ijsrise v1i1

International Journal of Scientific Research in Information Systems and Engineering

(IJSRISE)

ISSN 2380-5579 (Online)

Volume 1, Issue 1, July 2015.

www.ijsrise.com

Publishers:

Anglo-American Publications LLC

Address: No 13, Subat Sokak, Orkoz 1 Apartment, Flat 3, KKTC, Via Mersin 99302, Turkey.

Phone: +905338364632www: www.ijsrise.com

E-mail: [email protected]

For publishers:Dr. Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya

Print:

Anglo American Publications LLC

Circulation:100 Copies

Translator:

Dr. Diana Ada Agbo

Dr. Samson O. Fadiya

Management Information Systems

Girne American UniversityKarmi Campus,

Mersin 10 Via Turkey.God is Able. Eph: 3:20

CONTENTS

THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE ON THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NORTHERN CYPRUS Acheme Okolobia Odeh...........................................................................................................1-8

UTILIZING ICT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN CLOTHING FOR ENHANCED CREATIVITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOME ECONOMICS GRADUATESDiana A. Agbo........................................................................................................................9-15

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPUTER SOFTWARE TO SOLVE SECOND ORDER ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH CONSTANT COEFFICIENTSAtsa’am, D. D., Odeh, A. Pius..............................................................................................17-28

BODY SIZE AND SHAPE CATEGORIZATION OF SOME ETHNIC GROUPS IN BENUE STATE USING WAIST, BUST AND HIP MEASUREMENTSDiana A. Agbo......................................................................................................................29-36

IMPORTANCE OF THE USE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS BY FAR-MERS IN AFRICAJoshua Chibuike Sopuru........................................................................................................37-43

UNIVERSITY TIME-TABLE SCHEDULING SYSTEM: DATA-BASES DESIGNSamson Oluwaseun Fadiya, Nwabuzor E. Iruoma...............................................................45-51

AN OVERVIEW OF HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS (HRIS) AND HOW BEHAVIORMETRICS PREDICT EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE IN AN ORGANIZATIONVanye Zira Vanduhe, Desire Kemena Awoh..........................................................................53-60

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINE SERVICE QUAL-ITY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION, (A CASE STUDY OF UNITED BANK OF AFRICA [UBA])Adeleye Idowu Olusanya, Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya..........................................................61-68

THE IMPACT OF MOBILE MARKETING IN CONSUMER MARKET: A CASE STUDY OF TURKEYJohn Akpesiri Olotewo, Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya............................................................69-78

KNOWLEDGE-BASED AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM APPLICATION IN THE FUZZIFICATION AND DE-FUZZIFICATION OF RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MARITIME DRILLING FACILITIESEzurike B.O, Ezurike O, Okoronkwo C.A, Osueke G.O, Igbokwe J.O.................................................................79-82

International journal of scientific research in information systems and engineering (IJSRISE)Vol. 1, No.1, 2015.

www.ijsrise.com1

Abstract. This survey research was conducted to investigate the impact of agriculture on the economic development of Northern Cyprus. Data were collected from scholarly articles, Journals, and the North Cyprus Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The analysis of the impact of agriculture on the economic development of North Cyprus is a challenging task, but critical considering the role agriculture plays in the eco-nomic development of countries and nations such as Northern Cyprus. The significant finding of this study shows that the agricultural sector of TRCN has a lot of untapped potentials. The reasons for the dearth or decline in the productivity of the agricultural sector is discussed and analysed in this project.

A couple of recommendations, following the challenges facing the promising agricultural sector of Northern Cyprus included: increase in agricultural-based research in the Ministry of Agriculture and in higher educational levels, which will boost the industry a lot, and encourage the discovery of new, better, and improved agricultural practices; more foreign investors should be allowed to come into the agricultural sector of TRNC; The Government should set up a system to monitor and evaluate the success of implementation of funds allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources; The Introduction and Encouragement of Agriculture related courses such as Agricultural Economics in Colleges & Universities is also a sure way to alleviate the challenges agriculture is facing currently in TRNC; lastly but not the least, we recommend that the Government of TRNC should consider an increase in the overall financial alloca-tion to the agricultural sector, to boost its activities, and encourage loan to farmers and further development in the agricultural sector.

Keywords: Agriculture, Development, Economic, Production, SWOT, System.

1. INTRODUCTION

From time immemorial till the date agriculture has played a vital role in the de-velopment of nations and in supplying man’s basic nutritional and dietetic needs. The role agriculture has played in the development of nations cannot be overemphasized. The evo-lution of man according to early scientist and historians has pinpointed agriculture as the primary source of survival and occupation of the first man, as well as the earliest commod-ity of trade amongst nations before the era of civilization and industrialization.

The changes that overtook agriculture over the last dozen or so years of the century were nearly as dramatic as those transforming industry[1]. Farming still made up a substan-tial part of the economy but is declining in relative importance [1]. As a country develop economically, the relative importance of agri-culture declines. The main reason for the de-cline was illustrated by Ernst Engel, a German statistician. Ernst Engel discovered in his ex-periment that as incomes increase the propor-tion of income spent on food declines relative-ly. For instance, if the income of a family were to be increased by 100%, the amount it would spend on food might subsequently increase by 60%. Assuming the expenditure on food was 50% of the family’s budget before the increase. After the increase, it would amount to only 40 percent of its budget. Based on the analogy given above, we can safely conclude that, as incomes increase, a smaller fraction of the total resources of society is required to produce the amount of food demanded by the population [2].

The aim of this survey is to establish the facts and principles that must be known to an-

THE IMPACT OF AGRICULTURE ON THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NORTHERN CYPRUS

Acheme Okolobia Odeh, Management Information System (MSc), Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, E-mail: [email protected]

Received: May, 05.2015. Accepted: June, 29.2015.

Articles

Corresponding AuthorAcheme Okolobia Odeh, Management Information System (MSc), Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, E-mail: [email protected]


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alyse the effect of agriculture on the economic development of North Cyprus. This would lead to an understanding of how the agricul-tural sector of Northern Cyprus is performing, and based on the findings, what can be done to optimize the agricultural sector to its full potentials for the economic benefit of TRNC.

This project also aims to address and analyse the past and existing state of agricul-ture in North Cyprus. The future of farming in North Cyprus is dealt with in this research. The percentage of employment agriculture offers in North Cyprus, the percentage share of agriculture in the economy are some of the vital areas of interest that this research focuses and tries to analyse. Finally, an at-tempt is made to analyse the value added and the SWOT analysis of the agricultural sector of North Cyprus, recommendations as well as suggestions are made at the end of the project in regards to the findings.

The significance of this research cannot be overemphasised, as the findings and rec-ommendations will be of immense benefit to the government of North Cyprus especially the Ministry of Agriculture to proffer ways in which the agricultural sector can be enhanced to boost the economy of the country. This sur-vey will serve as a source of reference to fu-ture research in the field of agriculture and the economy of North Cyprus. The recommenda-tions in this study will be of great benefits to universities, colleges and the Cyprus Minis-try of Education, to see areas where they can make adjustment to their school curriculum and subjects to incorporate courses aimed at developing agriculture for the economic ben-efit of TRNC. Farmers are not left out of this advantage. The suggestions will help farmers know the importance or the role agriculture plays in the economy of TRNC. Thereby put-ting in more effort to boost agriculture for the larger populace. The recommendations pre-sented, will also be of help to business special-ist in the agro-industry, the statistical records and analysis will show them how to predict the future of agriculture and the economy as a whole thereby make substantive and strate-gic plans for the present and the future. In a nutshell, this report will be a great source of reference and educational guide to students,

researchers and their like.

2. THE TERM “AGRICULTURE”

Agriculture is the science, art and oc-cupation of cultivating the soil, producing crops and raising livestock [3]. Agriculture is the very basis of civilization; it is the food we eat, the clothing we wear, the material of our homes, the gardens around us, and many of our traditions and values [3].

Agriculture also entails the processing, marketing, distribution and financing of agri-cultural products; farm production supply and service industries; health, nutrition and food consumption; the use and conservation of land and water resources; development and main-tenance of recreational resources; and related economic, sociological, political, environ-mental and cultural characteristics of the food and fibre system [3].

2.1. Benefits of Agriculture

The necessity of food for our physical, cultural and economic development makes agriculture a crucial sector. There is strong indication that only agriculture has the great-est tendency of meeting the world’s basic food needs in the coming years.

Most of the products we use in our eve-ryday life come from plant and animal by-products. Some of these products include but not limited to pharmaceutical products, oint-ments, surgical sutures, latex gloves, x-ray films amongst other health care product. How about manufacturing? Products such as lu-bricants, adhesives, detergents and polymers are some of the derivatives of agriculture. To the educational sector, agriculture provides raw materials for production of crayons, text-books, pencils and papers among several oth-ers. We cannot leave out Personal Care and construction. Shampoo, lotions, cosmetics, toothpaste, fingernail polish etc., are all per-sonal care benefits derived from agriculture. In the construction industry, agricultural prod-ucts such as lumber, paints, tar paper, brushes, drywall, particle boards etc., are all provided to the building industry from the stable of ag-


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riculture and its by-products.Agriculture has built a partnership rela-

tionship with all of these industries over the years. For instance in the health care industry, families and livestock of farmers get health care services from the health care industry, and the healthcare industry makes us of fin-ished products such as wools, produced from agricultural commodities. We now have the technology that provides computers for farm-ers for tracking market and information about the weather. The manufacturing industry is not left out in this partnership; they provide tools and equipment for mechanized agriculture or farming to the agricultural sector.

More so, agriculture offer by far the world’s best and probably the only viable so-lution to the growing future challenges to pro-tect the environment and to deal with global climate change. Everyone benefits from agri-cultural research and operations. Agricultural land provides food and habitat for 75% of the nation’s wildlife [3]. Agriculture has been greatly enhanced by the age of civilization and technology to a great extent. Biotechnology has contributed a great deal in helping towards the development of new and better techniques used to increase crop yields and farm produc-tivity.

Lastly, only agriculture offers a reliable chance of extending the food choices now available to the wealthy and the world’s growing middle class, as well as lower class.

2.2. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea after Sicily and Sardinia islands, with an area of 9,251 km2. The neigh-bouring countries of Cyprus are Turkey in the north (60 km), Syria in the west (96 km), Egypt in the south (385 km), Greece in the east (380 km), Lebanon and Israel [5]. After the failure of the United Nation’s plan aiming at bringing a comprehensive solution to the Cyprus dis-pute, the island was virtually split within the framework of the fifth enlargement of the EU on May 1, 2004. The negotiations on resolving the Cyprus dispute has restarted in 2014 [5].

The northern part of Cyprus has a sur-face area of 3,298 km2 that is about 35% of the total area of the island. Out of this, the rural area has a quite substantial share of 74,7% (CI N°3) of the area (2,465 km2) with diversified resources [5]. The region has semi-arid climate conditions and has been affected by the global climate change over the last years with warm-er seasons, less quantity of rain (–25 to –30 %) and higher temperatures that exceed 45 °C in comparison with the average. Extreme events such as droughts and floods in North Cyprus have also taken place increasing soil erosion and landslides [5].

The overall population of North Cyprus has increased by 11.5% between 2006 and 2011. The rural population is about 49.4% of the total population with an amount of 141,475 residents. Although the natural growth rate has been slightly decreased, the rural popula-tion has increased by 0,9% between 2006 and 2011 due to an increasing number of foreign students (+6,27%) leaving in rural areas [5]. The rural population is not distributed evenly throughout the territory with a highest share in Kyrenia (30.72%) and Maria (21.98%) and a lower share in Nicosia (15.44%) [5].

2.3. Agriculture in TRNC

Report produced by The State Plan-ning Organisation Annual Statistics, Nicosia, indicates that the agricultural sector is one of the key areas of the economy of TRNC [4]. Although the percentage contribution of agri-culture to the GDP of TRNC shows a steady decrease from as the year progresses with ef-fect from 2003 upwards, it is still of primary importance, as far as its contribution to Gross Domestic Product, general export of raw ma-terials, and employment, are concerned. The primary agricultural products farmed in TRNC include but not limited to animal breeding, fish & fish products, citrus, cereals, honey and vegetables.


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2.4 . Limitations to agricultural development in TRNC

The greatest limitations to the advancement of agriculture in TRNC may be attributed to the unfavourable climatic conditions of North Cyprus. The severe nature of the soil, scarcity of water, natural disasters, low financing of agriculture and the limitation of TRNC in participating in international trade due to its non-recognition by the international community are issues of great concern in the development of TRNC.

3. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Economic development is the process whereby simple, low-income national econo-mies are transformed into modern industrial economies [6]. Although Economic Devel-opment is sometimes used interchangeably with economic growth, it is used to indicate a change in a country’s economy involving qualitative and quantitative improvements.

According to Business Dictionary, Eco-nomic Development is a systematic examina-tion and evaluation of data or information, by breaking it into its component parts to uncover their interrelationships, thus providing basis for problem solving and decision making [7].

3.1. Measures of economic

development

Countries in the world can be the place in two broad categories: The Less Developed Countries (LDCs) and The More Developed Countries (MDCs). The measures employed in placing countries in these categories are discussed below:

i. GNP per capita

Gross National Product (GNP) is de-fined as the total market value of all final goods and services produced by a country in one year [9].

ii. Population Growth

It has been observed over the years, and from research reports that poorer countries show a higher rate of population growth. Ac-cording to the Economic Geography, a useful way to see this is by using the “Rule of 70” [9]. The rule of 70 is a way to apprise the num-ber of years it takes for something to replicate if you know the annual percentage growth rate [9].

iii. Occupational Structure of the Labour Force

Economic geographers divide economic activities into primary activities, secondary activities, and tertiary activities [9]. In the case of LDCs, most of the people engage in major activities. Whereas in high MDCs most people are involved in tertiary activities.

iv. Urbanization

Urbanization is the percentage of a coun-try’s population who live in urban areas[9].

v. Consumption per capita

It is assumed that the richer a country is, the more the citizens of the country will con-sume [9]. A major consequence of consump-tion is pollution. When fossil fuels are used, Carbon dioxide (CO2) is emitted, as a result.

vi. Infrastructure

Infrastructure is the bed-rock of a so-ciety: networks, communications, urban centres, energy distribution systems, trans-port, mines, farms, factories, mines, and facilities such as hospitals, police, postal services, and schools, defines the founda-tion of any society. The higher the develop-ment of infrastructure, the greater the de-gree of economic development is presumed.

vii. Social Conditions

The rate of literacy, caloric intake,


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infant mortality rate, the death rate, life ex-pectancy, and others are social conditions of concern when measuring the economic de-velopment of a Nation.

viii. Human Development Index [HDI]

The United Nations Development Pro-gram (UNDP) computes a Human Develop-ment Index for each country year by year [9]. The human development index (HDI), is com-posed of three indicators: life expectancy, edu-cation (adult literacy and combined secondary and tertiary school enrolment) and real GDP per capita. The list of Human Development Index for individual countries is published by the UNDP here: http://www.undp.org/hdr2001/indi-cator/indic_10_1_1.html

4. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The following conclusions are elabo-rated from the statistical documents and re-cords made available by the Ministry of Ag-riculture, Natural Resources and Environment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

GNP per capital

Report produced by The State Plan-ning Organisation Annual Statistics, Nicosia, indicates that the agricultural sector is one of the key areas of the economy of TRNC [4]. Although the percentage contribution of agri-culture to the GDP of TRNC shows a steady decrease from as the year progresses with ef-fect from 2003 upwards, it is still of primary importance, as far as its contribution to Gross Domestic Product, general export of raw ma-terials, and employment, are concerned. The contribution of the agricultural sector to the GDP increased from 619.3 million TL in 1977 to 1,005.3 million TL in 2003 at constant pric-es of 1977 with an annual average increase of 1.2%. In 2003, this contribution stood at 10.6% of the GDP an increase from 9.2% in 1990 [4]. However, the GDP contribution de-clined from 10.6% from 2003 to 5.9% in 2011 according the TRNC Ministry of Finance [4].

Table 1. Statistical Pattern of the Share of Agriculture

* EAP refers to economically active population

(Source: Third draft document of the overall analysis of the TC Rural Area by TC experts)

In 2002 and 2003, the percentage of ag-ricultural product exports was 41.6% of the total domestic exports and 15.7% and 144.5% respectively of the working population was employed [4]. Agriculture sector’s contribu-tion to the total exports in 1990 was 45.5% and 26.7% employment of the economically active population during the same year [4].

• Population Growth and Labour Force

The contribution of people who are in-volved in agriculture activities to the general population of Northern Cyprus has been on a steady decline from 14,339 (14.5%) in 2003 to 3,614 (3.7%) in 2011 out of a total TRNC population of 215,790 in 2003 and 291,609 in 2011. respectively. The statistics show a to-tal employment figure of 98,860 in 2003 and 97,103 in 2011, which is also on a decline. In addition, the economic statistic of 2012. pro-vided by the TRNC Ministry of Finance shows that the overall population of people studying agriculture-related programs at the higher ed-ucation level is also on a decrease from 2003 to 2011 [8].

• Infrastructure and Agricultural investments

Investment projects implemented by The Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources in 2012. where a total 19 projects amounting to a total expenditure of 21,820,808.21TL while the total subsidy paid to the agricul-tural sector in 2012. amounted to a total of 109,034,216.24TL. This leaves us with a dif-ference of 87,213,408.03TL not accounted for


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or put into any agricultural development pro-jects [8].

Other measures of finding that were not considered in this research include: urbaniza-tion, consumption per capital and social condi-tions which are not analysed here due to limit-ed data made available for analysis. However, this will not significantly affect the outcome of this survey.

• Land distribution

The table below shows the land alloca-tion in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cy-prus

Table 2. Agricultural Land distribution (%)

Table 3. Farms distribution by areas intervals

4.1. SWOT Analysis

4.2. Discussion and Conclusion

The analysis of the impact of agriculture on the economic development of Northern Cyprus raises a couple of issues that must be treated in order perfectly to understand the ef-fect on the economy of TRNC. The state of TRNC’s economy is a very necessary consid-eration that cannot be overlooked. The vari-ous sectors that contribute to the economic development of TRNC are yet other issues. Agriculture alone cannot bring about the to-tal development of the entire system (TRNC). Other institutions and entities work together to give us a better view of how agriculture is doing and to what extent it is positively or negatively affecting the economy of TRNC. Is the government putting too many funds and resources into the agricultural sector? Alterna-tively, NOT?

From statistical records made available to us in the course of this survey, we can make certain conclusions which are appropriate to measuring the growth of the agricultural sec-tor in relation to the economy of the Turk-ish Republic of Northern Cyprus. To discuss some of the findings of this project, it is rel-evant to look at the economic status of TRNC briefly.

To start with the population, the overall population of Northern Cyprus has increased by 11.5% from 2006-2011. The rural popula-tion is about 49.4% of the total population with an amount of 141,475 residents [5]. Although the natural growth rate slightly decreased, the rural population increased by 0.9% during the same period due to an increasing number of foreign students (+6,27%) leaving in rural ar-eas [5].

In terms of economic development, al-though North Cyprus’ GNP increased by 21%, up to TL 5.6 Million in 2011, its GNP per capita remained almost unchanged during the period (2006 – 2011) to 14,703 USD which is approximately twice less than the South Cy-prus GNP with 27,500 USD in 2012 [5].

This is the environment in which the ag-ricultural sector operates. It will be unrealistic to us to expect too much contribution from the agricultural sector towards the overall devel-opment of TRNC. Hence, this research tried


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critically to analyse some of the key areas where agriculture can make a greater impact, such as, employment, percentage GDP con-tribution, infrastructure development and the standard of living.

From the findings and discussion so far, it is clear that the agricultural sector has made great impact in the formulation of the econo-my of TRNC in the early years of 1999-2003 .as pictured in the statistical pattern of Agri-culture sector in Table one. However, a sharp decline from 2003-2011. was recorded by the Ministry of Finance, as well as the Ministry of Agriculture’s report. Part of this decline was due to the economic recession of past years. This made it a very difficult task for the gov-ernment of TRNC to get back to its’ status-quo with reference to the agricultural sector, or even step up on past achievements in this area. The challenges facing this industry, not-withstanding, there are still a lot of prospects in the agricultural industries if the government can pay more attention to the area as it to other sectors such as the construction and service sectors. However, a couple of recommenda-tions are offered in this research, based on the findings and analysis.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS

The significant finding of this study shows that the agricultural sector of TRCN has quite a lot of untapped potentials. Here are some suggestions that can help put the agri-culture sector on a productive side in order to better the economic development of TRNC:

i. Agriculture based research: A sure way to solve the challenges facing the ag-ricultural sector of TRNC is to encourage increase agricultural-based studies in the Ministry of Agriculture and support same in higher educational levels. This will boost the industry a lot, and encourage the discov-ery of new, better, and improved agricultural practices that will lead to productive and ef-ficient farming methods, yielding significant outputs, and enhancing better productivity.

ii. Foreign Investors: More foreign investors should be allowed, encouraged to come into the agricultural sector of TRNC.

