Influence of firm related factors and industrial policy regime on technology based capacity utilization in sugar industry in Nigeria

The study analyzed the technology based capacity utilization rate in sugar industry in Nigeria in the period 1970 to 2010. Data used in the study were obtained from the sugar firms, publications of the Central Bank of Nigeria and National Bureau of Statistics. Augmented Dicker Fuller unit root test was conducted on the specified data to ascertain their stationarity and order of integration. The result reveals that some variables were stationary at level while some were stationary at first difference. The diagnostic statistics from the multiple log linear regression on the specified variables confirmed the reliability of the model. The empirical result reveals that sugar cane price and sugar industry’s real energy consumption have significant negative relationship with the technology based capacity utilization in the sugar industry in Nigeria. On the other hand, the wage rate of skill workers, industry’s, real research expenditure, human capital and period of import substitution have significant positive influenced on the technology based capacity utilization rate in the industry. Our findings suggest that policy measures aim at expanding the hectares of industrial sugarcane and increase production of refined petroleum fuel in the country will promote capacity utilization in the industry. Also policies targeted on the intensification of research and improved worker’s remuneration in the sub-sector is strongly advocated.Sugar, firm, capacity, utilization, industry, technology, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Environmental Economics and Policy, GA, IN,

An Exploration of Self-Care Practice and Factors Influencing Self-Care among People Affected by Leprosy in Nigeria using Social Practice Theory

A social practice theory (SPT) perspective was adopted in this study to explore how leprosy self-care has been practised in a leprosy village in North Central Nigeria. The study contributes to clarifying how SPT assists in improving the knowledge and understanding of the facilitators and barriers to leprosy self-care practice. Although key stakeholders have recommended self-care in improving the quality of life of people affected by leprosy, its implementation has not been effectively sustained, and no study has been conducted in this setting to explain the reasons for this low uptake. This is a hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study (Vagle, 2018) to explore factors influencing leprosy self-care practice. Data from people affected by leprosy were collected through 20 semi-structured interviews. In addition, over 16 hours of non-participant observation (Baker, 2006) of self-care clinics and self-care groups were carried out. The research aimed to explore participants’ perceptions and experiences of self-care and, at the same time, identify the factors which shape and influence their self-care practice. Data were thematically analysed as described by Braun and Clark (2006). The empirical data indicates that healthcare worker support is critical for sustaining leprosy self-care practice. It also highlights the importance of ensuring leprosy patients have adequate self-care knowledge and skills about leprosy self-care practice. The data analysed reveals that leprosy self-care materials could be subdivided into two broad categories, 'replaceable' and 'irreplaceable' materials. This categorisation highlights the need to ensure that self-care materials are available, affordable, appropriate, and culturally acceptable to people affected by leprosy. An overarching finding of this study is that factors that affect leprosy self-care are dynamic and interconnected and could occur in a continuum conceptualised as the leprosy self-care continuum (LSCC). The LSCC suggests no absolute presence or absence of factors but indicates various degrees of positive (enabler) or negative (inhibitor) influence. This finding informs the need for tailored and individualised leprosy self-care interventions, with continuous monitoring to ensure appropriate responses as the patient’s situation and context change. This thesis argues that leprosy self-care policy should be reconceptualised from changing individual leprosy patient behaviour to modifying broader practices of leprosy self-care. It proposes that leprosy self-care practice from an SPT lens can enhance the experiences of people affected by leprosy by identifying competing and complementary factors to self-care. This research adds a novel theoretical contribution to the broader literature on leprosy self-care by applying SPT (Shove et al., 2012; Shove, 2009) in examining how people affected by leprosy experience self-care daily. Finally, this work makes an empirical contribution to the under-researched field of leprosy self-care (Odia and Omofonmwan, 2013) by extending current thinking on how leprosy self-care is implemented

Assessment of Forest Personnel Performance in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

