Abstract: Financial literacy is a widely discussed topic on the
national and international level by governments, organizations and
academia. For this reason, this study analyses financial knowledge,
financial behavior, and financial attitudes of students of finance. The
aim of the paper is to determine whether the financial literacy of
university students studying finance differs from the level of financial
literacy in selected OECD countries. The research was conducted at
Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. The empirical study
comprises questions related to several aspects of financial literacy,
such as financial knowledge, personal finance behavior, or decisionmaking.
The results indicate that improvement in financial literacy of
university students is still required, even though their major is finance
related.
Abstract: Agricultural machinery industry plays an important
role in the industrial development especially the production industry
of the country. There has been continuing development responding to
the higher demand of the production. However, the problem in
agricultural machinery production still exists. Thus, the purpose of
this research is to investigate problems on fundamental factors of
industry based on the entrepreneurs’ point of view. The focus was on
the small and medium size industry receiving factory license type
number 0660 from the Department of Industrial Works. The
investigation was on the comparison between the management of the
small and medium size agricultural industry in 3 provinces in the
central region of Thailand. Population in this study consisted of 189
company managers or managing directors, of which 101 were from
the small size and 88 were from the medium size industry. The data
were analyzed to find percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard
deviation with independent sample T-test at the statistical
significance .05. The results showed that the small and medium size
agricultural machinery manufacturers in the central region of
Thailand reported high problems in every aspect. When compared the
problems on basic factors in running the business, it was found that
there was no statistically difference at .05 in managing of the small
and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers. However,
there was a statistically significant difference between the small and
medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers on the aspect of
policy and services of the government. The problems reported by the
small and medium size agricultural machinery manufacturers were
the services on public tap water and the problem on politic and
stability of the country.
Abstract: The myocardium is composed of specialized muscle
which relies mainly on fatty acid and sugar metabolism and it is
widely contribute to the heart functioning. The changes of the cardiac
energy-producing system during heart failure have been proved using
autoradiography techniques. This study focused on evaluating sugar
and fatty acid metabolism in myocardium as cardiac energy getting
system using heart-accumulated radiopharmaceuticals. Two sets of
autoradiographs of heart cross sections of Lewis male rats were
analyzed and the time- accumulation curve obtained with use of the
MATLAB image processing software to evaluate fatty acid and sugar
metabolic functions.
Abstract: Job satisfaction and motivation have been given an
important attention in psychology because they are seen as main
instruments in maintaining organizational growth and development;
they are also used to accomplish organizational aims and objectives.
However, it has been observed that some institutions failed in
motivating and stimulating their workers; in contrast, workers may be
motivated but not satisfied with the job and failed to perform
efficiently and effectively. It is hoped that the study of this nature
would be of significance value to all stakeholders in education
specifically, lecturers in higher institutions in Nigeria. Also, it is
hoped that the findings of this study will enhance lecturers’
effectiveness and performance in discharging their duties. In the light
of the above statements, this study investigated whether job
satisfaction and motivation predict lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria
Police Academy, Wudil, Kano State. Correlational research method
was adopted for the study, while purposive sampling technique was
used to choose the institution and the sampled lectures (70). Simple
random sampling technique was used to select one hundred cadets
across the academy. Two instruments were used to elicit information
from both lecturers and cadets. These were job satisfaction and
motivation; and lecturers’ effectiveness Questionnaires. The
instruments were subjected to pilot testing and found to have
reliability coefficient of 0.69 and 0.71 respectively. The results of the
study revealed that there was a significance relationship among job
satisfaction, motivation and lecturers effectiveness in Nigeria Police
Academy. There was a significance relationship between job
satisfaction and lecturers’ effectiveness in Nigeria Police Academy
the cal r is 0.21 while the crt r is 0.19. at p
Abstract: Over the past few decades, manufacturing has evolved
from a more labor-intensive set of mechanical processes to a
sophisticated set of information based technology processes. With the
existence of various advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs),
more and more functions or jobs are performed by these machines
instead of human labour. This study was undertaken in order to
research the extent of AMTs adoption in manufacturing companies in
Kenya. In order to investigate a survey was conducted via
questionnaires that were sent to 183 selected AMT manufacturing
companies in Kenya. 92 companies responded positively. All the
surveyed companies were found to have a measure of investment in
at least two of the 14 types of AMTs investigated. In general the
company surveyed showed that the level of AMT adoption in Kenya
is very low with investments levels at a mean of 2.057 and
integration levels at a mean of 1.639 in a scale of 1-5.
