Creating Customer Value for Enhanced Customer Satisfaction and Retention

Customers are increasingly becoming sophisticated due to forces such as advancement in technology, changing social roles and globalization. As a result, customer churning is today a common reality that most companies have to deal with in order to satisfy and retain their customers. Creating customer value has emerged as one of the winning strategic tools that firms could use to gain competitive advantage in the contemporary marketing environment. This paper is an empirical study that presents a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between customer value, customer satisfaction and customer retention. Data was obtained through a survey involving clients of Commercial Banks in Kenya; the survey yielded a total of 385 responses. A self administered questionnaire was used for the customers’ survey while interviews were conducted for Management. Descriptive statistics and regression data analysis methods were employed utilizing SPSS software. The findings of the study revealed that customer value has a positive statistically significant relationship with both customer satisfaction and customer retention

PENGARUH MACHIAVELLIANISM DAN LOVE OF MONEY TERHADAP PERSEPSI ETIKA PENGHINDARAN PAJAK

This research is a causality study which aims to determine the effect of machiavellianism and love of money on the ethical perception of tax avoidance. The research sample is an indivual taxpayer in the city of Palembang. The samples in this research are 120 respondents. Data analysis techniques used descriptive analysis, classical assumption test, and hypothesis testing using multiple linear regression analysis methods. The results of the study showed that machiavellianism and love of money had an influence on the ethical perception of tax avoidance Keywords : Machiavellianism, love of money and the ethical perception of tax avoidanc

Keragaman Genetik pada Kukang (Nycticebus Coucang) Berdasarkan pada Gen 12S RRNA Mitokondria

Genetic Diversity of Slow loris (Nycticebus coucang) based on Mitochondrial 12S rRNA gene. The research on genetic diversity of slow loris Nycticebus coucang (kukang) was carried out. The samples are 12 individuals from three locations (Sumedang and Jember in Java, and Lampung in Sumatera). Total DNA was extracted from blood and tissue. The mitochondrial 12S rRNA nucleotide sequences were determined to investigate genetic diversity of this species. This region was amplified by using L1091 and H 1478 primers by PCR. As a result of the analysis for 386 bp nucleotide sequence, five haplotypes were found, two from Java and three from Sumatra, respectively

Forecasting Precipitation Using SARIMA Model: A Case Study of Mt. Kenya Region

Precipitation estimates are an important component of water resources applications, example, in designing drainage system and irrigation. The amount of rainfall in Kenya fluctuates from year to year causing it to be very hard to predict it through empirical observations of the atmosphere alone. Our objective was to determine the forecasted values of precipitation in Mt. Kenya region and also to determine the accuracy of the SARIMA model in forecasting precipitation in the same region.  This research considers a univariate time series model to forecast precipitation in Mt. Kenya region. We fitted the SARIMA model to our data and we picked the model which exhibited the least AIC and BIC values. Finally, we forecasted our data after following the three Box-Jenkins methodologies, that is, model identification, estimation of parameters and diagnostic check. Having three tentative models, the best model had two highly significant variables, a constant and  with p-values< 0.01 respectively. This model passed residual normality test and the forecasting evaluation statistics shows ME= -0.0053687, MSE=0.96794, RMSE=0.98384 and MAE= 0.75197. Indeed, SARIMA model is a good model for forecasting precipitation in Mt. Kenya region Keywords: SARIMA, Precipitation, Forecast, Mt. Kenya, AIC and BI

