Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monetary Policy and Commercial Bank Lending to the Real Sector in Nigeria: A Time Series Study

This study empirically examined the effects of monetary policy on commercial banks lending to the real sector from 1981 – 2014. The objective was to examine the effectiveness of monetary policy in channeling bank credit to the real sector. Annual time series data were sourced from Central Bank of Nigeria statistical bulletin. Two multiple regression models were specifically estimated with the aid of Software Package for Social Sciences. The study modeled commercial banks credit to agricultural and manufacturing sector as the function of interest rate, monetary policy rate, treasury bill rate, exchange rate, broad money supply and liquidity ratio. The result shows collinearity that corresponds with the Eigen value condition index, and variance constant are less than the required value. The Durbin Watson statistics shows the absence of multiple auto correlation and negative autocorrelation, while the variance inflation factors indicate the absence of auto-correlation. The regression results from model one found that interest rate, monetary policy rate have positive relationship with commercial banks lending to the agricultural sector while Treasury bill rate, exchange rate, broad money supply and liquidity ratio have negative effect on the dependent variable. Model two found that interest rate, Treasury bill rate, exchange rate, broad money supply and liquidity ratio have negative effect on commercial banks lending the manufacturing sector while monetary policy rate have positive relationship with the dependent variable. We recommend that monetary policy should be harmonize with bank lending objectives to enhance commercial banks lending to the real sector of the economy and that management of commercial banks should formulate policies of managing the negative effect of monetary policy variables on its lending.
A Pragmatic Analysis of Gichuka Request Patterns

Pragmatics studies the way language is used, the choices that the speakers have to make when constrained by socio-cultural context of a given language situation and the effect that using language in a particular way has on the interlocutor. The aim of this study was to describe the request patterns used in Gichuka social events. Requests are an integral part of everyday interaction and their formulation varies from culture to culture and from one occasion to another. The requests patterns were described following the Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Pattern (CCSARP) project by Blum-Kulka, House and Kasper. The study utilized the descriptive research design to study social events conducted in Gichuka. Six Gichuka social events were recorded using a voice recorder and transcribed into guiding cards while contextual information was recorded using an observation schedule. The study established that Gichuka request expressions mostly assume the mood derivable pattern. This study enhances the analysis of the Gichuka language variety and adds to the existing knowledge on pragmatic analysis of requests in various languages of the world, and other Bantu languages.
The Impact of Electronic Word-of-Mouth Marketing on the Generation-Y s Intention to Buy Tourism Services

Nuriye GÜREŞ a Seda ARSLAN b Cevher YÜKSEL c Aylin VARIŞLI d Duygu BABAT e Menekşe GÜNDOĞDU f a Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, İskenderun / Hatay, Turkey. nuriye.gures@iste.edu. tr b Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, İskenderun / Hatay, Turkey. seda.arslan@iste.edu. tr c Iskenderun Technical University, School of Foreign Languages, İskenderun / Hatay, Turkey. cevher.yuksel@iste.edu. tr d Mustafa Kemal University, Antakya Vocational School, Turkey. aylinvarisli@mku.edu. tr e Mustafa Kemal University, Antakya Vocational School, Turkey. dbabat@mku.edu. tr, f Iskenderun Technical University, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, İskenderun / Hatay, Turkey. menekse.gundogdu@iste.edu. tr
Love Stories: How Language Use Patterns Vary by Relationship Quality

ABSTRACT Romantic relationships vary in quality, and the purpose of the present investigation was to examine a wide scope of linguistic variables as possible markers of this variability. Ninety-six undergraduate students within committed romantic relationships were asked to write freely about their partnership, following which they reported on relationship qualities such as trust, love, and satisfaction. In addition, 87 partners reported on their perceptions of relationship closeness, and 88 participants completed at least 8 days of a daily diary protocol. The occurrence of positive emotion words predicted relationship satisfaction, and the use of first-person plural words predicted partner perceptions of closeness. Beyond such findings, relationship quality varied positively with linguistic certainty, inclusiveness, and expressiveness. Conversely, several findings point to linguistic variables, such as anxiety, that suggest inhibitory processes within the relationship. Altogether, the research extends our knowledge concerning the linguistic factors that differentiate high-quality relationships from less functional ones.
Assessment of Oral Presentations: Effectiveness of Self-, Peer-, and Teacher Assessments

