190 research outputs found
Infestation of Zebu cattle (Bos indicus Linnaeus) by hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria
No full textPaul, Bura Thlama, Bello, Amina Mohammed, Haruna, Nasir Musa, Dauda, Jamila, Ojo, Deborah Tosin, Gadzama, Mercy Ahmed (2017): Infestation of Zebu cattle (Bos indicus Linnaeus) by hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria. Persian Journal of Acarology 6 (3): 213-224, DOI: 10.22073/pja.v6i3.28203, URL: https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/bfd2a667-ffa6-3ee3-adbf-1a9684dc3adb
Figure 2 in Infestation of Zebu cattle (Bos indicus Linnaeus) by hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria
No full textFigure 2. Numbers of individual ticks of different species collected from different body parts of cattle.Published as part of Paul, Bura Thlama, Bello, Amina Mohammed, Haruna, Nasir Musa, Dauda, Jamila, Ojo, Deborah Tosin & Gadzama, Mercy Ahmed, 2017, Infestation of Zebu cattle (Bos indicus Linnaeus) by hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) in Maiduguri, Northeastern Nigeria, pp. 213-224 in Persian Journal of Acarology 6 (3) on page 218, DOI: 10.22073/pja.v6i3.28203, http://zenodo.org/record/717366
Occurrence of Campylobacter in dogs and cats in Selangor Malaysia and the associated risk factors
No full textAims: Campylobacter is the most widely reported zoonotic bacterial agent that causes enteric disease in humans worldwide with millions of cases recorded far exceeding salmonellosis in Europe and United States. The objective of this study was to determine the occurrence of Campylobacter in dogs and cats and their associated risk factors.
Methodology and results: A total of 101 rectal swabs were collected from both pets (n=40) and stray dogs (n=61) for the study. Similarly, a total of 86 rectal swabs were taken from stray cats (n=46) and pet cats (n=40) from client pets at a university veterinary hospital and from stray dogs and cats from animal shelters. Campylobacter were isolated by culture, identified by biochemical tests and confirmed and speciated, using mPCR assay. The result showed occurrence of Campylobacter in stray dogs and stray cats were 16.3% and 32.6% respectively, while in pet dogs and cats were 12.5 % each. Based on the mPCR assay, three species of Campylobacter were identified in dogs namely Campylobacter upsaliensis (66.6%), C. jejuni (6.7%) and C. heliviticus (20%), while C. upsaliensis (55%), C. helviticus (20%) and C. jejuni (6.7%) were identified in cats. The risk factors for the presence of Campylobacter in the animals were analysed but none was significantly associated, however the occurrence in cats was found higher in adults, females, those kept outdoors and residing in town areas, multipets household, cats with no history of being given antibiotics in past infections and being fed on raw meat and fish while the occurrence of Campylobacter was high in dogs of local breeds, females, of young age, being kept outdoors and fed raw meat and fish.
Conclusion, significance and impact of study: These findings showed that Campylobacter were quite prevalent in both stray and pet dogs and cats which may contaminate other animals and spread in the environment as Campylobacters. It is of public health concern as humans can contract the disease if they do not practice proper hygiene after coming into contact with an infected animal or contaminated environment
Abubakar Dauda. — “They love us because we give them Zakāt.” The Distribution of Wealth and the Making of Social Relations in Northern Nigeria
No full textThis book is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D at the Graduate School “Muslim Cultures and Societies” of the Freie Universität of Berlin. It is published as the twenty-third volume of the “Islam in Africa” series inititated by E. J. Brill in 2003. It is a good addition to this series, which had already made a considerable contribution to the understanding of Islam and Muslim societies in Africa. Its author, Dauda Abubakar, analyzes the p..
Capital structure and business risk in Nigeria : evidence from a panel data analysis
No full textThe publication of Modigliani and Miller's seminal work in the late 1950s ignited a debate on the appropriate debt-to-equity ratio that companies should aim to achieve in the long-term. But although some progress has been made on the subject, the theories that emerged are imprecise, unwieldy and in most cases present completely opposing views. Moreover, the empirical evidence for the different theories is largely confined to firms in industrialised countries. This thesis examines the determinants of capital structure decisions of Nigerian listed firms, more specifically it focuses on the relationship between the business risk and leverage choices of ninety-four publicly listed companies in Nigeria over the period of seven years from 2000 to 2006 using a dynamic panel data framework under different degrees of uncertainty in market demand conditions. Reduced form leverage equations are derived and estimated by means of the Generalized-Method-of- Moments-Instrumental-Variables (GMM-IV) techniques which correct for the misspecification error induced by endogeneity of explanatory variables. The results indicate that, the design and adjustment process of the debt structure of our group of Nigerian listed companies is within the framework of a quadratic (a UShaped) relationship as suggested by Kale et al. (1991). This implies that at the average level of the change in total liability as a percentage of total assets is nonlinearly correlated to business risk. In normal times when the threat of insolvency is low, firms cut their average rate of borrowing relative to total assets by between 1 and 4 percent a year. However, they raise it by between 5 and 22 percent during periods of heightened market anxiety. This suggests that policies which lower the expected bankruptcy costs relative to company value will discourage an unnecessary use of debt.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
Diffusion of agile supply chains attributes: a study of the UK upstream oil and gas industry cluster
