Understanding And Explaining The Underpinnings of Creative Accounting in Nigeria: The Cadbury Evidence

The rapid decline in public and investors’ confidence in the management of public quoted companies as a result of reported widespread incidence of ‘widow dressing’, ‘aggressive accounting’or ‘creative accounting’has triggered the need to explore the rationale for such practice. Using Cadbury Nig Plc as a case in point, it is posited in this paper that favorable stock prices tend to give the impression of stability and sustained improvement which in turn, propel to embark on creative accounting in the bid to attract and retain the confidence of shareholders. Arguably, these reasons are offset or nullified by the dangers creative accounting can pose to companies and indeed, the economy. The findings and recommendations of this paper have implications for investors, directors, and policy-makers in Nigeri

Intelligent Internet of Things (IOT) node demonstrator for device monitoring and control in the oil and gas sector

Internet of Things (IoT) is the new industrial slogan for connecting intelligent and unintelligent devices to the web. The problem of security of data transfer, interoperability of different proposed methodologies, the ubiquity of Wi-Fi and the development of low power consuming MCUs has broadened the search for the best alternative technology for IoT in the oil and gas sector. This paper focus on the communication method for IoT devices to determine the level of functionality and the efficiency of interfacing the new MOD-WIFI-ESP8266-DEV Wi-Fi unit based on the IEEE 802.11 standard with MSP430 by Texas Instrument. The system controls LEDs and monitors Temperature/Humidity sensor (DHT11) using Android application and web service. The system presents in three-layered structure an ecosystem of lightweight, small size, reduced cost and low power IoT system. It is expected that industries/users of this system would be able to control, monitor, and analyse data generated by the web of connected devices

Security analysis of IoT networks and platforms

With the recent increase in the adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) technology globally, cybersecurity-related issues have been raised, particularly with the limitations of IoT devices, privacy and other security standards guiding IoT development as wireless technology evolves. With the enterprise and the massive IoT market expected to reach $7.6 B and$1.2 B in 2024 respectively, according to Gartner, and several operational vertical IoT use cases and platforms experiencing cyber vulnerabilities. Based on the findings from our recent LPWANs IoT testbeds and their operational performance in certain use case scenarios, this paper summarizes the key wireless technology security requirements for IoT deployments. We first compare the security requirements of legacy and emerging IoT technologies as it relates to smart city applications and examined the effectiveness of the existing countermeasure opportunities as it affects the overall system performance in critical and non-critical machine type communications. We concluded by recommending countermeasures opportunities and frameworks to secure industrial IoT platforms to cope with future cybersecurity vulnerabilitie

Impact of Financial Development Indicators on Economic Growth In Nigeria, 1980 – 2013

An empirical investigation of the impact of financial development on economic growth in Nigeria was carried out in this paper by employing co integration test and VECM, using the data of annual time series for the period 1980 – 2013. The findings reveal the existence of 3 co integrating vectors which show a long run relationship among the variables. The VEC results show that the ratio of broad money supply to GDP and ratio of domestic credit to private sector to GDP have no significant impact on economic growth in Nigeria. The results suggest that economic growth can be enhanced through increases in ratio of broad money supply to GDP and ratio of domestic credit to private sector to GDP. Thus, if the objective of a policy is to sustain a high rate of economic growth in Nigeria, priority should be given to the development of financial sector. This paper finds support to “supply-leading” (i.e “finance- led growth”) economic growth. Keywords: Broad money supply, domestic credit, Economic growth, VECM, Finance-led growth

Network virtualization: Proof of concept for remote management of multi-tenant infrastructure

Recently, container and cloud-based orchestration technologies are important requirements for data and functional integration of new control and automation services in distributed networks. The industrial adoption of Docker Swarm and Kubernetes based orchestrators are due to their abilities to support large-scale deployment, reduce capital cost, enable interoperability, introduce flexibility, minimize vendor lock-in and identify scalable means of deploying new functions with minimal performance and monitoring related issues. In this study, we performed a comprehensive study of the requirements and strategies in a Containerized Docker Swarm Orchestration Framework (CDSOF) as an efficient, cost-effective, secure and resilience device management tool for remote administration, configuration and supervision of virtualized large-scale Ethernet connected multi-tenanted assets. In a performance and security comparative analysis to Kubernetes and Apache Mesos, Docker Swarm is the leading solution with support features for overlay networks such as Flannel and Weave. Finally, we established the design and test specifications to guide our substation Virtual Remote Terminal Units (vRTUs) implementation

Survey of IoT for developing countries : performance analysis of LoRaWAN and cellular NB-IoT networks

