THE INFLUENCE OF ADVERTISING ON CONSUMER PREFERENCE: A STUDY OF GUINNESS FOREIGN EXTRA STOUT AND WILFORT DARK ALE

This study examines the influence of advertising on consumer preference for Guinness Stout and WIlfort Dark Ale. The survey method of research was adopted and 200 literate consumers of the brands under study who reside in Ibadan were purposively selected and sampled. Data collected were analyzed using percentage grade tabulation and correlation analysis. Results show that consumers perceive Guinness Stout adequately advertised and Wilfort Dark Ale under advertised. In terms of quality, consumers rated Guinness Stout adverts higher than that of Wilfort Dark Ale. The study also revealed that advertising influences consumer preference, however, quality (taste) and availability in that order, have greater influence on consumer preference than advertisements. The study concludes that advertisements alone cannot bring about brand preference. It is in this regard, that the following among others were recommended: That producers should ensure that their products are of very good quality and are made available to the people where and when needed. Specifically, Guinness Nigeria. Plc, producers of Guinness Stout should sustain Guinness Stout’s advertisement in terms of quality, reach and frequency, while, Sona Breweries, producers of Wilfort Dark Ale should consider it important to increase its advertisement of Wilfort and extend the advertisement to other media such as radio and television if and when they are ready to expand their market.     &nbsp

Evaluation of Procurement Methods for Sustainable Environmental Development in Nigeria

Sustainable environmental development connote or entails meeting the economic needs of people without destroying the resources that will be needed by persons in the future based on long range planning and the recognition of the finite nature of natural resources. However, the dart of uncompleted and abandoned projects that littered the environment calls to mind the procurement method employed to deliver such projects. This paper seeks to appraise the contributory effects of procurement methods on abandoned projects. The population considered was developmental projects that have been developed to construction stage. This was stratified on the basis of project facility types. Primary data were obtained through structured questionnaire on procurement methods employed, factors that influence the choice of the procurement methods and the effects of selected procurement methods on project delivery. Data collected was analyzed using mean-score item, Chi-square and Spearman rank-order correlation coefficient. The results revealed among other things that projects were procured on traditional method of design-bid-construct which is not proactive in meeting project objectives. The paper concludes that there is need to adopt proactive modern procurement techniques that could match client’s objectives with project delivery. Keywords: Abandoned Projects, Environmental Development, Procurement Methods, Sustainable

Screening and characterization of bioflocculant-producing bacteria isolated from domestic waste water in Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria

Bioflocculants are biodegradable polymers produced by microorganisms. Bioflocculant has some advantages over synthetic flocculant. They are safe, harmlessness to humans and environment with strong effect. However, its production and application is still at minimal level. This study aimed at screening for bioflocculant-producing bacteria isolated from eatery waste water in Bowen University, Iwo, Osun State.The flocculating activity of the isolated organism was investigated using 5g/L kaolin suspension to measure the flocculating activity at optical density (OD) of 550nm. A total of twentyeight (28) bacteria strains were isolated from four (4) different domestic waste water samples and their bioflocculant activities were determined. Five isolates with high percentage flocculating activity were obtained as follow; Y4 (67%), P3 (61%), B8 (60%), K8 (55%)and K4 (52%). The isolates were characterized using morphological and molecular methods and they were identified as Bacillus licheniformis (B8, K4 and K8), Bacillus thuringensis (Y4) and Bacillus cereus (P3). The 16S rRNA sequence analysis revealed the isolates as related to the genus Bacillus and the nucleotide sequence were deposited in GenBank as Bacillus species with the accession numbers KY352342 (B8), KY352343 (P3), and KY352344 (Y4). Accession numbers for isolates K4 and K8 were not determined.Keywords: Waste water, Bioflocculant production, Bioflocculating activity, Bacteria, Bacillus specie

