Archives-December 

Social Intelligence, an emerging new science with startling implications for our interpersonal world. If the purpose of education is to teach students skills they need to be well-prepared for life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness...and most likely the pursuit of gainful employment, then teaching social skills must be a crucial part of education. There are new requirements of today’s and tomorrow’s social leaders and members, and they all demand social intelligence.

Social media is recognized by the innovatively minded, as an excellent means to increase business, as the ever-increasing use of social media by populations around the world presents many points of engagement with existing and new customers. The outreach may an imperative for businesses to increase consumer engagement as an additional communication channel to market products and services, as the disruptions with inflation, decreased consumer confidence, and the ravages of the pandemic have wreaked significant losses to businesses worldwide. The barrier to consumer engagement however may be sub-optimal, when social media marketing (SMM) strategies fail to innovatively and unreservedly lag in the adeptness to engage consumers, which may present missed opportunities for small business managers (SBMs) to generate sales. Keeping pace with technological and consumer trends is vital to increase business success and lower risks in sustainability, reinforced by the theoretical lens that the theory of diffusion of innovation (DOI), provided, the purpose of this qualitative exploratory multiple case study was to study the strategies that SBMs use to develop and effectively implement SMM strategies, in increasing existing and prospective customer engagement. The sample purposively drawn from the study population, was six business managers and owners from six different successful small businesses in Maryland. The participation criteria of study participants were demonstrable and verifiable success in using social media marketing strategies successfully for five years, in marketing to existing and new customers. Semi-structured interviews were used in data collection, and with the invocation of a multiple case study design, the analysis also involved the examination of financial and other documents of industry and company respectively. The findings of this study may be of value to SBMs as the knowledge of the SMM strategies discerned from the study may provide insights into formulating and executing social media business and marketing strategies, which advance customer engagement. Business knowledge and the judicious implementation of it can contribute to economic success, which usually translates into positive benefits for society

Adoption is a decision to make use of an innovation on a continuous basis. This study investigated the socio-economic determinants of adoption of improved rice production technologies in Ebonyi State, Nigeria. The study employed multi-stage random sampling techniques in the selection of 420 rice farmers from the three agricultural zones of the state. Primary data were sourced through field survey with the aid of structured questionnaires and interview schedule. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used in data analysis. The result of the socio-economic characteristics of the farmers shows that majority (66.67 percent) of the respondents were males whose age ranged between 41-50 years with mean age of 42 years. Most of them (62.50 percent) were married and had household size of between 6-10 persons with average household size of 8 persons. Majority (50.83 percent) were full-time farmers whose farm size ranged between 1.1-2.0 hectares. Most of the farmers (43.33 percent) had been involved in rice farming for 21-30 years and earned monthly income of between N31,000-N40,000. The result of logistic regression analysis showed a log likelihood ratio of -188. 40 and Chi-square value of 682.559 which was significant at (P= 0.01); implying that all the variables jointly determined the dependent variable. The Pseudo R2 (Nagelkerke) which was 76.6 percent implied that about 76.6 percent of the variation in the adoption of improved rice production technologies was explained by the farmers socio-economic characteristics. Most of the variables were significant and met a priori expectations. The result of factor analysis identified: technical, financial and institutional constraints as major bottlenecks limiting adoption of improved rice production technologies in the area. It was concluded that the socio-economic characteristics of the rural farmers significantly influenced their adoption of improved rice production technologies. Necessary recommendations such as: reviving youths’ interest towards rice production; employing and training more extension workers; timely provision of subsidized agricultural inputs as well as incentives for the formation of cooperative societies; were made.

One of the most important natural resources that cover much of the earth's surface is soil. Most life on earth depends upon the soil as a direct or indirect source of food. Plants are rooted in the soil and obtain nutrients from it. Animals also get nutrients from eating the plants on the soil. Soil is home of many organisms such as seeds, spores, insects, and worms. The contents of soil change constantly and there are many different kinds of soil. It forms very slowly and is destroyed easily, so it must be conserved in order to continue to support life.

