Working capital management policy and the financial performance of food and beverages companies in Nigeria

This study is set to examine the relationship between working capital management policy and profitability of quoted food and beverages companies in Nigeria. The population comprises a sample of ten (10) food and beverage companies quoted on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study used secondary data for a period of ten (10) years (2005-2014) and was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the aid of Stata version 13. Two research hypotheses were formulated and tested. It was found that, there is no significant relationship between receivable collection period (RCP) policy and profitability of quoted food and beverage companies in Nigeria. However, it was recommended that the management should identify the level of inventory which allows for uninterrupted production but reduces the investment in raw materials and minimizes reordering cost and hence increases profitability. The management should reduce their RCP from 53 days on the average to at most 30 days by instituting adequate control and flexible credit policy.peer-reviewe

A provision-aware fair bandwidth distribution marker algorithm for DiffServ networks

The rise in demand for real-time applications on the Internet necessitates Quality of Service (QoS). Differentiated Services (DiffServ) is one of the technologies used currently to provide QoS and service differentiation. It is simple and scalable. It provides service differentiation to aggregates, mainly through the Assured Forwarding (AF) per-hop behaviour. Previous work on fair sharing of network bandwidth did not adequately address the Under-Provisioned Network (UPN) condition. In this paper, we propose a new three-colour marker, named paItswTCM (provision-aware Improved TSW based Three-Colour Marker). We compare our new algorithm with both time-sliding window markers and token-bucket-based markers using simulations. Results show that our new provision-aware marker outperforms these previous algorithms not only in the UPN condition but also for low to medium network provision levels. We conclude that to achieve proportional sharing of bandwidth, no packet type should be injected at the expense of others. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Synthesis, characterization and antibacterial studies of macrocyclic schiff base derived from malonic acid and o-phenylenediamine and its Cd (II), Co (II), Cu (II), Ni (II), and Zn (II) comlplexes

The condensation of Malonic acid with o-phenylenediamine have yielded the Schiff Base 7,16-dihydrodibenzo[1,4,8,11]tetraazacyclotetradecine-6,8,15,17-tetraol (89.39%). Its metal (II) complexes were prepared from the chloride salts of Cd2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+. Solubility, melting/decomposition temperature, FT-IR, molar conductance and magnetic moments were used to determine the ligands and its complexes. The FT-IR result indicates a band at 1633cm-1 which corresponds to azomethine and confirms the formation of the ligand. There was a bathochromic shift in the peak to 1607cm-1, 1596cm-1, 1611cm-1, 1573cm-1 and 1566cm-1 in the spectra of Cd2+, Co2+, Cu2+, Ni2+ and Zn2+ complexes respectively which is attributed to the binding of the nitrogen of azomethine to the metal ions. The compounds were tested for their antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli using agar cup-plate method. The ligand and its complexes were found to be active against both Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli. The Ni (II) complex displayed an enhanced activity with the highest zone of inhibition (45mm).Keywords: Synthesis, Characterization, Ligand, Complexes, Antibacteria

Determinants of Attitude of Customers towards Usage of Islamic Credit Card: A Study of Graduate Students of Kolej Universiti Insaniah

This study examines the factors that influence the attitude of customers toward utilization of Islamic credit cards among graduate students of Kolej Universiti Insaniah. The factors which are included in this study are perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, knowledge on the Islamic credit card, financial cost and trust. The study adopts the application of the technology acceptance model (TAM) to capture factors which have impact on the usage of Islamic credit cards. The result from the regression shows that trust is the most significant predicting variable on the attitude to use Islamic credit cards with the 24.9% explanation on the variance. Three variables out of the five independents variables; trust, knowledge and financial cost jointly explained 40 % of the variance of attitude toward using Islamic credit cards.  The remaining variables, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness do not have a significant contribution in predicting attitude toward using Islamic credit card. Keywords: Islamic Credit Card, Students, Usag

The impact of the modified budgeting systems (MBS) on performance measurement in Malaysian central government organisations

The introduction of the Modified Budgeting System (MBS) as one of the New Public Financial Management (NPFM) tools to bring the efficiency of private sector into Malaysian government organisations had its implication on these organisations' performance measurement systems. Therefore, by obtaining perceptions of the senior managers in the civil services who experienced the reform, this study examines the impact of the Modified Budgeting System (MBS) had on performance measurement practice in Malaysian central government organisations. Specifically, the respondents were asked about the impact of the MBS on improving output based performance measurement, linkage between inputs and outputs, and developing own output measures. This study also examines who are the stakeholders consulted to develop performance measures and the level of importance that civil service’ managers attach to different types of performance indicators covering both financial and non financial indicators. The study found that generally the respondents agreed that the MBS had improved performance measurement in their organisations, and civil service managers attached more importance on customer related measures than efficiency indicators. Despite of these, weaknesses in implementation was mainly related to resistance to change by managers, thus, this might impede the effective development of the performance measures