CONSTRUCTION OF EROTIC NUANCES ON WHATSAPP AND BBM BY NIGERIAN STUDENTS

WhatsApp and BBM are popular instant messengers among Nigerian youths, particularly those of tertiary education age. Both applications are used by different shades of people across both genders as means to achieve different end. This study investigates how both apps are used in the construction of erotic conversations. The study is exploratory in nature and is intended to sketch initial understanding from different pictures painted by individual participants. Consequently, semi-structured interview of the qualitative method was used to extract responses from 20 participants, 10 each from both genders. All participants were drawn randomly from National Diploma (NDI) students of Mass Communication Department of Lagos State Polytechnic, Isolo Campus, Nigeria and year three and four students of Mass Communication Department of Olabisi Onabanjo University Ago-Iwoye, Nigeria. Findings revealed that for technical, operational and financial reasons, participants prefer WhatsApp to BBM. Majority of their erotic experiences occur on WhatsApp, involving, largely, chat buddies they have physical familiarity with. Also, most of the participants received more of nude, sexually explicit pictures of a chat buddy at some point in their erotic chat experiences in addition to pornographic films and sexually charged voice notes.   &nbsp

Numerical Computation of the Complex Eigenvalues of a Matrix by solving a Square System of Equations

It is well known that if the largest or smallest eigenvalue of a matrix has been computed by some numerical algorithms and one is interested in computing the corresponding eigenvector, one method that is known to give such good approximations to the eigenvector is inverse iteration with a shift. For complex eigenpairs, instead of using Ruhe’s normalization, we show that the natural two norm normalization for the matrix pencil, yields an underdetermined system of equation and by adding an extra equation, the augmented system becomes square which can be solved by LU factorization at a cheaper rate and quadratic convergence is guaranteed. While the underdetermined system of equations can be solved using QR factorization as shown in an earlier work by the same authors, converting it to a square system of equations has the added advantage that besides using LU factorization, it can be solved by several approaches including iterative methods. We show both theoretically and numerically that both algorithms are equivalent in the absence of roundoff errors

Dehydration Characteristics of Taro Root (Colocasia Esculenta) Slices using a Refractance WindowTM Dryer

This report presents the dehydration characteristics of Taro (Colocasia esculenta) root slices dried at 65, 75, 85 and 95oC in a fabricated laboratory scale Refractance WindowTM dryer; the Taro root slices were 3.0, 4.5 and 6.0 mm thick. Moisture content and water activity variation data were taken during the drying operation for the process conditions selected. For the process conditions studied, the times required to dehydrate the moisture content to 0.11 g-water/g-solid varied between 55 to 260 minutes. For a given slice thickness, the drying times to reach the 0.11 g-water/g-solid moisture content decreased as the drying temperature increased. Also, for a given drying temperature, the drying times required to reach the 0.11 g-water/g-solid moisture content increased with slice thickness. The effective moisture diffusivity varied from 8.14 x 10-08 to 9.53 x10-07 m2/s for the process conditions studied. While moisture diffusivity data on the Refractance WindowTM dryer, was not found in the literature, the moisture diffusivity values estimated, were within the range observed for other equipment. The moisture diffusivity parameters determined in this study, are important because they are useful in the design, modelling, and optimisation of such dryers

Usefulness of Accounting Theory and Practices on Large Business Organizations in Nigeria

The study was about the impact of accounting theory and practice on performance of large scale business in Nigeria. The objective of the study was to examine the effect and usefulness of accounting theory and practice on financial performance of large firms. The research was carried out, using Coscharis Group Limited as the case study. Primary Data was collected through simple random sampling and using self-administered questionnaires for 20 respondents. Secondary Data was gotten from the company's annual reports on return on equity for the period 2014-2016. The primary and secondary data were consolidated for analysis. Multiple Linear Regression was used to analyze the data to test for the relationship between the accounting theory and practice variables (Positive Accounting Theory(PAT), Financial Reporting(FR), Auditing Practice (AP) and Budgeting) and Financial Performance(Return on Equity). Findings revealed that accounting theory and practice have significant relationship with the financial performance of large companies in Nigeria. It further shows that variables of accounting practice have significant effect on financial performance of large firms in Nigeria. It is recommended that quoted and unquoted organizations should ensure there is consistency in the accounting theory and practice adopted in preparation of their records to enhance stability in their financial performance