Recently, Internet of Things (IoT) deployments have shown their potential for aiding the realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Concerns regarding how the IoT can specifically drive SDGs 6, 11 and 9 in developing countries have been raised with respect to the challenges of deploying licensed and unlicensed low-power wide area network (LPWAN) IoT technologies and their opportunities for IoT consumers and service providers. With IoT infrastructure and protocols being ubiquitous and each being proposed for different SDGs, we review and compare the various performance characteristics of LoRaWAN and NB-IoT networks. From the performance analysis of our networks, NB-IoT, one of the standardised promising cellular IoT solutions for developing countries, is more expensive and less energy-efficient than LoRaWAN. Utilising the same user equip-ment (UE), NB-IoT consumed an excess of 2 mAh of power for joining the network and 1.7 mAh more for a 44-byte uplink message compared to LoRaWAN. However, NB-IoT has the advantage of reliably and securely delivering higher network connection capacity in IoT use cases, leveraging existing cellular infrastructure. With a maximum throughput of 264 bps at 837 ms measured latency, NB-IoT outperformed LoRaWAN and proved robust for machine-type communications. These findings will help IoT consumers and service providers understand the performance differences and deployment challenges of NB-IoT and LoRaWAN and establish new research directions to tackle IoT issues in developing countries. With Nigeria as a case study, for consumers and organisations at a crossroads in their long-term deployment decisions, the proposed LPWAN integrated architecture is an example of the deployment opportunities for consumer and industrial IoT applications in developing countries

IP/MPLS and MPLS/TP teleprotection latencies over high voltage power lines

Power utilities dependent on communication networks to deliver critical power services continue to increase. These time-critical networks have evolved to use packet-based technologies such as Internet Protocol Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/MPLS) and Multi-Protocol Label Switching Transport Protocol (MPLS/TP). Both packet-based technologies are efficient traffic routing protocols for critical applications like teleprotection with challenging low propagation and asymmetrical latency requirements. This paper presents the findings of IP/MPLS and MPLS/TP hitless teleprotection applications over high voltage power lines. The performance of both technologies is compared based on specific network parameters using test equipment. The major results highlighted include base case tests of propagation and symmetrical latencies following latency injections, event response, bit error, path switching, Quality of Service (QoS), and IEC 61850 proof of concept test. While the result demonstrates that IP/MPLS and MPLS/TP - if configured properly - can meet the strictest requirements of teleprotection latencies over high voltage power lines, their performance varied across the hitless technology test metrics. These findings are not only relevant for unravelling deployment decisions between both packet-based technologies in the energy sector but are also useful for the long-term infrastructural planning of power utilities

Bandwidth and security requirements for smart grid

With the evolution of smart grid and applications, power distribution networks need scalable, flexible, distributed and secure end-to-end communication. This work aims to highlight the necessary bandwidth that is needed to effectively monitor and communicate with all the secondary substations of Distribution Network Operators (DNOs). In order to determine the bandwidth requirements, the current and future applications in each secondary substation should be known. Two levels of security are employed - IPsec and TLS - to give flexibility and resilience. Different test scenarios and several setups were employed on a fully secured IP based Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) through an IEC 62870-05-104 protocol, aiming to understand the bandwidth cost of different security techniques. The analysis depicts an average of 2-3 fold increase in bandwidth if both IPsec and TLS are used be to secure the connected asset

Challenges and promises of 5G for smart grid teleprotection applications

This work is based on some ongoing technical projects, research activities, and discussions for applying 5G technology in smart grid critical applications, specifically in teleprotection. The functional and performance requirements of 5G capabilities needed to meet the overall teleprotection essentials in the smart grid will be discussed. Recommendations that cover the main challenges and promises/prospects for 5G in teleprotection will also be presented

Cybercrimes in Southern Nigeria and survey of IoT implications

This study comprises of a survey on the cybercrime situational awareness in the southern part of Nigeria and the readiness for IoT implications resulting from the challenges of IoT technology adoption for consumer and industrial use cases. We considered cybercrimes in the forms of identity theft, data theft, false alert, dating and romance scam and online shopping scam. The analysis shows among others, 84% of involvement in identity theft and 20% of involvement in data theft with the mode operation being highest through web-based applications. Although cybercriminals are yet to fully utilize the vast potentials of emerging IoT technology and their vulnerability to commit cybercrimes in the region, the rate is on the increase. Also presented is a generic background study on IoT security concerning device capabilities, threat landscape, policy frameworks and applications from which cybercrime trend mitigations and recommendations to reduce the impending dangers of IoT cybercrimes were proposed