Employees’ attitudes and efficiency of Human Resource Management practices: Evidence from Nigeria

Available evidence shows that employee attitudes are increasingly important for organizational success and competitiveness. This study examines how employee attitudes are related to efficiency of human resource management practices. Using structured questionnaire, a survey of 1,940 ?rms operating in the industries in Nigeria was randomly sampled. The findings of this study indicated that attitudinal dimensions such as commitment Trust, employment relations and self motivation are significantly related to efficiency of HRM practices. Keywords: human resource management practices, employees, attitude,

Development of e-SIWES Portal: A Web based Platform for Student Industrial Work Experience Scheme (SIWES) Management

We developed the e-SIWES portal in order to enhance the manual task of carrying out SIWES activities such as registration, dissemination of information, filling of log book for students’ day-to-day activities and supervision/assessment by lecturers and industry based supervisors. The portal is web-based and allows all tasks to be carried out using the personal computer and the Internet. We digitized the SIWES logbook and assessment forms for filling by students and grading by the supervisors electronically. This will allow supervisors to be assigned immediately the students commence their industrial training and facilitate their monitoring in real-time. With the e-SIWES portal, important messages can be broadcast to all students at once and on a prompt and regular basis

EXAMINING THE LEVEL OF STADIUM SECURITY AND SAFETY DURING NIGERIA PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE MATCHES

The purpose of this study was to examine the level of stadium security and safety employed during Nigeria Professional Football League Matches; this is due to the fact that security during the NPFL seems to be ineffective with reports of violence, assaults and pandemonium springing up indiscriminately. A descriptive survey research design was utilized with ten (10) stadia that participated in the NPFL 2018/2019 football league season and their managers being the respondents. Seven (7) security parameters were identified including entry and exit systems, Venue Operations Centre (VOC), Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), Protection of the field of play, public announcer room, stewards’ management and police attendance. Results indicated that majority of the security measures to ensure spectator safety are not followed as recommended by FIFA and the green guide; with CCTV and VOC non-existent in almost all the stadia in the study. Results are discussed in relation to previous studies.  Article visualizations

The Contribution of Dysphagia to Acute Stroke Morbidity and Mortality in Nigeria: A Prospective Study

Background: The assessment of time-trend morbidity and mortality in acute stroke is critical to clinical policy decisions and resource allocation. Objectives: To determine the prevalence of dysphagia in acute stroke and the impact of dysphagia on short term stroke outcome (30 days post-stroke). Methods: This was a prospective longitudinal study. Bedside screening for dysphagia modified Rankin score (MRS) and Barthel Index (BI) were performed on acute stroke patients on day 1, day 7, day 14 and day 30 after stroke to determine the frequency of dysphagia. Patients with dysphagia were then compared with age- and gender-matched controls (stroke patients without dysphagia) in terms of stroke characteristics and 30-day outcome. Results:Of the recruited 200 patients, 99 (49.5%) had dysphagia. Patients with intracerebral haemorrhagic stroke had a significantly higher prevalence of dysphagia (64% vs 36%; p Conclusion: Severe stroke, subcortical stroke and haemorrhagic stroke types were significantly associated with dysphagia at baseline. Dysphagia adversely influenced 30-days morbidity and case fatality in this cohort of acute stroke patients

Analyzing the Influence of Various Fuzzification Methods in the Evaluation of Netbeans Java Components’ Interface Complexity for Reusability

The prognostic nature of fuzzy has made it a versatile tool in handling uncertainty problem. One of the major components of fuzzy system that plays an important role in its successful interpretability is fuzzification. While many researches have utilized its different forms in the accomplishment of their evaluations, especially in the domain of component based software development; it remains to be seen, the application and effects of these different membership functions in the assessment of components a singular solution. The research work examined the interface complexity of two NetBeans Java Components in determining their reusability. The result of the experimentation carried using MATLAB as tool, shows that Trapezoidal returned the highest reusability value, indicating that the components are reusable, and Polynomial fuzzification method returning the lowest reusability value and giving a false alarm that the used components were not reusable. The results underline the indispensable role of fuzzification method in the evaluation of component reusability

