Archives-October 2013

The study assessed the effectiveness of support structures available to orphans in rural communities of Ibadan South East Local government area of Oyo state, Nigeria. Multi-stage sampling technique comprising of probability and non-probability sampling methods was used to select one hundred and twenty orphans from 10 rural communities of the local government. The main findings of the study show that the mean age of the orphans is 16.6 years with close to two-third (63.33%) being females. Seventy five percent had no formal education while 90% were not schooling; they receive a mean income of less than N80 per day. The respondents as one of the adjustment strategies are engaged in one agricultural economic activities or the other with higher proportion (67.50%) into food processing. About 16.67% do not engage in any non-agricultural activity while majority (38.33%) of them is into trading. Most of the orphans have been exposed to abuses such as maltreatment, rape, discrimination and street hawking with 81.67% of them exposed to more than one of the abuses. The feeling of inferiority complex is the most common condition under which the orphans live. Food, clothing and education were the only support structures available to orphans that are effective as revealed by the study. Due to the ineffectiveness of the support structures in the study area, all orphans involved in this study were found to be involved in at least one agricultural activity, most especially, in food processing.

Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is an important cause of morbidity and mortality that is characterized by fever, lymphadenopathy and hepato-splenomegaly. Hepatic toxicity greatly contributes to VL morbidity. This study aimed to evaluate liver damage in Sudanese patients with VL as evidenced by apoptosis and lipid metabolism derangement. In a prospective analytical, hospital-based and case-controlled study and following informed consent, eighty patients with parasitologically confirmed visceral leishmaniasis and eighty apparently healthy age and sex unmatched volunteers [comparators] were enrolled in the study. Serum cytochrome C was measured by ELISA while serum lipids were measured using BioSystems A15 Chemistry Auto-analyzer. Cytochrome C concentrations in VL patients were significantly higher compared to apparently healthy volunteers with no significant difference between pre and post-treatment samples. Patients with VL showed marked hypo-cholestereamia, very low serum levels of LDL and HDL with most patients showing markedly increased triglycerides levels. Deranged lipid metabolism in VL patients could be due to hepatotoxicity or sequestration and/or degradation of lipoproteins in enlarged livers and spleens. In conclusion, hypocholestereamia, low levels of LDL/HDL, high triglycerides levels and increased serum cytochrome C are important features of hepatotoxicity in VL. Increased serum cytochrome C level is probably an important surrogate marker of hepatocytes apoptosis.

This paper analyzes and investigates decision making process of equity investors for trading in stock exchanges of Pakistan. Survey research technique has been used to analyze the investors’ attitude about the market’s efficiency and to test different theories of traditional finance like efficient market hypotheses (EMH), rational investors and random walk hypothesis (RWH). The survey questionnaire forms were sent to 510 individuals identified as equity investors in stock exchanges of Pakistan, out of which 248 survey questionnaire forms have been received back. The results of descriptive statistics have indicated that investors are not completely rational individuals as supposed by theories of traditional finance.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between growth in agricultural sector and poverty in Pakistan. It explores that how much the poor people have gained from growth in agricultural sector of Pakistan by considering growth magnitude and benefits obtained by the poor people resulting from growth for the period of 1985 to 2005 through applying OLS Regression Technique. The results indicate that the variable of growth in agricultural sector is significantly and negatively associated with the variable of poverty, i.e., the growth in agricultural sector of Pakistan will result in reducing the level of poverty in Pakistan.

The study has been conducted to see if Advertising in News papers influence the news content of newspaper and if newspapers can publish content against thier advertisers, incase of them being involved in any controversy. The research included respondents in the form of a focus group of 20 media practitioners from Islamabad. The ages of the respondants were between 25 to 35. The data was collected through an open ended questionnaire and decoded manully to learn about the topic. The data interpreted proved the assumptions positive which said that the newspaper has to compromise its credibilty to keep the advertisers happy. It also learnt that the newspapers will not publish any content against thier advertisers.