This study investigated the effectiveness of self-, peer-, and teacher assessments in assessing EFL students’ oral presentations. It also examined consistencies and differences among these three methods of assessment. Students’ attitudes towards self-assessment and peer assessment were also investigated. This study is a mixedmethods sequential explanatory research in which both quantitative and qualitative data were collected. Using an adapted rating scale, 60 Iranian students in four advanced English courses were requested to assess their oral presentations and the oral presentations of their peers. Four teachers used the same rating scale to assess all students’ oral presentations. To obtain students’ attitudes towards selfand peer assessments, a questionnaire was administered before and after the employment of the rating scale. Students who revealed changes in their attitudes were also interviewed. Although the results showed no significant differences in the three assessment methods, the analysis of the mean scores revealed that teachers employed the strictest scoring criteria while peer assessors used the most lax ones. While the results of peerand teacher assessments appeared to be consistent, no consistencies were discovered in selfand peerassessments and in selfand teacher assessments. This study highlights that EFL students’ involvement in assessing their own and peers’ oral presentations can enhance their motivation to learn.
Malaysian L2 learners’ English learning motivation: A study of goals, attitudes and self

This paper investigates factors motivating Malaysian students to learn English through Dornyei’s (2009) construct of the L2 Motivational Self System. The purpose of the study is to examine the validity of self- concept (Ideal L2 and Ought to L2) in the L2 Motivational Self System and examine effect of learner social goals. Furthermore, the study aims to determine the relationship among L2 attitudes, social goals and motivated learning behaviour. Data were collected through a questionnaire survey conducted among 76 Malaysian undergraduates. The results of the study revealed a strong correlation between social goals and selves as well as social goals and motivated learning behaviour. There was a correlation between the L2 self and motivated learning, suggesting social interference to be an important factor for forming attitude.
Phonological Fossilisation of EFL Learners: The Interference of Phonological and Orthographic System of L1 Javanese

This paper discusses the interference of phonological and orthographic systems of the mother tongue on phonological fossilisation of English on Foreign Language learners in Javanese contexts. 25 fourth-semester university students were selected as respondents. The data were collected by means of pre-test and post-test on pronouncing isolated words, continuous speeches, and reading aloud on manipulated short text. Contrastive analysis reveals that the phonological fossilisation among Javanese students commonly occurred in continuous speech rather than isolated words when they pronounced vowels /ae/, /ɪ/, /ə/, /ʌ/, /i:/ in initial and middle position; diphthongs /əʊ/, /eɪ/, /aʊ/ in initial and middle; as well as consonants /dʒ/, /ʧ/, /θ/, /ð/, /ʃ/, /v/, /ʒ/, /z/, /k/, /t/ in initial, middle and final ones. The students tended to omit ‘/θ/’,‘/d/ and /t/’in final position, ‘consonant clusters in initial, mid, final position’, and /j/ after plosive bilabial’. Those phonological fossilisations were due to the interference of the phonological and orthographic systems of their mother tongue. Keywords : EFL learners; interference; fossilisation; phonological system; orthographic system
Exploring Service Quality among Online Sharing Economy Platforms from an Online Media Perspective

The sharing economy has become a new socioeconomic activity that allows the co-creation, production, distribution and consumption of goods and services between individuals, driven by Web 2.0 and e-word of mouth. How these online platforms communicate their content is critical. This paper seeks to develop a scale for measuring the perceived quality of websites that offer information about sharing economy services focused on online peer-to-peer accommodation. The resulting model is validated by means of structural equations and is composed of four dimensions (efficiency; reliability, privacy/security; and communication). The influence that perceived quality exerts on satisfaction and loyalty is then explored from an online media perspective. A scale resulting from the combination of these two areas of knowledge (online media and e-service quality) may take advantage of the more beneficial features they have to offer and provide us with as balanced and convergent a model as possible. The results of the study show that all of the initial hypotheses are confirmed except one. Efficiency, reliability and privacy/security positively influence the perceived quality of a collaborative accommodation portal, whereas communication does not.
Performance Myopia: The Effect of Pay-For-Performance Incentives on Exploration and Coordination

Incentives are one of the core practices of strategic human resource management and their effect on motivation and performance has been studied extensively. Particular attention is devoted to pay-for-performance (PFP) incentives while research on the effect of PFP incentives on performance has produced contradictory results. More importantly, incentives are not an isolated process; the effect of incentives goes beyond individual or organisational performance because they affect an entire organisation. Although incentives are included in most organisational design frameworks, the effect of incentives on other organisational design components has been neglected. The study uses the organisational design framework to focus on neglected relations between incentives and other organisational design components. The purpose of the study is to explore what are the organisational design components and how they are influenced by PFP incentives. A case study research design was used. The data was collected in a small company in which the incentive system was changed to PFP incentives as a part of substantial changes in the organisational design. Data was collected through interviews with employees, supported by internal documentation and observation. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. In the case, the PFP incentives led to higher performance although the PFP incentives restricted the new exploratory strategy and harmed cooperation. The effect of the PFP incentives on exploration and cooperation was slow, and hardly visible, predominantly as a result of unintentionally deviated attention.The study points out that focusing solely on performance when designing incentive systems may be myopic because PFP incentives may have a detrimental effect on other organisational design components. Based on the results, the paper provides a set of suggestions to consider when implementing PFP incentives.
Intertemporal Choice and Income Regularity: Non-Fungibility in the Timing of Income among Kenyan Farmers