The focus should be on investors with exper-tise and experience in the field of agriculture. Especially investors from countries where their agricultural sector are known to be ef-ficient and highly productive, leading to a holistic national economic development. The wealth of experience of such investors will be a great asset to the Agricultural sector of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. To do this, the government of TRNC, should con-sider working on its’ international relations with other countries. They should also work towards a permanent solution to its recogni-tion by the international community, either by reaching a compromise with the South Cyprus side, which would be the most better option, or but in more efforts towards its attainment of the status of a sovereign state that is recog-nized by the international community.

iii. Encouragement and introduction of agriculture-related courses (programs) in Colleges and Universities: The Introduc-tion and Encouragement of Agriculture relat-ed courses such as Agricultural Economics in Colleges & Universities is a sure way to alle-viate the challenges agriculture is facing cur-rently in TRNC, especially in the area of man-agement, and industrialized agriculture. This will increase the number of graduates in the field of agriculture, and subsequently, increase agriculture’s contribution to employment in the country. As a result, people who have gain-ful employment in agriculture can attain a bet-ter economic status and standard of living. All these will contribute towards a higher GDP for the country.

iii. Monitoring System (Management Information System): One of the most tan-gible and achievable recommendation of this project, is for the government of TRNC to set up a functional monitoring system to evaluate the proper utilization of resource allocation to the Ministry of Agriculture. A practical and functional management information system can be designed, developed and implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and other re-lated ministries, which will monitor, evaluate and provide relevantly and associated infor-mation to government decision makers. The information supplied by the information sys-tem can be used to strategize better ways to


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improve agriculture in TRNC for improved productivity. This system will monitor the in-ternal activities of the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as external activities in relation to oth-er major ministries such as the Ministry of Fi-nance. The system will monitor how projects are been distributed and implemented, the various phases and how successful the Minis-try of Agriculture implements a development project. This way all resources allocated to the Ministry of Agriculture can be accounted for and properly appropriated. If this system is successful, it can be deployed to other Min-istry in the TRNC; this can lead to an overall country development.

iv. Seminars and training program for farmers: The government in collaboration to internationally approved and known agricul-tural institutes and universities can organize periodical seminars and training programs to update farmers on latest practices in agricul-ture and keep farmers informed of best, and healthy farming practices that will broaden the scope of farmers on better agricultural tech-niques that can be implemented in their area of specialization.

v. Reservation of arable land: In other to encourage agriculture in TRNC, fertile lands can be marked as “Government Reserved” specifically for agriculture. The government can also consider having a cluster of land area dedicated to agriculture and other agricultural activities. Lands can also be reserved for re-searchers and agricultural students for the pur-pose of research and industrial attachment for both groups respectively.

vi. Financial allocation: Despite the fact that the agricultural sector are not able to completely utilize actually government fund allocation to the unit in past years, we still find it necessary to recommend that more finan-cial allocation be considered for the agricul-tural sector. This is to boost its productivity, enlargement, and future prospects that will come up as a result of research findings. This allocation is also necessary because the cost of research in agriculture on the high sides. As such, government should consider focusing its allocation to the agricultural sector to agricul-tural education and establishment of structures that will boost the industry. For instance, the

cost of designing, developing and implement-ing an information system for the agricultural sector will be huge. The government can also solicit support from the international agricul-tural research development bodies, and from neighboring Turkish Republic.

Conflict of interests Author declare no conflict of interest.

REFERENCE

[1] “Agricultural Economy.” American. Eras. 1997. Encyclopedia.com. (November 3, 2014). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G22536601563.html

[2] D. Gale Johnson. Agricultural Economics. Available at http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/9573/agricultural-economics

[3] Regents of the University of California DRAFT Version 5/2001

[4] Olgun, M.E., `Socio-Economic Profile of the Turkish-Cypriot Community and the Main Issues to be Addressed in Preparing for a Political Solution to the Cyprus Problem’, A Research Report prepared for the UNDP - Development Support Services, published by EMU, no: 0003-12-01-92, Nicosia, 1991. State Planning Organisation Annual Statistics, Nicosia

[5] Third draft document of the overall analysis of the TC Rural Area by TC experts

[6]http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/178361/economic-development

[7]ht tp: / /www.businessdic t ionary.com/definition/analysis.html#ixzz3I3TuF4JQ

[8] Ministry of Finance TRNC. Economic statistics 2012

[9] Measures of Economic Development. Available at: http://harpercollege.edu/mhealy/g101ilec/intro/eco/ecomea/ecomeatx.htm


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Abstract. Constructed clothing refers to garments and clothing items such as foot wears, head coverings, undergarments worn for various purposes. Clothing; a course offered under Home Economics in some tertiary educational institutions in Nigeria ensure provision of skills for self-employment by graduates. The study was done in Home Science and Management department, Fed-eral University of Agriculture, Makurdi. Population for the study was 135 persons comprising students, lecturers and laboratory technologists. The population formed the sample size for the study. The research design was survey.

Specifically, the study had following objec-tives:(1) Identification of factors hindering student’s interest in clothing (2) identification of more effec-tive methods of imparting skills of clothing construc-tion and textile designing (3) assessment of students’ knowledge about clothing career opportunities (4) To identify area of teaching clothing where use of ICT is most required. Data were analyzed using percentages and mean. Findings of the study include: parents’ poor attitude and societal perception of clothing construc-tors, lack of motivation by teachers; each with means 4.00, 3.90 and 2.73 respectively hinder students’ in-terest in clothing construction. Student’s awareness of clothing career was high (X=3.98). Sale of products from practical by students (X=3.97), grouping of stu-dents with a leader (4.0) were indicated as ways of im-proving students’ attitude to participating in practical. CT is relevant in teaching learning of all Clothing and Textile courses. Recommendations included (1) Insti-tutional sponsorship of practical for ICT compliance. (2) Students should enjoy financial benefits from sold practical products.

Keywords: ICT, Clothing Construction, Home Economics, Income generation.

1. INTRODUCTION

The mandate of tertiary education is to produce skilled persons, who are capable of

playing effective roles in national economic and technological growth and development (Igbo, 1994 and Lemchi, 2001). Home Eco-nomics a vocational course, is concerned with the acquisition and development of practical skill by its students; providing employment opportunities in occupations relating textiles designing and production, clothing design-ing, construction, selection, care, economics (Igbo,1994; Ezema ,1998, Olutola, 2000 and Lemchi, 2001). Kaka (1998) observed that for students to be able to perform creditably in clothing, the course content should be ef-fectively taught. Howe (2002) noted that the extent of learning among students can be ac-celerated by the teacher and the application of teaching devices at his disposal. Realizing the relevance of effective teaching of clothing and Textiles, stimulating students interest and de-veloping their skill, there is need to identify areas of difficulties in the teaching of the sub-ject so as to proffer solutions.

The ability to access and effectively utilize information is no longer a luxury but a necessity for development. There is no doubt that, Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides the best possible means for productive teaching and learning in all educational fields in order to increase pupils’ creative and intellectual resources. The simultaneous use of audio, text, multi-color images, graphics and motion, ICT, gives an ample and exceptional opportunity to the student and teachers to develop capabilities for high quality learning and teaching and to increase their ability to be creative. The use computer in color selection for textile design-ing, pattern designing and drafting, determina-

UTILIZING ICT TO IMPROVE STUDENTS’ INTEREST IN CLOTHING FOR ENHANCED CREATIVITY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR HOME ECONOMICS

GRADUATESDr. Diana A. Agbo, Victoria Igoli, Department of home science and management

College of food technology, University of agriculture, MakurdiEmail: [email protected]


Articles

Corresponding AuthorDr. Diana A. Agbo, Department of home science and management, College of food technology, University of agriculture, MakurdiEmail: [email protected]


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tion of fit of garments, have introduced speed and accuracy.

Interest is the attraction which enables a person to respond to a particular stimulates in the midst of other competing stimuli (Okeye, 1998). Interest is a feeling which an individ-ual has for something which is valuable and beneficial. It is the mother of attention, once there is direct attention, interest is guaranteed and learning is assured (Okeye, 1998). Inter-est to my mind is aroused by what people see and touch; ICT provides this opportunity for teachers and learners.

Vocation or career choice is not a smooth process. Certain prevailing factors guide individuals while a choosing a career and showing proficiency in it. These include among others: personality, environment, ex-periences, religion, academic achievement, family, socio-economic status. External fac-tors such as interest and values like parents, teachers, peer group, friends, radio, television and books also affect the choice of an individ-ual vocation. There are lots of causes and ef-fect issues in life and in the field of vocational choices. Valuing education is one of the essen-tials for making realistic vocational decisions (Chauchan, 2011). Denga (2011) noted that vocational interest of adolescents are strongly influenced by the socio-economic inheritance from their parents or guardians; which may have a direct and greater effect upon the oc-cupation open to him or which he finds attrac-tive.

Income generation for sustainability is the target of every business venture. Success-ful income generation hitches largely on com-petence, managerial skills, the environment for the business and goodwill enjoyed by the entrepreneur among other things. Ekpo (2010) noted that entrepreneurship is vital route to growth of individuals and the nation. It helps to create wealth and reduce unemployment. Entrenching creativity and entrepreneurship into education will take education beyond eco-nomic life and earning a living to sustainable communities and economies (Kembe, 2014).

2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The poor awareness among students about clothing has produced negative atti-tude towards it. Most of the knowledge about clothing is reduced to just sewing of dresses which is viewed as job for school drop-outs; giving it a low social perception. The clothing course demands time and diligence, however, curriculum planners do not seem to allocate adequate time for this course as it is usually lumped with other courses on the time table. Clothing is still being lumped together with Textiles as one in some institutions of learn-ing. Professionalism or specialization is not adequately displayed by graduates of Home Economics especially in Clothing entrepre-neurship (Olugbaimgbe, 2009). The course content in colleges of Agriculture, and other tertiary institutions have remained the same over several years hence students’ interest in clothing in particular is very low. Therefore very few graduates of Home Economics end up as Clothing professionals. This has resulted in influx of non-professionals in the business of clothing construction, Textiles production. Non-professionals sometimes produce poor quality garments and clothing items. There are lots of setbacks on availability and use of instructional materials by teachers of clothing.

There is therefore need to strategize on how to enhance the teaching and learning of clothing to improve creativity and entrepre-neurship among Home Economic graduates.

3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

The main purpose of the research is to assess utilization of ICT to improve students’ interest in clothing for enhanced creativity and entrepreneurship for home economics gradu-ates.

3.1. Research Questions1. What are the factors hindering stu-

dents interest in Clothing?2. What is the status of student’s

knowledge on clothing career op-portunities?


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3. How can clothing be taught more ef-fectively to improve students’ inter-ests?

4. What are the areas of teaching cloth-ing where use of ICT is most re-quired?

3.2. Research DesignThe design of this study is survey de-

sign. Survey was used since it required seek-ing opinion from a sample of respondents and generalizing for a larger population (Trochim 2006).

3.3. Area of the StudyThe research was carried out in the de-

partment of Home Science and Management, College of Food Technology, Federal Univer-sity of Agriculture, Makurdi. The department runs a four-year degree course. Academic activity in the department comprise lectures, practical work, seminars, exhibitions and ex-cursions; with much emphasis on graduating students with entrepreneurial skills and careers for self-sustainability. The department has a total of three hundred and thirty-nine regis-tered students in 100 to 400 levels (2010/2011 academic session).

3.3.1. Population for the StudyThe population for this research com-

prised all 300 and 400 level students of Home Science and Management Department and all laboratory technologists working in the Clothing laboratory of the department in the 2010/2011 academic session totaling 135 per-sons.

3.3.2. Sample and Sampling TechniqueNo sampling was undertaken. All the

population was used for the study, since the population was small.

4. DATA ANALYSIS

Structured Questionnaire was the in-strument for data collection for the study.

The questionnaire consisted of two sections: A and B. Section A deals with bio data of respondents. Section B solicited informa-tion on general issues relating to the clothing course, sociological and psychological vari-ables. Each question contained four options rated on a four point rating scale as follows: Strongly Agree (SA) = 4, Agree (A) = 3, Dis-agree (D) =2, Strongly Disagree (SD) = 1.

4.1. Validation of Instrument for Data Collection

The instrument was validated by two lecturers in department of Home Science and Management. Suggested corrections especial-ly on the right people to respond to the ques-tionnaire were carried out. 4.2. Reliability of Instrument for Data Collection

Reliability of instrument was tested us-ing Cronbach Coefficient alpha method. The questionnaire was served to randomly select fifty 300 and 400 level students of Benue State University, who offer Home Econom-ics. Benue State University has similar envi-ronment with the University of Agriculture Makurdi. The items responded to were sub-jected to statistical analysis using SPSS (sta-tistical package for social science) version 16 to estimate the internal consistency of the in-strument. The Cronbach Coefficient alpha is 0. 72 indicating that the instrument has inter-nal consistency and therefore reliable for what it set out to measure.

4.3. Method of Data CollectionThe researcher distributed the question-

naire personally and collected at stipulated short period to avoid lose. Copies of question-naire were distributed to 300 and 400 levels student in their classrooms or laboratories and to laboratory technologists in the clothing lab-oratory and collected at the same venue.

4.4. Method of Data AnalysisSections A and B were analyzed using

means and percentages respectively. A mean


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of 2.5 was considered as bench mark to de-termine acceptability or otherwise by respon-dents.

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Research Question One: What are the factors that hinder students’ interest in cloth-ing course? The response to this research question is in table 1.

Table 1: Responses of Students on Fac-tors that Hinder Students’ Interest in Clothing.

Table 1 shows that all the following fac-tors; inadequate practical, inadequate period on the school time table, lack of motivation by teachers, societal perception of clothing con-structors hinder students’ interest in clothing since each of the means was higher than 2.50. Inadequate period on the school time table ( X=3.90) has the highest mean while parent attitude towards clothing has the lowest mean (X=2.73).

Research Question Two: What is the status of student’s knowledge on the impor-tance of clothing as a career? The response to this research question is in table 2.

Table 2: Status of Student Knowledge on the Importance of clothing as a career.

Table 2, shows that student’s aware-

ness about functions of clothing as a course performs is moderate since the highest mean is3.98 (clothing helps to reduce poverty among university students).

Research Question Three: What are the new practical ways of improving students’ skill and interest in clothing? The response to this research question is in table 3.

Table 3: Responses of Students on the New Practical Ways of Improving Students’ Skill and interest in clothing

Table 3, revealed that all the relevant suggested methods of improving student’s skill and interest in practical were acceptable to the students. The item with the highest mean (3.97) is students should sell the practical and have a portion of the income generated. Cloth-ing practical should be scheduled such that theory and exams had the lowest mean (2.56).


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Responses of Laboratory Technologists

Research Question Four: What are the factors that hinder student’s interest in clothing as a course?

Table 4: Response of laboratory tech-nologist on the factors that hinder student’s interest in clothing as a course.

In table 4 all the factors were accepted since each of the mean was higher than 2.5. The factor with the highest mean (X=4.00) for parents attitude towards clothing and societal perception of clothing constructors. While the factor with the lowest mean (X=3.33) inad-equate classes and poor method of teaching.

Research Question Five: What are the new practical ways of improving student’s and skill and interest in clothing?

Table 5: Response of Laboratory Tech-nologists on the new practical ways of improv-ing Students’ skills and interest in clothing

Table 6 shows that the eleven suggested methods of improving students’ interest in practical were acceptable by the laboratory

technologists. Grouping of students with a leader and informing students about the re-quirements for the practical each has the high-est mean of (X=4.00) respectively.

Table 6: Clothing and Textile courses that require use of ICT

Responses in table 6 shows that all course list require the use of ICT in teaching and learning to arouse students’ interest and improve on their choice of career.

6. DISCUSSION OF RESULT

The main factors hindering student’s in-terest in clothing indicated by students in the research were inadequate classes and inad-equate period on the school time table for the-ory (X=3.90), lack of motivation by teachers (X=3.67) and parents’ attitude towards cloth-ing (X=2.73). The factor hindering students interest in clothing according Laboratory tech-nologists are: parents attitude towards clothing (X=4.00) and societal perception of clothing constructors (X=4.00) and inadequate classes and poor method of teaching (X=3.33).The finding agrees with reports by Howe (2002), who noted that the extent to which the rate of learning among students generally can be ac-celerated, depends on the teacher and the ex-tent to which he can apply the entire teaching device at his disposal. The lack of students on the subject interest can be very devastat-ing on students. Kembe, (2008) noted that clothing design and construction is generally viewed by students to be very difficult. It is viewed as the mathematics of Home Science and Management (Kembe, 2008). It is gener-ally dreaded and kills their interest.

The findings are supported by Olaitan (1994) who purported that factors hindering students’ interest in clothing include lack of


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time, misconception of clothing by the society. Where enough time is not allocated for cloth-ing practical, teachers or laboratory technolo-gist may not be able to supervise the students adequately. Students left to them to complete their practical may not produce the best cloth-ing items. Products with poor finishes cannot compare well with other products in the mar-ket.

According to Stage (1991), and Stein-berg (1993) other factors that cause poor in-terest include low socio economic status of the family, parental education amongst oth-ers. Students’ knowledge on the importance of clothing as a career is high; clothing helps re-duce poverty among university students, pro-vide employment opportunity, produces grad-uate with saleable skill and career in clothing is useful for health therapy. Several career op-portunities abound in clothing for graduates of Home Economics. Ezema (1998) had noted that clothing equips students in tertiary insti-tutions with saleable skills and thus poses the capacity of helping in the reduction of poverty problem among university graduates. With this awareness, it is necessary to device means of encouraging full participation of students in clothing. Clothing of various forms is gaining popularity in providing health therapy for the sick; expanding career opportunities in cloth-ing. For instance the use of wrist bangles, neck chains and ankle chains for treatment of dia-betes, high blood pressure etc. Carrol( 2001), Chase and Quinn (2003) noted the role correct clothing play in enhancing a feeling of well-ness in sick people. One of the new practical ways of improving students interest in cloth-ing suggested by students in table 3 was cloth-ing should be taught to only those interested in the course. It should not be a compulsory course. Direct interest is achieved when the learner pays attention without compulsion. This is so because the subject under study will be so attractive and interesting to the students who do not have to make any concerted effort to understand it.

However, the curriculum for home economics in the University of Agriculture Makurdi and probably in some Universities in Nigeria does not permit course selection. An-other factor suggested is the use of video as

an instructional material. The use of video is one of the recent strategies for enhancing stu-dent’s interest in learning. Due to the financial implications of this it poses a challenge espe-cially in the department Home Science and Management. Another strategy suggested by students is grouping of student to reduce num-ber of students per lecturer for their practical. This agrees with the findings of Ossai (2003) that grouping enhances closer contact between teachers and students resulting in better learn-ing process. This is only possible if student to lecturer ratio is low (6:1) and both have ample time at their disposal. In a situation where the class population is very high, space small, equipment few and number of lecturers are few, the lecturers will be over worked and pro-ductivity will remain low. The ICT will help for coverage by lecturers.

7. CONCLUSION

The importance of clothing course in providing career opportunities for graduates of Home Economics is known to students however, students’ interest in this course is hampered by some factors emanating from the school system and the outer society. The proffered solutions will enhance the learning process by students of Home Economics and consequently reflect on their career choice on graduation. Application of ICT for teaching and learning is a well come development by most of the students.

8. RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the findings of the research, the following are recommended:

1. More time on the time table should be allocated to practical and theory classes in Clothing.

2. During clothing practical, students should be grouped with a leader, few students per group.

3. Students who produce saleable items should enjoy financial benefits to en-courage better participation.


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REFERENCE

Bacon, J, (1993). Clothing as fixing status.Research is-sue in Home Economics.5, 45-47 Carroll, K.E (2001). Introduction and improvisations: A study in specialized disabilities. A published doctoral dissertions. Virginia polytechnic institute and state university.

Chase, R.W.& Quinn, M.D. (2003). Design without limits: Designing and sewing for special needs (revised ed) New York: Fairchild.

Chauchan, S. S (1996), Advance Psychology, NewD-elhi; Vani Educational Books.

Denga, F. (1991). Vocational Choices.Journal of Edu-cational Research.2, 45-47.

Ezema, P. (1998). Poverty Alleviation in Ru-ral Nigeria.“The Role of Home Economics.”Research Imperatives and chanl-lenges for Home Economics in Nigeria. P. 155-162.

Ekpo, I. (2010). Poverty Reduction through Entrepre-neurship Development in Nigeria, Being a paper presented at the 2nd International conference on Technology and Operations Management , 5-6th , July, Bayview Hotel, Malawi.

Igbo, C. A. (1994). Identification of Tasks in clothing construction for senior secondary students of Textiles and clothing: A step Towards Achieving Quality Education in Home Economics Educa-tion. Nigeria vocational journal. 7, 52-60

Kaka, H.J. (1998). Guidelines on needlework.Zaria: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Kembe, E. M. (2008). Evaluation of the Business Added Value of Home Economics Graduates in Benue State Implications for Curriculum Inno-vations in Home Economics Education. Journal of Home Economics Research. 9,1-10.

Kembe, E. M. (2014). Promoting Creativity and Entre-preneurship for Individuals and Families. Jour-nal of Home Economics Research. 20,109-119.

Lemchi, S. (2001). Strategies for Reducing Stress From Clothing Construction/Practical in second-ary Schools. Journal of Home Economics Re-search.3 (2), 97-102

Olugbamigbe, A. O. (2009).Appraising Clothing and Textile Aspects of Home Economics Education for Enhanced Capacity Building for the Nigeri-an Youths.Nigerian Journal of Home Economics (Nig.JHEC).A publication of Home Economics Council of Nigeria(HECON).Pp 103-106 (1) No 1 July 2009. ISBN:- 978-37772-6-0

Olaitan, S. (1994). Analysis of Methodological Issues and Challenges in Home Economics Research. Research Issue in Home Economics.39-45.

Olutola, P. (2000). Environment Mattters.Journal of Technical Education, 1, 103

Ossai R.U (2003). Clothing and Textile, occupation and poverty alleviation.Journal of Home Economics Research, 5 (1), 81-83.

Howe, M (2002). Learning infants and young children, California: Stanford University Press.

Stage, O. (1991). Poor learning by student.Journal of technical education.Stanford university press.

Steinberg, L.(1993). The varieties and effect of work during adolescence. 3, 1-37. Hilldale.Law-renceEribaum.

Trochim, W. M. K. (2006). Types of research de-sign. Retrieved August 24 from http:/www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/order.php


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Abstract. With the advent of computers, a lot has been achievable including the use of computers to solve Mathematics and Mathematically related problems. In this work an appraisal of the solution to second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients is done. Methods of solution of homogeneous second order ordinary differential equations, Initial Value Prob-lem inclusive are described, considering three cases: dis-tinct roots, repeated roots and complex roots. Non-homo-geneous differential equations, IVP inclusive are also treated using the method of undetermined coefficients.

Object oriented software is developed to solve these second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients. The core essence of this work is to develop a system which would be user-friendly, reliable (accurate in solution), fast and timely to meet the demands which are not achievable by the traditional method.

Keywords: Differential Equation, Homogeneous, Initial Value Problem, Nonhomogeneous, Object Oriented Software.

1. INTRODUCTION

Wikipedia Encyclopedia defines a dif-ferential equation as a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and its derivatives of various orders.

Differential equations arise in many areas of science and technology as it plays a prominent role in engineering, physics, eco-

nomics, and other disciplines, specifically whenever a deterministic relation involving some continuously varying quantities (mod-eled by functions) and their rates of change in space and/or time (expressed as derivatives) is known or postulated. This is illustrated in clas-sical mechanics, where the motion of a body is described by its position and velocity as the time value varies. Newton’s laws allow one (given the position, velocity, acceleration and various forces acting on the body) to express these variables dynamically as a differential equation for the unknown position of the body as a function of time.

An example of modeling a real world problem using differential equations is the determination of the velocity of a ball falling through the air, considering only gravity and air resistance. The ball’s acceleration towards the ground is the acceleration due to gravity minus the deceleration due to air resistance. Gravity is considered constant, and air resis-tance may be modeled as proportional to the ball’s velocity. This means that the ball’s ac-celeration, which is a derivative of its veloc-ity, depends on the velocity (and the velocity depends on time). Finding the velocity as a function of time involves solving a differen-tial equation.

