Effects of arbuscular mycorrhiza and composted market waste on the performance of Tiannug 1 variety of kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus Linn.)

This study determined effects of composted market waste and Arbuscular Mycorrhiza (AM) on Root Colonization (RC) and fibre yield of kenaf. The experimental design was 2 x 12 factorial in a Completely Randomized Design replicated three times. The treatments were with AM (AM+) and without (AM-) and twelve levels of soil amendment: 0, NPK 20:10:10 (60 kg N ha-1), purely composted market waste (20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 kg N ha-1), and composted market waste fortified with superphosphate and  urea (20, 40, 60, 80 and 100 kg N ha-1). Residual effect of the treatments was also determined. Data on RC and yield were collected and analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA. RC ranged from 14.4 to 78.1%. Inoculated Tiannug 1 at 40 kg N ha-1 composted market waste fortified with superphosphate and urea had significantly (p < 0.05) higher RC (79.8%), bast (9.6 g pot-1) and core (19.9 g pot-1) yields. For the residual effect, inoculated Tiannug 1 at 100 kg N ha-1 purely composted market waste had significantly (p < 0.05) higher RC (69.0%), bast (2.7 t ha-1) and core (5.8 t ha-1) yields. Tiannug 1 was highly colonized by AM and the optimum yields observed at 40 kg N ha-1 composted market waste fortified with superphosphate and urea.Keywords: Arbuscular mycorrhiza, composted market waste, kenaf, performance

Assessing Local Community Participation in Tourism Planning and Development in Erin-Ijesha Waterfall Osun State, Nigeria

The basic element of tourism planning and development is to encourage the local communities’ participation as it is central to the sustainability of tourism industry. Many literatures have suggested a number of roles local communities could play in tourism development but failed as to how the locals themselves feel about this. This paper therefore focuses on Erin-Ijesha community participation in tourism development by examining their views on their role in the planning and development of Erin-Ijesha Waterfall resort. Data were gathered by reviewing office records and academic books, administration of 205 questionnaire and field observation. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data collected for the study. Findings revealed that local communities want to be involved when tourism policies are being made to enable policy makers to prepare a policy that meets stakeholders’ needs and addresses  their concerns. The locals also want to be actively involved on decisions bothered on tourism development to ensure their needs are incorporated. Also, they equally want to a voice in development issues generally to enable them protect their community’s norms, values and interests and increase transparency and equity. The findings also revealed that the locals are against the prevailing ‘top-down’ approach in decision making when it comes to tourism development in their areas. Keywords: Erin-Ijesha, local community, Tourism planning, sustainabilit

RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF CASE-BASED AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES ON STUDENTS’ ACHIEVEMENT AND RETENTION IN SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL PHYSICS

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of case-based and collaborative learning strategies on students’ achievement and retention in senior secondary school physics. The study adopted pretest, posttest control group design. Simple random sampling technique was used to select three schools used for the study. The sample used for the study was eighty five (85) senior secondary two (SS 2) physics students randomly selected from the three schools in Ileoluji/Okeigbo Local Government Area of Ondo State, Nigeria. The study made use of Physics Achievement Test (PAT) with internal consistency of 0.84 using Kuder Richardson Formular 21. The data collected were analysed using Analysis of Covariance and Scheffe post hoc analysis was used to obtain the direction of significance. From the findings, it was observed that, learning strategies had significant main effect on students’ achievement (F(2,82)= 134.97, p = 0.000) and retention (F(2,82)= 20.67, p = .000) in the concept of optics in physics. The results of the Scheffe post hoc analysis indicated that, case-based learning strategy was the most effective in facilitating students’ achievement and retention in the concept of optics. This was followed by collaborative learning strategy while conventional learning strategy was found to be the least facilitative. Conclusion from the findings led to the recommendation that, teachers should be encouraged to adopt the use of case-based and collaborative learning strategy in teaching the concept of optics in physics in order for the students to develop problem solving skills, construction of knowledge and student-centred activities.  Article visualizations

ADOLESCENTS KNOWLEDGE OF SEX EDUCATION AND MORAL SEXUAL BEHAVIOUR IN ADO-EKITI, EKITI STATE, NIGERIA

The study investigated adolescents’ knowledge of sex education and their moral sexual attitude in Ado Ekiti. Specifically, it investigated adolescents knowledge about sex education, identified the risk associated with sexual activity among adolescents, examined the attitude of adolescents toward sex education, determined the importance of sex education and how it can influence the moral sexual behaviour of adolescents’ in Nigeria. The research design adopted for the study was descriptive design of the survey type. The sample consisted of 200 adolescent students. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select sample for the study. The instrument used for the study was a questionnaire designed by the researchers. The face and content validity was ascertained through experts in Psychology, Test, Measurement and Evaluation, while test-retest method was used to ensure the reliability which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.89. The data collected were analyzed using inferential statistics of t-test. All hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The result shows that it is important to impact knowledge about sex education on adolescents. From the study, it was evident that knowledge of sex education affects the level of morality among youths. The rapid change in body proportion excites the youths and encourages them to implore pornographic behaviours which invariably affect their moral thinking by engaging in fantasy. Conclusively, sex education should be part of school curriculum in order to educate adolescent. Parents should develop effective communication skill with their children, make friends with them and have positive attitudes toward sex.  Article visualizations