Abstract The optimal design of informal contracts in agricultural value chains depends on when farmers prefer to be paid for their output. While the evidence from time preference experiments suggests a preference for early payments, field studies often indicate that farmers will defer regular payments if given the opportunity. In this study, we explicitly test whether farmers are more patient regarding regular, earned income than regarding experimental windfall payments. We asked farmers in a dairy cooperative in Kenya to allocate both their milk income and a one-time gift between an early and a deferred payment date. We find that a large majority of participants deferred their milk payments, while rarely choosing to defer the gift. Participants’ survey responses suggest that we observe this difference because of mental accounting: participants earmarked their regular milk payments, but not the gift, to save for bulky expenditures. We conclude that deferred payments can provide value to producers by functioning as a savings device, even when decisions over windfall income suggest a preference for early payments.
MATHEMATICAL GAMES AS TOOL FOR MATHEMATICS TEACHING IN THE FOUNDATION PHASE

Mathematics performance is a universal outcry. Children as early as foundation phase are unable to solve mathematical barriers. In her analysis Naledi Pandor, Minister of Education in South Africa noted in that only 35% of children in South Africa can read, write and count. The aim of this paper is to explore the importance of the use of educational games in teaching mathematics in the Foundation Phase (Grade zero to three) classes in South African primary schools. This research is qualitative in nature and explores the views of Foundation Phase teachers regarding the using of mathematical games as tool for mathematics teaching in the foundation phase. The concern is if the problems are not addressed in the Foundation Phase it might be too late to deal with them in the higher school grades. In fact it is known that the performance in mathematics at Grade 12 is poor as seen from the TIMMS results. The research specifically reveals that the significance of teaching children through the use mathematical games is to help inculcate strong number-sense competencies for the love of mathematics. The paper highlights the use of mathematical games for motivating and improving children’s performance and takes into account the assistance teachers should give in order to improve mathematical thinking when playing mathematical games. This paper concludes that mathematical games assist children to practise mental calculations and addresses mathematical language barriers. Teachers should teach the children to ensure that they enjoy and actively participate in the use of games when learning mathematics.
EPIDEMIOLOGY OF SNAKEBITE; A STUDY FROM CHOHARWA ARMY CAMP, SIRAHA, NEPAL

ORIGINAL ARTICLE Incidence of snakebite was slightly higher among males (53%) than females (47%) and more frequent in 15-45 years (67%) age group. The highest incidence occurred during the monsoon from June to October (76%), with peak in August. Majorities of the victims were farmers (73%) and bitten mostly by kraits (27%) on the lower extremity (58%), especially on the leg (48%). Snakebite victims were mostly bitten in daytime (61%). Outdoor activities had more risk (57%) for snakebite. The high-risk activities identified were grass cutting (25%) and sleeping (23%) on the ground. Tourniquets were the main first aid measure used by the victims (86%). Mostly, victims were brought to the camp with in one hour after the bite (61%). The average duration of stay in the camp was 18-24 hours in a non-poisonous bite and 2-3 days in poisonous.
Effect of water regimes and weed-management practices on growth, yield and weed-control efficiency of rice under system of rice intensification

A field experiment was conducted during the rainy (kharif) seasons of 2012 and 2013 at Khudwani, Jammu and Kashmir, to evaluate the effect of water regimes and weed-management practices on growth and yield of rice (Oryza sativa L.) grown on silty clay loam soil. The treatments comprised 3 irrigations schedules, viz. alternate wetting and drying (AWD), saturated conditions (SC) and continuous flooding (FL), and 7 weed-management options including 4 herbicidal treatments, viz. pyrazosulfuron ethyl @ 20 g/ha at 3 days after transplanting (DAT, W1); cyhalofop butyl @ 80 g/ha at 15 DAT (W2); pyrazosulfuron ethyl 20 g followed by (fb) cyhalofop butyl 80 g/ha at 3 and 15 DAT (W3); butachlor @ 1.5 kg/ha at 3 DAT (W4); 3 cono weeding at 15, 25 and 35 DAT (W5) along with weedy check (W6) and weed free (W7). The experiment was laid out in a split-plot design with 3 replications under SRI. The data revealed that significant higher growth parameters like leaf-area index (LAI), dry-matter accumulation and tillers/plant and yield attributes, i.e. panicle length, panicles/m2, grains/panicle, panicle weight, grains/panicles, 1, 000-grain weight, and higher grain yield were recorded in saturated water regime. On an average a yield superiority of 2.2 and 5.8% was recorded by saturated water regime over AWD and continuous flooding. Among the herbicides tested, pyrazosulfuron-ethyl @ 20 g/ha (3 DAT) fb cyhalofop-butyl @ 80 g/ha (15 DAT) resulted in significantly higher panicle length, panicles/m2, panicle weight, grains/panicles, 1, 000-grain weight and higher grain yield comparable to the weedy check. The mean yield advantage recorded by the use of pyrazosulfuron-ethyl fb cyhalofop-butyl was 19.3, 14.0 and 10.3% over cyhalofop-butyl, cono-weeding and butachlor, respectively, during both the years of experimentation.
The Influence of Excise Taxation Levied on Product Sales on the Financial Sustainability of South African Tobacco-and-Alcohol-Selling Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise

In South Africa, Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) are often described as the driving forces of the national economy, mainly due to the socio economic value they add. Unfortunately, prior research suggests that South African SMMEs are adversely influenced by an array of economic factors, one of which is taxation. One form of taxation, which influences an array of South African SMMEs, is that of excise taxation; as levied on specific products that are considered detrimental to the social- and/or environmental well-being of South African citizens. When taking into account that excise taxation has increased year-on-year for the past 20 years, the perception was formulated that South African tobacco-and-alcohol-selling SMMEs that are subject to excise taxation, experience weak financial sustainability. As such, this study placed emphasis on the influence excise taxation levied on products sold on the financial sustainability of tobacco-and-alcohol-selling South African SMMEs. This study was exploratory and empirical in nature and fell within the positivistic research paradigm. A total of 50 members of management of South African tobacco-and-alcohol-selling SMMEs were targeted, all of whom had to adhere to strict delineation criteria. Stemming from the results, it was found that with the most recent increase in excise taxation, less alcohol products and tobacco products were sold by these business entities, resulting in drastic reductions in profitability levels and liquidity levels, negatively influencing their financial sustainability.
Study of Architectures and Algorithms for Software Galileo Receivers

The increased use of digital technology in communications is resulting in more functions of contemporary radio systems that are being implemented using a Software-DefinedRadio approach. The growing interest towards navigation applications, the advent of the European Navigation System Galileo and the new generation GPS, make the SDR approach an interesting perspective to develop a software reconfigurable receiver for positioning applications. Even if the present technology does not allow to totally implement a personal communications receiver, navigation terminals demand for less stringent processing and can be almost completely designed with software defined radio techniques. One of the basic function of a navigation receiver is the signal tracking of a CDMA modulated Signal-In-Space (SIS) broadcast by the satellites constellation (GPS or the future European Galileo). The goal of the research activity reported in this Ph.D. Dissertation is the study of the receiver architectures and algorithms, which can be successfully implemented by means of software routines on a reconfigurable hardware platform. The fundamental blocks of a Navigation receiver are the acquisition stage and the tracking loops. For such a reason particular care has been addressed to the strategies able to acquire and consequently track the Galileo L1F signal, which is used to broadcast the Galileo Open Service with the novel BOC(1,1) modulation. The analysis has been done both from a theoretical point of view and by means of computer simulations in order to prove the models developed. Particular attention has been devoted to the following aspects 1. the choice of the sampling frequency and its impact on the algorithms performance and on the hardware requirements in terms of system complexity 2. the availability of a pilot channel made by a concatenation of a primary and a secondary codes 3. the particular shape of the BOC(1,1) autocorrelation function, which presents two side lobes
The Manifestation of Flourishing Mental Health in Societal Behaviours

Research in the field of positive psychology is growing, often focussing on the positive mental health state of flourishing, where a person is filled with positive emotions and is functioning well psychologically and socially. The aim of the current study was to identify daily behaviours of flourishers in a societal context, using a mixed method approach of combining qualitative and quantitative analyses. Findings were compared between flourishers who are socially functioning well and non-flourishers who are not functioning well. The coding process of written narratives of European laypersons (N = 30) revealed that societal behaviours of flourishers comprised day-to-day behaviours leading to positive feelings initiated by the four dimensions of social well-being of social acceptance, social contribution, social integration and social coherence, explained by Keyes (1998). However, behaviours relating to the fifth dimension of social actualisation were not found. Differences in descriptions of the behavioural manifestation of flourishing in life between flourishers who are socially functioning well and non-flourishers who are not socially functioning well were not affirmed as well. Findings suggest that when the fundamental characteristics of accepting and appreciating others are given, flourishers are enabled to conduct many societal behaviours as connecting and working together with other people, helping to enhance the well-being of others and society, and exploring the operation of the social world by getting to know new communities and cultures. Activating such behaviours appears to create a promising route to increase well-being and could be integrated into social support interventions. More practical research is needed in different cultural communities to identify pathways for increasing flourishing among the world population.