Impact of Foreign Aid on the Economic Development of Nigeria: 1986 - 2016

The study researched into the impact of Foreign Aid (FA) on the Economic Development of Nigeria since the literature is yet to reach an agreement on the role of FA in economic development. The study made use of secondary data and reviewed past works done in the area for knowledge gathering. We employed vector error correction model (VECM), after unit root test and Johansen cointegration test of the series were carried out. The study found out that foreign aid flow (FAF) in Nigeria is positively related to gross domestic product (GDP), but however insignificant. That is, it does not create impact on the economy to be felt by the people. The study recommended that government should ensure that foreign aid received are invested in productive ventures and create institutions to monitor its usage, as well block diversion to non-authorised purposes. Keywords: Foreign Aid, Economic Development, GDP, Nigeri

Towards a Theory of Digital Stigma and Deep Fake Video Technology Stigmatization in a Digitally Mediated Environment

As social structures and IT becomes intertwined, there is a need for new theoretical perspectives that advance understanding of this intertwinement and its implications for IT and social actors, institutions, and society. This research attempts to develop a theory that conceptualizes the role of technology in creating and manipulating stigma symbols and the subsequent consequences of the resultant symbolic interaction on the social actors, technology, and society. Understanding the changing nature of stigma due to technology is essential in understanding resulting societal manifestations and aids in the timely management of societal implications of the dark side of technology

The Analysis of the Impact of the Capital Market Performance on Economic Growth in Nigeria: 1986 – 2017

The capital market is one sub-sector that is currently considered to drive production through its unique role as a channel of funds to investment that will impact positively on economic growth and development. The issuance of equity securities enables companies to acquire perpetual funds for development and to avoid the over-reliance on debt financing from the money market; thus, equity finance remains the cheapest and flexible source of finance. In view of this, this study addresses the impact of capital market performance on economic growth in Nigeria. It uses time-series secondary sourced data that cover the period 1986 to 2017 and relies on Ordinary Least Square method to analyse the long-run relationship. It also uses Pairwise Granger Causality test to examine the direction of causation between explanatory variables and dependent variable. Empirically, the results show relationship between economic growth (Y) and market capitalization (MCP) and degree of openness (OPN), while a negative relationship exists between Y and value of share traded (STV) and Portfolio Investment (POI). MCP significantly impact on Y at 5 percent level of significance and depicts a unidirectional causal relationship with Y. The coefficient of determination (R2) is 0.913680, suggesting 91 percent variation in economic growth as accounted for by the explanatory variables. The study recommends government should liberalize the economy to encourage foreign investors and deepen the equity market, as well as contribute fund injection into the economy, as well as create policies that would encourage large participation of stock investors and quick access to securities trading. Keywords: Capital Market Performance, Economic Growth, Nigeria

How Technology May be Used for Future Disease Prediction: A Systematic Literature Review

Exasperated by the current pandemic, our healthcare system continues to struggle with the accuracy and effectiveness of disease treatments. However, despite these growing challenges, technological advancements have aided potential disease prediction. There has been a positive correlation between utilizing technologies and leveraging them for disease predictions. Thanks to our continued reliance and technological advancement, current research shows that it has many viable options to aid the healthcare field. This systematic review looks at the current state of how technologies have been and can be used to improve healthcare

The Analysis of the Impact of the Capital Market Performance on Economic Growth in Nigeria: 1986 – 2017

The capital market is one sub-sector that is currently considered to drive production through its unique role as a channel of funds to investment that will impact positively on economic growth and development. The issuance of equity securities enables companies to acquire perpetual funds for development and to avoid the over-reliance on debt financing from the money market; thus, equity finance remains the cheapest and flexible source of finance. In view of this, this study addresses the impact of capital market performance on economic growth in Nigeria. It uses time-series secondary sourced data that cover the period 1986 to 2017 and relies on Ordinary Least Square method to analyse the long-run relationship. It also uses Pairwise Granger Causality test to examine the direction of causation between explanatory variables and dependent variable. Empirically, the results show relationship between economic growth (Y) and market capitalization (MCP) and degree of openness (OPN), while a negative relationship exists between Y and value of share traded (STV) and Portfolio Investment (POI). MCP significantly impact on Y at 5 percent level of significance and depicts a unidirectional causal relationship with Y. The coefficient of determination (R2) is 0.913680, suggesting 91 percent variation in economic growth as accounted for by the explanatory variables. The study recommends government should liberalize the economy to encourage foreign investors and deepen the equity market, as well as contribute fund injection into the economy, as well as create policies that would encourage large participation of stock investors and quick access to securities trading. Keywords: Capital Market Performance, Economic Growth, Nigeria