The problem we seek to solve in this work is that of developing an automated (computer application) solution which solves second order linear ordinary differential equa-tions with constant coefficients.

Linear differential equation is one of the

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF OBJECT-ORIENTED COMPUTER SOFTWARE TO SOLVE SECOND ORDER

ORDINARY DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS WITH CONSTANT COEFFICIENTS

Atsa’am, D. D., Department of Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria, E-mail: [email protected]

Odeh, A. Pius, Department of Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria, E-mail: [email protected]

Received: April, 30. 2015. Accepted: July, 01. 2015.

Articles

Corresponding AuthorAtsa’am, D. D., Department of Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria, E-mail: [email protected]


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fundamental equations used in solving dif-ferential equations, many of which have real life applications. Hence studying it will be of prime importance. Additionally, the system developed would help in reducing the time spent manually in solving differential equa-tion problems.

1.1. Terminologies

Equation: This is the relationship be-tween the dependent and independent vari-ables. An equal sign “=” is required in every equation.

Differential Equation: Equations that involve dependent variables and their deriva-tives with respect to the independent variables.

Ordinary Differential Equation: Differ-ential equations that involve only one inde-pendent variable.

Order: The order of a differential equa-tion is the highest derivative that appears in the differential equation.

Degree: The degree of a differential equation is the power of the highest derivative term.

Linear: A differential equation is called linear if there are no multiplications among dependent variables and their derivatives. In other words, all coefficients are functions of independent variables.

Non-linear: Differential equations that do not satisfy the definition of linear.

Homogeneous: A differential equation is homogeneous if every single term contains the dependent variables or their derivatives.

Non-Homogeneous: Differential equa-tions which do not satisfy the definition of ho-mogeneous.

IVP: Initial Value Problem

1.2. Theoretical Framework

According to Zever (2012), if given the general form of a second order differential equation as

(1.1)

Equation (1.1) can be classified as either homogenous or non-homogeneous differen-tial equation.

Homogenous equations are equations of the form

Comparing with (1.1), we have that and are real con-

stants.Giving examples of homogenous equa-

tions with constant coefficients according to Zever (2012) as:

.

.Nonhomogeneous equations are equa-

tions of the form (1.1) with written as

where are constants and g is a con-tinuous function on the open interval .

Giving examples of non-homogenous equations with constant coefficients according to Zever (2012) as:

.

.

.

Zever (2012) illustrated that an initial value problem for second order differential equations of

Consists of finding a solution of the differential equation that also satisfies initial conditions of the form

Richard and Gabriel (2006) stated that a second order linear homogeneous differen-tial equation with constant coefficient has the


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form (2.1)

Corresponding to the differential equa-tion in (2.1) in which and are constants, is the algebraic equation

(2.2)

Which is obtained from equation (2.1) by replacing and by and

, respectively. Equation (2.2) is called the characteristic equation of (2.1). The char-acteristic equation can be factored into

(2.3)Richard and Gabriel (2006) also stated

that the General Solution of (2.1) is obtained from the roots of (2.3). Richard & Gabriel (2006) considered the three cases below:

CASE I: and both real and dis-tinct:

Two linearly independent solutions are and and the general solution is

(2.4)In the special case , the solu-

tion (2.4) can be written as

CASE II: , a complex number:

Since and in (2.1) and (2.2) are assumed real, the roots of (2.2) must appear in conjugate pairs; thus the other root is

Two linearly independent solutions are and , and the general com-

plex solution is

(2.5)which is algebraically equivalent to

(2.6)

CASE III: Two linearly independent solutions are

and , and the general solution is

(2.7)According to Richard and Gabriel

(2006), this is applicable only if of the general solution to the linear differential equa-tion of the form

and all of its derivatives can be written in terms of the same finite set of linearly inde-pendent functions, which we denote by

{ }.The method is initiated by assuming a

particular solution of the form

(3.0)where denote arbitrary

multiplicative constants. These arbitrary con-stants are then evaluated by substituting the proposed solution into the given differential equation and equating the coefficients of like terms. The general solution of the method of undetermined coefficients of non-homoge-neous differential equation is given as

Richard and Gabriel (2006) considered the three cases stated below:

CASE I: , an nth degree polynomial in

Assume a solution of the form

(3.1)where is a constant

to be determined (Richard and Gabriel, 2006)

CASE II: where and are known constants

Assume a solution of the form (3.2)

where is a constant to be determined (Richard and Gabriel, 2006).

CASE III: where

and are known constants


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Assume a solution of the form (3.3)

where and are constants to be determined. (Richard and Gabriel 2006).

Kreyszig (2006) stated that the develop-ment of engineering phenomenon in solving fluid mechanics, heat transmission, wave mo-tion or electromagnetic can only be success-fully carried out using second order ordinary differential equations. Linear ordinary differ-ential equations of second order are the most important ones because of their application in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Boyce and Diprima (2001) have talked about the use of series methods in solving dif-ferential equations with particular emphasis on second order linear homogenous differen-tial equation. One of such is Bessel’s equation of the form

where is a constant.

1.3. Materials and method

The minimum hardware and software needed for the implementation of the system which solves second order linear ordinary dif-ferential equations with constant coefficients are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Minimum hardware and software for the proposed system

The Structured System Analysis and Design methodology was used. The method has the following stages:

Problem Definition: The problem iden-tified was that some scientist still solve second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients using the tradition-al method and not all are have been able to develop user-friendly applications (for those who have software to do this) hence, the need to develop high quality software for solving these differential equations.

Feasibility study: This is a preliminary study to determine how the solution to second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients will be feasible with respect to economic, technical and operational considerations.

Economically computerizing the meth-od of solution to second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coeffi-cients will save time which is normally used in solving manual method and as is popularly said time is money. It will lead to increased interaction with the computer by users thereby increasing computer awareness. Technically, the predominance of microcomputers and with the growing cheap computing powers makes it easy for the game to be easily avail-able. Operationally, the proposed system if computerized will be readily accepted by its numerous users who currently use the tradi-tional method.

2. ANALYSIS OF THE EXISTING SYSTEM

The existing system is a manually based system where, second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coeffi-cients are solved manually, i.e making use of paper and pen to find the solutions to these systems. The analysis of an existing system of second order linear ordinary differential equation with constant coefficients can be de-scribed in the four steps below:

Identification of the differential equa-tion under the following conditions:

If it is a second order linear differential equation with constant coefficient of the form

If it is a homogenous differential equa-tion of the form

If it is a non-homogenous differential equation of the form

where If it is an initial value problem (IVP) of

the form


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satisfying the initial conditions of the form

If conditions (Ia) and (Ib) holds then, the differential equation is solved using the gen-eral equation which is gotten from the roots of the characteristic equation considering the three different types of roots with their distinct general solutions: Both real and distinct roots, complex roots and equal roots.

If conditions (Ia) and (Ic) holds then, the differential equation is solved using the method of undetermined coefficients solution of non-homogenous linear differential equa-tion with constant coefficients considering the different cases for solving the equation which are:

CASE I: , an nth degree polynomial in ,

CASE II: where and are known constants,

CASE III: where and are known constants.

If conditions (Ia) and (Id) holds then, the differential equation is solved by finding a so-lution of the differential equation that satisfies the initial condition.

3. THE PROPOSED SYSTEM

After going through the feasibility studies and analysis of the system, the following algo-rithm which will adequately and efficiently replace the existing traditional method was arrived at.

3.1. Algorithm for the Proposed System

The algorithm to solve second order linear ordinary differential equation with constant coefficients is given below:


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The above algorithm is illustrated in the flow chart below:


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4. CODING, TESTING AND

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE

PROPOSED SYSTEM

The program was developed using Vi-sual Basic 6.0 version. Visual basic offers a graphical user interface (GUI) for all pro-grams. It makes creation of widow-based ap-plication easy. The software was tested using unit testing as well as system testing. The soft-ware provides solutions to second order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients.

5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

It is pertinent to note that the transfor-mation of the traditional method of solving second order linear ordinary differential equa-tion with constant coefficients into an auto-mated system is important and necessary due to the reliability, accessibility, accuracy, speed and efficiency provided by the automated sys-tem. This can only be manifest if the auto-mated system meets its requirement. It is also apparent that despite the advantages that will be gained by the use of the automated system; there would still be few persons who would prefer the traditional system. Helping them to understand the advantages of this new system would go a long way.

The researcher of this paper recommends that the developed system be implemented in tertiary institutions for the purpose of teaching and learning, especially for students offering Mathematics and Computer Science as well as lectures in these fields. This research work has some limitations and it is recommended that further work be done in order to meet these limitations.


REFERENCES

1. Boyce, W. E. and Diprima, R. C. (2001). Elementary differential equation and boundary value prob-lems. John Wiley and Sons Inc. New York.

2. Kreyszig, E. (2006). Advanced engineering math-ematics. John Wiley and Sons Inc. New York.

3. Richard, B. and Gabriel, C. (2006). Differential equations. McGraw - Hill Companies Inc. New York.Wikipedia Encyclopedia (2014)..Differ-ential equation. [Online]. Available at: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation>

[Accessed 27 May 2014].4. Zever, I. (2012). Solution of second order ordinary

differential equations with constant coefficients. A project work submitted to the department of Mathematics/Statistics/Computer Science, College of Science, University of Agriculture, Makurdi.

Appendix

Screen shot of the system Home Page

Screen shot of the Homogenous Form

Screen shot of the Homogenous Initial Value Problem (IVP) Form


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Screen shot of the Non-Homogenous Form

Screen shot of the Non-Homogenous Initial Value Problem (IVP) Form


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Abstract. The study was carried out in Benue State to determine body size and shape of adult females of Tiv, Etulo and Igede ethnic groups. The sample size was 90 adult females. The research design was quasi experimental design. Data were analyzed using percent-ages. The study revealed that many variations existed in the sizes within members of same ethnic group and between the different ethnic groups. Predominant shape of adult females of Tiv, are (Pear 36.6%, Apple 36.6%), Etulo (Banana36.6%) and Igede(Pear 30.0%).

The study revealed that no adult female has the ideal body size characteristics of (90x65x90)cm. Recom-mendations include: Home economic extension workers should educate females of child delivery age to achieve desirable shapes in adulthood (pear and Hourglass). Gar-ments designers and constructors should utilize size chart for different ethnic groups to ensure perfect garment fit.

Keyword: Adoption, Fabrics, Garment, Size System, Shape.

1. INTRODUCTION

Measurement is very important in gar-ment production because it dictates accurate fit of a garment on the wearer. The shape and size of a person can be determined only through measurement. Body proportions can vary enormously. This is obvious from the variety of body shapes that can be seen in different people. It is essential that measure-ments are taken accurately; in the correct po-sition and with an equal amount of tension on the tape. Ganhada (2006) stated that body measurement is an important role in cloth-ing design ergonomics. Data collected from measurements are used by garment produc-

ers to establish shape and size of persons in garment production (Ashdown and Delong 1995). Nutrition and ethnic composition of populations lead to changes in the distribution of dimension, and require regular updating of anthropometric data collections. According to Ganhada (2006) measurements are taken for the following reasons in garment designing: To ascertain the size of the figure, to deter-mine the proportions of the various parts of the figure, to ensure that garment fits perfec-tively on the wearer and to show if the gar-ment meets the specifications claimed by its manufacturer.

The bust, waist and hips are called inflec-tion points and the ratios of their circumfer-ences define basic shape. Usually the bust area will depend on the person’s weight and height. It is said that female body usually inflects in-ward towards the waist around the middle of the abdomen between the costal margins and the pelvic crests. The waist is smaller than the bust and hips, unless there is a high proportion of body fat distributed around it (Lane 1992). Every single individual has different shape from another (John 2005).

A size is an item having specified mea-surements along certain dimension or magni-tude. The purpose of an ideal sizing system is to divide a varied population into homoge-neous subgroups. Members of a subgroup are similar to each other in body size and shape, so that a single garment can adequately fit each of them (Woodson and Henry, 1990).Fe-male’s bodies come in all shapes and sizes and it is not possible to divide them on the basis of simple averages which lead to unrealistic siz-es corresponding to the so called “standard”

BODY SIZE AND SHAPE CATEGORIZATION OF SOME ETHNIC GROUPS IN BENUE STATE USING WAIST, BUST

AND HIP MEASUREMENTSDr. Diana A. Agbo, Victoria Igoli, Department of home science and management

College of food technology, University of agriculture, MakurdiEmail: [email protected]


Articles

Corresponding AuthorDr. Diana A. Agbo, Department of home science and management, College of food technology, University of agriculture, MakurdiEmail: [email protected]


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or “ideal” body measurements (Delong and Karin, 1993). What is needed is a completely random system, which can yield an optimum number of body sizes reflecting the true body measurements and proportions existing in the target population (Delong and Karin, 1993). Fit of a garment depends on the correlation between garment measurements and the body measurement for which it is intended. In gen-eral, very little correlation exists among the human body measurement, (Ashdown and Delong, 1995).

1.1. Figure Types

Markee and Elain, (1991) indicated that each woman is born with her own special fig-ure type and body shape, which is why you would be hard pressed to find two females with the exact measurement. Some females look beautiful even with a smaller or bulkier shape. Other women look stunning even if they are petite or average in height. However, many believe that women who are skinny are all beautiful. Different people have different ideas of which shape is the most ideal female form. Tamburrino, (1992) said that experts in the world of beauty and fashion, as well as experts in the health and fitness industries have claimed that the perfect measurements that look best in nearly every type of cloth-ing and situation are of 36 inches (90cm) bust, a 26inches (65cm) waist and 36 inch-es (90cm) hips. So far many, the 36 x 26 x 36inches(90x65x90)cm measurement is con-sidered to be the most ideal measurement. A bend (1993) said that, ironically less than 5% of all the females in the world have achieved these so called perfect body measurement. It is ridiculous to try to force your body to achieve such a shape, unfortunately most fe-males work their entire lines on a newer end-ing guest to try and get the perfect body size and shape, but just because a 32 x 34 x 36 inches(80 x 85 x 90) cm body shape is not perfectly symmetrical does not mean that it is not beautiful.

The most beautiful female in the world probably does not have perfect body measure-ment. True beauty is how an individual feels about herself. It is not wrong to try and fig-

ure out what the ideal female body measure-ment is and to try to achieve it. Churchill and Robert (2005) stated that female figures are the cumulative product of a woman’s skeletal structure, quantity and distribution of muscle and fat on the body. There has been wide dif-ference on what should be considered an ideal or preferred body shape both for attractive-ness and for health reasons. These have var-ied among cultures simultaneously with most physical traits. There is a wide range of nor-mality of female body shapes. Shannon and Reich (1999) noted that human beings and their cultures have perennially focused atten-tion on the female body as a source of aes-thetic pleasure, sexual attraction, fertility and reproduction. The female figure is typically narrower at the waist than at the bust and hips and usually has one of the four basic shapes: banana, pear, apple and hourglass.

1.1.1. Banana Shape: This shape is characterized by wider hip and bust relative to waist. There is usually a difference of less than an inch (2.5cm). Fat is generally distrib-uted more in the face, abdomen and buttocks of this type of body shape. Females who have this type of body shape usually have less es-trogen than androgen (Patterson and Jessie, 1990).

1.1.2. Pear Shape: This body type shows wider hip than the bust width (Markee and Elain, 1991). Fat is distributed more in the hip, thigh and buttocks area of the body. Body fat begins to develop in the upper body regions including abdomen as age increases.

1.1.3. Apple Shape: Shoulder and bust measurement are larger than the width of the hips. Women who have this shape have the highest androgen level compared to any other types of body shape (Markee and Elain, 1991).

1.1.4. Hourglass Shape: The bust and hip are almost exactly the same in width. Waist is very much narrower. This shape is said to be most symmetrical and most perfect female body shape in a majority of cultures.


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Fig. 1: The four figures show the four major body shapes of females. Source: Salus-so, (1992)

1.2. Sizing in Garment Construction

Garment size refers to the label sizes used for ready-to-wear garments sold out. Woodson and Henry (1990) stated that siz-ing is the measurement of an individual body for a perfect fit of garment on the figure. He also stated that the sorter sorts the patterns ac-cording to size and design and makes bundles of them; it requires much precision because making bundles of mismatched patterns can create severe problems. On each bundle there are specifications of the style size. Workman (1991), remarked that sizing in garment con-struction determine the fit of the garment on the wearer. The size and fit of a garment are factors which can affect both the protective aspects of a garment as well as its comfort. Proper garment fit depends on the relation-ship of the size of the garment. Size inflation is used to refer to the phenomenon of ready-to-wear clothing of the same nominal size be-coming larger over time. Vanity sizing tends to occur in several places where clothing siz-es are not standardized. Although within the United States it occurs far more frequently in women’s apparel than in men’s apparel partly due to the widespread and far earlier adoption of standardize measurement for men’s apparel for military uniforms (wherefore example, a pair of trousers with a 32 inches waist and a 32 inches inseam must be labeled as such regard-

less of who made it).Clauser and Pearl (2005) stated that the

last decade has seen a remarkable surge in the number of studies reported on the subject

of body measurements or sizes from all over the world. Various statistical methods ranging from simple percentiles to complex combina-tion of multivariate and regression analysis have been employed for distribution of popu-lation into subgroups; more recently powerful mathematical techniques have been employed with good results. Vanity sizing merely re-flects the increasing prevalence of obesity. Garment ease should allow for comfort and mobility, too much or too little ease can re-sult in a garment that is uncomfortable and re-strictive to movement. Ashdown and Delong (1995) states that, fit of a garment depends on the correlation between garment measure-ments and the body measurements for which it is intended. The concept of garment fit is captured by the distance measure, which is calculated from the discrepancies between the body measurements of an individual in the sample and the prototype design values of a size.

1.3. Garment Designing

Rodwell, (2000) stated that garment de-signing is the art of the application of design and aesthetics or natural beauty to clothing and accessories. In garment construction, De-signing is the first step in garments construc-tion (Rodwell, 2000). For this purpose the designer first draw several rough sketches in the sketch book. The designer draws inspi-ration from different sources such as natural objects, existing pictures in magazines and albums. Fashion designers attempt to design garment which are functional as well as aes-thetically pleasing. They must consider who is likely to wear a garment and the situations in which it will be worn. The designers have a wide range and combinations of materials to work with and a wide range of colors, patterns and styles to choose from. Today most gar-ments are designed for the mass market espe-cially casual and everyday wear. Agbo (2013) however documented that garment designers must take cognizance of people with figure flaws and those with peculiar body shapes to accommodate their garment needs in the mar-ket. The fit of the finished garment depends on the accuracy of the designer (Bonney and


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Porter, 1999).The designer needs to meet with a pattern maker and sample maker to figure out if the sketch on paper can be brought to life according to its vision, conception and production.

2. STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Unguarded weight and size lead to dif-ficulty in choice of what to wear. Lack of knowledge about individual’s size and shape leads to poor garment selection and dress-ing resulting in poor fit and discomfort for garment users. Women tend to relax and be-come careless about their size and shape after marriage and child delivery. Ready-to-wear garment producers and importers face chal-lenges of producing or ordering the right sizes for female users where the sizes and shapes or figures of the users in a particular locality are unknown. There are no records of shapes and sizes of adult females in Benue State. In-digenous standard garment sizes for various localities including Benue State are unavail-able. It therefore becomes pertinent to estab-lish sizes of adult females in Benue State to provide information for individuals to enhance proper check on their health, indigenous gar-ment constructors, garment importers and gar-ment entrepreneurs especially in Benue State.

2.1. Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to determine body size and shape using waist, bust and hip measurements for effective garment designing for adult females in Benue State.

Specifically, objectives of the study in-cluded:

1. Taking measurements of female adults of three major ethnic groups in Benue State.

2. Categorizing measurements of adult females to three average sizes (small, medium and large).

3. Identifying predominant shapes of the adult females using the measurements.

Research Question1. What are the measurements of female

adults of Tiv, Etulo and Igede?2. What are the average sizes (small,

medium, large) of Tiv, Etulo and Igedefemale adults?

3. What are the predominant shapes of Tiv, Etulo and Igede female adults?

3. METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Design

The research design was quasi ex-perimental design. This involved selecting groups upon which a variable was tested, without any random pre-selection processes.

3.2. Population of the Study

The population for this study is146,239 comprising all female adults of Tiv, Etulo andIgede.

3.3. Sample and Sampling Techniques

Three out of the four major ethnic groups in the State were purposely selected for the study. The sample size was 90 adult females. In each ethnic group, 30 adult females were randomly selected from among those residing in the major local government headquarters namely: Gboko for Tiv, KatsinaAla for Etulo and Oju for Igede. Each of the participants an-thropometric measurements were taken and documented.

3.4. Instruments

The instruments for data collection were measuring tape, note book, pencils, biros, re-tractable metal tape and oral interview.


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4. METHODS OF DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS

Anthropometric measurements of each of the respondents were taken. Measurements were obtained for bust, waist and hip using fabric measuring tape by the researcher, as-sisted by two research assistants. The mea-surement (Bust, Waist and Hip) for each se-lected respondent was taken in early hours of the day for uniformity. The corresponding height of individuals was taken using the re-tractable metal tape. Each respondent was asked to stand against a clean wall on barefoot

and have her height measured. The age of each respondent were taken by oral interview. Data were analyzed using percentage and mean

4.1. Result

The results for the study is discussed based on the research questions.

Research Question 1: What are the measurements of female adults of Tiv, Etulo and Igede?

Table 1. Size measurement chart for Tiv, Etulo and Igede Adult female

Table 1 shows that the shortest height of Tiv adult female is 1.29 meters and tallest is 1.5 meters. The shortest Etulo adult female is 1.26 meters and tallest is 1.44 meters, while the shortest Igede adult female is 1.26 meters and tallest is 1.50 meters. The least bust size for Tivand Etulo adult females is83cm respec-tivelywhile the least bust size for Igede adult female is 78cm. Both Tiv and Etulo adult fe-males have 76cm as lowest bust sizes. The lowest bust size of Igede adult female is low-

er than those of Tiv and Etulo adult females (71cm). Tiv, Etulo and Igede adult females have similar highest values for waist measure-ment (127cm each). The least size of hip for Etulo adult females (88cm) is larger than those for Tiv (63cm) and Igede (83cm). The largest size of hip for Tiv adult females (127cm) is larger than those of Etulo (121cm ) and Igede (114cm).