The goal of this study is to suggest a new triple Kamal integral transform. We outline its essential properties and proved some important results, including existence theorem, triple convolution theorem and derivatives properties. Moreover, the proposed new transform is utilized to solve Mboctara partial differential equations.

Solvent extraction of lanthanum(III) and vanadium(V) from their aqueous solutions with chloroform solution of 1-phenyl-3-methyl-4-butanoylpyrazol-5-one (the ligand) was studied. The effects of ligand (extractant) concentrations and the pH of the metal aqueous solutions on the solvent extraction were evaluated in terms of their distribution coefficients (D) and the equilibrium constants (Kex) were determined. The values of the slopes of the plots of log D versus log [HBPy(org)] and that of log D versus pH showed that approximately 3 moles of the HBPy ligand reacted with one mole of La3+ while 2 moles of the same ligand reacted with VO2+ during the extraction process. The average logarithms of the equilibrium constant (Kex) values obtained for the metals at the different HBPy concentrations and buffer 4 are -7.40 (La) and -5.14 (V); while those obtained at the different pH and a constant extractant concentration of 0.02 M are La(BPy)3 = -0.49; and VO2(BPy)2 = -1.39; showing that the ligand is an efficient extractant for V(V) and La(III) ions from their aqueous solutions. The study has shown that separation of the La(III) and V(V) ions in their mixture is possible by the adjustment of the extractant concentrations and the pH of the aqueous solution of such mixture.

In this paper we introduce some classes of p-valent analytic functions involving repeated Erdelyi-Kober fractional integral operators and investigate some of their properties specially inclusion relations for these classes. Some class preserving properties of an integral operator are also discussed.

The optimality of the variance and efficiency balanced affine resolvable designs and resolvable designs with unequal block sizes has been checked and found it to be universal optimal. A method of constructing variance and efficiency balanced (?1, ?2, …..?t) resolvable balanced incomplete block design with unequal block sizes is also proposed using 2n-symmetrical factorial designs. Further optimality of the constructed design has been checked and found it to be universally optimal.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the agricultural performance in monocropping and in association of tomatoes affected by a few diseases in the city of Kisangani. The study was done following a non-randomized block device comprising two blocks of 6 plots each. Two types of crops were used namely tomato and spinach. The treatments consisted of tomatoes in pure culture and tomatoes in combination with spinach. Observations focused on the evolution of tomato diseases and the number of inflorescences, flowers, fruits, fruit weight, fruiting and yield per plant. The results obtained reveal that the combination of spinach with tomatoes reduces the spread of tomato diseases and increases tomato yield under the conditions of our study. information retrieval systems.

The challenges facing the ever frontier of knowledge in various fields especially the department of Agricultural education which includes; students difficulties in trying to adjust to the new course of study some of them did not apply for, Occupational misconception, rating of agricultural related jobs low in terms of a secured future and earning power calls for proper improvement of career counseling services in agricultural education in Nigeria Universities. However, the study centered on strategies for improving career counseling in agricultural education in south east Universities using the universities located in south east universities, three research questions and two null hypotheses guided the study using a descriptive survey. The population of study is 139, consisting of 73 lecturers of Agricultural education and 63 counselors in the universities. The entire population was used for the study since the population was manageable. Instrument for data collection was a researcher-made questionnaire duly validated and the reliability of the instrument was established using Cronbach alpha, which yielded a co-efficient index of 0.83. The researcher and 3 research assistants administered and retrieved the questionnaire. 100% return rate was achieved. Mean and standard deviations was used to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. The analyzed data identified administrative strategies, students related strategies and government strategies as a way of improving career counseling in Nigeria universities. It was recommended among others that there should be a regular supervision, monitoring and evaluation of the career counseling services in agricultural education departments.