Abstract: A three-dimensional numerical simulation of flow
through mini and microchannels with designed roughness is
conducted here. The effect of the roughness height (surface
roughness), geometry, Reynolds number on the friction factor, and
Nusselt number is investigated. The study is carried out by
employing CFD software, CFX. Our work focuses on a water flow
inside a circular mini-channel of 1 mm and microchannels of 500 and
100 m in diameter. The speed entry varies from 0.1 m/s to 20 m/s.
The general trend can be observed that bigger sizes of roughness
element lead to higher flow resistance. It is found that the friction
factor increases in a nonlinear fashion with the increase in obstruction
height. Particularly, the effect of roughness can no longer be ignored
at relative roughness height higher than 3%. A significant increase in
Poiseuille number is detected for all configurations considered. The
same observation can be done for Nusselt number. The transition
zone between laminar and turbulent flow depends on the channel
diameter.
Abstract: The use of Computer Aided Design (CAD)
technologies has become pervasive in the Architecture, Engineering
and Construction (AEC) industry. This has led to its inclusion as an
important part of the training module in the curriculum for
Architecture Schools in Nigeria. This paper examines the ethical
questions that arise in the implementation of Computer Aided Design
(CAD) Content of the curriculum for Architectural education. Using
existing literature, it begins this scrutiny from the propriety of
inclusion of CAD into the education of the architect and the
obligations of the different stakeholders in the implementation
process. It also examines the questions raised by the negative use of
computing technologies as well as perceived negative influence of
the use of CAD on design creativity. Survey methodology was
employed to gather data from the Department of Architecture,
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Uli, which has been
used as a case study on how the issues raised are being addressed.
The paper draws conclusions on what will make for successful ethical
implementation.
Abstract: Thermoacoustic refrigerator is a cooling device which
uses the acoustic waves to produce the cooling effect. The aim of this
paper is to explore the experimental and numerical feasibility of a
standing-wave thermoacoustic refrigerator. The effects of the stack
length, position of stack and operating frequency on the cooling
performance are carried out. The circular pore stacks are tested under
the atmospheric pressure. A low-cost loudspeaker is used as an
acoustic driver. The results show that the location of stack installed in
resonator tube has a greater effect on the cooling performance, than
the stack length and operating frequency, respectively. The
temperature difference across the ends of stack can be generated up
to 13.7°C, and the temperature of cold-end is dropped down by 5.3°C
from the ambient temperature.
Abstract: Project Portfolio Management (PPM) is an essential
component of an organisation’s strategic procedures, which requires
attention of several factors to envisage a range of long-term outcomes
to support strategic project portfolio decisions. To evaluate overall
efficiency at the portfolio level, it is essential to identify the
functionality of specific projects as well as to aggregate those
findings in a mathematically meaningful manner that indicates the
strategic significance of the associated projects at a number of levels
of abstraction. PPM success is directly associated with the quality of
decisions made and poor judgment increases portfolio costs. Hence,
various Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques have
been designed and employed to support the decision-making
functions. This paper reviews possible options to enhance the
decision-making outcomes in organisational portfolio management
processes using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) both from
academic and practical perspectives and will examine the usability,
certainty and quality of the technique. The results of the study will
also provide insight into the technical risk associated with current
decision-making model to underpin initiative tracking and strategic
portfolio management.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to investigate the level of
intrinsic motivation of trainers after attending a Continuous
Professional Development Course (CPD) organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia titled, “Transformation of Teaching and
Learning the Fun Way”. This study employed a survey whereby 96
teacher trainers were given Situational Intrinsic Motivational Scale
(SIMS) Instruments. Confirmatory factor analysis was carried out to
get the validity of this instrument in local setting. Data were analyzed
with SPSS for descriptive statistic. Semi- structured interviews were
also administrated to collect qualitative data on participants’
experiences after participating in the two-day fun-filled program. The
findings showed that the participants’ level of intrinsic motivation
showed higher mean than the amotivation. The results revealed that
the intrinsic motivation mean is 19.0 followed by Identified
regulation with a mean of 17.4, external regulation 9.7 and
amotivation 6.9. The interview data also revealed that the participants
were motivated after attending this training program. It can be
concluded that this program, which was organized by Institute of
Teacher Training Malaysia, was able to enhance participants’ level of
motivation. Self-Determination Theory (SDT) as a multidimensional
approach to motivation was utilized. Therefore, teacher trainers may
have more success using the “The fun way approach” in conducting
training program in future.
