relationship, much as a filial relationship that exists between parents and their children. The implication for nursing and research includes the need to recognize that custodial grandchildren are part of their grandparents’ lives. The grandchildren may need to be incorporated into the care and welfare of their grandparents as they may be the only individuals available to help some grandparents. With researchers acknowledging the existence and importance of grandchildren as caregivers, more research studies should focus on understanding the grandparent-grandchild dyad

Manifestations of carbon capture-storage and ambivalence ofquantum-dot & organic solar cells: An indispensable abridgedreview

This study bestows an essential abridged review of the manifestations of carbon capture & storage (CCS) systems and the ambivalence of quantum-dot & organic photovoltaic (PV) solar cells. This research implicates that CCS system is evolving in capturing emissions from coal-fired electrical power stations to further mitigate climate change. Different manifestations are discussed for capturing and storing the with repercussions on operating costs, toxicity and energy efficiency. Chemical Looping Combustion appears to be the more energy efficient than Oxy-fuel CFBC and Ionic Liquids, and less expensive than Calcium Looping and Amine Scrubbing. Calcium Looping (Cal) and Ionic Liquids are also less toxic than Amine Scrubbing. Direct air technology is also very compelling at capturing emissions but highly expensive. Nevertheless, further research is still required for all CCS systems to be able to implement them widely in existing/new electrical power stations. Waste heat energy recovery systems can be used in conjunction with capture systems for further reduction of emissions. The ambivalence of quantum dot and organic solar cells are briefly reviewed. It implicates that composite film with enhanced quantum dot effects will make the film highly transparent and options of tunability of its color spectrum make the quantum dot solar cells highly attractive to a wide variety of applications. Organic solar cells are carbon-rich polymers and can be designed to improve a precise function of the cell, such as sensitivity to a certain type of light. OPV cells can only be considered as half-competent to crystalline silicon and have smaller beneficial lifespans, but could be less costly to produce in high volumes. Current research issues are substitution/compromises between electrical power conversion efficiency and average visible light transmittance. However, improving average light-transmittance decreases electrical power conversion efficiency and vice versa

The prevalence and risk factors of myopia among school children in Africa: a structured literature review

Aim: This review aims to provide current evidence on the prevalence and risk factors of Myopia among school children in Africa.Background: Myopia has emerged the most prevalent and major cause of visual distress which may result in poor academic performance among school children compared to other refractive error conditions. Whereas the importance of optimal vision for competence in academic achievement has been emphasised. Hence, the association of increase in myopia prevalence with increase in age coupled with its projected critical rise to 26.9% in Africa by 2050 is worrisome.Methodology: This review was conducted using the population, intervention, comparison, outcome (PICO) framework guidelines and PRISMA 2020 Flow Diagram for New systematic Reviews. Also, four digital databases; MEDLINE, CINAHL, PROQUEST, WEB OF SCIENCE and a Web Search Engine (Google scholar) were searched for studies on Prevalence and Risk factors of myopia among school children in Africa from January 2012 to March 2023. Studies were appraised for quality using Joanna Briggs Appraisal tool for prevalence studies. Data were analysed based on age, gender, and risk factors of myopia, while the myopia was defined as SE ≥-0.50D.Results: Data from 10,031 school children and 6 quality appraised studies were included in this review. Overall, the prevalence of myopia ranged from 2.7% to 16.05% among school children in Africa. The prevalence of myopia was significantly higher among the older children (10–18-yearolds), while Age at school start, Level of education, family history of myopia, working distance atnear, prolonged near work per day, private school of learning, time spent on mobile exposure, and presence of ocular abnormality were significantly associated with myopia.Conclusion: Prevalence of myopia among school children is generally low in Africa but the retrieved studies offered geographical variations with outlying higher prevalence in some regions

THE USE OF GAMIFICATION TO TEACH CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS

This paper investigates the impact of gamification in teaching and learning cybersecurity awareness. The increasing rate of cyber-attacks and data breaches in recent times, have made cybersecurity awareness a critical learning objective in Information Systems (IS) curriculum globally. However, teaching and learning cybersecurity awareness can be challenging, especially to smaller colleges and universities who have meagre resources. Moreover, learning cybersecurity principles requires understanding of concepts that are usually unfamiliar to students in the IS major. In order to effectively deliver the desired learning objectives in cybersecurity awareness, IS educators can adopt pedagogical approaches, e.g., gamification, that are interactive, fun and appealing to students. Gamification which has been defined as the use of game components to deliver learning objectives in a given area, offer an alternative that is affordable, easy to learn and requires very little to no overhead cost. Currently, the authors are designing 3 gamified activities that can be used to teach and learn cyber security awareness. We intend to validate the effectiveness of these activities using experimental approaches. Students will be randomly selected from universities in Northern Pennsylvania, USA, and divided into experimental and control group. Experimental group will be asked to complete the gamified activities. Data will be collected using questionnaire. Data analysis will be by means of statistical approaches such as ANOVA, paired t-test of factor analysis. We hope that the results of our study will support the use of gamification in teaching and learning cybersecurity awareness

