Exploring the Potentials of Community Theatre as a Tool for Social Change: the Participatory Communication Method

It is observed that most development modalities employed over the years for achieving community development in Africa have not leaved up to expectation in terms of involving the majority of people in the quest for national transformation and development; rather, these modalities tend to complicate the very problems they are set out to solve. The situation is mostly like this because the adopted development strategies have not taken adequate cognizance the essence of effective communication methods and the importance of people’s perspectives and peculiarities in these processes. Mostly, the so-called outsiders and experts in development matters who are physically and socially separated from the people think for them and about their development. This situation is inimical to genuine and sustainable development. It is important therefore to note that development can only be meaningful and sustainable when it is people generated; involving people’s real needs and their participation in the process of achieving them. It is at this point therefore that community theatre can come handy as it has the potentials to bring people together to discuss issues that disempowered them and participatorily proffer solutions to the negatives. Community theatre can be explored to work with rural and urban people; mostly the rural dwellers who are mostly disempowered. In view of this therefore, this paper posits that community theatre is a method of participatory communication towards achieving social change

Determinants of Stock Price Movement in Nigeria: (Evidence from the Nigerian Stock Exchange)

Stock prices serve as the basis for the assessment of whether a firm is breaking even or not. These prices are relevant metrics of returns to stakeholders, therefore the value attached to them matters so much to both existing and prospective investors in the capital market. This study thus examined by a means of robust analysis, factors that determine stock price movement in Nigeria for the period 2001 – 2011. Data were sourced from the financial statements of 99 listed firms in the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The analysis of the data sourced was done with the Ordinary Least Square (OLS) method.  The results suggest that earnings per share, book value per share and dividend cover serve as factors in the determination of stock prices.  The results of the study thus calls for recommendation that the government and policy makers in Nigeria should implement more stringent rules, backed up by legislations that will enhance the information reported in the financial statements of firms listed on the Nigeria Stock Exchange as well as compelling listed firms to adopt IFRS. Also, the accounting information reported in the capital market should constantly reposition itself in response to changing expectations. This implies that it should be viewed as an open system and in other words, feedback both from within and outside its environment should drive the constant repositioning of accounting information. Keywords: Earnings Per Share; Dividend Per Share; Book Value Per Share; Stock Market

The Effect of Human Capital Development on Economic Growth in Nigeria (An Empirical Analysis during 1970 – 2011)

Nigeria’s overreaching objective since independence in 1960 has been to achieve stability, material prosperity, peace and social progress; however, this has been hampered due to inadequate human capital development.  This study was therefore carried out with the view to testing the effect of human capital development on economic growth in Nigeria.  In order to achieve this, data were sourced from the CBN Statistical Bulletin and Federal Ministry of Education publication during 1970 – 2011.  The Ordinary Least Square (OLS) statistical technique was employed in analysing the data. The study revealed a significant relationship between human capital and economic growth.  Based on the findings, it was recommended amongst others that in order to achieve the overreaching objectives of the country, there should be enlightenment campaign on the need to allocate more funds during budgetary allocations toward developing human capital; improved infrastructure and expansion of institutional capacity to produce quality human capital at all levels. Keywords: Primary Enrolment, Secondary Enrolment and Tertiary Enrolment; VIF; TOL

Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Coupling Effect on Radio Refractivity in 2008 for Minna

Solar wind-magnetosphere coupling effect on radio refractivity is investigated from hourly measurement of meteorological parameters and interplanetary parameters for dry and rainy season in Minna (Latitude 9° 36' 50" N and Longitude 6° 33' 24" E) North central, Nigeria for the year 2008. Data used for the work is made up of hourly interval record of meteorological parameters and interplanetary parameters calculated from the data obtained from the Center for Basic Space Science (CBSS) measured with Vantage PRO II Automatic Weather station and through Omini web for each day in all the months of the year in 2008 for both dry and rainy seasons. The result showed that variations of solar wind and radio refractivity time increases almost in an hourly cycle between the 1st hours to the 14th hour during dry season while during rainy season, they exhibit linear decrease with time between 1st hour to the 19th hour. Also the correlation between solar wind energy with radio refractivity is negligible. It was showed as well that solar wind changes with a positive gradient in dry season while solar wind decreases with negative gradient in rainy season. Key words: Solar wind, magnetosphere coupling, radio refractivit

A Framework for Sustainable Maintenance of Offshore Energy Structures

This paper proposes a structure for maintenance decision support suitable for application to renewable energy assets. The method combines subjective tacit knowledge of subject-area experts with well-structured Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) to elicit weights of criteria relevant for effects evaluation of possible failures modes towards support for component’s maintenance decisions. The Technique for Ordered Preference using Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) algorithm is adopted for aggregating the evaluation scores and achieving priority indexing given the conflicting characteristics of some criteria. Part of the highlights of the Framework is the implementation of the group experts, as well as individual expert's elicitations in a complimentary manner that eliminates subjective opinions and achieves a repeatable evaluation score. The conclusion of the analysis is the prioritisation of the component’s failure; An indicative case study of offshore wind turbine jacket support structure is used to demonstrate the applicability of the approach and the analysis results-which shows priority failure modes for focused maintenance intervention as bending of Chord/Brace ( ), collapse of Chord/Brace ( ), buckling of Long piles ( ), and Truss( ), overturning of Skirt pile ( ), and fatigue of Long pile ( ), further demonstrates the capacity of the model to support maintenance decisions. Caution is exercised in the selection of criteria that would capture the objectives of the risk analyses by consulting wide range of industry experts. Keywords— AHP, Expert, Offshore energy, TOPSIS, Wind turbine Support Structur

Does an early home-based progressive resistance training program improve function following total hip replacement? Results of a randomized controlled study

CONSORT 2010 checklist. (DOC 219 kb

Mathematical Model and Analysis of Drug Addiction among Adolescent’s Populace in Nigeria

Drug addiction has become a menace especially among adolescents which has massively contributed to the social vices perpetrated by youths in Nigeria. We constructed a five-compartment model to explain the transmission dynamics of addiction leading to a non-linear deterministic equation. The next generation approach was employed to obtain the basic reproduction number (R_0). The drug free equilibrium point was obtained and showed to be locally asymptotically stable when the threshold quantity is less than one. A suitable Lyapunov function was constructed for the global stability which was found to be globally asymptotically stable. Sensitivity analysis was conducted to ascertain the behavior of the various parameters on the threshold quantity to deduce a suitable intervention strategy. Numerical simulations are carried out, the analysis is discussed, and the results are presented in graphical form. Keywords: Addiction, model, drug, stability, basic reproduction number, sensitivity analysis