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Exploring Current and Future Research Trends on Safety Climate in Construction Projects
No full textClients, consultants, and contractors in the construction industry can benefit from a safety climate by obtaining knowledge of attitudes and perceptions for better safety outcomes. However, the current and future research trends for safety climate in construction projects have not yet been fully examined. In order to solve this problem, a systematic review of previous research findings using a social network approach must be conducted, and future trends for the safety climate in building projects must be identified. Sixty-three peer-reviewed articles were gathered to study the literature on safety climate in construction projects. A social network approach was employed using VOS viewer to look at the connections between the researchers and the article's keywords. Based on the frequency of researcher collaboration and the connections between the keywords used in the publications, five research groups and four keyword themes were identified using the social network analysis results. The scholars received substantial implications and insights on the state of the research and future directions, which helped create a focused development strategy for safety climate in construction projects. The scope of this study is limited to publications on the subject matter from 2000 to 2021, which provided the base for the current and future research trends on safety climate in construction projects. The findings from this social network analysis revealed that studies on safety climate are more skewed to the organizational level than the project level. In developing countries like Tanzania, studies are scanty. Also, different levels of decision-making within the organization and within construction projects, call for different safety factors whereby the current studies have slightly considered such a fact. Furthermore, it is the right time now for researchers to focus on developing a safety climate maturity framework for construction projects
Comparative study of polyphenols quantification, total phenolic content, and antioxidant activities of the fruits of three plants of the family of Solanaceae: Lycium ruthenicum, Lycium barbarum, and Lycium Chinense
No full textBackground: Fruits from L. ruthenium, L. barbarum, and L. Chinense, of the family Solanaceae are well-known in traditional Chinese medicine and have been used as popular functional foods, with a large variety of beneficial health effects.
Methods: In The present study, ethanolic extracts (30%) of lycium fruits were analyzed by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Total phenolic content was determined together with the quantification of seventeen (17) phenolic compounds. Furthermore, the antioxidant activities of the three plants were investigated in vitro through DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP assays.
Results: Results revealed that all three Lycium fruits extracts had antioxidant activities. However, L. ruthenicum showed the highest radical scavenging capacity. Hydroxycinnamic acid amides (HCAAs) class derivatives including N1, N10-bis(dihydrocaffeoyl)spermidine,N1-bishydrocaffeoyl,N10-caffeoyl spermidine, and N1,N10 -di(caffeoyl) spermidine were dominant in L. ruthenicum (15.56-310.80 mg/100g). A significant amount of chlorogenic acid was detected in all the extracts (L. ruthenicum: 238.59 mg/100g; L. barbarum: 25.76 mg/100g; L. chinense: 98.86 mg/100g). Cryptochlorogenic acid was not detected in L. barbarum, while protocatechuic acid and neochlorogenic acid were only found in L. ruthenicum. The content of caffeoylquinic acid derivatives was particularly high in L. chinense. Rutin was detected in all analyzed species, the highest amount being registered for L.chinense. (62.56±0.061 mg/100g).