Advanced modelling of adaptive bitrate selection

Nowadays, a typical video content provider serves a variety of platforms e.g. smartphones, web browsers, and smart TVs. Each of these platforms has specific requirements with respect to transmission and video quality. Moreover, since these devices are increasingly being used on-the-go, the environment within which most of these video streaming clients operate is both unreliable and time-varying. To cater for these heterogeneous requirements, content providers are increasingly adopting adaptive streaming services. Through such services, the quality of the video content received by a user is adapted to fit its specific requirements and capabilities. To adapt the video quality, system capabilities such as network capacity and memory have to be continuously monitored and measured, chunk requests have to be scheduled, and then the optimal video rate has to be decided. Each of these tasks is usually managed by a sub-module of the adaptive bitrate selection function. However, these sub-components interact in a non-trivial manner. For example, while on-off chunk scheduling helps to prevent buffer overflow, it negatively affects the TCP throughput. Hence, these complex interactions between these different sub-components of the adaptive streaming algorithm result in unnecessary rebufferings, undesirable variability, and sub-optimal video quality. To help simplify these interactions, this thesis develops several frameworks and models that define the relationships between the various components of the adaptive bitrate selection system. This includes deriving the valid system state space, which defines the state that an algorithm can be in at any given time, determining the allowable interactions between the various components, and identifying the video quality evolution rules that optimise QoE. Using this information, some state-of-the-art algorithms are improved and novel ones developed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The result of extensive evaluations conducted both within a real-world Internet environment and with network trace shows the proposed schemes help in reducing the convergence time, startup delay, and rebuffering events, while at the same time increasing both the average and the stability of the video quality. All this is obtained without any adverse impact on the fairness among the competing players

Modelling video rate evolution in adaptive bitrate selection

Adaptive bitrate selection adjusts the quality of HTTP streaming video to a changing context. A number of different schemes have been proposed that use buffer state in the selection of the appropriate video rate. However, models describing the relationship between video quality levels and buffer occupancy are mostly based on heuristics, which often results in unstable and/or suboptimal quality. In this paper, we present a QoE-aware video rate evolution model based on buffer state changes. The scheme is evaluated within a real world Internet environment, where it is shown to improve the stability of the video rate. Up to 27% gain in average video rate can be achieved compared to the baseline ABR. The average throughput utilisation at a steady-state reaches 100% in some of the investigated scenarios

Protection against creditors, indemnity and No Claim Benefits (NCB) under life insurance and family takaful

This is a doctrinal and comparative research between the traditional law and the Shariah with regard to issues of protection against creditors, indemnity and no claim benefits (NCB) under life insurance and family takaful. The aim is to find similarities and dissimilarities between life insurance and family takaful vis-à-vis the issues based on Maqasid al-Shariah. It is found that both the traditional law and the Shariah assert that creditors have priority over the life policy and family takaful benefits even if the beneficiaries will get nothing from it. Again, under both systems, it is submitted that although ‘Indemnity’ and ‘No claim benefits’ are paid but the Shariah does not allow forfeiture of the indemnity because of lack of utmost good faith (uberimae fidei) or discontinuing payment of the premiums/contributions by the policyholder or participant. It is further submitted that under takaful the No Claim Benefits (NCB) should be paid based on al-Mudarabah agreement and not interest and uncertainty. And all these ensure protection of religion and property

Impact of export incentive schemes on the performance of agricultural exports in Nigeria

Abstract. This paper examines the impact of export incentive schemes on the Performance of agricultural exports in Nigeria, using quarterly time series data from 1990-2014. The study employed Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model to cointegration analysis and Granger causality test to examine the long run and causality relationship between growth in the Performance of agricultural exports and export incentive schemes in Nigeria. The bounds tests used in the study revealed that there is no long run equilibrium relationship between export incentive schemes and the performance of agricultural exports in Nigeria. It is of high importance to note that the granger casualty test indicates that there was a unidirectional relationship running from agricultural export (AGR) to export expansion grant (EEG), export development fund (EDF) to agricultural export (AGR). Since the findings of the study show that export development fund has positive and significant impact on the performance of agricultural exports in Nigeria, the study suggests that major concern should be given to its management and disbursement to ensure stable growth in the sub-component (agriculture) of non-oil export in Nigeria. This can be achieved through adequate funding by the concerned authority.Keywords. Export incentives, Non-oil exports, Causality, ARDL, Nigeria. JEL. J43, Q00, Q10

EMERGENCY RELIEF MATERIALS ADMINISTRATION AND THE WELFARE OF INTERNALY DISPLACED PERSONS IN MAIDUGURI, BORNO STATE

The study focuses on interrogating emergency relief materials administration and the welfare of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Maiduguri. Internal displacement has rendered over 2 million people in Nigeria homeless, with Maiduguri hosting over 1.6 million as at May, 2021. These IDPs are camped by governments across the nation, while some of them went to stay with friends or relatives who reside in neighboring local government areas or states. The study adopts Joseph’s prebendalism theory which explains a situation in which public officials use their position of trust to amass wealth through criminal means. Both primary and secondary sources of data collection were used. The primary source employed the use of Focus Group Discussion from among the IDPs in selected camps as well as IDPs outside camps. Key Informants Interviews with government officials at NEMA and SEMA, etc., was used; while online newspapers, radio reports, etc., served as secondary sources. The findings of the study show that some officials of the national and state emergency management agencies divert emergency relief materials meant for IDPs for their personal gains. It also shows that this diversion of relief materials affects the general welfare of the IDPs. The study recommends among other things that an agency should be created to coordinate and monitor the activities of the national and state emergency management agencies and all other agencies and NGOs with regard to the collection and distribution of relief materials and rehabilitation of IDPs