EFFECTS OF BLENDED FERTILIZERS ON YIELDS OF MATURE TEA CLONES TRFK 6/8 AND BBK 35 GROWN IN KENYAN HIGHLANDS

Kenya’s tea industry depends predominantly on imported NPK fertilizers to replenish nutrients removed through plucking. In this respect, two blended fertilizers containing NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg and NPKS 23:5:5:4+10Ca+3Mg with trace elements have been produced in the country. However, contribution of the blended fertilizers to optimal tea yields had not been determined. The study aimed to evaluate the optimal levels of the two blended fertilizers on tea grown in the highlands of Kenya. The blended fertilizers were evaluated in two sites, i.e. Timbilil estate in Kericho and Kagochi farm in Nyeri. The trial was laid out in a randomized complete block design with two blended fertilizers and the standard NPK 26:5:5 as a control. The treatments were applied at four fertilizer rates (0-control, 75, 150 and 225 kg N ha-1 yr-1),  with three replications. The results showed that application of 225 kg N ha-1 yr-1 blended fertilizer NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg in Timbilil produced mean yield of 2,995 kg Mt ha-1 compared with 3,099 kg Mt ha-1 from the standard NPK. In Kagochi, the highest yield was 1,975 kg Mt ha-1 obtained from the application of the same blended fertilizer NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg at 75 kg N ha-1 yr-1. The highest yields in both sites were obtained during a warm-dry season except in 2015-2016. This study concluded that based on the annual and seasonal yields, the two blended fertilizers and the standard type had the same effectiveness, irrespective of clones and sites. However, the fertilizer rates affected the tea yield

Effects of Blended Fertilizers on Yields of Mature Tea Clones Trfk 6/8 and Bbk 35 Grown in Kenyan Highlands

Kenya's tea industry depends predominantly on imported NPK fertilizers to replenish nutrients removed through plucking. In this respect, two blended fertilizers containing NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg and NPKS 23:5:5:4+10Ca+3Mg with trace elements have been produced in the country. However, contribution of the blended fertilizers to optimal tea yields had not been determined. The study aimed to evaluate the optimal levels of the two blended fertilizers on tea grown in the highlands of Kenya. The blended fertilizers were evaluated in two sites, i.e. Timbilil estate in Kericho and Kagochi farm in Nyeri. The trial was laid out in a randomized complete block design with two blended fertilizers and the standard NPK 26:5:5 as a control. The treatments were applied at four fertilizer rates (0-control, 75, 150 and 225 kg N ha-1 yr-1), with three replications. The results showed that application of 225 kg N ha-1 yr-1 blended fertilizer NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg in Timbilil produced mean yield of 2,995 kg Mt ha-1 compared with 3,099 kg Mt ha-1 from the standard NPK. In Kagochi, the highest yield was 1,975 kg Mt ha-1 obtained from the application of the same blended fertilizer NPKS 25:5:5:4+9Ca+2.6Mg at 75 kg N ha-1 yr-1. The highest yields in both sites were obtained during a warm-dry season except in 2015-2016. This study concluded that based on the annual and seasonal yields, the two blended fertilizers and the standard type had the same effectiveness, irrespective of clones and sites. However, the fertilizer rates affected the tea yield

Terahertz Security Image Quality Assessment by No-reference Model Observers

To provide the possibility of developing objective image quality assessment (IQA) algorithms for THz security images, we constructed the THz security image database (THSID) including a total of 181 THz security images with the resolution of 127*380. The main distortion types in THz security images were first analyzed for the design of subjective evaluation criteria to acquire the mean opinion scores. Subsequently, the existing no-reference IQA algorithms, which were 5 opinion-aware approaches viz., NFERM, GMLF, DIIVINE, BRISQUE and BLIINDS2, and 8 opinion-unaware approaches viz., QAC, SISBLIM, NIQE, FISBLIM, CPBD, S3 and Fish_bb, were executed for the evaluation of the THz security image quality. The statistical results demonstrated the superiority of Fish_bb over the other testing IQA approaches for assessing the THz image quality with PLCC (SROCC) values of 0.8925 (-0.8706), and with RMSE value of 0.3993. The linear regression analysis and Bland-Altman plot further verified that the Fish__bb could substitute for the subjective IQA. Nonetheless, for the classification of THz security images, we tended to use S3 as a criterion for ranking THz security image grades because of the relatively low false positive rate in classifying bad THz image quality into acceptable category (24.69%). Interestingly, due to the specific property of THz image, the average pixel intensity gave the best performance than the above complicated IQA algorithms, with the PLCC, SROCC and RMSE of 0.9001, -0.8800 and 0.3857, respectively. This study will help the users such as researchers or security staffs to obtain the THz security images of good quality. Currently, our research group is attempting to make this research more comprehensive.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 4 table