This study assesses the performances of forest personnel in Akwa Ibom State in meeting their target revenue for the state using qualitative and quantitative approaches. The primary data were obtained using a structured questionnaire, oral interviews, and direct observation, while the secondary data were obtained from all the 31 Divisions and the Directorate of Forestry in Akwa Ibom State. Data collected were analyzed using the descriptive and stochastic frontier analysis to assess efficiency The results obtained showed that the majority of the respondents were male (59.50%), in their economically active and productive age bracket (50.41), attended tertiary education (79.33%), were married (69.42%), had a family size of fewer than 5 members (71.90%), and received a monthly income of ₦41,000 - ₦50,000 (42.15%). Also, the majority of the respondents had been in service for 11 – 15 years (30.23%), resided in their stations (72.09%), and received various forms of in-training (65.12%) to enhance their effectiveness or performance. Most of the Uniformed Field staff patrolled their divisions daily with their superior visiting their divisions more than once a month. The majority (53.84%) of the Forest Officers had less than 10 years' experience and their technical efficiency ranged from 0.35 to 0.97. The study, therefore, recommends that a more conducive working environment should be provided for the forest personnel to be able to optimize their performances which would translate to increased revenue generation for the state

BUSINESS STRATEGY AS A CONTRIBUTOR TO ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE

Strategies to enhance performance in business organizations are of great importance to organization leaders in today‟s business environment. Research relating to both large, medium, small and micro sized firms constantly emphasized a positive relationship between business strategies, management activities and organisational performance. This is because it is often detailed that best business strategies produce outstanding organisational performance. This study reviewed diverse empirical literature on business strategies and their effects on organisational performance. The authors were able to ascertain from various literature reviewed that business strategies have a major role to play in enhancing organisational performance. This study finds that recognizing the causes of organizational performance is important especially in the perspective of the current global competitive and turbulent business environment. In addition, it helps an organisation to identify those factors that should be emphasized to improve performance in business organizations

Comparative Efficacy of Serum Creatinine and Microalbuminuria in Detecting Early Renal Injury in Asphyxiated Babies in Calabar, Nigeria

Background: Microalbuminuria and serum creatinine are markers of acute kidney injury. Birth asphyxia is responsible for 50% of all newborn deaths and acute non-oliguric kidney injury is one of such complications. This study was undertaken to determine the efficacy of serum creatinine and microalbuminuria for the detection of early renal lesion in severely asphyxiated babies in Calabar, Nigeria. Materials and Method: This prospective cross-sectional investigational study was undertaken among severely asphyxiated babies admitted into the newborn units of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), Calabar, Nigeria. Standard method for blood collection and determination of urea, electrolytes were used. Micral-test strips were used on samples negative only for albumin after using urine dipstick. Color comparison was done with the standardized color scale on test strip container after 5 minutes. Results: Fifty term newborn babies were enrolled, their serum electrolytes, creatinine and creatinine clearance were essentially normal. Six (12%) babies had positive microalbuminuria, while 44(88%) had negative microalbuminuria with specificity and negative predictive values of 100% and 88% respectively. Conclusion: Microalbuminuria was not useful for early detection of acute renal failure in babies with severe birth asphyxia, but further studies are recommended

Development of palm kernel nut cracking machine for rural use

Common traditional techniques of breaking palm kernel nuts in rural areas where it is produced involved a lots of drudgery and hazard. The goal of this research work was to design, construct and test the performance of a palm kernel nut cracking machine for local use at affordable cost. Samples were test-ran, cracked and replicated at different shaft speeds (r/min). with developed machine. The results showed that the un-cracked nuts were 2.50%, 2.00%, 1.50%, 1.25% and 1.00 %, the partially cracked were 2.75%, 2.75%, 2.25%, 2.00% and 1.75 %, the un-broken kernels were 93%, 94%, 95%, 94.5% and 94 %, that of broken kernels were 1.75%, 1.50%, 1.50%, 2.50% and 3.25 % at set speeds of 800, 1200, 1600, 2000 and 2400 r/min respectively. The throughput of the machine increased from 10.91 to 38.00 g/s as the speed of the machine increased from 800 to 2400 r/min. Also the performance efficiencies of the developed machine were 93%, 94%, 95%, 94.5% and 94% while the overall efficiencies were 90.86%, 92.12%, 93.58%, 93.08% and 93.06 % for the set speeds. The cost of the developed palm nut cracker was N150,000 (US$909), while the imported machines of similar capacity had market price range between N250,000 (US$ 1,515) to N300,000 (US$ 1,818). Conclusively, the locally-made machine performed well and was found cheaper and more economical for the establishment of small scale industry especially in the developing countries than imported types

Temperature Forecasting as a Means of Mitigating Climate Change and Its Effects: A Case Study of Mali