No full textThis study examines agile supply chain capabilities in oil and gas clusters, in the light of cluster and industrial district theory. The aim is to provide evidence of their potential impact on competitiveness and business performance within the UK upstream oil and gas cluster. Agility is the ability of organisations to operate and prosper in market conditions characterised by dynamism and constantly changing customer tastes. Clusters and industrial districts refer to the geographic concentration of firms in an industry that enables the firms to benefit from competition and cooperation as well as enhanced productivity within the cluster.A review of past theoretical and empirical studies on supply chain management, agility and clusters identifies four dimensions of agility: customer enrichment, cooperating to compete, mastering change and uncertainty, and leveraging the impact of people and information. The cluster theory points to the competitive advantage of being in geographic proximity to the members of a supply chain, including enhanced productivity, easy access to enriched and high quality factors of production, reduction of transaction and transportation costs as well as increased innovativeness. These all contribute to improving the competitive capability of a firm as well as having impact on the business performance of organisations. A survey of 880 firms in the UK upstream oil and gas cluster was conducted to determine the specific impact of cluster location attributes on the agility of supply chains. Six case studies involving the three tiers of the supply chain and supporting organisation were carried out.Structural equation modelling revealed strong impact of clusters on competitive objectives but weak impact on business performance. Results from the survey show that cluster agility has strong impact on both competitive objectives and business performance. The case study revealed that agility is a strategic tool adopted by the smaller organisations within the supply chain to mitigate the scale of large organisations. Equally, SMEs consider that being in UK oil and gas cluster enhances their responsiveness
Development and evaluation of a health education module for the prevention of respiratory tract infections among private hajj and umrah pilgrims
No full textHajj pilgrimage is usually associated with a regular occurrence of respiratory
tract infection among pilgrims. Vaccination uptake and other preventive behaviours
have generally been low among pilgrims across the globe. Despite this, there is
presently no validated health theory-based health education module in Malaysia to
guide the pilgrims on how to boost compliance with these preventive practices and
increase their knowledge towards respiratory tract infection, preventive attitudes and
practices towards prevention strategies. The general objective of this study is to
develop and evaluate the effectiveness of health education modules against respiratory
tract infections among Hajj pilgrims from Malaysia. This study was carried out in
phases comprising of development and validation of questionnaire phase, development
and validation of health education module for respiratory tract infection prevention
phase, baseline characterization of pilgrims’ phase, intervention phase and evaluation
phase. At the first phase of the study, a cross-sectional study was conducted for the
development and validation of a measurement tool using the content, construct (items
response theory, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis)
validation and reliability. This phase is followed by the development and validation of
new health education module via a smartphone application. For the intervention and
the evaluation phase, a quasi-experimental study was utilized, where pre-post
intervention data were analysed among 52 and 50 Hajj/Umrah pilgrims in the
intervention or control group respectively. The intervention group was given health
education module on the prevention of respiratory tract infections during Hajj and
Umrah in the form of a smartphone application which was strictly guided by the health
belief model. The control group received a smartphone application on normal Hajj and
Umrah guidance from a different Hajj/Umrah travel company. Follow-up data were
collected using the same questionnaire that was used during the pre-test data
collection. Mixed design repeated measure ANOVA was used to analyse the effect of
group, time, and group-time interaction on the dependent variables. There was a
significant improvement in knowledge score and the main effect in the intervention
group compared to the control group, based on time (p = 0.005, ηp2 = 0.075).
Likewise, there was significant improvement in attitude score and main effect based
on time (p = 0.035, ηp2 = 0.044). Similarly, there was a significant change in practice
score and also main effect based on time (p = <0.001, ηp2 = 0.155) and interaction of
group with time (p = 0.042, ηp2 = 0.041). Similarly, the occurrence of RTI in the
intervention group is lower when compared to the control group. The new health
educational intervention module developed was effective in improving the knowledge,
attitude and practices toward prevention of RTI among Hajj pilgrims from Malaysia.
Further studies are also needed to investigate the barriers and motivators to link the
knowledge gap about the uptake of mandatory and recommended vaccine as well as
the other components of the module. Therefore, Hajj agencies need to conduct health
education before departure of pilgrims to prepare them against the common respiratory
infections or in the event of outbreaks of infection during Hajj/Umrah
THE IMPACT OF RECRUITMENT SOURCES ON BRAND IMAGE PERCEPTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONAL ATTRACTION: LEVERAGING ORGANIZATIONAL BRAND IMAGE PERCEPTIONS TO ENHANCE RECRUITMENT ATTRACTION
No full textIn today’s competitive labor markets, successfully recruiting a large pool of skilled and qualified job applicants is a prime concern of many organizations. In Study 1, I focused on how organizations can successfully employ four traditional recruitment practices (sponsorships, job fair activities, word-of mouth endorsements and corporate advertisements) simultaneously to disseminate information about their positive recruitment brand images to job seekers to enhance organizational attraction. The results which supported all my hypotheses indicated that, communication of an organization’s brand images to job seekers through the simultaneous use of these four traditional recruitment practices can indeed influence job seekers’ positive perceptions of an organization and result in enhanced organizational attraction. In Study 2, which was built on findings in Study1, I theorized that social media may have become a prominent source of information for job seekers. In this study, I predicted that job seekers’ use of four social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and LinkedIn) in job search will explain incremental variance in organizational attraction over the use of traditional recruitment methods. I also predicted that job seekers’ utilization of social media in job search will be positively related to organizational attraction through enhanced perceptions of instrumental and symbolic attributes. Surveys for both studies were posted on and data collected from Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results from the second study were mixed; but the results confirm findings from prior research, which showed that the instrumental-symbolic framework can be used to predict potential job seekers’ perceptions of organizational attractiveness. Overall, results in the two studies reveal that organizations can better enhance recruitment by using a combination of social media and traditional recruitment methods to attract potential job seekers.Business Administration/Human Resource Managemen
Evaluating Convolution Neural Network optimization Algorithms for Classification of Cervical Cancer Macro Images
No full text- …