Use of Climate Information in Malaria Stratification/Early Warning Systems/Impact Assessment for Malaria Interventions

A report on the training workshop and stakeholder meeting hosted by the Tanzania Meteorological Agency in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania October 16th-18th 2013

Altered emotionality, hippocampus-dependent performance and expression of NMDA receptor subunit mRNAs in chronically stressed mice.

N-Methyl-D-aspartate receptor (NMDAR)-mediated neurotransmission in the hippocampus is implicated in cognitive and emotional disturbances during stress-related disorders. Here, using quantitative RT-PCR, we investigated the hippocampal expression of NR2A, NR2B and NR1 subunit mRNAs in a mouse stress paradigm that mimics clinically relevant conditions of simultaneously affected emotionality and hippocampus-dependent functions. A 2-week stress procedure, which comprised ethologically valid stressors, exposure to a rat and social defeat, was applied to male C57BL/6J mice. For predation stress, mice were introduced into transparent containers that were placed in a rat home cage during the night; social defeat was applied during the daytime using aggressive CD1 mice. This treatment impaired hippocampus-dependent performance during contextual fear conditioning. A correlation between this behavior and food displacement performance was demonstrated, suggesting that burrowing behavior is affected by the stress procedure and is hippocampus-dependent. Stressed mice (n = 22) showed behavioral invigoration and anomalous anxiolytic-like profiles in the O-maze and brightly illuminated open field, unaltered short-term memory in the step-down avoidance task and enhanced aggressive traits, as compared to non-stressed mice (n = 10). Stressed mice showed increased basal serum corticosterone concentrations, hippocampal mRNA expression for the NR2A subunit of the NMDAR and in the NR2A/NR2B ratio; mRNA expression of NR2B and NR1 was unchanged. Thus, stress-induced aberrations in both hippocampal-dependent performance and emotional abnormalities are associated with alterations in hippocampal mRNA NR2A levels and the NR2A/NR2B ratio and not with mRNA expression of NR2B or NR1

Epidemiological profile and clinico-pathological features of pediatric gynecological cancers at Moi Teaching & Referral Hospital, Kenya

Background: The main pediatric (0–18 years) gynecologic cancers include stromal carcinomas (juvenile granulosa cell tumors and Sertoli-Leydig cell tumors), genital rhabdomyosarcomas and ovarian germ cell. Outcomes depend on time of diagnosis, stage, tumor type and treatment which can have long-term effects on the reproductive career of these patients. This study seeks to analyze the trends in clinical-pathologic presentation, treatment and outcomes in the cases seen at our facility. This is the first paper identifying these cancers published from sub-Saharan Africa. Method: Retrospective review of clinico-pathologic profiles and treatment outcomes of pediatric gynecologic oncology patients managed at MTRH between 2010 and 2020. Data was abstracted from gynecologic oncology database and medical charts. Results: Records of 40 patients were analyzed. Most, (92.5%, 37/40) of the patients were between 10 and 18 years. Ovarian germ cell tumors were the leading histological diagnosis in 72.5% (29/40) of the patients; with dysgerminomas being the commonest subtype seen in 12 of the 37 patients (32.4%). The patients received platinum-based chemotherapy in 70% of cases (28/40). There were 14 deaths among the 40 patients (35%) Conclusion: Surgery remains the main stay of treatment and fertility-sparing surgery with or without adjuvant platinum-based chemotherapy are the standard of care with excellent prognosis following early detection and treatment initiation. LMICs face several challenges in access to quality care and that affects survival of these patients. Due to its commonality, ovarian germ cell cancers warrant a high index of suspicion amongst primary care providers attending to adnexal masses in this age group