Temperature forecasts and trend analyzes were carried out for several locations in Mali as an important tool for warning of potentially threatening weather events such as severe heat waves, storms, droughts and floods, which could pose a great risk to humans and their environment. Five locations (Segou, Sikasso, Kayes, Gao and Taoudenni) across Mali (170 00’N – 40 00’W) were chosen for this research work. Satellite data of annual temperature obtained from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) database for 35 years (1985-2019) was used for this work. The Mann-Kendall trend test was carried out for various locations to observe and study the trend. Four Models including Auto Regressive and Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Exponential smoothening (ETS), TBATS (Trigonometric seasonality, Box-Cox transformation, ARMA errors, Trend and Seasonal components) and the linear model were employed to forecast average temperature for 10 years for all the locations. The model that produces the best forecast at the 95% confidence level is expected to have the lowest Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) value. The results showed that no significant trends were recorded at the considered locations. The linear model produced the best forecast for Segou, Kayes and Taoudenni, while the TBATS model produced the best forecast for Gao and the ARIMA model produced the best forecast for Sikasso.Citation: Billy, U., Udo, S., Ewona, I., Umoh, M., & Mfongang, A. (2023). Temperature Forecasting as a Means of Mitigating Climate Change and Its Effects: A Case Study of Mali. Trends in Renewable Energy, 9(2), 167-179. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.17737/tre.2023.9.2.0015

Self-Medication: potential risks and hazards among pregnant women in Uyo, Nigeria

Introduction: There is increasing evidence that self-medications among pregnant women are common in many developing countries. Despite the adverse impact on pregnancy, there are few programs available for their control. The objective of this study was to assess the level of self-medication amongst Nigerian pregnant women in order to determine possible harmful effects on fetus. Methods: Five hundred and eighteen 518 pregnant women, aged between 18 and 40 years, drawn from three General hospitals in Akwa Ibom State were assessed for self-medication and substance abuse using an instrument, adapted from a modified form of 117-item self-report questionnaire based on the WHO guidelines for students’ substance use survey. Results: Of the 518 pregnant women assessed, 375 (72.4%) indulged in one form of self-medication or the other; 143 (27.6%) used only drugs prescribed from the antenatal clinic. A total of 157 (41.9%) pregnant women self-medicate fever/pain relievers; 47 (9.1%) mixture of herbs and other drugs; 15 (4.0%) sedatives; 13 (3.5%) alcohol; while 5 (1.3%) used kolanuts. Reasons for using these substances range from protection from witches and witchcrafts, preventing pregnancy from coming out, for blood; poor sleep, fever and vomiting and infections. There was a significant difference in the rate of using analgesics (X2=9.43, p=0.001); and antibiotic (X2=4.43, p=0.001) among pregnant women who were highly educated compared to those with little or no education. However, the level of education has no impact in the usage of native herbs. Conclusion: This study shows that self-medication is common among pregnant women in our environment. There is need for adequate education of pregnant women during antenatal clinics on the potential danger of self-medication so as to prevent child and maternal morbidity and mortality.Pan African Medical Journal 2012; 13:1

MODELING AND OPTIMIZATION OF SURFACE ROUGHNESS IN END MILLING OF ALUMINIUM USING LEAST SQUARE APPROXIMATION METHOD AND RESPONSE SURFACE METHODOLOGY

In end milling, accurate setting of process parameters is extremely important to obtained enhanced surface roughness (SR). Due to a recent innovation in mechanization made it possible to produce high quality manufacturing products. The perceptions of quality in mechanical products are their physical look that is the surface roughness (SR). The aim of this research work is to develop mathematical expression (M.E) and mathematical model using least square approximation method and Response Surface Methodology (RMS) to predict the SR for end milling of Al 6061 alloy. The process parameters that were selected as predictors for the SR are Spindle speed (V), axial depth of cut (a), feed rate (f) and radial depth of cut (d). 30 samples of Al 6061 alloy were carried out using SIEG 3/10/0010 CNC machines and each of the experimental result was measured using Mitutoyo surface roughness tester and Presso-firm. The minimum SR of 0.5 μm were obtained at a spindle speed of 2034.608 rpm, feed rate of 100 mm/min, axial depth of cut of 20 mm, and radial depth of cut 1.5 mm. Analysis of variances shows that the most influential parameters was feed rate. After the predicted SR has been obtained by using the two methods, average percentage deviation was calculated, the result obtained using least square approximation method (that is the mathematical expression) show the accuracy of 99% and Response Surface Methodology (RSM) mathematical model shows accuracy of 99.6% which is viable and appropriate in prediction of SR. When either of these models are applied this will enhance the rate of production