Credit Usage, Hire Purchase Costs, and Consumer Protection in Retail Institutions in Botswana

This paper analyzes credit purchase practices in Gaborone, Botswana. Adopting a survey and a disguised interview technique, data was collected and analyzed on the usage rate of credit purchases. The hire purchase, which was the most popular form of credit, was examined in greater detail with respect to the costs of hire purchase, their comparison with other types of consumer credit, the compliance of hire purchase sellers to the hire purchase laws. It concludes with policy change recommendations on hire purchase and personal loan transactions. Key words: Consumer Debt; Hire Purchase; Credit Sales; Micro Finance; Personal Loans

Funding Strategies for Small Business Sustainability

About 50% of small businesses fail within the first five years of operation, lacking access to capital being a contributing factor. The high failure rate is of great concern to the business owners; their livelihood and employees are jeopardized. Through the pecking order theory lens, the purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore strategies small business owners use to access capital to sustain the business past the first five years. Eight small business owners who successfully operated for more than five years in Georgia and Illinois participated in the semistructured interviews. Through thematic data analysis, four themes were identified: internal financing most commonly used, external funding not readily accessible in earlier years, external financing used at later and critical stages of business, and minimizing business operational costs and expenses. A recommendation is for small business owners, fund providers, and the government to better understand some issues affecting small businesses\u27 survival and implement policies that will lead to a better ecosystem that supports small business sustainability. The implications for positive social change include the potential for small business owners to apply financial strategies for business stainability, leading to greater prosperity in the local, state, and national economies

Physiological Responses of Rabbit Bucks Fed Diets Containing Cotton Seed Cake Supplemented with Carrot (Daucus Carota) or Ginger (Zingiber Officinale)

Twenty-four (24) weaner rabbit bucks, aged 6 – 7 weeks were used to investigate the physiological responses of rabbit bucks fed diets containing cottonseed cake supplemented with carrot or ginger. The bucks were allotted to four (4) dietary treatments of six (6) rabbits each. The treatment diets (T1, T2, T3 and T4) contained 16% crude protein such that soyabean meal (SBM) was the main protein source for the control diet (T1). In T2, the SBM was completely replaced with Cottonseed cake (CSC). In T3 (CSC + Carrot), 5g/ kg diet of carrot was added to the composition in T2; while in T4 (CSC + Ginger), 5g/ kg diet of ginger was added to the composition in T2. Animals were fed for nine (9) weeks after which blood was collected for both haematological and serum biochemical analyses. The haematological variables determined were Packed Cell Volume (PCV), Red Blood Cell count (RBC), Haemoglobin concentration (Hb), Platelet count, White Blood Cell count (WBC) and the differential counts. The haematological indices, Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin (MCH), Mean Corpuscular Volume (MCV), and Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin Concentration (MCHC), were also determined. The serum biochemical variables determined included total protein, albumin, urea, creatinine, aspartate transaminase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), cholesterol, triglyceride and glucose. The results indicated that lymphocytes, neutrophils and platelet counts were significantly (P<0.05) affected by treatment. Lymphocyte count for T4 (CSC + Ginger) was significantly (P<0.05) higher (78.0%) than for other treatments which were not significantly different from one another. Neutrophils for T4 was significantly (P<0.05) lower (18.0%) than for others (29.0; 30.7 and 30.7% for T1, T2 and T3 respectively). Platelet count was significantly (P<0.05) depressed by CSC (T2). Albumin and urea were depressed (P<0.05) by CSC (T2) and CSC + Ginger (T4). Creatinine was significantly (P<0.05) elevated by T3 (1.24mg/dl). The AST and ALT increased significantly (P<0.05) from 20.77 to 43.30 iu/L and 21.42 to 43.17 iu/L, respectively in T1 and T4. Cholesterol level was significantly (P<0.05) higher for T2 than for other treatments. It was concluded that CSC had adverse effects on the serum biochemical parameters of rabbit bucks. Carrot or ginger supplementation demonstrated a potential to correct the adverse effect with ginger exhibiting a greater influence, suggesting the need to always supplement CSC-based diets for rabbits with either of the products to safeguard the health of the animals. Keywords: Haematology, Serum biochemistry, cottonseed cake, carrot, Ginger, Rabbit buck