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Table 2 shows size categorization based on data obtained from field. The table shows that higher proportions of Tiv, Etulo and Igede adult females belong to small bust size range :46.67%Tiv, 50.00 % Etulo and 76.67% Igede respectively. Most 50.00 % Etuloand 56.67% Igede adult females small size waist range while more of Tiv adult fe-males (43.30%) possess medium size waist. Majority 73.30%Etulo adult females have small hips.

Research Question 3: What are the pre-dominant shapes of Tiv, Etulo and Igede adult females?

Table 3. Predominant shapes of Tiv, Etulo and Igede adult females.

Table 3 revealed that the two predomi-nant shapes of adult females among the Tiv adult females are Pear (36.6%) and Apple

(36.6%). The most predominant shape of Etu-lo adult females is the Banana shape (36.6%) followed by the Pear shape (33.3%).The most predominant shape of Igede adult females is the Pear shape (30%).

5. DISCUSSION

Although Abend (1993), stated that the ideal body size of females are of 91cm bust, 66cm waist, and 91cm hips, this research re-vealed that none of the respondents belong to the ideal size documented by Abend (1993). The finding buttress the claims by Abend (1993) that less than 5% of all the females in the world have achieved these so called per-fect body measurement. This study revealed that there is no correlation between sizes of different sizes of body parts of adult females; the size of bust of an adult female may not be deducible from the height or size of the waist or hip and vis versa.

The most predominant shape identified in this study among the respondents was Pear represented asTiv (36.6 %), Etulo (33.3%) and Igede (30.0%).This body type shows wider hip than the bust width as noted by Markee

Research Question 2: What are the average sizes of Tiv, Etulo and Igede adult females? Table 2. Average sizes of Tiv,Etuloand Igede adult females


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and Elain(1991). Fat is distributed more in the hip, thigh and buttocks area of the body. Body fat begins to develop in the upper body regions including abdomen as age increases. The findings buttress the claims by Mallum and Kembe (2011) that most females exhibit increase in size especially along the waist line and abdomen tremendously during pregnancy. If deliberate effort is not made at controlling the enlargement of abdomen after delivery, the increase lingers on in life. Fat deposition on abdomen, hip and buttocks increase with increase in age among females. The implica-tion of the predominance of this shape to the garment designer and garment merchant is that garment for adult females in Benue State should large enough to accommodate the extra fat deposits.

Apple and banana shaped adult females have higher health risk of heart disease due to the fat stored in the chest region. Pear and Hour glass shaped adult females due to the body fat building around the waist and hip and not on the chest have lowest risk of heart dis-ease. A garment that is meant to be fitted at the waist cannot fit a female that is apple shaped or the banana shaped adult.

There is variation in shape within the three ethnic groups studied. Table 3 revealed that the predominant shape among Tiv adult females are apple 36.6% and banana 36.6%.The predominant shape among Etulo adult fe-males are banana 36.6% and pear 33.3% while the predominant shape among Igede adult fe-males is pear 30.0%. This finding agrees with the assertionsby Iloeje (1995), Anikweze (2003) and Agbo (2013) that size and shape variations exist among adult females in dif-ferent localities and within the same locality. These shape and size variations will also pose challenges for the garment designer especially in production of garments for consumers. For instance, a garment designed for the Tiv adult females may not serve for the Etulo or Igede adult females appropriately.

6. CONCLUSION

This study has shown that variations in shape and size exist among females from the three ethnic groups as well as within adult

females in each ethnic group in Benue State. Based on the findings of this study, body size and shape have no direct or inverse relation-ship with height of an adult female. There are differences in the body measurement chart between the three ethnic groups. No adult fe-male possesses the ideal size of 90x65x90cm. Garment designers and constructors who produce ready-to-wear garments should take particular note of size and shape of individu-als especially female adults in specific envi-ronment to enhance good fit of the garments on the wearers. Due to variations in size and shape of female adults, custom-made- gar-ments may achieve better fit than ready- to -wear garments which may essentially require adjustments on purchase.

7. RECOMMENDATION

1. Based on the findings, it is recommended that adult female’s make adult females should make concerted efforts at reducing accumulation of fat on the bust and waist region since the apple shape has bad health implication.

2. It is also recommended that Home Economics extension worker be involved in educating females of child delivery age on how to achieve desirable shapes in adulthood (banana, pear and Hourglass).

3. It is also recommended that garments constructors should establish a standardized garments size chart for the ethnic groups to eliminate the problems of garment fit.


REFERENCES

Abend, J. (1993). Apparel Manufacturer and Re-tailer Effort to Reduce Child Labour: An Ethics of Virtual Perspective on Codes of Conduct. Ctr. Sagepub.com/./183.Doi:10.1177/0887302x02000402.Clothing and Textiles Research Journal(20), 4, 183-194.

Anikweze, G. U. (2003). Development of dress patterns for women with figure problems in Enugustate.


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Unpublished Mastersthesis. University of Nige-ria, Nsukka.

Agbo, D.A. (2013). Development of functional gar-ments for physically challenged wheelchair and bedridden females in Benue State. Anunpub-lished doctoral thesis. University of Nigeria Nsukka, Nigeria.

Ashdown, S. P. and Delong, M. R. (1995). An Ex-ploratory Study of the Validity of Visual Fit Assessment from three Dimensional Scans. DOI10.1177/0887302*10376411. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal. October, 2010 (28) 4,263-278.

Bonney, M. C. and Porter, J. M. (1999). User Needs in Computerized Man Models, NATO. Symposium on Anthropometry and Biomechanics Theory and Application.

Churchill, E. T. and Robert, W. M. (2005). Anthro-pometry of Women of the U.S. Army Report No.2-The Basic Univariate Statistics U.S. Army Natick Technical Report

Clauser, C. E., andPearl, E. T. (2005). Anthropometry of Air Force Women.” Aerospace Medical Re-search Laboratory Technical Report.

Delong, M., and Karin, F. T. (1993). Data specification needed for apparel production using computers. Clothing and Tex-tilesResearch Journal, 11,(3) 1-7.

Dreyfuss, H. (1991). The Measure of Man: Human factors in Design. Whitney Library of Design, New York 1967. Published under The Design Soceity- Creative Commons Attrition- http:// CreativeCommons.org/licences/by-nc-sa.30.

Ganhada, G. T. (2006). Developing body measure-ment charts for garment manufacture based on a linear programming approach.Journal of Textile and Apparel, Technology and Manage-ment (5)1.www.tx.ncsu.edu/jtetm/vol5.1ssue 1/articles/gupta/gupta-sull-142/05.pdf

Iloeje, I. C. (1995). Establishment of average body mea-surement and development of block patterns for female adolescent in EnuguState. Unpublished M.Ed thesis, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

John, M.T. (2005). Anthropometry in sizing and de-sign.Anthropometry for designersVol1. Na-tional Aeronautics and Space Administration, Scientific and Technical Information office. VE-77-87.

Lane, M. (1992). PreliminaryFindings of Study: Ex-planations why Clothes do not fit some wom-en55 and Older (All figure types). Ameri-can International Standard Tables of Body Measurement(ASTM).Retrieved April, 5 2013 from http/Ldgd.lupoo.com/upload/media/ASTM%20D 5580-01:pdf

Mallum, J.O. and Kembe, E.M. (2011). Introduction to home and family health care services. Jos, Nige-ria. Clestinno Press.

Markee, N. L. andElain, L. P. (1991). Developing Re-alistic Stimuli for Assessing Observer’s Percep-tions of Male and Female Body Types. 72,603-610.

Patterson, C. A. and Jessie, W. (1990). Selected Body Measurements of Women Aged Sixty five and Older. Clothing and TextilesResearch Jour-nal.2, 23-31.

Rodwell, W. (2000). Metrication as it will affect the Clothing Industry, Clothing Institute Journal. 4, 131-143.

Salusso, D. (1992). Amultivariate Method of Classify-

ing Body form Variation for Sizing Women’s Apparel. Clothing and Textile Research Journal. 4, (l) 38-45.

Shannon, E. and Reich, N. (1999). European Study Tour Review of Clothing and Textile Comfort. The Research Association of College, Professors of Textiles and Clothing Proceedings. 197-204.

Tamburrino, N. (1992A). Apparel Sizing Issues Part 1. 33 (8) 44-59. Bobbin publishers.

Woodson, E. M. and Henry, P. E. (1990). Apparel Sizing As it Relates to Women Age Sixty-five. Clothing and Textile Research Journal. 8 (4)7-13.

Workman, J. E. (1991). Body Measurement Specifica-tions for Fit Modes as a Factor in Clothing Size Variation. Clothing and Textile Research Jour-nal, (10) l, 31-36.


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Abstract. The desire of every nation is to provide goods and services that can actually satisfy citizens and also be enough for export in other to acquire foreign exchange. Due to scarce resources and diversity in human behavior, proper strategizing and planning built on Posi-tive and negative science need to be considered. Human behavior cannot be determined with concrete certainty; we can only make assumptions based on certain condi-tions or occurrences. These assumptions help managers in managing limited resources. This goes a long way in helping a nation plan its production in matters of; what to produce, the quantity to produce and whom to produce for. The task of decision making, a must for every nation is one of the most difficult and unpredictable task faced by managers. However, with the advent of information Systems supported with decision support tools, manag-ers can now to a greater extent make proper decisions.

Information system is a collection and integration of components for data collection, storing, and processing in other to deliver information, knowledge, and digital products. Businesses and cooperation rely on Information systems to carry out operations, manage staff, and even lead customers. There is no doubt information systems have revolutionized virtually every sector of the economy it has been applied in. For example, in developed coun-tries like the USA, Information systems have decongested highways through traffic management. Despite all the success stories resulting from the implementation of information systems, Agriculture in developing coun-tries still struggles with implementation of information systems. With the design of several Farm management information systems (FMIS), one should have predicted an end to the shortage of Agricultural products in Africa, mismanagement of the farm or an end to the high rate of loss in agricultural commodities as a result of disease outbreak. However, this is not the case in Africa because; the implementation of information systems in Agriculture is faced with numerous design/implementation problems ranging from designer’s ignorance to end-users illiteracy.

We are interested in uncovering the importance of information system in Agricultural farms in Africa and

highlighting some limitations facing its implementation. Keywords: Activity diagram, data, Information,

management Technology.

1. INTRODUCTION

In this present age of Technology, it will be off place to discover a sector in the econo-my that is totally eluded from benefiting from the advantages of information technology. A major importance of technology to any sec-tor is the efficiency in production. This infor-mation technology seeks to achieve. The un-structured nature of farm lands in Agriculture makes it difficult for information technology to be easily applied. Agriculture (farming), is however not the only sector that can be seen as unstructured. The Transportation sector, which witnesses the mass movement of peo-ple from different startup locations to different destinations, moving in patterns that are dif-ficult to predict can also be seen as unstruc-tured. Despite limitations of its unstructured model, information system has been success-fully implemented. The product of this imple-mentation can be seen from the use of Global Positioning Systems know as GPS, the InSync adaptive traffic control system which enables traffic signals adapt to actual traffic demands, traffic signal presumption that allows nor-mal flow of traffic light to be preempted, etc. Because of these technologies, there is a re-sultant change in traffic and human behavior (responds) to traffic. The transportation sector also has witnessed significant transformation resulting from the implementation of Informa-tion technology different from the ones men-tioned above. One may argue that the trans-portation sector is not as unstructured as the Agricultural sector is. So, therefore, a better comparison in relation to the unstructured na-

IMPORTANCE OF THE USE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS BY FARMERS IN AFRICA

Joshua Chibuike Sopuru, Management Information System (MSc)Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, Email: [email protected]

Received: April, 29.2015. Accepted: June, 29.2015.

Articles

Corresponding AuthorJoshua Chibuike Sopuru, Management Information System (MSc), Girne American University, Mersin 10 via TurkeyEmail: [email protected]


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ture of the farm would be the ever flabbergast-ing dynamism nature faces. No matter what we compare the farm to, a proper understand-ing of the problems facing the implementation of information system to the farm, would re-sult in a solution for better design and imple-mentation which will in turn lead to overall efficiency. This article aims at uncovering the importance of IS systems to agriculture and highlighting possible reasons that have led to the poor implementation of information tech-nology in Agriculture, especially in Africa. To achieve this, we will work following the tra-ditional methods of system design and imple-mentation processes.

1.1. Brief Explanation of traditional system design and implementation Processes

In system design, the system develop-ment life cycle (SDLC) methodology has been followed over the years. The primary cycle involves a five (5) step process consisting of Analysis to the implementation process. Fig-ure 1. show this cycle.

Figure 1.0 System development life cycle

Using this cycle, we will discuss an example of how a simple fund transfer system can be designed and implemented. This is done in other to create an understanding of how this cycle works. We will focus on the analysis stage of the SDLC.

Example 1: design of a simple online account balance access system.

This system will provide end users the functionality of accessing funds online.

Phase 1: Analysis: Under analysis, we seek to discover the needs of the users. That is, what users expect of the fund transfer system. These requirements are analyzed and transla-ted into logical patterns as understood by the

computer.User needs: Pay in money into a bank

account – access funds balance online Here the needs of the user are clearly

defined. No complicated situations are refer-enced. Thus, a user case diagram can be easily created as shown in figure 2 below.

Also, User’s abilities are also considered here. For example, user language, educational level, ethical variations, etc. When these fac-tors are successfully considered, and Analysis of system requirements is done based on these factors and many others, an essential knowl-edge of system requirement have been devel-oped. A fundamental process that is important in the analysis of system is referred to as the business process.

The business process lists and links as simple as possible the internal and external logics behind the system development. In pre-cise terms, a business process can be seen as steps to achieving a solution. For example, if a robot were to be programmed to pull out a bad electric bulb, the business process would be the steps needed to be followed by the robot to achieve its mission. Successfully defining the business process is a problem half solved.

For our above example, the business process can be defined based on two (2) dif-ferent headings; these headings are derived from the users’ requirements: • Pay in money into a bank account • Access fund balance online

Pay in money into a bank account:In practice, the steps in paying money

into the bank involve all or some of the fol-lowing:


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1. Customer fills a deposit slip2. Submits the slip to a teller3. Teller collects and verifies the money

and records the information on the slip against the stated account number.

Access fund balance online:To access funds balance online, several

things need to be considered. This includes the banks processes of accessing funds balance (not online). Using this as a base, the designer can then create a business process on access-ing funds balance online. First knowledge on how fund balances are accessed in banks:

1. Customer fills an account inquiry slip (balance)

2. Submits the slip to a teller3. Teller accesses customer’s account

(using account number, name, etc.)4. Presents account balance to the cus-

tomer on a slip

With the successful analysis of these business processes, the logics behind how the systems should work can now be quickly de-veloped.

Process A Access fund balance online (System

Logic)Interpreting business process to enable

coding:1. Customer fills an account inquiry slip

(balance): A digital mind slip is generated that will be filled online by customers

2. Submits the slip to a teller: account slip on completion is presented for query

3. Teller accesses customers account (us-ing account number, name etc): Based on suc-cessful queries, account details are retrieved.

4. Presents account balance to the cus-tomer on a slip: System outputs account bal-ance to the customer on screen.

Phase 2 to 5: Based on the business pro-cess, a flowchart is designed, and subsequent coding is carried out to achieve the logics de-fined by the enterprise process. After these stages, the developed system is implemented with maintenance performed as required.

As observed in the example above, gen-erating a business process is the bedrock to the

successful design of a system. However, this is not the only determinant to the successful implementation of a system. Other factors that include behavioral, educational, cultural, so-cial, structural, etc. can determine to a great extent the success of a system especially in relation to different sectors. The Agricultural sector is one of these sectors.

Developing a business process for the Agricultural sector is quite different from the process developed above. This difference is greatly because of its unstructured pattern as we shall discuss below. With this knowledge, one can infer the reasons for implementation problems in Agriculture.

2. FARM STRUCTURE, PRACTICES AND BUSINESS

PROCESSES

Most farmlands in Africa are managed as family businesses. This method results in an extremely unorganized system of manage-ment. Over the years, farming has many been carried out on subsistence levels. The idea of producing food for just once immediate fam-ily has made farm practices nothing different from food cooking. Despite the evolution of farming from subsistence to commercial ag-riculture, most farmers still retain the unstruc-tured farming practices developed over the years. Some of these unstructured farming processes include planting decisions; land us-age, resource allocation, etc.

Most Commercial farmers in Africa farm at large scales. Large quantity of output is gotten from farm lands with varying qual-ity. Yield (quantity and quality) prediction is near impossible because of the varying farm practices applied as a result of this structure. This also leads to the unavailability of Agri-cultural information as farmers do not know the farming method that worked best since dif-ferent farming methods are applied at random. This limitation of the availability of agricul-tural information limits the rising agricultural productivity among small scale holders [1]. However, information and communication technology (ICT) provides a possible pathway to ameliorate this scenario.


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2.1. The role of information system in Agriculture

As population increase and the need for agricultural products raised, the importance of proper management of agricultural produce and real-time information access by agricul-ture stakeholders have become paramount. In-formation is very vital in modern farming as a marker is to a lecturer. Due to illiteracy and lack of sensitization, information access, and proper dissemination is still a significant prob-lem for stakeholders in agriculture especially in Africa. Information system plays a vital role in agriculture as it aids in providing and delivering information to stakeholders in agri-culture. A focus on the importance of informa-tion management in agriculture, as it relates to economic development, has been carried out by researchers.

According to Masters Williams, 2009, Agricultural yields have only shown slight increases in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America since the 1960s [2], despite advances in agricultural innovations during that time. In addition, data collected using improved ag-ricultural technologies paint a picture of low levels of adoption in developing countries.

The low rates of adoption in developing countries have been adequately documented, and there is widespread theoretical and empir-ical literature identifying the determinants of agricultural technology adoption in different contexts [3]. Poor Information management practices have led to poor performance of ag-riculture in the economy.

According to Cristina Echevarria (A three-factor Agricultural production function) [4] agricultural production function implies that farmers need information on several top-ics, at a variety of stages, before adopting a new technology. Figure 3 shows the infor-mation access of a farmer with the help of an information system in place [5].

Farmers have different types of informa-tion needs during each stage of the process. This need ranges from pest attacks, weather forecasts, cultivation practices, inputs, pest and prices and disease management. Informa-tion systems are designed to provide farmers with these information needs.

Farmers can obtain information from a number of different sources, including, among fellow farmers, trial and error, members of same social network, etc. While traditional economic theory assumes that information is costless, information is rarely symmetric or costless in developing countries. This is partly due to the high cost of obtaining information via traditional means, such as travel, radio or newspaper. As a result, information asymme-tries can be a significant barrier to agricultural technology adoption in developing countries. The role of IS in agriculture is also to address information asymmetries and create a level playground for stakeholders.

Information system plays a imperative role in coordinating the activities of agricul-ture extensions and providing reliable infor-mation from reliable sources to farmers.

Agricultural extension has been put forth since the 1960s as a means of reduc-ing information asymmetries as it relates to technology adoption in different countries. In general, agricultural extension is the “delivery of information inputs to farmers” (Anderson and Feder 2007) [6]. The general extension approach uses specialists to provide different services to farmers, ranging from technology transfers to advisory services and human re-source development. In some cases, it pro-vides a platform that connects researchers di-rectly to the farmer in order to ensure that new


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technologies are better targeted to the specific conditions of agricultural communities.

Agricultural extension models can take several forms. The most common approach-es are Training/Visit (T&V), Farmer Field Schools (FFS) and fee-for-service [6]. In Training and visit plan, specialists/field staff provides technical information and village visits to communities selected. In many cases, field agents train and work with contact farm-ers, or farmers who have successfully adopted new technologies and can train others. World Bank promoted T&V and applied in more than 70 countries between 1975 and 1995 [6]. Farmer field schools (FFS), designed specifi-cally to replace integrated pest management (IPM) methods around Asia. FFS also utilize contact farmers, relies on participatory train-ing methods and builds farmer capacities. Fee-for-service extension comprises both pub-lic and private initiatives and public funding. Farmer groups contract extension agents with accurate information and service requests.

2.2. Areas of application of informa-tion system in Agriculture

Information Systems can be applied in various fields of agriculture as researched by many researchers. Some researchers have come up with different lists of areas of IS ap-plication in agriculture. Some of these fields are:

I. IS should be used for demand and supply monitoring in the field of agricultural inputs. Based on the annual crop plan, the re-quirement for the agro-inputs can be estimat-ed, and accordingly supply can be monitored. The information on availability of seeds, fer-tilizers and pesticides in a different region can be made available to the farmers. This will help him in speedy procurement of inputs at a cheaper rate.

II. Information on availability of qual-ity planting material of horticultural species at various government nurseries and Agriculture Universities should also be regularly made known to farmers through IS

III. Agriculture Universities and other National Institutions are regularly releasing improved varieties of different crops. The es-

sential features of these varieties such as its performance, disease resistance and adaptabil-ity should be made known to farmers through IS.

IV. The prompt identification and control of pest and diseases of the cash crops is essen-tial in reducing further damage to the harvest. Audio-visual clips of the causative organism and affected/diseased plant part with its con-trol measure should be made know to farmers through IS. This would assist the farmers in remote areas to identify the pest/disease and take corrective action.

V. Weather plays a significant role in in-cidences of particular pest and diseases. A dis-ease-forecasting module for advance intima-tion on likely occurrences of pest and diseases and preventive measures to be taken needs to be developed to reduce the economic loss.

VI. Soil survey section of many Agri-culture Department possesses around 28000 soil survey maps, which need to be digitized to preserve them permanently and for extract-ing needful information using GIS technique.

VII. Primary data pertaining to agricul-ture can be generated through remote sensing & GIS where attributes such as ownership, soil fertility, cropping pattern, etc. can be at-tached to the survey numbers in maps. This data could be integrated and analyzed at dif-ferent levels to help decision-making. This data could also be shared with various line departments.

VIII. Integrated information systems for various components of watershed devel-opment programs needs to be developed for making active Watershed development proj-ects assisted by the Agriculture Department and these can be monitored at different levels if appropriate monitoring and evaluation soft-ware is developed.

IX. Use of satellite imaging data analy-sis for forecasting agriculture related informa-tion should be adopted for forecasting rainfall, area under different crops, yield estimations, and soil properties.

X. Interactive module needs to be pre-pared to assist farmers in preparing crop bud-get, which will help them in documenting data on cultivation cost and make them aware of the profitability.


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According to Christian Fuchs, 2008, a sustainable information society is a society that makes use of ICT and knowledge for fos-tering a healthy life for all human beings of current and future generations [7]. He advo-cates the structuring of information systems that would stand the test time.

3. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS

Implementation of Information Systems has always been an issue of concern in agri-culture in Africa. Ever since the discovery of farming, whether people are growing crops, raising livestock or fishing, people sought in-formation from one another on better ways to perform their farming. Information on the most efficient planting strategy, where to buy improved seed or feed for animals; how to acquire the land title, the highest price in the market, funding from government’s credit program, etc. It is usually very difficult for farmers to find answers to such question. Time taken in search of answers to these issues also amounted to waste of resources, if somewhere replied to in a given year; different similar is-sues arise every year but might have different answers in different year due to time and sea-sons as it relates to farming.

With an effort to tackle the problem of information systems and improving produc-tion, different methods have been proposed and designed. It is observed that most systems designed for agriculture have not been fully implemented. With a critical review of works done in this area, we found that most devel-opment is centered on programming logic and not on the clients. For example, the structure used in the design of an IS system for a top business organization should not be the same structure that is used for industry full of un-educated employees. With this knowledge, it is appropriate that designers should focus on the human aspect of the design of an IS sys-tem for agriculture to aid in implementation feasibility.

The Human-computer Interaction (HCI) guides system analysts/designers in modeling systems that can interact appropriately with humans [8]. Systems are designed for easy

adaptation by man. Figure 2.3 describes HCI approaches that can be used in modeling an IS system. This system will focus as much as possible to satisfy the following HCI condi-tions:

• Safety• Utility • Effectiveness • Efficiency • Usability • AppealThis will as much as possible ensure the

usability of IS systems. Usable for all class of farmers: Ranging from the most educated to the least educated.

Using the HCI approach, developers are more concerned with the way users view and interact with the system. Cultural differences, languages, social status/classes are all put into consideration in designing systems. Ease of learning and ease of use are major concerns for developers using this approach. Questions like: Can I use the basic functions of a new system without reading the manual? Does the software facilitate us to learn new features quickly? Etc. are significant questions that must be answered before a software is con-sidered Human-friendly. The poor attitude of farmers in using Information Systems could be enhanced by the complexity of IS systems compared to the educational level or language of the end users. We believe that if systems are structured as simple as possible, many of the limitations to the implementation of Informa-tion Systems in agriculture in Africa will be


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handled.


REFERENCES[1] Anthony G. Muriithi, Eric Bett, Sarah A. Ogaleh.

Information Technology for Agriculture and Ru-ral Development in Africa: Experiences from KenyaTropentag 2009, University of Hamburg, October 6-8, 2009.

[2] Masters, William A. 2009. “Africa’s Turn: From Crisis to Opportunity in African Agriculture.” David Lee, editor. The Food and Financial Crisis in sub-Saharan Africa.

[3] Feder, Gershon & Richard E. Just & David Zil-berman. 1985. “Adoption of Agricultural In-novations in Developing Countries: A Survey,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, 33(2): 255-98.

[4] Cristina Echevarría.1997.”A three-factor agricul-tural production function: the case of canada”. Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones conómi-cas, S.A.

[5] Rajender Verma, Shimla and Himachal Pradesh.June, 2012.”Role of Information Technology in Development of Rural Himachal”. .No.- 172027

[6] Anderson, Jock R., Gershon Feder and Sushma Ganguly. 2006. “The rise and fall of training and visit extension: an Asian mini-drama with an African epilogue.” World Bank Policy Re-search Working Paper 3928.

[7] Christian Funch. 2008. “Information and communi-cation technologies (ICTs) & society”. Univer-sity of Westminster, Communication and Media Research Institute,School of Media, Arts and Design.

[8] Fakhreddine K., Milad A., Jamil A., and Monours A., March 2008, “Human-Computer Interac-tion: Overview on state of the art”, International journal on smart sensing and intelligent sys-tems, vol. 1, no. 1, march 2008


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Abstract. Automated System Preparing Time-tab-les (ASPT) system was designed to assist the organizati-ons in organising and maximizing their time. Interactive system ASPT forms a part of a bigger project that con-cerns time-table scheduling system in higher learning.

The aim of this project is to prepare a compu-terized and automated system of preparing timetables for the business faculty in order to save time, prevent clashes, ensure maximum use of the facilities and also create a better learning environment for the student and a more suitable teaching environment for the lecturers.

Keyword: Automation, database, SQL, schedule, system, management.

1. INTRODUCTION

A multi-continental university in differ-ent countries is very robust in nature and in handling files. The most popular of its facul-ties and also the biggest of them is the busi-ness faculty which has a huge number of stu-dents and even more coming each year. With the large number of students and also the busi-ness and engineering faculty sharing some of the same classes and even some of other fac-ulties taking some of its courses in the same facility, the preparation of the business faculty timetable could be very hectic and tiresome because of the manual way it is being done.

Some of this Universities uses a manual system for the selection of courses and prepa-ration of timetables, thereby resulting in clash-es when done by the lecturers. But with the increasing number of students every semester, this doesn’t just cause clashes but also wastes time.

2. DESIGN

A database package would be needed in order to store all the details about the lecturer, students, classes, etc. For the back end there are many possibilities for the database such as Microsoft Access, MySql, SQL etc.

MySql is popular for handling very powerful and large databases but it also has a couple of setbacks some of which are it does not support transactions or concurrent update of complex table which if used would have be-come a huge hindrance to the development of the system in the making. Oracle is very well known for the use of SQL statements. It is one of the most expensive databases on the market. There is no graphical interface for creation or modification of tables. This implies that the use of this database is very time consuming

But for the database of this project we would be making use ofMicrosoft SQL. SQL is preferred out of the other databases due to some reasons. Being one of the database pio-neers, SQL has become more easy to use as well as learning because of this it make de-veloping a new database system much quicker compared to others such as Oracle, My sql etc. It is a cheaper software and also more afford-able. Also it is easier to learn.

For the front end of this project, we would be making use of Visual C#, this is be-cause visual C# is a wIDely available, com-mercial interpreter that are available for most personal computers. Also the interface in-cludes very familiar GUI controls such as list boxes, buttons, combo boxes, etc. and with just a few mouse clicks, one could add a com-bination of these GUI controls to the program

UNIVERSITY TIME-TABLE SCHEDULING SYSTEM: DATA-BASES DESIGN

Dr. Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya, Management Information System (PhD)Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, Email: samsonfadiya.gau.edu.tr

Nwabuzor E. Iruoma, Management Information System (BSc)Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, Email: [email protected]


Articles

Corresponding AuthorDr. Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya, Management Informa-tion System, Girne American University, Mersin 10 via Turkey, Email: samsonfadiya.gau.edu.tr


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making it easier and faster to design the user interface of the program.

2.1. Database Design

The database would consist of eight (8) entities;

• FACULTY, • DEPARTMENT, • LECTURER, • CLASSROOM, • CLASS, • COURSES, • LOCATION, • USERS.

Figure 1. Database Diagram

2.2. Definition of Data RequirementsTable 1. Faculty Table

Table 2. Department Table

Table 3. Lecturer Table

Table 4. Course Table

Table 5. Location Table

Table 6. Classroom Table

Table 7. Class Table

Table 8. Users Table


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2.3. Design of Pages

2.3.1. Login Page

This page is used for the login of the Admin (who is in charge of the program). The admin is strictly in charge of the prepa-ration of the timetable and the editing of the data that would be used in the prepa-ration of the timetable. He is the only one for now who makes use of the software.

2.3.2. Lecturers Icon

In this icon we have three controls un-der it, one of it is to add lecturers, the other is to view lecturers and the last one is to search for a lecturer and either edit or delete the lec-turer’s details from the database. Adding lecturers: This form would be used for several purposes:

• To input a lecturer’s ID: this is validated to only input a maximum amount of numbers.

• To input a lecturers initials: • To input a lecturer’s title: that could

either be PHD, Asst, Dr. and the likes. There would be a drop down menu where the admin can choose from.

• To input a lecturer’s name• To input a lecturer’s surname• To input a lecturer’s department:

here there is also a drop down menu where the lecturer can choose his or her department.

• To input a lecturer’s preferable days: also here the lecturer can only choose one preferable day he wishes to teach.

• To input a lecturer’s preferable time: also here the lecturer can only choose one preferable time he wish-es to teach either; Morning, After-

noon or Evening.• Then there is an add button that is

being clicked on only when all the details are being inputted unless it brings an error message.

• • Search, edit, and delete a lecturer:

This page is to search, edit or delete a lecturer

• Here one can search for a lecturer ei-ther with the lecturer’s ID or name.

• Then the list of the lecturers are dis-played on a table under

• To edit a lecturer’s details, you have to click on it and change the details and then click on the edit button.

• To delete a lecturer’s details, one has to click on the lecturer’s details and click on the delete button.

2.3.3. Classroom Icon

In this icon we have two controls under it also either to add a classroom or to search/edit or delete a classroom.

Adding a classroom: This form would be used for several purposes

• To input a classroom name: here the admin enters a unique classroom name for a class

• To input a classroom location: this is to input where the classroom is located in the school either techno park or spectrum etc.

• To select if it is a lab or not.• To input the capacity of each class-

room.

Search, edit, and delete a lecturer: This page is to search, edit or delete a lecturer

• Here one can search for a classroom with the classroom’s name.

• Then the lists of the classroom are displayed on a table below.

• To edit a classroom’s details, you have to click on it and change the details and then click on the edit but-ton.


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• To delete a classroom’s details; click on the details and click on the delete button.

2.3.4. Courses Icon

In this icon we have two controls under it either to add courses or to search/edit or de-lete a course.

Adding courses: This form would be used for several purposes

• To input a course code: this is vali-dated to only input a unique course code.

• To input course name: here, the name of the course is being inputted.

• To input the number of sections: this is to select how many sections this course would have

• To input the maximum number of students: Here the maximum num-ber of students for the course is in-putted

• To input the total teaching hours: The total teaching hours for the course is selected, usually it’s a maximum of three hours and a minimum of one hour.

• To input a course department: This is used to select which department the course falls under.

Search, edit, and delete a course: This page is to search, edit or delete a course

Here one can search for a course either with the course ID or name.

Then the course/courses are displayed on a table below

To edit a course details, you have to click on it and change the details and then click on the edit button.

To delete a course details; click on the course details and click on the delete button.

2.3.5. Timetable Icon

Here the time slots are shown, and when a slot is selected, if it for the time one can choose the start or end time, if it is for the courses, a popup menu comes up and then the

course code, classroom and lecturer is being chosen for that slot. Whenever a constraint is being breached, an error message is displayed

2.4. Diagrams of Pages

2.4.1. Login Page

Figure 2. Login Page

2.4.2. Add Courses Page

Figure 3. Add Courses Page

2.4.3. Search Courses Page

Figure 4. Search courses Page

2.4.4. Add Lecturers’ Page

Figure 5. Add Lecturers’ Page


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2.4.5. Search Lecturers’ Page

Figure 6. Search Lecturers’ Page

2.4.6. Add classroom page

Figure 7. Add Classroom Page

2.4.7. Search Classroom Page

Figure 7. Add Classroom Page

Figure 8. Search Classroom Page

2.4.8. Timetable page

Figure 9. Timetable

2.4.9. Popup menus for add class

Figure 10. Popup menu for editing a class information

2.4.9.1. Use Case Diagram

USE CASE DIAGRAM: UNIVERSITY TIME-TABLE SCHEDULING

Figure 11. Use Case Diagram


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2.4.9.2. Menu Design

In the design of the menu, all items are linked to each other; one can connect to any other page from any page. But on the Time-table page you can only log out. You can’t go back to adding courses again.

Figure 12. Menu Design

2.4.9.3. Test Strategy

I will use user feedback, valid data, in-valid data, special cases/unusual values and boundary value testing to reveal the existence of errors.

I plan to test the user interface first.• I will elicit feedback on the appro-

priateness of the user interface from potential users:

• Is colour scheme appropriate?• Is structure of layout appropriate?• Can the elements that make up the

user interface be read easily?• Does the user interface offer suf-

ficient guidance on its use for the given task?

I will test the effectiveness of the security on the user interface:

• Valid password gains access to the system

• Invalid password rejected and sys-tem access denied

Functional Testing

• I will write test cases for the menu and toolbar user interface to test that:

• The menu and toolbar options are displayed correctly

• All options on the menu and toolbar can be selected

• Invalid selections are dimmed or re-jected with an error message

Logical Testing

I will write test cases that will:• Check that the correct input screen is

produced for each option• Check that the data can be entered

as expected• Check that invalid data is rejected/

check that valid data is accepted• Check that when output from the

system is expected that output is produced

• Check that an appropriate error mes-sage is displayed when the user at-tempts an invalid operation or tries to enter invalid data

I will also write test cases to test that:• Details for each lecturer, course and

classroom can be entered and then stored

• It is possible to select for viewing/editing/updating the details of a course, lecturer and classroom

• It is possible to delete a lecturer, course or a classroom from the da-tabase

• Department, faculties and lecturers are automatically generated in the drop down box after they are being added.

• Timetables can be printed and viewed

• Constraints for a lecturer is being checked

• Constraints for classrooms are ob-served

• Constraints for courses and their sections are being observed.


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System Testing

When the testing is complete, a whole range of tests is conducted to ensure that the whole system is working properly. Recovery Testing

Here we would reboot the computer while the database is open; this is to check that in case of a power failure the data would not be lost.

Acceptance Testing

In this case, the user is brought in and asked to check the entire program to make sure all the functionalities is present and working properly as planned. This kind of testing might result to further changes depending on the user.

2.4.9.4. Security

The whole program is properly secured and the Database could be secured by adding a password in the SQL program.

3. CONCLUSION

The teaching staffs usually spend a lot of time in timetable generation and timetable man-agement. The aim of this project is to enable the process of timetable generation to be done fast-er and more efficient. There are so many ways the program could be developed to become a better application to be used in the university.


REFRENCE

[1] Bouvier. Versions and standards of HTML ACM SIGAPP Applied Computing Review, 3:9-15, 1995.

[2] F. Sueychyun, University Course Scheduling Sys-tem (UCSS): A UML Application with Database and Visual Programming, Journal of Computing Sciences in Colleges, 20:160-169, 2005.

[3] G. M. White. Constrained satisfaction not so cons-trainted satisfaction and the timetabling prob-lem. In PATAT’00, volume 1, Konztanz, Ger-many, August 2000.


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Abstract. Organization faces computation due to technological ideas that is put in place to satisfy their customers. Therefore, the Human Resource has to be on the move to make sure employee work had to make sure customers meet their needs. Organization need to know their performance capacity in other to make arraignment on when a product or service could be ready. This paper provide possible way by the use of HRIS being synchronized with behaviormetrics to study the capacity of employee production when sad or happy mood. Also, steps in of implementing Human resource information system in an organization and possible ways why the system fails is been discussed in this paper. Due to the uniqueness of human conscious and sub-conscious behavioral action profiling of this action are being created to have history of staff emotion study are managed. At the end study, sad and angry mood facial expression is analyzed in a way that it affects human productivity in an organization. Furthermore, with this HRM could forecast employee performance at the end of the day.

Keywords: HRIS; behaviormetrics; organizational performance; biometrics; Hman Resource; happyand sad facial expression

1. INTRODUCTION

Organizations in the world are currently being faced with intensive pressure due to the exponential increase in consumer demand, environmental influence, government regula-

tions, and competition. Due to the resent trend and the capabilities of information systems, organizations tend to use the opportunity that comes with it to buy time for strategic decision making. Human resource information systems is an online solution client/server application the compiles data entry, tracking of data, store, retrieve, manipulate and give accurate informa-tion about human resource of an organization. HRIS also keeps tracks of all the staff working in an organization, helps in appraisal and not-withstanding computers doing work that cou-ple of employee will do. HRIS covers every aspect of the organization such as employee training, attendance analysis and report, finan-cial planning and forecast, whistleblowing, management strategic planning, and security.

2. Capabilities of HRIS

• Data maintenance: this prevent data redundancy, updating of the mod-ule in cases like when new office is opened or increase in staff salary and change in address of staff. More-over, Davenport and Short (1990) explained that companies should adapt systems that can move along with the change in the technology, such as the upgrade of the internet Ipv6 for Ipv4, 3G to 4G. In other for organization to have stable system backup of the internet and the stor-

AN OVERVIEW OF HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS (HRIS) AND HOW BEHAVIORMETRICS PREDICT EMPLOYEE

PERFORMANCE IN AN ORGANIZATION

Vanye Zira Vanduhe, Department of Management Information system, Cyprus International University, Haspolat -Mersin 10-Turkey, North Cyprus, Email: [email protected]

Desire Kemena Awoh, Department of Environmental Engineering, Cyprus International University, Haspolat -Mersin 10-Turkey, North Cyprus, Email: [email protected]


Articles

Corresponding AuthorVanye Zira Vanduhe, Department of Management Information system, Cyprus International University, Haspolat -Mersin 10-Turkey, North Cyprus, Email: [email protected]


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age hard drive need to be in place.• Output system: this form aspect of

using the information derived from the previous input. These are the dis-play of report of current summary of dealings of a process of production, to obtain history for future planning.

• Create jobs to disable, they are not left out, they tend to be objective and effective than the abled workers.

• HRIS has made communication to be effective in all aspect of the orga-nization, help solve language prob-lems in the organization.

• Equal employment opportunities to the abled and disabled

• Downsizing: this system reduces number of dormant employee as well as carrying out jobs of different people. An enhanced computer sys-tem is capable of taking over three to five jobs of staff and however, reduc-es cost of labor to the organization. With the internet and information system, young or small companies do not fear large companies, con-sultancy companies like Accenture Plc. which is one of the world lead-ing companies in consultancy and outsourcing which has just an office in Dublin, Ireland. Accenture has more than 250,000 employees that work without having an office, with a personal digital assistance (Sam-sung Tab, IPod) employee could give report and be trained in Nigeria from outside. Therefore it gives the human resource managers adminis-trative work and as well allows the manager to think of possible was to gain optimal productivity in an or-ganization. With this HRIS reduces administrative cost, it substituted whole office, a branch office could be in a computer device in which the cost of the device cannot be traced in account statement because of its low price Newell (2003). HRIS facili-tates business to business commu-nication and customer to customer communication. For e-governance,

it brings the whole world to an of-fice with few mouse clicks.

Outsourcing of HRIS by an organiza-tion is the best way of incorporating the HRIS in an organization. This research is aimed at synchronizing HRIS with behavioral biomet-ric system which is called behaviormetrics (Arya Khatri 2013).

Outsourcing of HRIS by an organiza-tion is the best way of incorporating the HRIS in an organization. This research is aimed at synchronizing HRIS with behavioral biomet-ric system which is called behaviormetrics (Stefanos Zafeiriouy 2010). Biometrics is a sys-tem that analysis human behavioral and physi-ological semantics which is used for enhanced security access. However, notwithstanding physical and behavioral authentication access, behavioral metrics is being used for security access as well.

3. Literature review

In order to present the theoretical and methodological underlying principles of this research, we base on literatures on Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) best practices, implementation HRIS, HRIS, why HRIS fails and how HRM can forecast em-ployee productivity through behaviormetrics. Theoretical background will show the effects of synchronizing Information Systems with Human Resource with behaviormetrics sys-tem framework and how it increases the orga-nizational performance. Notwithstanding us-ing fuzzy data mining which is a tool the HR uses for staff appraisal and as well talent as part of performance structure of HRIS (Jing, H 2009 and Samson Oluwaseun 2014).

HRIS are set of computerized platform used for communication within and outside an organization whereby every staff have access to the computer device which enables staff to communicate automatically to all aspect of the organization. (Tannenbaum, 1990)T cited that, HRIS is a framework used to procure, store, control, examine, recover and dissemi-nate error free data across HR department of an organization. (Hoch, 2013) also contribut-


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ed that HRIS as an incorporated system used to accumulate, store and process and analyze data with respect to an organization HR de-partment. IS has promoted the involvement of management and is used as medium for HRM, the integration of IS to HRM can manage data in relation to the selecting, staffing, advance-ment, recompense, health and workplace safety, training and improvement. This IS digitalizes the management enterprise, stan-dardize internal and external system, make the organization work in scientific way, network based and however increase labor productivity and performance. The other aspect of knowing the employee and forecast employee produc-tivity by the human resource manager can be extracted by the use of behaviormetrics.

Behaviormetrics is derived for bio-metrics which is a statistical expression of human biological and medical analysis that deals with unique features that discriminate a person form another (Zhu., J. 2013). Behav-ioral biometrics is an aspect of that study hu-man conscious and sub-conscious behavioral trait. Behavioral biometrics entails studying the emotion of staff in an organization which classifies emotion into basic human facial ex-pression mood such as happy, sad, and angry and fear (Urvashi Agrawal 2013). The basic hu-man emotion that was found in this research is happy and sad, therefore, this mood of expres-sion affect the performance of some. When happy high performance will be expected and when sad poor and lower under expected per-formance will be expected by the staff (David Oziem 2004).

1) Implementation of Human Resource Information System

According (Newell 2012) and (Chliv-ickas 2014), these scholars recommended some steps for implementing HRIS as well as biometric system. Organization need to build up clear objective such as cost reduction, error reduction in the business value chain, loss of files, redundancy etc. Also identify specific ar-eas that need to adopt the information system such as specific organization department like, sales, admin, marketing, finance, monitoring etc. as contributed by (Byars L. L., 2007) he explain 13 steps of implementation of HRIS are described by using simple steps, in select-

ing best technology to suit the organizational environment, culture, ethics or social, that could be implemented life.

Some steps of implementation of HRIS are described by using simple steps, in select-ing best technology to suit the organizational environment, culture, ethics or social life.

1. Ideas generation: the inception for idea generation saw the need and report of what HRM in an organi-zation need HRIS to. This design needs management attention and it has to identify clearly HRIS can assist management in decision mak-ing.

2. Feasibility studies: this study deals with accessing the potentials of HRIS benefits in reducing cost la-bor, increase in accuracy, with few errors. However, feasibility studies will always recommend HRIS be-cause of its great potentials to orga-nizations at large.

3. Management support: the results of the feasibility studies are being sent to the management for them to as-sess its importance and they give their support for the HRIS project to be carried on.

4. Selecting an ad hoc project team which will include HRM represen-tative, technical experts and with a payroll staff.

5. Defining and designing require-ments: this identifies specific duties of what HIRS will eventually do. L. L. Byars (2004) show some required statements which are; “ description of how users collect and prepare data, obtain approvals, complete forms, retrieve data, and perform other non-technical task associated with HRIS use” the main aim is mo match the mission of the HRIS to the specific needs of the organization.

6. Software and hardware selection: many computer programmers are developed, therefor, organization just need to identify the one that best fits to the organizational needs in relation to payroll, business value


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chain at large.7. Training: training of staff of techni-

cal ad hoc team and towards the end of the implementation of the HRIS, managers will be trained on how to evaluate dealings per time period and source information from it.