Patterns, Presentations and Prognosis of Nasal Polyps

Few studies have documented the characteristic features of nasal polyps in the developing countries. In this study, we described the patterns, presentations and prognosis of nasal polyps seen in clinical setting, with a view to improve our understanding of its clinical and epidemiological characteristics. The study was a 10-year retrospective analysis of histologically-confirmed nasal polyps seen between January 2006 and December 2015. Records of patients with intranasal masses were retrieved from our hospital’s records department, clinics, wards and theatre suites. Those with nasal polyps were recruited into the study. The results were descriptively analyzed using SPSS statistical soft ware package version 10. There were 84 patients with intranasal masses seen within the reviewed period. Of this, 52 (61.9%) were histologically-confirmed nasal polyps. There were 22 males and 30 females. Their age ranges from 16 to 69 years. The most frequent symptom is nasal obstruction occurring in 76.9% of the cases. None of the patients had epistaxis. Thirty-one (59.6%) were associated with various complications either singly or multiple (Table 1). All (100%) were treated with conventional forceps excision. Eleven (21.2%) of them had recurrence between 3 and 5 years after surgery. None of the polyps or their recurrence exhibited malignant transformation. Nasal polyp is the most common intranasal mass seen in clinical practice. Its rarity in children and propensity for recurrence are reaffirmed. Although, recurrence is a major prognostic challenge, nasal polyp does not exhibit malignant transformation

Health seeking behaviour in management of erectile dysfunction among men in an urban African population

Background: Erectile dysfunction (ED) is consistent inability to achieve/maintain penile erection sufficiently enough for satisfactory sexual intercourse. It is a major sexual disorder causing significant distress in men with associated poor quality of life. Despite it being a common sexual disorder, many of the affected people do not seek medical care. The study sought to investigate health seeking behaviour in management of ED among urban dwelling African men.Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive survey method was adopted. The study population comprised of men drawn from an urban setting in Nigeria using a multi-stage sampling technique. Three hypotheses were formulated which were cultural beliefs, financial status and medical access/perception on quality of care will not significantly influence health seeking behaviour for management of ED. Researchers’ designed questionnaire validated by three experts drawn from the relevant fields with reliability co-efficient of 0.77 obtained through split half method by Pearson product moment correlation was used for data collection. The three postulated hypotheses were tested using Person product moment correlation.Results: All the three hypotheses were rejected at 0.05 alpha level of significance because their calculated r-values were greater than their critical values.Conclusions: It was concluded that cultural beliefs, financial status and access to medical facilities/perception of quality of care from such medical facilities influence the health seeking behaviour of men in the management of ED.

TEXTURE MODELING AND SIMULATION FOR SYNTHETIC PALM VEIN IMAGE GENERATION SYSTEM

Unavailability of large-scale palm vein databases due to their intrusiveness have posed challenges in exploring this technology for large-scale applications. Hence, this research modelled and generated synthetic palm vein images from only a couple of initial samples using statistical features. Variations were introduced to the three optimized statistical features (S5; the original images were employed as training images and the best variation in the first experiment  as training images, S4; the best variation in the first experiment  as training images while the original images were used as testing images, S3; mean vectors, covariance matrices and correlation coefficient, S2; mean vectors and covariance matrices, S1; mean vectors, Non-Synthetic; acquired image) which were used to generate synthetic palm vein images employing statistical and Genetic Algorithm (GA) approaches and were evaluated based on Equal Error Rate (EER), Average Recognition Accuracy (ARA) and Average Recognition Time (ART). The results obtained from the experiment showed that EERs were 0.22, 0.51, 0.58 and 4.36 for S3, S2, S1 and NS respectively. S3 had superior ARA (99.83%) compared with S2 (99.77 %), S1 (99.70 %) and NS (98.33 %). The ARTs obtained were 84.97s, 75.55s, 84.04s and 681.74s for S1, S2, S3 and NS respectively with S2 (75.55s) having significantly least value. Furthermore, EER, ARA and ART for S4 were 0.43, 99.00%, and 12.13s, respectively while the corresponding values for S5 were 1.43, 97.50%, and 680.13s, respectively. The research outcome justifies the extraction of mean vectors, covariance matrices and correlation coefficient