Tourism Planning and Development: A Panacea to Economic Recession in Nigeria

The current economic recession in Nigeria has come down heavily on the nation’s economy in no small way. Even though crude oil still remain the mainstay of the nation’s economy, diversification of economy and exploitation of potentials of tourism resources are seen as a panacea to the current economic meltdown in the country. This paper therefore identified various tourism potentials and resources readily available in the country. This ranges from water tourism resources, vegetal tourism resources to land scape tourism resources and anthropogenic cultural tourism resources. The authors observed that tourism planning and development in Nigeria is under- exploited despite the enormous potentials. Thus, the paper suggests strategies to adopt by the government, private sector, host communities as well as workers in the tourism industry to alleviate the poor state of tourist centres in Nigeria. The paper concludes that the tourism sector has very huge potentials which if fully supported and the menace of terrorism and kidnapping is curtailed in Nigeria, will contribute significantly to the economic diversification everybody is yarning for and Nigeria will bounce back from the two edged sword of economic meltdown ravaging the country. Keywords: Economic recession, Economic diversification, Tourism development, Public-Private partnershi

An Experimental Approach towards PV-Based Solar System Sizing for an Engineering Laboratory

This study aims at providing an experimental sizing procedure for a rooftop PV-based solar power system for an engineering laboratory. This was achieved by monitoring the peak power and energy delivered by an installed 20W solar panel into an 18 Ah battery. Knowledge of the average daily peak power and energy was used to determine the percentage rated capacity available for use and the sun hour. A load consumption comparison was also carried out with and without the connection of a load to inverter. In addition to this, the monitoring of the no-load consumption of the inverter was carried out. This was carried-out to ascertain the contribution of the inverter to the system. With the knowledge of the average daily energy deliverable, sun hour and the no-load power of the inverter, a sample sizing for basic electronic laboratory loads was done. The findings of the study reveals that the average available power is 89.35% of the solar panel rated capacity while the average sun hour is 4.38 h. It has also been shown that an approximate difference of 20 W exists between the power consumption of the load with and without its connection to the inverter. This value (i.e., 20W) has been recorded as the approximate no-load power for the inverter. The sample sizing done has shown that, the solar panel energy requirement of the system with inverter may be considerably higher than that without inverter

The Pricing of Audit Services in Nigeria Commercial Banks

This  study investigates the determinants of audit fees in commercial banks in Nigeria.  Data were collected from a sample of banks mostly quoted on Nigerian Stock Exchange.  Consistent with previous studies, the result of our data analysis showed that bank size,  degree of bank complexity and transaction and saving accounts to total deposit ratio are positively related and statistically significant to audit fees charged by the auditors.  Even though , non performing loan  is positively related to audit fees , it is statistically insignificant.  While, the risk weighted capital adequacy ratio is negatively related and statistically insignificant to audit fees. Keywords: Audit fees, commercial banks, firm size, subsidiaries, auditor

Global practices and local interests: Implementing technology-based change in a developing country context.

The guiding principle of this research is that the utilisation of information technology (IT) in any part of the world currently is taking place within the globalisation trends. The need to take a wider view of IT use has become important due to the ease with which IT and associated management practices now pervade countries. These practices, developed in the 'west' and applied in countries around the world, are becoming increasingly universal as a result of the globalisation process. The Nigerian economy was deregulated towards the end of the 1980s and different sectors of the economy - including banking - were liberalised with a view to promoting competition and efficiency. In the face of these environmental changes, organisations in Nigeria have, over the past few years, been investing extensively in IT and adopting global IT-based practices. Although studies have discussed the importance of adapting these global practices to suit the context of their implementation, few have actually focused on revealing the nature of these adaptations and the factors influencing them. The overall aim of this study, therefore, is to increase understanding of why and how adaptations take place, and what results are achieved. This understanding is achieved in the thesis by incorporating ideas from both resource-based theory and new institutional theory within a contextualist framework, to study the implementation of planned technology-based change programmes in two Nigerian banks. It is suggested that local adaptations to global IT-based practices involve an adaptation process where organisational resources and local institutional rules are employed rationally, as well as symbolically, to modify the techniques. Rationally, organisational members redefine the global institutional rules embodied in global practices in order to fit the organisation's resource context and the demands of the immediate institutional environment. Symbolically, global practices are modified when organisational members ritually sustain organisational traditions and taken-for-granted practices about how to do things within the organisation or the wider societal context. Thus, such redefinition and symbolic processes specify the nature of local adaptations to global IT-based practices when they are being implemented in local contexts

Uses of Computer and its Relevance to Teaching and Learning in Nigerian Educational System

This paper examined the uses of computer and its relevance to teaching and learning in Nigerian secondary schools. The need for computer education and its objectives in Nigerian educational system were identified and discussed. The roles the classroom teachers would play and the challenges they would have to face in using computer for instruction were also highlighted. Possible solutions were suggested to ensure successful implementation of computer education programme in Nigerian secondary schools.Key words: computer education, analog computer, digital computer, hybridcomputer

Effect of Processing and Storage on the Trace Metal Concentration and Freshness Quality of Catfish (Clarias gariepinus)

The freshness quality of fish is altered by enzymatic and microbial activities, necessitating the application of fish preservation technology. This study assessed trace metals concentration and freshness quality of Catfish (Clarias gariepinus) preserved by oven-drying, brining/oven drying and smoking. The fish were processed to average moisture contents of 15 ± 5 %. Processed fish samples were stored in perforated plastic containers for 11 successive weeks at room temperature and assessed weekly for levels of trace metals (Fe, Zn, Cd, Pb) and physical attributes of odour, flavour and texture. Microbial load was assessed by total viable count (TVC) and biochemical activity by total volatile nitrogen (TVN). The freshness quality of processed fish decreased with increasing storage time and all samples preserved using the three preservation methods contained levels of trace metals below the recommended limits for trace metals in fish and are therefore safe for human consumption. Keywords: Preservation, trace metals, freshness quality, total viable count, total volatile nitroge