8. Tailoring the system: this stage in-volves adapting the system and con-figuring it in accordance to the orga-nizational needs.

9. Data collection: before the system will be kicked-up, data has to me entered into the system. Data such as employee datagrams, accounting imputation format etc.

10. System testing: this is to see if the system output best fits the organi-zational basic requirements and to analyses is accuracy.

11. Starting up: start-up process is done to identify some additional errors. This kick-up begins when all data are being manipulated into the sys-tem. Startups are advised to be done at odd working time such as week-ends.

12. Parallel running: this involves sys-tematically running the old HR and the HRIS to accurately determine the output of the new system.

13. Maintenance: in adoption of new systems are ways of doing things losses are meant to be incurred, however, such provision is given in months or years. Errors could be remaining and destruction of config-ured interface could to perpetrated, therefore, there is need to correction

14. Evaluation: when the system has been in use for a period of time, the HRIS need to be evaluated to see if it is working according to the initial plan.

2) Why the system fails70% of business fail in adopting HRIS

because the fail to continuously manage and control the system, unstructured objectives, installing system that cannot be upgraded and

having less database storage capacity.Main five missteps that organizations experience with HRIS execution with tested tips to help you evade some of those same pitfalls.

1 - Failure to Effectively Manage Change

Changes in the implantation of HRIS can affect the system; the change should be proportional to employee needs.

• Before take a step in the implemen-tation of the new system, the impact of the change and laid down steps on how to effectively use the most be stated.

• Communicate as often as possible specific ways of addressing staff needs/concerns/suppositions on the change

2 – Failure to Define, Validate, and Support Data Quality

Quality choices hail from quality data. That data needs to be legitimate, solid, op-portune, and above all functional, information quality is synonymous with data quality, since poor information quality brings about mistak-en data and poor business execution.

• Create clear cut steps of inputting data into the core HRIS functional areas and potential data entry defile-ment zones.

• Identify ways when and how data will be approved, defining method that will be used in correcting inad-equacies.

• 3 - Failure to Properly Plan

IT programs are deemed to work suc-cessfully, poor planning are the reasons that brings about failure in the system, effective plan should on the database that different de-partment will use should be made in accor-dance with the organizational objectives and ways of data inputting should be specified.

• Define all business needs, vital ob-jectives, and business process that the HRIS will have effect on before


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any result is chosen so that the man-agement will evaluate its end result and see if it has justified their want/needs.

• Under any situation do not incorpo-rate a bad method into your HRIS, set out time to look over the current HRIS and the formal before taking action.

4 – Failure to Administer Data Security Properly

Information security issues in private and public companies security are getting to be more predominant and critical concern to cloud-based HRIS results specifically. HRIS that work through the web can give full data control to 3rd party via cloud computing.

• This can give feedback about en-cryption levels, detection capabili-ties, security documentation, secu-rity staff, and review logs before determination and also,

• Set aside some time to itemize bal-ance between security and adapt-ability.

5 – Failure to Understand Legal Requirements

At last, the greatest HRIS mistake made by organizations is the failure to comprehend to the laid down rules for data inputting and information retrieval. Management should be aware of the implication of violating the spe-cific law.

4. Behaviormetrics

TechNavio reported an exponential in-crease of the use of biometric system with the growth of 22% forecast of voice and facial recognition biometric identification within the period of 2012 -2016 (Magazine 2013). Be-haviormetrics is the human behavioral phycol-ogy as seen in this field of studies is refers to as the study human emotional subconscious and conscious action skills and emotion in

an organization. System that uses this sys-tem identifies who an individual is, who he/she claims to be and how he/she responds in a repetitive situation in an organization Taru (Khatri 2013). However, this system records repetitive behaviors of individuals in an orga-nization using enhanced biometric cameras to capture voice signature verification, computer keystroke and mouse dynamics, gait, smile and face recognition, lips movement, individ-ual odor, eye blinking pattern, and biological signals (Jiang Zhuyz 2013).

For the purpose of this study already installed biometric system in an organization can be used for predicting or forecasting em-ployee productivity. Behaviormetrics creates a profile system for the entire employee in an organization which stores happy, sad, angry suppressed and fearful mood (Chuan-Yu Chang 2010). Happy or sad profiling will be used for the purpose of this study. Happy will denote sad face and sad will denote angry or sad fa-cial emotional recognition.

A. Properties of Behaviormetrics SystemUsing the seven qualities of properties

of the system, we will see how it helps in the implementation and the synchronization of behaviormetrics in human resource informa-tion system.

a) Universality — every staff in an orga-nization should have general idea of the sys-tem and its characteristics and can be accessed anywhere.

b) Uniqueness — every individual must have different biometric features and charac-teristics.

c) Permanence —individual biomet-ric features and characteristics vary, in that it could be used for assessment.

d) Collectability — the characteristics and features must be modeled in an easy to acquire and accessed way, quantitative mea-surable way and must be measurable quantita-tively and easy to acquire.

e) Performance —biometric model for measurement must be accurate and the level of fault acceptance must be stated

f) Acceptability—the acceptance level of biometric system could be ascertained.

Human face has been proven to as a way


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of knowing someone emotional expression or a way of transmitting someone emotional expression (Urvashi 2013) Agrawal. This fa-cial expression movement or motion beneath the skin of the face communicates social ex-pression of an individual and emotional status (Arya G. J. 2014).

B. Smile and Sad Recognition For this system to be effective, power-

ful cameras with high fast photography and zooming leans ability is needed to generate series of smile and moody face maps. Facial maps are composed of underplaying structural deformation of relevant muscles that moves with the fashion of someone’s smile are sad face (Lou Benedict 2004). These facial under-playing wrinkles and muscle forms part of each staff profiling in the biometric system (Kenny Hong 2013).

5. Methodology

A. System Design• The already in use architectural biometric

system for authentication of security ac-cess using human individual phycology and behaviors will be harnessed. Behav-ioral biometrics is already in use. Figure 1 below shows the facial emotion tracking system (Agrawal U. 2013).

• Video camera input: this is the enrolment stage of each staff in the biometric system, whereby at the approach of the camera the video captures scan the face of the indi-vidual Khatri 2013.

• Processing the image using YCbCr tool extract facial color components from im-age, video collected from a digital system. This tool cleans a picture because it deals with contrast and brightness of a picture.

Figure 1. Showing the process of expression generation

• Skin color segmentation that is con-verting the color input of GRB (green red and blue) image to a gray link structure, this gets the picture ready for face texture extracting.

• Area of identification: this scans the gray like image in group its pixels con-nectivity based feature. Pixels group features are grouped into the emotional structure of the face. Gabor filter gave an age of filtering human textures rep-resentation and discrimination features.

• Facial texture extraction: this identifies the eyes, lips features which is used to determine the facial human emotion (Arya G J 2014). These expressions are stored in the organizational data base which can be referred in the future for predicting employee performance (Sam-son Oluwaseun 2014). This facial expres-sion trait are being recorded so as the system will get used to each staff and its emotion. This stage of expression iden-tifies the happy and sad mood of facial image using the facial processing identi-fication texture of the behavioral biomet-rics system installed in an organization (Arya G J 2014), figure 2 shows the al-gorithm of facial expression schematics.

Figure 2. Showing the modeling of facial context used for emotion generation (Arya G. J. 2014).

C. Facial expression algorithm

• Extract the facial feature points identifying the nose, chin, lips, down to the jour.

• Analysis on the expression change on the


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image stating set of requirements.• State the mean value of the correspond-

ing facial expression generation• Mesh facial wrapping algorithm bilinear

inscription coding. This creates models representing the facial texture as indicat-ed in figure 2 above using alphabets to represent the facial quadrangle and sche-matics. A , B, C, and D representing the vertex part of the quadrangle and E, F, G, and H denote show the vertex part of the face mapping (George Wolberg 1998)..

• This is the monitoring stage in that it re-peats step 4 so as to obtain in time modi-fication of the quadrangle mapping of the face. Moreover, match the present and the concurrent mapping obtained. This algorithm manipulate the geometri-

cal mapping and schematics the face so as to generate the facial gesture emotion. Figure 3 show the bilinear outcome of happy facial ex-pression denoting eye corners expanding, the lips rising. Figure 5 show the sad expression in that the eye side and the lips will contrast. This could obtain all the facial expression, but due to the aim and objectives of this stud we are limited to only sad and happy mood.

Figure 3. Showing happy mood of facial expression generated by behaviormetrics system (Arya G. J. 2014).

Figure 4. Showing sad mood of facial expression generated by behaviormetrics system (Arya G. J. 2014).

This study try to find possible way a manager through behavioral biometric sys-tem forecast employee productivity in certain rang of time. When employee productivity cannot be forecasted, it becomes a problem to the management. This proposed system could proffer cost effective and reasonable solution by providing a computerized way to study em-ployee activates and productivity.

Conclusion

With this data being encapsulated in in-dividual employee database records, the sys-tem framework captures individual behavioral phycology in two ways which are when happy or sad. When happy explain the probability of individual best performance output while when sad explains the probability of low out-put. HR Manager now with the help of the sys-tem compiles the result of the entire employee in an hour of work resumption in a day. With this the manager could ascertain daily output performance and as well predict monthly out-put with the help of history.

Recommendation

This system is recommended at all sectors such as education, government, re-tail organization, production and manufac-turing organization, transport, truism etc. This can only work in an organization that has an already running biometric system.


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With this the HR could intensively know the all the employee performance capacity and how he/she could motivate the employee.


References

Khatri, T., and Jindal, A. (2013). “Behavioral Biomet-rics: Extending Keystroke Dynamics to Finger Dynamics”. International Research Journal of Computers and Electronics Engineering 1 (1), 14 - 23

Arya, G. J., Ajish, K. S., and Rajasree, R. (2014). “Syn-thesize of Emotional Facial Expressions through Manipulating Facial Parameters”. International Conference on Control, Instrumentation, Com-munication and Computational Technologies. (1) 2, 911 – 916.

Agrawal, U., Giripunje, S., and Bajaj, P. (2013). “Emo-tion and Gesture Recognition with Soft Com-puting Tool for Drivers Assistance System in Human Centered Transportation”. IEEE Inter-national Conference on Systems, Man, and Cy-bernetics (4) 9.

Hong, K., Chalup, S. K., and King, A. R. (2013). “A Component Based Approach for Classifying the Seven Universal Facial Expressions of Emo-tion”. IEEE Symposium on Computational Intel-ligence for Creativity and Affective Computing (1)4, 1-4

Magazine (2013). Biometric Technology TodayZhuyz, J., Huz, H., Huy, S., Wuy, P., and Zhangy, J.

Y. (2013). “Mobile Behaviometrics: Models and Applications”. 2nd IEEE/CIC International Conference on Communication (1)9, 1- 8

Lou B. P., Ang, E. F., Belen, R. A., Bernardo, J. R., Boongaling, G. H., and Jonathan, B. C. (2004). “Facial Expression Recognition through Pattern Analysis of Facial Muscle Movements Utilizing Electromyogram Sensors”. IEEE TENCON, 600 – 603.

Chang, C., and Huang, V. (2010). “Personalized Fa-cial Expression Recognition in Indoor Environ-ments”. IEEE, (1) 2.

Zafeiriouy, S., and Pantic, M. (2010). Facial Behav-iometrics: the Case of Facial Deformation in Spontaneous Smile/Laughter

Agrawal, U., Giripunje, S., and Bajaj, P. (2013). “Emo-tion and Gesture Recognition with Soft Comput-ing Tool for Drivers Assistance System in Human Centered Transportation”. IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetic s(1)9, 4612 - 4616.

Oziem, D, Gralewski, L., Campbell, N., Dalton, C., Gib-son, D., Thomas, B. (2004). “Synthesising Facial Emotions”. Proceedings of the Theory and Prac-tice of Computer Graphics, IEEE computer soci-ety 0-7695-2137-1

Dao, T. T. (2013). “Knowledge-based personalized search engine for the Web-based Human Muscu-loskeletal System Resources (HMSR) in biome-chanics”. Journal of Biomedical Informatics 46, 160–173.

Davenport, T., and Short (1990). “The new Industrial

Engineering: Information Technology and Busi-ness process redesign”. Center for Information Systems Research, 3190.

Newell, S. (2012). “Implementing enterprise resource planning and knowledge management systems in tandem: fostering efficiency and innovation complementarity”. Pergamon Information and Organization 13, 25–52.

Wolberg, W. (1998). “Image morphing: a survey”. The Visual Computer 1, 360-372

Oluwaseun, S., and Fadiyaa, S. S., and Vanduhe, V. Z. (2014). “ Advancing big data for humanitarian needs” . Elsevier Procedia Engineering 78,88–95.

Tannenbaum, S. (1990). Human Resource Information Systems: User Group Implications. Journal of Systems Management, 41, 27-32.

Hoch, J. E. (2013). Shared leadership in enterprise re-source planning and human resource manage-ment system implementation. Human Resource Management Review, 23, 114–125.

Chlivickas, E. (2014). Contemporary Issues in Business, Management and Education International coop-eration and innovations for developing human resources system. Social and Behavioral Scienc-es, 110, 276 – 283.

Byars L. L., a. R. (2007). Human Resource Manage-ment (9 b.). Corell: McGrow-Hill.


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Abstratct. The Nigerian Banking sector over the years has been experiencing significant changes and development in its Information and Communication Technology. Among the development is the introduc-tion of Automated Teller Machine (ATM) that intends to reduce the number of customers in the banking halls as customers now can go to the closest ATM to do their banking transactions such as: withdrawals, deposits, bill payments, and funds transfer. The purpose of this paper was to measure customer satisfaction as regards to ATM services. The research was carried through survey design which questioned respondents on ATM services. The population of study mainly constituted of customers of United Bank for Africa within Lagos. The sample in this study consisted of 200 respondents who are users of the ATM services. The data collected was analyzed by use of multiple logistic regression analysis and Pearson correlation. The findings revealed that, necessary input to the bank management to increase customers’ satis-faction through improving ATM service quality. The focus should not be on ATM service quality dimensions only. This aspect should be augmented and integrated with other aspects of the service quality of banks for satisfaction of customers. This research concentrated on determinants of ATM service quality and its impact on consumer loyalty. Notwithstanding, the exploration did not examine the relationship between consumer loyalty and customer retention.

Keyword: Accessibility, ATM, Customer, HCI, Reliability, Quality.

1. INTRODUCTION

In recent years, banks have made their services increasingly convenient through elec-tronic banking. Electronic banking service makes use of computers to do money transac-tions. Donell (2003) viewed electronic bank-ing service as a service that consumers can access, by using Network framework or an In-ternet service to a bank’s computer center, to perform banking tasks, receive and pay bills, and so forth. Many other financial services can be gained access through the Internet. To most people, electronic banking service means 24-hour access to cash through an ATM or pay-checks deposited directly into checking or savings accounts (Hillier, 2002). Diniz (1998) in his view states that Electronic banking en-compasses a broad range of established and emerging technologies. Some are ‘‘front end’’ products and services that consumers choose, such as ATM cards and electronic banking services; others are ‘‘back end’’ technologies used by financial institutions to process mon-ey transactions. Some are tied to a consumer bank account; others are indifferent to a bank account but on the other hand store monetary value in a data warehouse or directly on a card.

AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF AUTOMATED TELLER MACHINE SERVICE QUALITY ON CUSTOMER

SATISFACTION (A CASE STUDY OF UNITED BANK OF AFRICA [UBA])

Adeleye Idowu Olusanya, Department of Management Information systemCyprus International University

Haspolat -Mersin 10-Turkey, North CyprusE-mail: [email protected]

Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya, Department of Management Information systemGirne American University

Girne-Mersin 10-Turkey, North CyprusE-mail: [email protected]


Case Study

Corresponding AuthorAdeleye Idowu Olusanya, Department of Management Information system, Cyprus International UniversityHaspolat -Mersin 10-Turkey, North CyprusE-mail: [email protected]


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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

In Nigeria the deployment of ATM by banks and its use by bank customers is just gaining ground and has burgeoned in recently. This happened after the recent consolidation of banks, which has in all probability, made it possible for more banks to afford to de-ploy ATMs or at least become part of shared networks (Fasan, 2007). The increased de-ployment of ATMs in the banking sector has made the issue of technology relevance im-portant. ATM awareness also ranked higher than awareness level about current accounts slightly below savings account (Omankhan-len, 2007).

In order to encourage customers to em-brace the technology and overcome their fears of putting their checks into a machine’s slot rather than a teller’s hand, banks originally did not charge customers any fees for using ATMs. In time, some banks started charging custom-ers for not using ATMs, through so-called “hu-man teller fees”- a charge for each time a cus-tomer uses a teller for a service that could be performed by an ATM. Banks that embraced the ATM profited handsomely, often growing far faster. At first, a bank’s ATMs could only be used by customers who already had current or savings accounts with that bank, through the bank’s proprietary ATM network (Ugwu, 2008).

A recent study by Intermarc Consulting Limited showed that ATM services provided by banks and non-financial institutions stood as the most popular e-business platform in Ni-geria (Intermarc, 2007).

2.1. Service Quality

The definition of service quality involves determining whether perceived service deliv-ery meets, exceeds or fail to meet customer expectation. Ladda and Sukhothai (2007). Ac-cording to Parauraman, Zeithmal and Berry (1988) service quality is the degree and direc-tion of discrepancy between the customer’s perception and expectation or the extent to which a service meets or exceeds customer expectations. Service quality perception result

from a comparison of customer expectation with actual service performance and service quality is a measure of how well the service level delivered matches customer expectation.

2.2. Concept of Customer Satisfaction

The academic literature postulates that customer satisfaction is a function of the dis-crepancy between a consumer’s prior expecta-tions and his or her perception regarding the purchase (Churchill and Surprenant, 1982; Ol-iver, 1977; Tse and Wilton, 1988; Yi, 1990).’ At the point when an experience is superior to what the customers expects, there is thought to be certain disconfirmation of the desire, and an ideal client assessment is anticipated.

3. OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

An automated teller machine (ATM) service continues to grow in importance in the banking sector. From the customer’s perspec-tive ATM services has significantly reduced the amount of queues in banks, time spent, and cost of searching for a particular bank to make transaction and also increased convenience. The satisfaction of customers is of great im-portance to any organization. Many commer-cial banks now make use of ATM service as a means of satisfying their customer through convenience and availability of services. The objective of the study

1. One of the objectives of the study is to understand the expectations of the customers as regards to creating a secure environment and ensure that there is a level of privacy for the purpose of reducing the cost in-volved in using the ATM.

2. Another objective is constructing the automated teller machine in the most simple and easiest way to use by every customer. According to Preece (1994) he explains that us-ability is concerned with making systems easy to learn and easy to use. (Preece, 1994) also states Hu-man-Computer Interaction (HCI) is about designing computer systems


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that support people so that they can carry out their activities productive-ly and safely. Therefore it will be a wise decision if commercial banks can make their ATM machines more users friendly to ensure efficiency of operation which will in turn yield an effective service delivery.

3. Determine whether the speed of op-eration of the automated teller ma-chine has an effect on its reliability to customers.

4. To examine how the ease in access-ing the location of the automated teller machine will be of conve-nience to the bank customers.

3.1. Scope of The Study

The area of coverage for this study is limited to employees and customers of United Bank of Nigeria (UBA) that have an ATM card and make use of the ATM operating in Opebi, Ikeja, Lagos state of Nigeria and within the period ATM became prominent among com-mercial banks in Nigeria. The rationale behind the choice of Opebi, Ikeja, Lagos state is to have a reasonable amount of respondent and to enable ease in administering the question-naire. The operational period of 2007-2010 was chosen because it was the peak period when the automated teller machine (ATM) be-came prominent in Nigeria.

4. METHODOLOGY

For this research, administering of ques-tionnaire to commercial bank customers that hold ATM cards would be considered the most appropriate data collection instrument. For the purpose of this study a newly formulated questionnaire will be adopted. The variables used in this study was measured on a five point likert scale anchored by 1(strongly disagree), 2(disagree), 3(undecided), 4(Agree), 5(strong agree). The questionnaire will be divided into different sections which measured four dimen-sions of ATM service quality and its effect on customer satisfaction; Section A contains in-formation about the respondent’s background.

Section B contains the four dimensions; secu-rity and privacy dimension contains 4 (items); Efficiency of operation contains 4 (items); Speed of operation contains 4(items); Con-venience contains 6 (items); Cost involved in the use of ATM contains 3(items); Effective service delivery contains 5(items); Reliability contains 5 (items) and Accessibility contains 3 (items). The questions that were contained in the questionnaire were all in close ended.

Hypothesis 1H0: Security and privacy of ATM does

not affect cost involved in the use of ATM.H1: Security and privacy affects cost in-

volved in the use of ATMHypothesis 2H0: Efficiency of operation does not

have a significant impact on effectiveness of service delivery.

H1: Efficiency of operation has a signifi-cant impact on the effectiveness of service de-livery.

Hypothesis 3H0: There is no relationship between

speed of operation and reliability of service provided.

H1: There is a relationship between speed of operation and reliability of service provided


convenience and the accessibility of the ATM.H1: There is a relationship between convenience and the accessibility of the ATM.

4.1. Test Used For Data Analysis

SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Science) version 21.0 was used to compute and analyze the data.

4.2. Result And Analysis

The Pearson correlation was used to es-tablish the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The regression analysis measured the contribution of the in-dependent variable to the dependent variable.

Hypothesis 1H0: Security and privacy of ATM does


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not affect cost involved in the use of ATM.H1: Security and privacy affects cost in-

volved in the use of ATMObjective: the standard multiple regres-

sion was used to generate results that will indi-cate how well the set of variables representing security and privacy of ATM and how it will affect the cost involve in the use of the ATM.

Table 1: Model Summary

Model Summary

.333a .111 .093 1.854Model1

R R SquareAdjustedR Square

Std. Error ofthe Estimate

Predictors: (Constant), THERE IS NO INTRUTIONWHILE I MAKE TRANSACTION, THE LOCATION OFTHE ATM IS SECURE FOR TRANSACTION, MYACCOUNT CAN ONLY BE ACCESSED BY ME, I FEELSAVE WHILE MAKING USE OF THE ATM AT ANYTIMEOF THE DAY

a.

The model summary. It shows how much of the variance in the dependent variable (cost involved in the use of the ATM) is explained by the model (there is no intrusion while I make transaction, the location of the ATM is secure for transaction, my account can only be accessed by me, I feel save while making use of the ATM at any time of the day). In this case the R square is 0.111 expressed by a percent-age, this explains 11.1% of the variance in the cost involved in the use of the ATM.