Effect of Processing Parameters on Solvent Oil Expression from Loofah Seeds (Luffa cylindrica L.) using Response Surface Methodology

Luffah cylindrica plant grows in the wild, around uncompleted buildings and fenced walls. The percentage oil composition of its seeds is about 30% oil. The research focused was the extraction oil from loofah seed using a solvent extraction methodology. Optimum conditions for oil extraction were determined using Response Surface Methodology of Central Composite Rotatable Design. A total of 20 experimental runs were used to investigate the optimum condition considering three independent variables at five levels each: extraction temperature (55, 60, 65, 60, 75ºC), seed/solvent ratio (0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08 g/ml) and extraction time (4, 5, 6, 7, 8 hr.). An empirical model equation that could be used to forecast oil yield as a function of the independent variables was developed. The optimum oil yield obtained was 27.43% at the extraction temperature (74.05ºC), seed/solvent ratio (0.05 g/ml) and extraction time (5.35hr). The analysis of variance showed that extraction temperature and time had significant effect on oil yield (p = 0.05). The interaction of the independent variables with oil yield gave R2 and R2 adj. values of 0.98 and 0.93, respectively. The result showed that the selected independent variables had a significant effect on oil yield, thus an optimum condition was established

Grid Computing: A Desirable Tool for Electronic Governance

This paper explained how Government at different levels can apply Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to achieve efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability in Government to Government (G2G), Government to Employee (G2E), Government to Citizen (G2C) and Government to Business (G2B).   This application is referred to as Electronic Governance (e-Governance).  The system enables citizens to make best use of automated administration processes that are accessible on-line.  Grid computing is an ideal solution to this type of administrative processes.  This paper therefore presents how Grid computing can be used to effectively and efficiently meet the yearnings of citizenry.   Generally, we demonstrated the creation of a virtual environment by using Grid technologies to a specific e-governance application on distributed resources. We presented a framework for the adoption of grid computing for                   e-governance management using Electronic Bill server (EB server), Comprehensive Welfare and Social Services server (CWSS server) and Corporation sever (C server).  Experiments were run with the Grid environment and without Grid environment by considering the number of jobs completed and the period to complete various jobs submitted for processing using MATLAB. The numbers of jobs completed by EB server by using Grid are: 20, 40, 60, 80,100 and 120 while 15, 25, 33, 60, 72 and 90 were completed without Grid under the same condition.  The numbers of jobs completed by CWSS server with Grid are: 30,50,70,90,120 and 130 while 22.5, 37.5, 52.5, 67.5 90 and 97.5 were completed without Grid.   The numbers of jobs completed by Corporation server under Grid are: 30,50,70,90,120 and 130 while 24, 40,56,72,96 and 104 were completed without Grid.   The period to complete various jobs submitted for processing by the EB server under Grid are: 18, 30, 42, 54,72 and 88minutes while 30,50,70,90,120 and 130minutes were required without Grid.  For CWSS server, the period to complete various jobs submitted for processing under Grid are: 6.5, 19.5, 32.5, 45.5, 58.5,78 and 84.5minutes while 10, 30,50,70,90,120 and 130minutes were required without Grid.  For Corporation server, the period to complete various jobs submitted for processing under Grid are:  6.4,19.2,32,44.8,57.6, 76.8 and 82.2minutes while 10,30,50,70,90 120, and 130minutes were required without Grid. The result of simulation revealed that implementing an e-Governance solution was cost effective, efficient, consistent and reduced job processing time with high quality of result and providing better services to citizens. Keywords: E-Governance, Grid Applications, Grid Computing, Grid environment, Grid Infrastructure and Grid Resource Broker