Conclusion: Overall, the results of this study show that Lycium fruit extracts have promising antioxidant potential to be used in food, nutraceutical, and biomedical field. These findings could serve as a scientific foundation for discrimination and quality assessment of the three Fructus Lycium
Examining the impact of crypto currencies on macroeconomic variables in Nigeria
No full textThis study employs a Vector Autoregression Model (VAR) and a Quantile Regression Technique to analyze the relationship between bitcoin price and major macroeconomic variables in Nigeria. The results from the multivariate VAR and the generated impulse response and variance decomposition indicate no strong statistically significant response of interest rate, inflation, and exchange rate to changes in bitcoin price. However, the study finds a positive relationship between the stock market index and money supply with bitcoin price. From the estimated Quantile regression technique, results indicate that the price of the prime cryptocurrency bitcoin has a positive relationship with money supply and exchange rate across all quantiles. Results also indicate the positive relationship between bitcoin and the rate of inflation at high quantiles. Furthermore, results indicate the importance of cryptocurrency in explaining interest rates in the country at only the low and high quantiles. The study concludes that crypto currencies have implications for macroeconomic variables such as exchange rate, money supply, interest rate and inflation in the country. As a result, the study recommends the need for regulatory clarity in the country to encapsulate envisaged impact on macroeconomic variables, so that Nigeria can reap the potential benefits from the novel asset class
Effect of risk management techniques on performance of non-banking financial firms in Nigeria
No full textThis study examined the effect of risk management techniques on the performance of insurance companies in Nigeria, as empirical studies in this area are seemingly insufficient for objective assessment and justification for continuous involvement in this core aspect of nsurance strategy. The Structural Equation Model (SEM) of the primary data obtained from 41 randomly sampled insurance companies in Nigeria (Lagos State in focus) enabled the researchers to establish that the adoption of loss prevention and control; risk avoidance; and loss/risk financing as risk management techniques significantly enhanced positively the performance (proxy by underwriting profitability) of insurance companies in Nigeria. It should be noted, however, that the loss prevention and control technique of risk management commanded a higher positive correlation when measured against underwriting profitability than the other two techniques of loss/risk financing and risk avoidance. The study concluded that risk management techniques have positively and significantly influenced the underwriting profitability of insurance companies in Nigeria. It is recommended, therefore, that insurance companies in Nigeria should implement more preventive and control measures that will help to reduce the frequency of certain specific losses that could arise in the course of business. 
A Mythic Reading of the Materialist Epiphany in Femi Osofisan’s Another Raft
No full textThis paper is a mythic reading of Another Raft written and published in 1988 by the Nigerian playwright, Femi Osofisan. The paper gives a materialist interpretation of the play and its mythic resources to illustrate Osofisan’s drama as a dispassionate critique of society. It observes that the playwright’s deployment of mythology in the play, and the play’s intertextual connection to an earlier one, The Raft (published 1964), by J. P. Clark, is revelatory. One problem any reader familiar with the two plays may find with understanding Osofisan’s version is the prominent use of supernatural beings as characters mingling with humans, which is nonexistent in the older play. This paper’s interpretation, therefore, reveals and affirms that the supernatural figures in the play are only creative metaphors deployed by the playwright to comment on the mundane social reality of the world outside the text. It also reveals that Osofisan’s response in Another Raft to Clark’s The Raft is to differ ideologically from the older play on the root causes of the decadence and sterility in Nigeria’s social and political space. Osofisan’s response demystifies the seemingly elusive solution to the cankerworms destroying the fabric of the nation. The paper concludes that Osofisan’s recourse to mythic and traditional elements is very helpful to his creative imagination and his effort to provide a panacea, through the theatre, to the obstacles impeding economic and political progress in postcolonial Nigerian society
Developing Writing Skill in Nigerian Children: Insights from the Macmillan New Primary English Series
No full textThe scarce attention paid to course books’ role in developing writing skills in primary school children motivated this in-depth analysis of the Macmillan New Primary English (MNPE) series aimed at determining its provisions for writing skill development in Nigerian children in terms of content and strategy. Each writing lesson was examined to identify the type of writing to which it belongs, the exact topic exposed, and the presentational strategy adopted. The data comprised 104 writing topics, with essay writing, letter writing, and special text writing constituting 57, 22, and 21 percent respectively. While exposition was the prominent essay type (57 percent) and formal letter writing was nearly twice as frequent as informal letter writing, creative writing and autobiography topped the twelve special text writing subtypes found. Mechanics of writing and letter-writing formats were featured five times each. Although twenty-one strategies recurred 158 times, they functioned eclectically. The questioning was the most frequent, followed by discussion/group work, and pictorial illustration. The study noted that what MNPE offers the Nigerian child is adequate for writing skill development but the average primary school product’s writing proficiency level is disappointingly unreflective of these provisions. 