Table 2: ANOVAANOVAb

83.536 4 20.884 6.078 .000a

670.059 195 3.436753.595 199

RegressionResidualTotal

Model1

Sum ofSquares df Mean Square F Sig.

Predictors: (Constant), THERE IS NO INTRUTION WHILE I MAKE TRANSACTION,THE LOCATION OF THE ATM IS SECURE FOR TRANSACTION, MY ACCOUNT CANONLY BE ACCESSED BY ME, I FEEL SAVE WHILE MAKING USE OF THE ATM ATANYTIME OF THE DAY

a.

Dependent Variable: COST INVOLVED IN THE USE OF THE ATMb.

Dependent Variable; cost involved in the use of the ATM

Since F cal (6.078) > (1.97) at 0.000 level of significance, therefore we accept our alternative hypothesis H1 and reject the null hypothesis H0. This implies that security and privacy affects cost involved in the use of ATM.

Table 3: Coefficients Coefficientsa

9.900 .684 14.463 .000

.043 .161 .022 .268 .789

.452 .164 .221 2.753 .006

.382 .140 .215 2.726 .007

-.297 .136 -.175 -2.187 .030

(Constant)I FEEL SAVE WHILEMAKING USE OF THEATM AT ANYTIME OF THEDAYTHE LOCATION OF THEATM IS SECURE FORTRANSACTIONMY ACCOUNT CAN ONLYBE ACCESSED BY METHERE IS NOINTRUTION WHILE IMAKE TRANSACTION

Model1

B Std. Error

UnstandardizedCoefficients

Beta

StandardizedCoefficients

t Sig.

Dependent Variable: COST INVOLVED IN THE USE OF THE ATMa.

The B coefficient shows a positive re-lationship between security and privacy and the cost involved in the use of ATM. The ta-ble shows which of the variables included in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable; therefore beta values are used for the comparison. In this table, the larg-est beta coefficient is 0.221 which shows that the location of the ATM is secure for transac-tion. This means that the location of the bank’s ATM will determine the security of custom-ers when using the machine. This is because it makes the strongest unique contribution to ex-plaining the dependent variable (cost involved in the use of the ATM).

Decision: based on the analysis above for which all calculated values are above the critical values, the null hypothesis (H0) is therefore rejected while the alternative hy-pothesis (H1) is accepted; which states that se-curity and privacy affects cost involved in the use of ATM.Hypothesis 2

H0: Efficiency of operation does not have a significant impact on effectiveness of service delivery.

H1: Efficiency of operation has a signifi-cant impact on the effectiveness of service de-livery.

Objective: the standard multiple regres-sion was used to generate results that will indi-cate how well the set of variables representing efficiency of operation and its impact on the effectiveness of service delivery.


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Table 4: Model SummaryModel Summary

.471a .222 .206 3.494Model1

R R SquareAdjustedR Square

Std. Error ofthe Estimate

Predictors: (Constant), THE EFFECIENCY OF THEATM IS A DETERMINANT OF CUSTOMERSATISFACTION, THE ATM FUNCTIONS PERFECTLY,THE ATM OFTEN BREAKDOWN, THEUSER-FRIENDLINESS OF THE ATM AS AN EFFECTON YOUR PERCEPTION OF SERVICE QUALITY

a.

The model summary. It shows how much of the variance in the dependent variable (efficiency of operation) is explained by the model (the efficiency of the ATM is a determi-nant of customer satisfaction, the ATM func-tions perfectly, the ATM often breakdown, the user-friendliness of the ATM as an effect on your perception of service quality). In this case the R square value is 0.222 expressed in a percentage; this explains 22.2% of the vari-ance in the efficiency of operation.

Table 5: ANOVAANOVAb

677.451 4 169.363 13.874 .000a

2380.369 195 12.2073057.820 199

RegressionResidualTotal

Model1

Sum ofSquares df Mean Square F Sig.

Predictors: (Constant), THE EFFECIENCY OF THE ATM IS A DETERMINANT OFCUSTOMER SATISFACTION, THE ATM FUNCTIONS PERFECTLY, THE ATMOFTEN BREAKDOWN, THE USER-FRIENDLINESS OF THE ATM AS AN EFFECTON YOUR PERCEPTION OF SERVICE QUALITY

a.

Dependent Variable: EFFECTIVE SERVICE DELIVERYb.

Dependent Variable; effective service delivery

Since F cal (13.874) > (1.97) at 0.000 level of significance, therefore we accept our alternative hypothesis H1 and reject the null hypothesis H0. This implies that efficiency of operation has a significant impact on the ef-fectiveness of service delivery.Table 6: Coefficients

Coefficientsa

8.972 1.911 4.695 .000

.467 .317 .102 1.474 .142

-.231 .274 -.055 -.842 .401

1.235 .210 .392 5.883 .000

.435 .280 .104 1.556 .121

(Constant)THEUSER-FRIENDLINESSOF THE ATM AS ANEFFECT ON YOURPERCEPTION OFSERVICE QUALITYTHE ATM OFTENBREAKDOWNTHE ATM FUNCTIONSPERFECTLYTHE EFFECIENCY OFTHE ATM IS ADETERMINANT OFCUSTOMERSATISFACTION

Model1

B Std. Error

UnstandardizedCoefficients

Beta

StandardizedCoefficients

t Sig.

Dependent Variable: EFFECTIVE SERVICE DELIVERYa.

The B coefficient shows a positive re-

lationship between effective service delivery and efficiency of operation. The table shows which of the variables included in the model contributed to the prediction of the dependent variable; therefore beta values are used for the comparison. In this table, the largest beta co-efficient is 0.392 which shows that the ATM functions perfectly. This means that the ATM functions at a level that satisfies the customers. This is because it makes the strongest unique contribution to explaining the dependent vari-able (effective service delivery).

Decision: based on the analysis above for which all calculated values are above the critical values, the null hypothesis (H0) is therefore rejected while the alternative hy-pothesis (H1) is accepted; Efficiency of opera-tion has a significant impact on the effective-ness of service delivery. Hypothesis 3

H0: There is no relationship between speed of operation and reliability of service provided.

H1: There is a relationship between speed of operation and reliability of service provided. Table 7: Correlation

Correlations

1 .178*.011

200 200.178* 1.011200 200

Pearson CorrelationSig. (2-tailed)NPearson CorrelationSig. (2-tailed)N

SPEED OF OPERATION

RELIABILITY

SPEED OFOPERATION RELIABILITY

Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).*.

The correlation r = 0.178 means that 3.17% shared variance between reliability and speed of operation. This means that reliability helps to explain 3.17% of variance in the re-spondent’s scores.

Interpretation: the significant relation-ship between reliability and speed of operation was investigated using the Pearson’s correla-tion coefficient. There is a positive relation-ship between the two variables (r = 0.178, n = 200), with significant level of reliability being associated with the speed of operation.

Decision: the correlation (r = 0.178*),


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between reliability and speed of operation is significant at 0.05 level, thus we reject null hypothesis (H0) and accept alternative hypoth-esis (H1). This implies that there is a signifi-cant relationship between reliability and speed of operation.

Discussion of result: from the above hypothesis tested, it is evident that a positive and significant relationship exists between the two variables; therefore servicing the ATM of-ten is advised to be adopted in order to make the service to be provided on time and faster.


convenience and the accessibility of the ATM.H1: There is a relationship between con-

venience and the accessibility of the ATM. Table 8: Correlation

Correlations

1 .282**.000

200 200.282** 1.000200 200

Pearson CorrelationSig. (2-tailed)NPearson CorrelationSig. (2-tailed)N

CONVENIENCE

ACCESSIBILITY

CONVENIENCE

ACCESSIBILITY

Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).**.

The correlation r = 0.282 means that 7.95% shared variance between ac-cessibility and convenience. This means that accessibility helps to explain 7.955 of variance in the respondent’s score.

Interpretation: the significant relation-ship between accessibility and convenience was investigated using Pearson’s correla-tion coefficient. There is a positive correla-tion between the two variables (r = 0.282, n = 200), with significant level of accessi-bility being associated with convenience.

Decision: the correlation (r = 0.282), be-tween accessibility and convenience is highly significant at 0.01 level, thus we reject null hy-pothesis (H0) and accept the alternative hypoth-esis (H1). This implies that there is a relation-ship between convenience and accessibility.

4.3. Discussion of Results

The result of the above tested hypoth-esis shows that there is a positive relationship between accessibility and convenience, there-fore creating accessible point of making use of the ATM will make transaction convenient for the customers.

5. RECOMMENDATION

Based on the findings of this research work, the following recommendation has been drawn up to help enhance service quality of automated teller machines (ATM).

1. To reduce the customers concerns about perceived risk because of se-curity and privacy concerns, the bank should improve the quality of interaction with the customers to al-leviate these apprehensions with a view to improve ATM service qual-ity (Merrilees, 2002).

2. To further improve the service qual-ity, it is recommended that the ATM service should be able to provide enhanced interactivity, diversified offerings, and facilitate customers to participate in improving the service encounter with ATM and make it a memorable and pleasant experience.

3. The banks should focus not only on the satisfaction of ATM users, but also aim at delighting them to ensure their retention.

4. It is evident that convenience, ef-ficient operation, security and pri-vacy, reliability and responsiveness are not the only characteristics that influence customers’ satisfaction. The other factors that contribute to customer satisfaction include trust, value, and image of the bank, (Ranaweera and Prabhu, 2003). Bank management should moni-tor the environment and identify the trends through marketing intel-ligence. They need to constantly up-date and differentiate their ATM service quality dimensions to ensure


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continuous satisfaction and reten-tion of customers, and optimize their limited resources.

6. CONCLUSION AND POLICY IMPLICATION

The rapid increase in number of auto-mated delivery channels and customers’ pref-erence to use ATM because of multifaceted attributes are placing pressure on banks to respond aggressively to meet the customers’ needs. The study provides necessary input to the bank management to increase customers’ satisfaction through improving ATM service quality. The focus should not be on ATM service quality dimensions only. This aspect should be augmented and integrated with oth-er aspects of the service quality of banks for satisfaction of customers.

The rapid diffusion of ICT in Nigerian banking sector provides a platform to use in-novative technologies to enhance operational efficiency and quality of service to attain and retain customers. The rapid growth in use of ATMs in Nigeria offers opportunities to banks to use customers’ passion for this innovative service for strategic advantage. The banks should proactively monitor customers’ prefer-ences with regard to use of this delivery chan-nel for effective response. Bank should also focus on important aspects of security and pri-vacy as well as efficient operation of ATMs. In conclusion the banks should also augment and diversify their offerings through ATM and use this medium to build a strong and sustained relationship with customers.

7. SUGGESTION FOR FURTHER

STUDIES

This research concentrated on determi-nants of ATM service quality and its impact on consumer loyalty. Notwithstanding, the exploration did not examine the relationship between consumer loyalty and customer re-tention. Additional research may well explore the relationship between these two constructs. The formation of satisfaction process takes

place overtime (Andreasen, 1977). The con-clusions of the study relates to a specific time in present. Additional study should be done on longitudinal basis to address the interactive and technological dimensions of ATM service quality that affect the dissatisfaction level of customers.

Age has a critical impact on the example of utilization of innovation based administra-tions. By and large the young want to utilize imaginative and innovation based conveyance channel like ATM that offer different advan-tages and self-governance of executing trans-actions (Wan et al., 2005). The old age people are generally shy of use of ATM because of perceived risk of failure, complexity, security, and lack of personalized service (Moutinho, 1992). Future research should explore the as-sociation between age and attitude and deter-mine its effects on the ATM service quality and customers’ satisfaction.

The price is an essential aspect that af-fects the customers’ perception of ATM ser-vice quality (Surjadjaja et al. 2003; Iqbal et al. 2003). The fee charge identifies with the im-pression of non-competitiveness and injustice and may lead to change in service provider banks (Colgate and Hedge, 2001). The pre-vailing economic conditions in Pakistan have made the people more prices sensitive. This aspect needs further exploration as essential dimension affecting ATM service quality and customers’ satisfaction.


REFERENCES

ANDREASEN, A. R. (1977). ‘A Taxonomy of Con-sumer Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction Measures’, Journal of Consumer Affairs, 11(2), pp. 11–24.

Churchill, G. A. and Surprenant, C. (1982). ‘An Investi-gation into the Determinants of Customer Satis-faction’, Journal of Marketing Research, 19(4).

Colgate, M. and Hedge, R. (2001). ‘An investigation into the switching process in retail banking ser-vices’, International Journal of Bank Market-ing, 19(5), pp. 201–212.

Donnell, Y. K. (2003). New System of banking. 24-25. Available from iist.org/Vol6//SITv6, P373-393, olatokun63.pdf.

Fasan, O. (2007). The Adoption of ATM in Nigerian


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Hillier, D. (2002). Money Transmission and the Pay-ments Market. United Kingdom: Financial World Publishing

Intermarc Consulting Limited (2007). Nigeria e-bank-ing customer survey on cards, ATM and PoS. Available at: http://www.thenationonlineng.com/dynamicpage.asp?id=36290 (Accessed: 23 April 2015)

Ladda, V. and Sukhothai, T. (2007). ‘The Impact of Ser-vice Quality and Consumer Decision Factors on Brand Equity’, International Business & Eco-nomics Research Journal, 6(3).

Merrilees, B. (2002). ‘Interactivity Design as the Key to Managing Customer Relations in E-Commerce’, Journal of Relationship Marketing, 1(3-4), pp. 111–126.

Moutinho, L. (1992). ‘Customer Satisfaction Measure-ment: Prolonged Satisfaction with ATMs’, Inter-national Journal of Bank Marketing, 10(7), pp. 30–37.

Oliver, R. L. (1993). ‘A conceptual model of service quality and service satisfaction: Compatible goals, different concepts’, Advances in Service Marketing and Management, 2pp. 65–85.

Omankhanlen, O. (2009). ATM fraud rises: Nigerians groan in Nigeria

Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V. A. and Berry, L. L. (1994). ‘Reassessment of Expectations as a Comparison Standard in Measuring Service Quality: Implications for Further Research’, Journal of Marketing, 58(1).

Preece, J., Benyon, D., Carey, T., Holland, S. and Rog-ers, Y. (1994). Human-Computer Interaction: Concepts and Design. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers

Ranaweera, C. and Prabhu, J. (2003). ‘The influence of satisfaction, trust and switching barriers on cus-tomer retention in a continuous purchasing set-ting’, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 14(4), pp. 374–395.

Surjadjaja, H., Ghosh, S. and Antony, J. (2003). ‘Deter-mining and assessing the determinants of e‐ser-vice operations’, Managing Service Quality: An International Journal, 13(1), pp. 39–53.

Tse, D. K. and Wilton, P. C. (1988). ‘Models of Con-sumer Satisfaction Formation: An Extension’, Journal of Marketing Research, 25(2).

Ugwu, E. (2008). CBN, banks to tackle ATMs’ hitches. Available at: http://www.guardiannewsngr.com (Accessed: 24 April 2015)

Wan, W. W. N., Luk, C. and Chow, C. W. C. (2005). ‘Customers’ adoption of banking channels in Hong Kong’, International Journal of Bank Marketing, 23(3), pp. 255–272.


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Abstract. Mobile marketing has gained immense popularity in the contemporary business world because of its convenience in sending promotional messages to individual customers. In Turkey, this method of advertis-ing has enhanced effective dissemination of information and is thus highly regarded; both by the business com-munity and the consumers. Mobile marketing is well known for its ability to overcome barriers of place and time that are often associated with traditional advertising methods. Using mobile marketing, companies are in a position to reach out to customers from wherever they are due to the portable nature of the mobile phone. This study seeks to explore the impact of mobile marketing in Turkey’s consumer market. It aims at establishing whether mobile marketing is an effective marketing tool in Turkey’s consumer market, why there is an increasing popularity of mobile marketing and whether there is a general acceptability of mobile marketing in Turkey.

The study begins by exploring the concept of mobile marketing and its effectiveness as a marketing media. The nature and potential of mobile marketing are discussed and so are the ethical issues affecting mobile marketing. Given the level of popularity and convenience that mobile marketing exudes, it can be established that mobile marketing is an effective form of advertising in the Turkish consumer market and that companies could tap this potential to enhance profitability.Olotewo Akpesiri John.

Keywords: Consumer, Ethics, Impact Market, Mobile

1. INTRODUCTION

Mobile marketing in Turkey’s consumer market has provided an efficient communica-tion and marketing avenue that enhances the dissemination of information in the consum-er market; thereby enabling more informed decision-making. This follows the increasing momentum in the use of mobile marketing in the contemporary business world. Mobile marketing is now one of the most preferred modes of advertisement, not only because of its convenience but also because of the abil-ity to deliver promotional messages regardless of the customers’ geographical location. In es-sence, mobile marketing eliminates the ‘place’ constraint and ‘time’ constraints which often challenge other forms of advertisement in that customers can get promotional messages any time of the day through mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is also preferred because companies are assured that the messages reach the intended audience through targeted marketing. Mobile marketing has affected the consumer market in a significant manner; mostly concerning the acceptability of mobile marketing among consumers. This means that apart from allowing customers to get adequate information on company products thus en-hancing decision making, ethical issues have also emanated from mobile marketing. Ex-amples include privacy issues, the need for companies to seek permission and acceptance before sending, marketing to children and the frequency of advertising. This paper seeks to

THE IMPACT OF MOBILE MARKETING IN CONSUMER

MARKET: A CASE STUDY OF TURKEY

Dr. John Akpesiri Olotewo, Department of Business ManagementGirne American University


Dr. Samson Oluwaseun Fadiya, Department of Management Information systemGirne American University



Case Study

Corresponding AuthorDr. John Akpesiri Olotewo, Department of Business Management, Girne American UniversityGirne-Mersin 10-Turkey, North CyprusE-mail: [email protected]


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establish the impact of mobile marketing in the consumer market; with Turkey as the case study. It will examine the perceptions of con-sumers on mobile marketing, general accept-ability, and the kind of impact that this form of marketing has had on them.

2. HYPOTHESIS

Mobile marketing in the Turkish consumer market will experience increased growth as the popularity of mobile marketing increases in the market.

3. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

Is mobile marketing an effective promo-tional tool in the Turkish consumer market?

What are the reasons behind the increas-ing popularity of mobile marketing?

How is the general acceptability of mo-bile marketing in the Turkish market

4. LITERATURE REVIEW4.1. Mobile marketing: Definition

There is no definite definition of the term mobile marketing. It can be defined as a set of practices that enhances engagement and communication of organizations with their audience in a manner that is interactive and relevant through the use of mobile devic-es or networks. It entails the use of wireless media that reaches out to the customers in a bid to provide them with personalized infor-mation and that is determinant of the loca-tion and time the customer will find relevant. This enhances the promotion ideas, services and goods so as to bring forth the value for the esteemed shareholders (Michael & Salter, 2006). Mobile marketing and in-game adver-tisements have been on the rise in the recent years. Companies have taken advantage of the increasing growth of mobile phone ownership and technology to send content to consumers using SMS (Short Message Services), MMS (Multimedia Services), Bluetooth and infrared (Pelau & Zegreanu, 2010). Internet enabled phones also ensure that individuals can access different social networks, such that companies take this opportunity to advertise themselves.

In-game advertising is also growing in popu-larity, where companies sponsor the devel-opment of particular games and then put up advertisements in between the levels (Cadin, 2006).

4.2. Rationale for mobile advertising

The fact that different homesteads have mobile phones forms a basis to the argument that mobile advertising is efficient in a com-pany’s advertisement of its products. The cur-rent wave of technological growth has con-tracted the world to global village and there is increased connectivity between individuals and companies thus making mobile marketing a viable endeavor. The advancement in mobile technology further makes the use of mobile phones for advertising highly viable in the contemporary world.

Before giving your customers the option of mobile advertising, there are several ques-tions you need to factor in:

• Are your prospective customers in possession of mobile phones or de-vices?

• How can you create a cost effective wireless ‘tether’ so as to keep the customers in a continuous loop of communication?

• Will the messages that you will send open up new opportunities in busi-ness?

In a study conducted by Forester, the findings were that by year 2005, sixty seen per cent of the American citizens had at least each a mobile phone in their homes (Busi-ness Communications Review, 2005). Most of the homes had up to four phones. By the year 2009 the mobile contracts had risen up to 4.6 billion worldwide, justifying the increase of mobile phones (Pelau & Zegreanu, 2010).the observance of this trend made the market-ers to maximize on the usage of the phones. Use of mobile phones enhanced communica-tion to the potential and existing customers. The mobile phones are highly flexible and one can convey messages any time and any place. Through advanced technology, market-ers can send even photos and videos of their products to the consumers. At one fell swoop,


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the marketers get immediate answers or views on their products from the consumers over the social networks. This helps them plan on how to come up with ideas that will facilitate con-sumer satisfaction (Michael & Salter, 2006).

4.3. Effectiveness of mobile marketingMobile marketing has been an effective

activity where the companies make signifi-cant sales to the already acquired customers. Through this marketing, there is a possibility of retaining customers due to the communica-tion process that is done between the compa-ny representatives and individual customers. There is an assurance that, the sent messages will definitely get to their intended destinations or individuals. Mobile marketing is highly in-novative and a relevant tool in direct market-ing in that an assumption that customers’ have and must use their mobile phones (Anckar & D’Incau, 2002).

4.4. Pros and cons of mobile marketing

Through mobile marketing the business-man is in a position to meet other consumers through the established relationship with the initial consumers. This fosters customer loy-alty as well as building customer experience. There is also the freedom of the customers or consumers in contacting the company directly. The wireless marketing has come in to help the company realize maximum profits because the MMS and SMS services are not really ex-pensive and saves money than the television and print adverts (Michael & Salter, 2006).

There are various advantages and dis-advantages that are found when using mobile marketing programs. The level of acceptance in mobile marketing is quite low but to the few individuals who complied, the method is highly effective. The use of mobile phones is the best for it enhances privacy and ensur-ing that there is personal communication with the concerned individual. It is a quite effec-tive in that consumers are reached wherever they are, because of the mobile phones. The growth of technology has enhanced contracted world making the world a global village. One can access e mails from anywhere through the internet – enabled phones or network deices.

The potential consumers are reached through the use of phones (Leek & Christodoulides, 2009).

Mobile marketing makes the process of advertising very cheap and convenient. The mobile ownership has really gone up thus en-couraging the use of mobile marketing to be highly effective and to fetch more consum-ers. The one on one communication with the consumer places the application of the mobile marketing program to serve its function in a direct manner. The marketer is able to contact the consumer any time and also make connec-tions with the customers friends who can also qualify to become the consumers too. In rela-tion to the cost of marketing, mobile market-ing is cheaper by far when compared to other Medias like television and prints like newspa-pers and magazines. There is loyalty of con-sumers as well of that of companies. One is able to give promotions and award to the con-sumers because of the rapport created between the two.