Abstract: The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (SC) live yeast culture on microbial
protein supply to small intestine in Kivircik male yearlings when fed
with different ratio of forage and concentrate diets. Four Kivircik
male yearlings with permanent rumen canula were used in the
experiment. The treatments were allocated to a 4x4 Latin square
design. Diet I consisted of 70% alfalfa hay and 30% concentrate, Diet
II consisted of 30% alfalfa hay and 70% concentrate, Diet I and II
were supplemented with a SC. Daily urine was collected and stored at
-20°C until analysis. Calorimetric methods were used for the
determination of urinary allantoin and creatinine levels. The
estimated microbial N supply to small intestine for Diets I, I+SC, II
and II+SC were 2.51, 2.64, 2.95 and 3.43 g N/d respectively.
Supplementation of Diets I and II with SC significantly affected the
allantoin levels in μmol/W0.75 (p
Abstract: Much of the literature on research design has focused
on research conducted in developed, uni-cultural or primarily English
speaking countries. Studies of qualitative case study research, the
challenges, and prospects have been embedded in Western/Eurocentric
society and social theories. Although there have been some
theoretical studies, few empirical studies have been conducted to
explore the nature of the challenges of qualitative case study in
developing countries. These challenges include accessibility to
organizations, conducting interviews in developing countries,
accessing documents and observing official meetings, language and
cultural challenges, the use of consent forms, issues affecting access
to companies, respondent issues, and data analysis. The author, while
conducting qualitative case study research in Libya, faced all these
issues. The discussion in this paper examines these issues in order to
make a contribution toward the literature in this area.
Abstract: A model to predict the plastic zone size for material
under plane stress condition has been developed and verified
experimentally. The developed model is a function of crack size,
crack angle and material property (dislocation density). Simulation
and validation results show that the model developed show good
agreement with experimental results. Samples of low carbon steel
(0.035%C) with included surface crack angles of 45o, 50o, 60o, 70o
and 90o and crack depths of 2mm and 4mm were subjected to low
strain rate between 0.48 x 10-3 s-1 – 2.38 x 10-3 s-1. The mechanical
properties studied were ductility, tensile strength, modulus of
elasticity, yield strength, yield strain, stress at fracture and fracture
toughness. The experimental study shows that strain rate has no
appreciable effect on the size of plastic zone while crack depth and
crack angle plays an imperative role in determining the size of the
plastic zone of mild steel materials.
Abstract: Production fluids are transported from the platform to
tankers or process facilities through transfer pipelines. Water being
one of the heavier phases tends to settle at the bottom of pipelines
especially at low flow velocities and this has adverse consequences
for pipeline integrity. On restart after a shutdown, this could result in
corrosion and issues for process equipment, thus the need to have the
heavier liquid dispersed into the flowing lighter fluid. This study
looked at the flow regime of low water cut and low flow velocity oil
and water flow using conductive film thickness probes in a large
diameter 4-inch pipe to obtain oil and water interface height and the
interface structural velocity. A wide range of 0.1–1.0 m/s oil and
water mixture velocities was investigated for 0.5–5% water cut. Two
fluid model predictions were used to compare with the experimental
results.
Abstract: Selenium is an-antioxidant which is important for
human health enters food chain through crops. In Kenya Zea mays is
consumed by 96% of population hence is a cheap and convenient
method to provide selenium to large number of population. Several
soil factors are known to have antagonistic effects on selenium
speciation hence the uptake by Zea mays. There are no studies in
Kenya that has been done to determine the effects of soil
characteristics (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) affect accumulation of
selenium in Zea mays grains in Maize Belt in Kenya. About 100 Zea mays grain samples together with 100 soil samples
were collected from the study site put in separate labeled Ziplocs and
were transported to laboratories at room temperature for analysis.
Maize grains were analyzed for selenium while soil samples were
analyzed for pH, Cat Ion Exchange Capacity, total carbon, and
electrical conductivity. The mean selenium in Zea mays grains varied from 1.82 ± 0.76
mg/Kg to 11±0.86 mg/Kg. There was no significant difference
between selenium levels between different grain batches {χ (Df =76)
= 26.04 P= 1.00} The pH levels varied from 5.43± 0.58 to 5.85±
0.32. No significant correlations between selenium in grains and soil
pH (Pearson’s correlations = - 0.143), and between selenium levels in
grains and the four (pH, Tcarbon, CEC, Eh) soil chemical
characteristics {F (4,91) = 0.721 p = 0.579} was observed. It can be concluded that the soil chemical characteristics in the
study site did not significantly affect the accumulation of native
selenium in Zea mays grains.