The Fourth Technologisation of the Word: Social Media as the New Vista in Literary Expression
No full textLiterary expression has undergone a slow but steady and exciting evolution through millennia, significantly conditioned by the technological capacity of succeeding civilisations. More or less, literature, both as a creative enterprise and cultural artefact, has been influenced by its modes of transmission – extinct and extant. Consequently, form and genre, as well as readers and audiences, have been affected by the changing ways generations have preferred to transmit and express the literary. In formal or generic feature and their reception, literature continues to invoke radical epochal portraitures and expectations, largely due to the flux of its medium as corroborated by McLuhan's (1964) now-canonical phrase – "the medium is the message”. Consequently, the exploration of the veracity of literature's conditioning, more by the medium than by form and content, can help organise the principles of the rapport between the word and technology. Social media as the newest vista in the mediation of literary consciousness from creator to the receiver has indexed a radical cultural episteme, rife with repercussions for the conventional interfacing of authorship, readership, textuality and the mutual universe that binds them. The present study pursues a critique of literary expression through the agency of the internet, as a sequel-discourse to Ong’s ethnographic analysis of civilisation and epoch, technologising literary practices from preliterate to literate. The objective here is to index the advent of social media as the latest attempt to technologise the literary and its culture, and account for how this advent has birthed new departures in literary form and genre
A Critique of Hobbes’ Notion of the Absolute Sovereign
No full textThis study is a critique of Thomas Hobbes’ notion of the Absolute Sovereign. The study employs textual and expository analysis. The paper discovered that in Hobbes' society, people decide to come into a commonwealth because of the fear of surrendering all their rights to an Absolute Sovereign who becomes the author of morality and law. Hobbes' theory of Absolute Sovereign breeds chaos and social disorder as well as dictatorship and authoritarianism. This would especially be dangerous in the age of hi-tech nuclear weaponry. This work is therefore inspired the anomalies in Hobbes’ premises and conclusion. The paper finally recommends that a political theory should be formulated towards solving the holistic existential problems of people and not just an aspect of it
Challenging the Practice of Administrative Detention for Stateless Persons in South Africa
No full textIn South Africa, section 41 of the Immigration Act requires any person approached on reasonable grounds by a police officer or immigration officer to identify themselves either as a citizen or as a person lawfully present in the Republic. Anyone unable to identify themselves as persons lawfully in South Africa will be deemed to be illegally present and hence subject to an arrest, detention, and possible deportation. This detention can go on for a period of 120 days. This ‘unlawful’ status automatically entitles immigration officials to arrest and detain such persons, but with the caveat that if such persons express an intention to apply for refugee status their asylum application must be permitted and facilitated. Stateless persons are, by definition, unable to demonstrate their legal presence or provide a valid identity document. They would therefore be deemed to be unlawfully present and therefore detained. This section of the Immigration Act is especially prejudicial to stateless persons since South Africa has no status determination procedure for stateless persons. This paper intends to demonstrate the unlawfulness of the laws regarding the immigration detention of stateless persons and seek an alternative approach or a remedy that could be implemented for stateless persons arrested without the means to identify themselves as legally present in South Africa
Determinants of giant snail (Achatina achatina) production in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and Nasarawa State, Nigeria: Challenges and prospects
No full textThe study examined the determinants of giant snail (Achatina achatina) production in North Central, Nigeria, with a focus on its challenges and prospects. Sixty-four (64) respondents across 8 local government areas in 6 communities were purposively sampled for the study and this was due to the few numbers of snail farmers in the area. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the respondents’ demographic characteristics, level of production, cost-benefit analysis and constraints limiting production of snail. Logistics regression was used to analyse the hypotheses of the study. Results revealed that the average age, household size, stock size, farming experience and income were 43.59 years, 6 persons, 787 snails, 6.69 years of experience and N350,000.50 respectively. Majority (76.56%) of the farmers used constructed pens to house the snails they were producing and a low level of production of snail was recorded. An average of N80 was the profit level from every marketable size snail and this indicates that the business of snail production is profitable. Snail farming is constraint by many factors amongst which are: slow rate of growth, theft, pests and disease attack, lack of management skill, high rate of mortality and lack of funds. Demographic characteristics like age, education, household size and farm income were significant (p<0.05), while stock size and farming experience were significant variables to level of snail production. The study concludes that a profit of N80 is made from each marketable size of snail and that the business of snail production is a profitable one. It was recommended that farmers should use improved breeds of snail that have rapid growth and are early maturing for production