Archives-December 

Housing development in developing countries in which Nigeria is not an exceptional case is a combination of many interrelated components which include land, infrastructure, building materials, policies, building regulations but more importantly is the finance component. This paper examined the performance of Primary Mortgage Institutions in financing housing development in Abuja and Lagos. It carefully identified the existing PMIs in the study areas, examined the mortgage business activities of the PMIs and the factors militating against effective performance of the PMIs in the study areas. The methodology employed by the research includes the collection of primary and secondary data. Questionnaires were administered to the PMIs existing as at the time of field work in Abuja and Lagos. This was done to collect data that will give a true representation of PMIs activities in the study areas. Among other findings, it was discovered that there is statistical significant relationship between the capital base and loans disbursed for housing development by the PMIs in the study areas. Recommendations were made to improve performance of PMIs for effective housing delivery.

Training is an important asset to an individual since it gives the necessary skills required to run a business. The study sought to establish training as an antecedent to performance of self help groups in Uasin-Gishu County. The study adopted a cross-sectional descriptive survey research design. The study targeted all registered SHGs in rural areas in Uasin-Gishu County. The study specifically targeted rural SHGs because they face many challenges; retrogressive cultures, poverty and lack of empowerment among others which affects the performance and sustainability of SHGs. The sampling frame of SHG members who have been involved for at least five years were selected through stratified sampling technique. The list of registered SHGs was obtained from the respective District Social Services department. Among the listed SHGs, those whose maturity are at least five years and are situated in rural areas were purposely selected. The results revealed that the SHG members had been trained on; asset building, book keeping, new methods of farming, leadership and governance, budgeting, and risk management in business. The training strategy has had significant impacts on performance of SHGs.

In the present investigation, a linear model has been proposed which has been found very useful in growth studies wherever phenomenon exhibit asymptotic behavior. It possesses the identical properties those of Stevens’s asymptotic regression growth model i.e. it belongs to the family of convex-concave curves and has neither maxima nor minima nor a point of inflexion. Its appropriateness and utility has also been examined with the help of data sets obtained from different areas of growth studies showing asymptotic nature. It has also been compared with Stevens’s asymptotic regression model. An improvement has been shown over Stevens’s asymptotic regression model.

A versatile low-voltage CMOS Fuzzifier circuit with a trapezoidal transconductance characteristic and independently programmable slope, height and horizontal position is designed in 0.35 m standard CMOS technology. The proposed circuit uses adaptive biasing linearization techniques to achieve wide tuning range. Simulation results using HSPICE and level 49 parameters (BSIM3v3) that verify the functionality of circuit with 1.5 V supply are presented.

Cloud computing is clearly one of today’s most enticing technology areas due, at least in part, to its cost-efficiency and flexibility. However, despite the surge in activity and interest, there are significant, persistent concerns about cloud computing that are impeding momentum and will eventually compromise the vision of cloud computing as a new IT procurement model. In this paper, we characterize the problems and their impact on adoption. In addition, and equally importantly, we describe how the combination of existing research thrusts has the potential to alleviate many of the concerns impeding adoption. In particular, we argue that with continued research advances in trusted computing and computation-supporting encryption, life in the cloud can be advantageous from a business intelligence standpoint over the isolated alternative that is more common today

This study attempts to analyze Surrealism in Oldooz and the Crows, a short story written by the Iranian author Samad Behrangi. Surrealism is a cultural movement founded in 1920s by the French poet and critic Andre Breton. The surrealists favored in the function of the world of unconscious mind in integrating fancies and dreams to the phenomenal world in order to elaborate a higher reality. They also were interested in Freud's theories about unconscious mind and the power of free imagination especially in Children. Moreover, they insisted on the automatic writing avoiding regular artistic conventions and restrictive rule. In this regard, the researcher tries to discuss the imaginative freedom and childhood dreams propounded in Behrangi's short story Oldooz and the Crows to consider whether this literary work can be considered as a surrealist work or not.

This paper presents three algorithms and one proposed algorithm to find relevant pages for a given Web page (URL). The first algorithm comes from the Pagerank analysis of the Web pages. It is intuitive and easy to implement. The second one takes advantage of HITS to identify relevant pages more precisely and effectively. The third one shows the advantages and limitations of Weighted Pagerank algorithm and the final proposed algorithm based on Topic Sensitive Pagerank algorithm. These algorithms could be used for various Web applications, such as enhancing Web search. The ideas and techniques in this work would be helpful to other Web-related researches.

Discipline is the epicenter of success of a school and members of a school are required to strictly adhere to various standards or codes of behavior. Student discipline is a crucial factor in not only academic achievement but also success in other school activities. The challenge of managing student discipline is pervasive and constant. The issues of management strategies and student discipline in secondary schools in Kenya are viewed by many as contemporary problems that may turn into a crisis if not checked. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of selected strategies used in managing student discipline by secondary schools in Kericho West District, Kericho County. The objectives of the study will be; to determine the effectiveness of guidance and counseling in enhancing student discipline, to find out the effectiveness of communication as a strategy in management of students discipline, to investigate the influence of student motivation on student, to examine the effectiveness of students’ participation in decision making in enhancing students’ discipline and to determine the principals’ effectiveness in managing students’ discipline in secondary schools in Kericho County. The study adopted Bandura’s (1997) social learning theory. This study employed the descriptive survey research design. A population of 135 was considered which composed of 45 principals, 45 deputy principals and 45 head of departments in charge of guidance and counseling of all public secondary schools in Kericho West District.

Routing protocols govern the prime path for data communication amongst network nodes. These protocols are employed once there is a major growth in organisations were, static routes are uncontrollable. Distance vector routing protocols which is one of the two main routing protocols for communication uses data packets sent over Internet Protocol (IP). This routing protocols are classified into Enhanced Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (EIGRP) and Routing Information Protocol (RIP). They are dynamic Internet Gateway Protocols (IGPs) which route packets within one Autonomous System (AS). However, RIP is considered an effective solution for small homogeneous networks. An organisation who needs to expand its network cannot use the RIP due to its limitations of fifteen hop counts. This problem has been a major concern in corporate organisations which hence the need for an improved distance vector routing protocol. EIGRP although, is a Cisco proprietary protocol based on Diffused Update Algorithm (DUAL) was introduced in this research to serve as an extension to an organisation’s network. Packet flowing from RIP network interface if exhausted its maximum hop count, can re-route its packet through EIGRP network interface. With this improvement, organisations have no worries of changing the entire routing protocol.

Naturally occurring radionuclides of terrestrial origin (also called primordial radionuclides) are present in various degrees in all media in the environment, which includes the human body itself. Their concentrations in the environment decrease continually by decaying. In this study, the specific activities of different natural radionuclides were determined by using gamma-ray spectrometry. The analysis of two radionuclides (214Bi, 234m Pa) that belong to the 238U series and one radionuclide 228Ac belonging to the 232Th series, 40K, 226Ra, and 137Cs, was done for soil samples obtained from different locations in Iraq, which include factories, hospitals, and other facilities. The analysis of radionuclides measurement was done by using the high purity Germanium (HPGe) detector coupled with a computer-based high-resolution multichannel analyzer. The results showed that the average specific activities of 228Ac in sample 6, 214Bi, 234m Pa, and 226Ra in sample 2, 40K in sample 10, and 137Cs in sample 21 were higher than other samples. However, the activity concentrations of the analyzed radionuclides were very low in most samples.