Abstract: Poverty alleviation is one of the most difficult
challenges facing third world countries in their development efforts.
Evidences in Nigeria showed that the number of those in poverty has
continued to increase. This paper is aimed at analyzing the
performance of poverty alleviation measures undertaken by
successive administrations in Nigeria with a view to addressing the
quagmire. The study identified the whole gamut of factors that served
as stumbling blocks to the implementation of each of the strategies
and recommended the involvement of local people in the
identification and design of projects so that sufficient participation
could be achieved.
Abstract: Global economy today is full of sophistication. All
over the world, business and marketing practices are undergoing
unprecedented transformation. In realization of this fact, the federal
government of Nigeria has put in place a robust transformation
agenda in order to put Nigeria in a better position to be a competitive
player and in the process transform all sectors of its economy. New
technologies, especially the Internet, are the driving force behind this
transformation. However, technology has inadvertently affected the
way businesses are done thus necessitating the acquisition of new
skills. In developing countries like Nigeria, citizens are still battling
with effective application of those technologies. Obviously, students
of business education need to acquire relevant business knowledge to
be able to transit into the world of work on graduation from school
and compete favorably in the labor market. Therefore, effective
utilization of social media by both teachers and students can help
extensively in empowering students with the needed skills. Social
media which is a group of Internet-based applications built on the
ideological foundations of Web 2.0, that allow the creation and
exchange of user generated content, and if incorporated into the
classroom experience may be the needed answer to unemployment
and poverty in Nigeria as beneficiaries can easily connect with
existing and potential enterprises and customers, engage with them
and reinforce mutual business benefits. Challenges and benefits of
social media use in education in Nigeria universities were revealed in
this study.
Abstract: Wind energy is rapidly emerging as the primary
source of electricity in the Philippines, although developing an
accurate wind resource model is difficult. In this study, Weather
Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model, an open source mesoscale
Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) model, was used to produce a
1-year atmospheric simulation with 4 km resolution on the Ilocos
Region of the Philippines. The WRF output (netCDF) extracts the
annual mean wind speed data using a Python-based Graphical User
Interface. Lastly, wind resource assessment was produced using a
GIS software. Results of the study showed that it is more flexible to
use Python scripts than using other post-processing tools in dealing
with netCDF files. Using WRF Model, Python, and Geographic
Information Systems, a reliable wind resource map is produced.
Abstract: This research aimed to investigate the relationship
between attitude towards marketing mix, brand image and consumer
behavior of the passengers of low-cost airlines service. This study
employed by quantitative research and the questionnaire was used to
collect the data from 400 sampled of the passengers who have ever
used the low-cost airline services based in Bangkok, Thailand. The
descriptive statistics and Pearson’s correlation analysis were used to
analyze data. The research results revealed that the attitude of the marketing mix
of the low-cost airline services including product, price, place,
promotion and process had related to the consumer behavior on the
aspects of duration of service and frequency of service. While, the
brand image of the low cost airline including the characteristics of
organization, service quality and company identity had related to the
consumer behavior on duration of service, frequency of service and
cost of service at the significant statistically acceptable levels.
Abstract: This study aims to examine the sensory quality of
meatballs made from Balinese beef and buffalo meat after the
addition of smoke powder prior to storage at the temperatures of 2-
5°C for 7 days. This study used meat from Longissimus dorsi muscle
of male Balinese cattle aged 3 years and of male buffalo aged 5 years
as the main raw materials, and smoke powder as a binder and
preservative in making meatballs. The study was based on completely
randomized design (CRD) of factorial pattern of 2 x 3 x 2 where
factors 1, 2 and 3 included the types of meat (cattle and buffalo),
types of smoke powder (oven dried, freeze dried and spray dried)
with a level of 2% of the weight of the meat (w/w), and storage
duration (0 and 7 days) with three replications, respectively. The
parameters measured were the meatball sensory quality (scores of
tenderness, firmness, chewing residue, and intensity of flavor). The
results of this study show that each type of meat has produced
different sensory characteristics. The meatballs made from buffalo
meat have higher tenderness and elasticity scores than the Balinese
beef. Meanwhile, the buffalo meatballs have a lower residue
mastication score than the Balinese beef. Each type of smoke
powders has produced a relatively similar sensory quality of
meatballs. It can be concluded that the smoke powder of 2% of the
weight of the meat (w/w) could maintain the sensory quality of the
meatballs for 7 days of storage.