An investigation into factors influencing intention to pay zakat: evidences from Nigeria

The research of intention to pay zakat in Kano Nigeria is still at the early stage. The main objective of this study is to examine factors influencing intention to pay zakat in Kano Nigeria. Questionnaires were collected from businessmen and businesswomen operating in Kano Nigeria using a cross-sectional study design. Questionnaires were distributed and collected through the personally-administered method. A total of 524 businessmen and businesswomen in Kano participated in this study. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used and tested the study hypotheses. The study reveals that attitude toward zakat evasion, attitude toward moral reasoning, peer influence, zakat knowledge, quality of zakat distribution and perception of board capital are important determinants of intention to pay zakat in Kano Nigeria. However, attitude toward ethnic diversity, influence of religious leaders, zakat system structure and enforcement of zakat law are insignificant. Overall, the results indicates that, the study model provides a good understanding of the factors that influence intention to pay zakat specifically in Kano Nigeria. Finally, the study discussed theoretical, methodological contribution, practical implications as well as limitations and suggestions for future studies

Position of the Teaching Profession in Nigeria and Its Effects on Potential Business Teachers in the Country

The study investigated the stance of teaching profession and its effect on potential business teachers in Nigeria.  The study has six objectives and six null hypotheses.    Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study.  Data were collected from 224 business education student-teachers who did their teaching practice in 2012/2013 academic year in Zaria and Sabon Gari local government in Kaduna state.  Structured questionnaire titled Status of Teaching Profession and Future Teachers in Nigeria (STPFTN) was used to elicit data from the respondents.  Data collected were coded and analyzed through SPSS XII.  Chi-square was used to test all the six null hypotheses at significant level of 0.05.  The result revealed among others that the status f teaching profession has significant effect on the attitudes of potential teachers in Nigeria.  it was recommended among others that government should encourage the atmosphere of positive support for education, providing improved training and professional development, increasing teacher salaries, and installing outstanding facilities, this will help to encourage retained existing teachers and attract future teachers into the profession. Keywords: Stance, Teaching Profession, Potential Teachers

Effect of Educational Technology Usage on Student’s Clinical Skills, Competencies and Satisfaction at School of Nursing in Sokoto State, Nigeria

Background: Technology allows the most difficult tasks to become seamlessly easy and more efficient. In education, technology has allowed the dissemination of knowledge to be dispersed instantly and it allows for quicker and more effective communication. A critical reflection on what nursing educators should consider now in order to better support the clinicians of the future is also included with a particular focus on existing informatics curricular supports. Aim: The study aimed at assessing the effect of the use of educational technology on student clinical skills, competency, and satisfaction at schools of nursing Sokoto state. Methodology: A quasiexperimental design was used for the study, A total of 239 respondents, with pre-test/post-test injection and hand hygiene clinical Competency observation checklist and a researcher developed a questionnaire for satisfaction. Results: The findings of the study revealed that the effect of educational technology on student clinical competence skills based on hand hygiene difference of 2.36 with t(186)=9.837, p<0.05, hence, the experiment group performed better than the control group in hand hygiene competencies and injection procedure with mean 1.12 with t(186)=3.556, P<0.05 The satisfaction with teaching/learning using reusable learning object, both experiment, and control groups were relatively satisfied with the reusable learning object educational technology The mean levels of satisfaction was 26.54 and 26.38 for experimental and control groups respectively r(92)=0.425, r2=0.18 (18%), P<0.05 Conclusion: The RLOs were successful in supporting the students understanding of clinical procedures such as injection and hand hygiene issues, resulting in effective ability and confidence to meet their clinical competency

Audit Committee Characteristics and Audit Delay among Nigerian Oil and Gas Companies

This study examines the effect of audit committee diversity on audit delay of listed oil and gas companies in Nigeria. The study utilized a sample of 6 oil and gas companies for the period of 2011 to 2020 listed from Nigerian Exchange Group (NGX) market. A random effects regression has been employed in this study. Results from the study revealed that female directors in audit committee with financial expertise and presence of independent directors on audit committee have a negative and statistically significant effect on audit delay of listed oil and gas companies. Therefore, this study can be used by the policy makers or regulators in formulating policies on independent directors and women directors on board in Nigeria

Optimal Allocation and Sizing of Distributed Generation for Power Loss Reduction using Modified PSO for Radial Distribution Systems

For the purpose of improving the voltage profile and power losses reduction, this paper proposes allocation and sizing of Distributed Generation (DG) in radial distribution system (69 IEEE bus test system.). A simple and effective approach for power loss reduction (PLR) value is employed for the allocation while the sizing was by using the results from the allocation as local optimum in a modified PSO called Ranked Evolutionary particle swarm optimization (REPSO) in order to obtain the global optimum. Load simulations in power flow yielded improvement not only in power loss reduction but also in voltage profile. The proposed algorithm was found to be faster and gives more accurate results than the EP and PSO algorithms. Keywords: Distributed Generation, Evolutionary programming,, Particle Swarm Optimization, Allocation and sizing, Power loss reduction

Online Stochastic Principal Component Analysis

This paper studied Principal Component Analysis (PCA) in an online. The problem is posed as a subspace optimization problem and solved using gradient based algorithms. One such algorithm is the Variance-Reduced PCA (VR-PCA). The VR-PCA was designed as an improvement to the classical online PCA algorithm known as the Oja’s method where it only handled one sample at a time. The paper developed Block VR-PCA as an improved version of VR-PCA. Unlike prominent VR-PCA, the Block VR-PCA was designed to handle more than one dimension in subspace optimization at a time and it showed good performance. The Block VR-PCA and Block Oja method were compared experimentally in MATLAB using synthetic and real data sets, their convergence results showed Block VR-PCA method appeared to achieve a minimum steady state error than Block Oja method. Keywords:   Online Stochastic; Principal Component Analysis; Block Variance-Reduced; Block Oj

The mediating effect of perceived behavioural control on the relationship between zakat law enforcement and intention to pay zakat

This paper aims to propose a conceptual framework for examining the influence of mediating effect of perceived behavioural control on the relationship between zakat law enforcement and intention to pay zakat among Muslim in State of Kano, Nigeria. An extensive literature review method was utilized to identify and analyse relevant literatures in order to propose the conceptual framework. This paper proposed framework to show those relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of the paper as well as suggestions for future research were also discussed