Influence of Traditional Taboo Practices on Natural Resource Conservation in Uli, Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State Nigeria; Sustainable Community Development.

Environmental sustainability is the conservation and maintenance of the ecological integrity of a given area. The present study investigated the effective use of traditional laws and taboo practices in the preservation of the natural resources of Uli, a town in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State Nigeria. The study examined strategies employed in environmental sustainability in this area at the period leading upto Nigeria’s independence in 1960, impact of the civil war (1967-1970) and its aftermath till date. The instruments used for the data collection included literature review, field survey using the questionnaire, one on one oral interviews and photographic documentations of the selected areas. The results showed that fifteen (15) species of plants were preserved using traditional laws. These include: Newbouldia laevis, Treculia africana, Elaeis guineensis, Anthocleista vogelii, Milicia excelsa, Irvingia gabonensis, Cola nitida, Khaya grandifoliola, Ceiba pentandra, Chrysophyllum albidium, Dialium guineense, Canarium schweinfurthii, Baphia nitida, Brachystegia eurycoma, Pterygota spp. Of the three forests in Uli, the “Attammiri” forest is the only one that has remained intact over the years, using traditional laws. The study statistically inferred that the Nigerian Civil war had no significant adverse effect on the use of traditional laws in the protection of the forests in Uli (PBrachystegia eurycoma and Milicia excelsa species. For development to be sustainable, respect for culture and traditional laws at the village-community level should be encouraged and stiffer sanctions accompany offenders

A modelling technique for enterprise agility

Enterprise agility, i .e., the ability of enterprises to respond to changes, is a core imperative for effective change management. It can improve operational efficiency as well as support resource optimization. Yet, it is challenging and a major concern for corporate executives. To facilitate agility, it can be useful to design modeling constructs for representing changes. Such modeling constructs can help stakeholders to represent and better understand change concepts. This research contributes by extending existing enterprise modeling approaches with new modeling constructs for representing concepts of change. These modeling constructs are integrated into a conceptual model. To demonstrate utility, we apply this meta-model to represent a real-world case study and discuss some lessons learned in this process

Automated completeness check in KAOS

KAOS is a popular and useful goal oriented requirements engineering (GORE) language, which can be used in business requirements modelling, specification, and analysis. Currently, KAOS is being used in areas such as business process modelling, and enterprise architecture (EA). But, an incomplete or malformed KAOS model can result to incomplete and erroneous requirements analysis, which in turn can lead to overall systems failure . Therefore, it is necessary to check that a requirements specification in KAOS language are complete and well formed. The contribution at hand is to provide an automated technique for checking the completeness and well-formed-ness of a requirements specification in KAOS language. Such a technique can be useful, especially to business or requirements analysts in industries and research, to check that requirements specification in KAOS language is well formed

Employee Benefits and Earnings Per Share: The Case of Consumer Goods Firms in Nigeria

The development of an economy involves the agglomeration of the output of various firms across the sectors. Firms’ output is basically a function of employees’ motivation. Thus, meeting the employees’ aspirations is an essential condition. The study aims at examining the effect of employees benefits on financial performance of consumer goods sector in Nigeria using panel dataset from ten consumer goods firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and ranges from 2012 to 2019. To achieve the stated aim this study employed the panel Random effect modeling approach after subjecting the dataset to series of tests to validate its conformity with statistical prescriptions. The study's findings show that, in varied degrees, gratuity (GRY), medical allowance (MDA), and salary (SAY) has statistically significant influence on earnings per share (EPS), which is utilized as the measure of organizational development in the study. Gratuity and medical have negative effect, while Pension (PSN) and Salary were found to have positive effect. However, Pension is statistically insignificant. The implication of the findings is that an increase in salary has the tendency of enhancing organizational development. Thus, for organizational development through employees’ benefits, salary increment will have to be given a serious consideration and maybe Pension too