Generally medicines must be stored and handled in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidelines in order to maintain the quality of the product. Storage outside the recommended temperature range can result in chemical and physical changes to the product which may lead to a loss of efficacy and may cause harm to the patients. In order to maintain such recommended temperatures we generally use vapour compression refrigeration systems. The main drawback is emission of CFC compounds (refrigerants) like R22 upon leakage which could produce harmful effects on environment like ozone depletion. This work aims at developing alternate system for producing refrigeration effect called Thermo Electric Refrigeration. Thermoelectric cooling devices utilize the Peltier effect, whereby the passage of a direct electric current through the junction of two dissimilar conducting materials causes the junction to either cool down (absorbing heat) or warm up (rejecting heat), depending on the direction of the current. Finally using this thermoelectric principle a cold storage is fabricated for preserving the medicines and tested. The minimum cooling temperatures obtained are 10°C at 36°C ambient temperature in 210 minutes that is 3 hours 30 minutes.

In an age where existing boundaries of knowledge are constantly challenged by the culture of creativity, English Language Teaching has travelled far from being just a skill-based pedagogy and presented its audience with micro specializations among these skills. With the spread of English as the language of international research and publication, Research Writing as a genre has begun to assume enormous importance. Awareness of its generic features plays a vital role among non-native writers of English since their knowledge of writing in general does not grant them with the ability to handle requirements of research writing genre such as persuasion, argumentation, negotiation, discussion, presentation, etc…The present paper is an attempt to understand the global currency that Research Writing has gained.

Although Lagos, Nigeria is classified among the largest cities in the world, there are uncertainties about whether its quest to become a global city can materialize if its growth continues to be inundated by problems of shelter deprivation. The current population estimate of Lagos is over 17.0 million. It is known that 60-70% of this figure are scattered among the 200 officially recognized slum settlements in the city. The implication is that the quality of life of many urban dwellers that constitute the human resource base of the city will be compromised if prompt measures are not taken. This paper hypothesizes that one sure way for Lagos to climb the global urban hierarchy is for it to initiate urban changes in the form of adopting a real estate strategy that focuses on counter-measures against the prevalence of shelter deprivation. The study examines the experiences of cities in countries that share similar historical antecedents with Lagos. Different perspectives of the real estate strategy employed by different countries in their attempt to attract foreign investments are discussed. The paper concludes by emphasizing the dimensions of real estate strategy that could be applicable in the Lagos context.

This study is aimed at examining the effects of socio- economic and financial factors on the performance of women entrepreneurs in Oyo state and two hundred and forty women entrepreneurs who are involved in trading, hairdressing and tailoring were purposively selected from amongst those registered in their respective associations. All the data were derived from primary sources. The results demonstrated that a significant relationship exists between socio- economic factors and the performance of women entrepreneurs. All the socio- economic factors (age, marital status, education and years of experience) were significant and positive at (P < 0.05). This implied that socio- economic factors are critical success factors that help entrepreneurs to survive, manage in difficult conditions and keep the business profitable. Furthermore, credit and savings impacted significantly on the performance of the entrepreneurs. The micro-entrepreneurs surveyed were revealed to be performing very poorly because majority of the entrepreneurs had no access to external funds. The finding indicated that the women entrepreneurs’ propensity to save for the growth of their enterprises was on average very low implying that they were experiencing some constraint factors. This tends to affect the performance of the women entrepreneurs negatively. Therefore, the study recommended that formal and informal entrepreneurship education should be given to micro- entrepreneurs in order to develop their managerial capabilities, accounting skills and overall be made more credit worthy and the Federal government should consider developing policies that will create an enabling environment for the development and proper operation of cooperative thrift and credit societies and other group initiatives.

The purpose of this paper is to identify competitive marketing strategies used by home-based businesses in the northern and southern suburbs of Pietermaritzburg, to help the businesses focus on the target markets they can best serve to achieve a competitive advantage. The researcher adopted an exploratory study in which both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used. The target population for this study comprised of 118 home-based businesses, operating in various industries, in the northern and southern suburbs of Pietermaritzburg. The study enabled an insight into the various types of marketing strategies employed by home-based businesses and the effectiveness of the identified marketing strategies. Through the study it was possible to determine the home-based business owner's knowledge of marketing strategies and whether they were adopting the correct strategies for their businesses in order to achieve a competitive advantage. The major findings revealed that the main challenges were the lack of finance as well as lack of marketing knowledge and skills which inadvertently had a negative impact on the choice of marketing strategies being adopted as the majority of home-based businesses relied mostly on word of mouth marketing and networking. Factor analysis carried out in the survey enabled the identification of latent factors that could affect adoption of marketing strategies. The results of the findings led to the development criteria that would enable home-based to be able to decide on the marketing mix strategies that would be suitable for their target markets.