Computational Numerical Solution for Traveling Salesman Problem

This paper examined and analysed the desire of Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) to find the cheapest way of visiting all given set of cities and returning to the starting point.     We presented a unique decomposition approach model for TSP in which the requirements and features of practical application in communication network, road transportation and supply chains are put into consideration.  We used a Mathematical Modeling solution with the application of Ant Colony Search Algorithm (ACSA) approach for result computation. In our approach, different Agents were created for difference purposes.   Information agent gathered information about best tour and detected the solution agent that arrived at a given point with information message containing details of where the solution agent has come from as well as best tour cost.  The place ant performs local pheromone decay on the relevant links.   This help to avoid random visit to irrelevant edges and allows the place ant to calculate the cost of tour of all place ants including the latest pheromone level on the links to each of the place ants. The solution agent uses available information to decide  which node to visit next and informs the place ant of  its decision to move to a given destination and update better tour  previously sampled while information about where to go next also obtained.       The place ant updates its pheromone value for that link using the equivalent of the algorithm for local pheromone update.    The cycle continues until solution agent arrives at its destination. The main advantage of our approach is that it permits the use of mixed integer programming and combinatorial optimization techniques to compute real optimal routing path, solving the problem in practice by returning actual shortest route with its numerical value and not the best effort result as provided by some previous models and analytical methods. The implementation was carried out using C# programming language.  Data used were generated and the performance evaluation of the model was carried out through simulation using Matlab 7.0.  The result shows that by considering all possible paths between a node as the source and another as the destination, all possible routes for a particular journey with shortest route in each case were generated. Keywords: Ant Colony, Combinatorial Optimization, Mixed Integer Programming, Pheromone, Search Algorithm and Traveling Salesman

Automated classification of African embroidery patterns using cellular learning automata and support vector machines

Embroidery is the art that is majorly practised in Nigeria, which requires creativity and skills. However, differentiating between two standard embroidery patterns pose challenges to wearers of the patterns. This study developed a classification system to improve the embroiderer to user relationship. The specific characteristics are used as feature sets to classify two common African embroidery patterns (handmade and tinko) are shape, brightness, thickness and colour. The system developed and simulated in MATLAB 2016a environment employed Cellular Learning Automata (CLA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) as its classifier. The classification performance of the proposed system was evaluated using precision, recall, and accuracy. The system obtained an average precision of 0.93, average recall of 0.81, and average accuracy of 0.97 in classifying the handmade and tinko embroidery patterns considered in this study. This study also presented an experimental result of three validation models for training and testing the dataset used in this study. The model developed an improved and refined embroiderer for eliminating stress related to the manual pattern identification process

Computational Numerical Solution for Traveling Salesman Problem

This paper examined and analyzed the desire of Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) to find the cheapest way of visiting all given set of cities and returning to the starting point.     We presented a unique decomposition approach model for TSP in which the requirements and features of practical application in communication network, road transportation and supply chains are put into consideration.  We used a Mathematical Modeling solution with the application of Ant Colony Search Algorithm (ACSA) approach for result computation.  In our approach, different Agents were created for difference purposes.   Information agent gathered information about best tour and detected the solution agent that arrived at a given point with information message containing details of where the solution agent has come from as well as best tour cost.  The place ant performs local pheromone decay on the relevant links.   This help to avoid random visit to irrelevant edges and allows the place ant to calculate the cost of tour of all place ants including the latest pheromone level on the links to each of the place ants. The solution agent uses available information to decide  which node to visit next and informs the place ant of  its decision to move to a given destination and update better tour  previously sampled while information about where to go next also obtained.  The place ant updates its pheromone value for that link using the equivalent of the algorithm for local pheromone update.  The cycle continues until solution agent arrives at its destination. The main advantage of our approach is that it permits the use of mixed integer programming and combinatorial optimization techniques to compute real optimal routing path, solving the problem in practice by returning actual shortest route with its numerical value and not the best effort result as provided by some previous models and analytical methods. The implementation was carried out using C# programming language.  Data used were generated and the performance evaluation of the model was carried out through simulation using Matlab 7.0.  The result shows that by considering all possible paths between a node as the source and another as the destination, all possible routes for a particular journey with shortest route in each case were generated. Keywords: Ant Colony, Combinatorial Optimization, Mixed Integer Programming, Pheromone, Search Algorithm and Traveling Salesman