A framework for whole lifecycle cost of long-term digital preservation

Digital preservation, also known as digital curation, is the active management of digital information, over time, to ensure its accessibility and usability. Digital preservation is nowadays an active area of research, for many reasons: the rapid evolution of technology, which also results in the rapid obsolescence of old technologies; degradation of physical records; constantly increasing volumes of digital information and, importantly, the fact that it has started to become a legal obligation in many countries. This research project aims to develop an innovative framework estimate costs of long term digital preservation. The framework can lead to generating a cost model that quantifies costs within different business sectors, while capturing the impact of obsolescence and uncertainties on predicted cost. Case studies from financial, healthcare and clinical trials sectors are used to prove the framework concept. Those sectors were chosen because between them they share all file types that are required to be preserved and all are either obliged by European or local laws, e.g. EU Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC) and/or UK Data Retention Regulations 2014 No. 2042, or interested in preserving their digital assets. The framework comprises of three phases: assessing digital preservation activities, cost analysis and expansion and cost estimation. The framework has integrated two processes that will enable the user to reach a more accurate cost estimate; a process for identifying uncertainties with digital preservation activities and a cost modelling process. In the framework cloud computing was used as an example for storage and compute technologies. Combining different research methodology techniques was used in this research project. Starting with conducting a thorough literature review covering digital preservation and cost modelling. Following the literature review; is a combination qualitative and quantitative approaches, using semi-structured interview technique to collect data from industry experts. Industry experts were chosen from companies, firms and government bodies working with or researching digital preservation. Finalising with validating results by real-life case studies from businesses in selected sectors and experts’ verdict. Comparing the output of the framework to real-life case studies, demonstrated how companies/firms, who target to preserve their digital assets, can utilise it to predict accurately future costs for undertaking such investment. By applying industrially-based cost modelling approaches the framework generates a cost model that predicts single-point and three-points cost estimates, an obsolescence taxonomy, uncertainties identification process and quantifying uncertainties and obsolescence impact on cost prediction. Providing decision makers with all the framework outputs, will provide them with quantifiable information about their future investment, while remaining clear to understand and easy to amend. This makes the framework provide long-term total cost prediction solution for digital preservation to firms; helping, guiding and adding insight into digital preservation added value

POLITICAL ASSESSMENT OF QATARI CRISIS ON THE GCC SECURITY

Through investigating the conception of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states, it is obvious that the unity is the main factor that ensured the stability and security of the state members. Due to some political concerns, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), United Arab Emirates (UAE) and State of Bahrain launched boycott policies against the State of Qatar. Accordingly, Qatar has increased its alliance with Turkey and Iran to ensure its national security. The focal aims of this thesis are to explore the consequences of the Qatari Crisis on social, economic, political and mainly on the security sides. Moreover, identifying the key sources of friction between Qatar and the blockading states and how other factors, both historical and contextual have contribute and shaped these differences to the point that the states were willing to engage in such dramatic moves against each other. To achieve these objectives, the study applied qualitative method. A semi-structured questionnaire was used to conduct elite interviews. A semi-structured interview was developed by the researcher for collecting the required data. The interviews focused on the three main political levels which are the strategic, supervisory and executive level. The research provides important solutions for the states in the Gulf region and how to go about their diplomatic and political maneuvers given the significant risks that may be involved. This research used the Theory of Alliance to explore the attitude of the gulf countries along with the situations held on the blockade. The findings revealed that the root causes of the Qatari Crisis are multi-dimensional and include historical, political, economic factors and the media

Phenomenology of the String Theory Landscape

In this dissertation, we perform a thorough phenomenological study of the string theory landscape. To this end, we compare and contrast the data collected from particle accelerators and detectors against various models of observable particle phenomena. One stark indirect evidence of underlying string theory is the existence of supersymmetric (SUSY) particles, a variety of new particles resulting from a symmetry between the bosons and fermions observed in nature: i.e. every boson should be paired with a fermionic partner and vice versa. The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC in 2012, the particle responsible for giving mass to matter particles (e.g. electrons) and the massive gauge bosons, has provided us with strong bounds on the masses of these yet unobserved superpartner particles, which when combined with string theory landscape arguments, can yield strong statistical predictions for observing SUSY in future upgrades to particle accelerators. Various SUSY models are explored in the context of string landscape statistics by which we can rule some models out as realistic extensions to the Standard Model (SM). We also argue how realistic SUSY models requires the Higgs boson mass to be around 125 GeV with superpartners beyond current energy limits of the LHC - just what is observed experimentally. Additionally, we also analyze the prospect of detecting dark matter particles which only gravitate and exhibit at best only weak interactions. The emergence of SUSY also equips us with such Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), whose mass range can then be statistically predicted using string landscape arguments