The mobile marketing programs are also bearing some disadvantages. For exam-ple, there are various attitudes that come with the way the application of mobile marketing is done. Most of the consumers have received spam messages and confuse them with genu-ine ones. This makes them decline offers made in their databases. This decreases the number of consumer enrolment. The phones are not in a position to detect the difference between spam and genuine communication (McCarthy, 2005).

The intrusion done by the mobile mar-keting through sending of voluminous mes-sages to the consumers who are intended or to wrong ones makes they have a negative attitude towards the brand and even end up discouraging would-be consumers. When the fears of consumers in the threats posed to them in location, identity, information and choices, the dislike of mobile marketing affects the sales of a company’s brand. Despite the fact that consumers have phones, those phones, the phones are not modified to received some so-phisticated data like videos and photos. This creates illusory marketing achievements that bring zero or negligible results.


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4.5. The potential of mobile marketing and value creation

Mobile marketing promises to elevate business communication through increased convenience and more targeted marketing and can thus be considered a potentially valuable form of marketing. Mobile marketing is well known for its ability to overcome barriers of distance and time in that users can receive promotional messages from wherever they are and that they may receive the messages at any time as opposed to traditional methods where a person for example would have to watch TV or read a newspaper in order to know about a particular product (McCarthy, 2005). Mo-bile marketing therefore has potential due to increased convenience and ease in use which makes it highly preferred by marketers. The fact that mobile marketing can be used to con-duct targeted marketing through concentrating on one region of the market denotes that mo-bile marketing is highly useful where market segmentation has been done. Marketing also promises to reach a considerable number of people due to the increased popularity of mo-bile phones and mobile internet thus indicat-ing that mobile marketing has great potential (Pelau & Zegreanu, 2010). Mobile marketing is expected to create value for companies that use it to advertise in that it will ensure that the messages reach the targeted markets at the most cost effective manner. Notably, mobile marketing is cheaper than traditional forms of advertisement because marketers mostly use SMS and MMS that can be sent as broadcast messages. Accordingly, the marketers are able to reach a considerable number of people at a low cost.

4.6. Customer attitudes towards mobile marketing (Acceptance)

The fact that the customers have varying attitudes when it comes to accepting mobile marketing affects the viability of mobile mar-keting. This affects the role of permission and acceptance in mobile marketing. The negative attitudes portrayed by the customers are not to be neglected for they help the company repre-sentatives to know what to improve and what

to remove in their adverts. The positive atti-tude also comes in handy as the marketer will be guided or be in a position to measure his work and estimated outcomes.

The attitude factor is in most cases af-fected by the threats to the consumer’s privacy in: identity, information, choice and location annoying (Sultan & Rohm, 2008; Barutçu, 2007). The customers are in perpetual fear because they feel that when they expose their information, it is going to be accessed by the hackers. A study conducted in USA for ages between 16 and 30 showed that just a51 % were satisfied by the mobile marketing while 42% percent were not satisfied at all. The other cause of negative attitude is the vol-umes of messages that are received on a daily basis. They are intrusive into people lies and thus cause people to form a negative attitude in mobile marketing (Sultan & Rohm, 2008; Barutçu, 2007).

Most of the adults are no longer inter-ested with the mobile marketing messages, this is because the impromptu messages con-tain content that is not pleasing to the adults or the brands being advertised are not in line with what the adults want. On the contrary, the young generation is much welcoming the mes-sages. This is an indication that the adults who are one in position of purchasing the brands have a negative attitude towards the channels used to advertise the brands (Barutçu, 2007).

The attitude is determined by the fact that, a mobile phone ca not detects the differ-ence between spam and genuine communi-cation. This ends up irritating customers and forces them want to refrain from the mobile marketing messages. If the customer is inter-rupted in his/her daily routine or work, he de-velops hatred towards the brand. He would to have a specific time to receive the messages or frequency to receive the messages in the agreed time.

The consumer attitudes differ in so many factors. This is influenced by so many factors: age, level of income or education. Older people as opposed to younger genera-tion are not that welcoming to mobile mar-keting. The younger people are appreciative to the mobile marketing messages although they do not have a higher purchasing power.


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The marketers are therefore supposed to put in to consideration to the classification ac-cording to demographics in their planning and implementation of the mobile marketing. The consumers are supposed to be advised about the policies in their privacy rights (Sultan & Rohm, 2008; Barutçu, 2007).

The mobile marketing message should be able to entertain the consumer. In this way there is the possibility of changing the attitude of the consumer. The content should at most be visual, or else be sensational to the con-sumer. It should also be able to convey it mes-sage: it should be aesthetic as well as func-tional in its purpose. To change the attitude of the consumer, you need to be offering time saying applications to busy businessmen. By doing this, mobile marketing will obtain a lot from different quarters, more so those that are having a lot of money but don’t have time to go checking prices (Amen, 2010).

4.7. The role of permission and acceptance in mobile marketing

The role of permission and acceptance applies in the case where the marketers just send messages to the consumers without the latter are consent. This behavior leads to an-noyance and at times dislike towards that com-pany. This portrays a poor marketing strategy where unintended messages get to customers who never subscribed for them. Widespread spamming and frustration in the user could easily diminish the potential in the mobile marketing (Haig, 2002).This brings the ques-tion of whether marketers should seek consent of the consumers before sending them mes-sages. In their researches, Barnes and Scorno-vacca (2004) argue that the consumers would be glad if they were allowed to make decision on when to receive the messages from the marketers, thus appreciating mobile market-ing more.

Ensuring that the customers are given a chance to make choices on when to be con-tacted gives the marketers an opportunity to conduct mobile marketing in a more efficient manner than forcing themselves into the cus-tomers. Conducting the process in the right manner prevents the customers from wearing

out thus increasing the efficiency in the mobile marketing (Barwise & Strong, 2002).

In reference to Barnes and Scornovacca (2004) model, permission and acceptance, there were factor to be considered in mobile marketing: WSP, personalization and con-tent, frequency, time, brand. The participants agreed that, they will be receiving a limited number of messages per day at a scheduled time and with the only company and brands they have subscribed. There was also wireless service provider control. This enhanced filter-ing of the messages and the senders. The per-mission was also discussed in that, consumers should have an ‘opt in’ and ‘out’ at any stage. This shows that the consumer has a choice.

4.8. Ethical issues in mobile marketing

One major ethical issue in mobile mar-keting emanates from hacking the computer systems or the internet systems. The marketers are known to purchase information retrieved from private individuals’ database accessed without the owner’s consent and retrieve in-formation that they expose to the children and others who are vulnerable to internet adver-tisement. This act of violating privacy terms ha contributed greatly in to having the custom-ers shy away from accepting to be sent mes-sages through mobile marketing.

The hacking of individual or customer privacy has been facilitated by the legal sys-tem that is compromising with the hackers or not asserting the right pressure on the wrong doers. There are no key regulations on the customers’ information hence the intrusion of people’s privacy Gurdu and Ranchhod (2009). A general study conducted by Amen (2010) has confirmed the customer fears in that they don’t have any confidence in mobile market-ing due to the security concerns. Some texts that are sent to the customers cannot be replied back for they are automated. They do not have an option to reply and suggest what one wants. Many of the customers, whose privacy rights are messed with, do not really know what to uphold in privacy rights. They are not exposed when it comes to the legislation of their rights. There are some threats that are associated with mobile marketing: identity, location, informa-


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tion and choices.Threat to identityDue the usage of open directory, the

marketers send advertisement with consum-er’s numbers to other people. This exposes their privacy thus making his/her identity ex-posed. The one in charge is to larger extent in position to know the other content of the con-sumer and this can be really dangerous for the customers.

Threat to locationWith the use of a mobile phone that has

an enabled Geographical Positioning System (GPS), the user can be traced easily. The one in charge of sending the messages can easily target the phone receiving the message as well as the location of the owner. This robs the re-cipient of the message real privacy.

Threat to informationThe user’s information is as well at risk

because, if the databases are exposed, his/her whereabouts are exposed as well. This shows that the information is not guarded as it is sup-posed to. When one sends opt- out message, it confirms the existence of that number and the database. This poses the threat of hackers and can interfere with vital information. When you also opt- out in this case, you confirm to the other party that the database is active.

Threat to choicesThe marketers do not give the consumer

freedom to make a choice. They push messag-es to the consumers as if they are forcing con-sumers to accept a new product. The random advertisements that are for new brands are pushed in the users phones; this is a threat to the choice and also to the taste of the consum-er. If the users opt-out, the message becomes a confirmation that his number is active. In this case the user feels that, mobile marketing is a disturbance to his privacy. Users are at times turning away to other brands for they feel that mobile marketing is highly intrusive.

4.9. Mobile marketing in Turkey’s consum-er market

The mobile communication market in Turkey has increased significantly since 1994, both in terms of subscribers and GSM opera-tors thus making the country a viable market

target for mobile marketers. Mobile marketing use in the country is characterized by innova-tive strategies and as noted by Şeflek (2010), Turkey’s mobile marketing advancement is set to cause ripples in a market where this new trend is becoming increasingly popular. Ac-cording to Şeflek (2010), 33 million ads are viewed every month via AdMob’s network only; signifying the massive rate at which mo-bile marketing is picking up in Turkey.

The success of mobile marketing is en-hanced by the growing number of populace who possess mobile phones within the country and the enthusiasm of youths toward mobile marketing. As at the end of 2004, 50 percent of the country’s population (34,707,549) had adopted mobile phones and by 2007, there were 58,055,434 mobile phone users in the country (Turkish Statistical Institute, 2007; Telecommunication Authority, 2007). Hur-riyet Daily News notes that the mobile phone market grew by 12 percent in the first quarter of 2010 in terms of units sold. The youth in Turkey form the highest percentage of mobile marketing users and this generation is consid-ered a vibrant market for companies using this mode of advertising (Şeflek, 2010). The young generation has readily adapted to this medium

Turkcell’s TonlaKazan service is among the most successful mobile advertising cam-paign in Turkey. In this service, Turkcell at-tempts to cash in on ringtones through the use of the ‘WinBack Tone,” which allows sub-scribers to select ad-funded content to serve as their Ringback Tone. The users are then given an opportunity to win prizes on the basis of how many people listen to their tones Şeflek (2010). The campaign is highly popular with the youth who download their favorite mu-sic to use on their phones. The fact that the youth who make up the largest mobile market are mostly involved in this campaign makes it even more successful.

Customers in Turkey have embraced the idea of mobile marketing and a significant number of consumers attest to the fact mobile marketing is an effective mode of advertising. In a study conducted by Barutçu (2007), there was a generally positive feedback concerning mobile marketing, with a majority of respondents indicating that they would prefer


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mobile marketing to receive advertisements and to shop. On the contrary however, respondents noted that mobile shopping could pose security problems. The respondents were asked to rate the survey question on a five-point Likert scale where 1 represented strongly agree while 5 represented strongly agree. In the survey questions, a mean of 4.20 was recorded for the question on whether the respondents found receiving advertisements through mobile phones positive. On the question on whether they found SMS and MMS messages used for advertising useful, a mean of 4.24 was recorded. This is an indication that the level of agreement with this survey question is quite high, given that the maximum score is 5.

5. METHODOLOGY

The methodology section forms an important part of the research because it de-termines whether the results obtained in the study will effectively meet the needs aims and objectives of the study. The study will utilize primary and secondary data and will be quali-tative in nature. Primary data was obtained through the use of mail questionnaires sent out to a random sample of 100 Turkish custom-ers. Secondary data was obtained from printed sources such as books and journals. Secondary data was useful in setting the background for the study and was thus considered vital.

Research Sample

Random email addresses were collected from the Facebook social networking site and 100 mail questionnaires were sent along with an introductory letter. The sample was select-ed from young and middle aged people up to a maximum of 45 years from Turkey. Respon-dents were asked to mail back their respons-es using the sending email. In total 100 mail questionnaires were sent out. Out of the 100 mails sent, 67 questionnaires were returned, representing 67% of the total number of ques-tionnaires. Further, 9 questionnaires were rejected because they were incomplete. This means that 58% of the questionnaires sent out were used for the research as presented below:

Data collection

The results of the research indicated that there mobile users in Turkey generally have a positive outlook on mobile market-ing and its potential in enhancing advertise-ment. 57% of the respondents noted that mo-bile marketing was bound to be effective in advertising a company and that it could be used as an alternative to traditional media. As a matter of fact, they appreciated the mo-bile marketing messages sent to them because they helped them to get adequate information about the existing trends in the market. 49% of them preferred to get promotional messag-es on their phones so that they would know where to shop and where to find discounts.

Asked whether they would recommend businesses to use mobile marketing in order to reach their clients, 71% of the respondents considered mobile marketing an effective tool for advertising. The various reasons given for their responses were that mobile market-ing was a method that could reach the clients wherever they are; mobile marketing is less costly; mobile marketing messages are easy to understand because they are simple and brief; and that mobile marketing reaches a signifi-cant number of people among other factors. In this regard, businesses could use mobile marketing as their means of advertising the company’s products as opposed to placing ad-vertisements in other traditional media such as newspapers, radio and television; or as a complimentary form of marketing within the company.

The most common views on mobile marketing were identified as follows. The percentage indicates the proportion of respon-dents who mentioned the views presented.


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Despite the high prevalence of mobile phones among the respondents however, there was a notable mistrust about mobile advertis-ing. A significant number of respondents indi-cated that they did not appreciate the idea of getting advertising messages on their phones as they considered them a nuisance (19%). Out of the 58 respondents whose questionnaires were used for the research, 31 respondents ex-pressed fears of privacy in regard to mobile advertising; noting that there was a possibility that their privacy would be compromised as a result of allowing companies to use their num-bers for mobile advertising. They feared that the companies would misuse their information for purposes that they would not approve of and therefore felt that they were powerless as far as their own privacy was concerned. Nota-bly, the issue of the high frequency at which companies send promotional messages was a great cause of concern. 43% of the respon-dents indicated that they were not comfortable with mobile marketing because companies of-ten sent very many messages to the same user every month. As a matter of fact, some ex-pressed that there was a problem of duplicate messages being received into their phones and therefore they did not support the idea of mo-bile marketing. The views can be expressed in a tabular form as follows:

7. DISCUSSION

The results of this study indicate that mobile marketing is an effective form of ad-vertising that not only enhances effective communication between the company and the consumers but which also ensures that the information is disseminated in a convenient manner. It has been established that with in-creased use of mobile phones, mobile market-ing is bound to enhance advertising to a sig-nificant level. Most of the respondents found the use of mobile marketing convenient in that it informed them of the new trends in the mar-ket in good time and thus kept them up to date with information. This insinuates that the pop-ularity of mobile marketing is bound to rise as consumers become increasingly aware of the importance of mobile marketing. As noted by Şeflek (2010), consumers love beneficial pro-motional messages and they are therefore like-ly to benefit from mobile marketing through getting information on promotions and new products in the market. This way, they are able to make their purchase decisions more easily.

There are various advantages that have been singled out in support of mobile market-ing. To begin with, the use of mobile phones across the world has increased vehemently and most people now have at least one or more mobile phones. This makes it effective in reaching out to a large number of people. Secondly, mobile devices assure that the mes-sage reaches the customer because the mobile phone is highly personalized. This insinuates that despite the location of the customer, he or she must at one point look at his mobile phone and see the advertisement. This is un-like in traditional media such as TV and radio where the message only reaches those who have switched on their devices at any particu-lar time. Thirdly, the mobile nature of these phones makes them effective in that there are no geographical barriers as far as communica-tion is concerned. This proposition is empha-sized by King (2008) and Michael and Salter (2006) who note that mobile phones transcend the barriers caused by distance and go on to provide the much desired publicity that the company deserves without caring the loca-tion that the customer is in at any particular


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time. Accordingly, marketing may be done at any time of the day in preference to traditional media which requires companies to advertise during peak hours such as evening and week-ends so that potential customers are already at home. Fourthly and most importantly, the de-velopment of internet enabled phones through mobile technology has increased the potential of mobile phones in enhancing marketing. This means that companies have the liberty to advertise on websites and be assured that con-sumers can still access the advertisement on phones thus easing their advertisement costs. Companies can therefore use websites, social sites and blogs to reach their customers. Inter-net enabled phones also ensure that consumers have more access to important information to assist in their decision making processes.

It is notable that while the use of mo-bile marketing promotes business, it is not entirely popular among all users because they feel that their privacy is violated. As indicted in the study, customers feel that companies at times exaggerate the number of messages sent and that their private information may not be safe in their hands. This is a factor that is ex-pected to impact on the use of mobile market-ing to a significant level and could thus reduce its effectiveness. According to MMA (2009) some companies are sharing or even selling customer databases unscrupulously to other companies thus raising the issue of privacy for customers. It is a serious issue that may cause customers to distrust the marketers thus leading to ineffectiveness of the marketing method. Mobile marketing elicits a significant level of other ethical issues, mostly associated with privacy and the reluctance of individuals to be sent advertising messages (King, 2008). Further, customers do not like the idea of be-ing sent too many texts and are thus likely to develop a ‘delete on receipt’ kind of reac-tion whenever they get promotional messages (Barwise & Strong, 2002). Another ethical is-sue that has arisen but which was not consid-ered during the data collection stage is mar-keting to children; which is been considered harmful due to the possibility of sending out material that is not appropriate for their age (Molina, 2007). This is exemplified by the fact that children are now obtaining mobile phones

at a very young age and are therefore prone to targeted promotions. Given that children have little decision making power, the burden of purchasing the advertised products may fall on the parents as they try to meet their chil-dren’s demands. Further, children are likely to develop immoral behavior such as stealing in order to access credit to participate in mobile competitions put up by advertising companies or to purchase the advertised products (Smith, 2008).

8. CONCLUSION

This paper establishes that mobile mar-keting in the Turkish consumer market has a huge potential for growth and this trend may continue unless the marketers do not adhere to the ethical rules of mobile marketing. It is established that the ethics of mobile marketing to a significant level impact on the ability of the mobile marketing to perform the expected functions. This is mostly associated with the privacy of customer information, issues with frequent messaging and sending messages that are considered irrelevant to customers. The issue of marketing to children is also taken very seriously as far as mobile marketing is concerned. In Turkey, mobile marketing has had the impact of enhancing communication between the customers and companies such that customers can easily present their con-cerns. Mobile marketing has played the role of keeping customers more informed about new trends in the market thus making the purchas-ing process easier. It is notable that as mobile technology advances, the use of internet mar-keting is no longer confined to computer use and that individuals can access advertisements placed on the internet through browsing web-sites and social networking sites. This in turn insinuates that the potential for mobile mar-keting has grown significantly. In conclusion, this paper establishes that the place of mobile marketing in the Turkish consumer market is growing tremendously and that businesses could tap this potential to enhance profitabil-ity.


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Conflict of interests Authors declare no conflict of interest.

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Amen, U. (2010). Consumer attitude towards mobile advertising. International Journal of Contempo-rary Research in Business, 2(3), 75-105.

Anckar, B. & D’Incau, D. (2002). Value creation in mo-bile commerce: findings from aconsumer sur-vey. JITTA: Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application, 4 (1), 43-65.

Barnes, S. J. & Scornovacca, E. (2004). Mobile market-ing: the role of permission and Acceptance. In-ternational Journal of Mobile Communication, 2 (2), 128-139.

Barutçu, S. (2007). Attitudes towards mobile marketing tools: A study of Turkish consumers. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Mar-keting, 16(1), 26-38.

Barwise, P. & Strong, C. (2002). Permission-based mo-bile advertising. Journal of Interactive Market-ing, 16 (1), 14-24.

Business Communications Review (2005), 35(6), 6-12Gurdu, C. & Ranchhod, A. (2009). Consumer privacy

issues in mobile commerce: A comparative study of British, French and Romanian consum-ers. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 26(7), 496-407.

Haig, M. (2002). Mobile Marketing: The Message Rev-olution. London: Kogan Page.

King, J. K. (2008). Direct marketing, mobile phones, and consumer privacy: ensuring adequate dis-closure and consent mechanisms for emerging mobile advertising practices. Federal Communi-cations Law Journal, 60 (2), 239-334.

Leek, S. & Christodoulides, G. (2009). Next-genera-tion mobile marketing: how young consumers react to Bluetooth-enabled advertising. Journal of Advertising Research, 49 (1), 44-53.

McCarthy, P. (2005). Towards a wireless world in mar-keting. New York: Lulu. Michael, A., Salter, B. (2006). Mobile Marketing: Achieving Competi-tive Advantage through Wireless. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

MMA (Mobile Marketing Association). (2009). Mobile Advertising Overview, January, 2009. New York, NY: Mobile Marketing Association.

Molina, M. M. (2007). Self-Regulation of mobile mar-keting aimed at children. An overview of the Spanish case. Journal of Theoretical and Ap-plied Electronic Commerce Research, 2(3), 80-93.

Pelau, C. & Zegreanu, P. (2010). Mobile marketing – The marketing for the next generation. Manage-ment and Marketing, 5(2), 101-116.

Seflek, M. (2010). Mobile phone advertising revolu-tionizes marketing. Retrieved May 10, 2011 from http://www.todayszaman.com/news-199491-105-mobile-phone-advertising-revolu-tionizes-marketing.html

Sultan, F. & Rohm, A. J. (2008). How to market to gen-eration M (obile). MIT Sloan Management Re-view, 49(4), 34-42.

Telecommunication Authority. (2007). Statistics. Re-trieved October 26, 2007 from http://www.tk.gov.tr/Yayin/istatistikler/istatistik/2007/istatistik_2007_haziran_gsm.htm.

Turkish Statistical Institute-Telecommunication (Turk-Stat). (2007). Statistics. Retrieved April 18, 2007 from http://www.turkstat.gov.tr/Start.do;jsessionid=1gTTNKJNWs2vT9Q7byXVW4yD2sTMzQJGRpp2y2hynlKSlST1QmkY!2104946810


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Abstract. So many Studies in artificial intelli-gence have been built upon the tools and techniques of many different disciplines, including formal logic, probability theory, decision theory, management sci-ence, linguistics and philosophy. However, the appli-cation of these disciplines in artificial intelligence has necessitated the development of many enhance-ments and extensions. Among the most power-ful of these are the methods of computational logic.

The design and installation of maritime drilling facilities involve a very complicated process with atten-dant risks to people, environment, property or economic assets. Failures of these drilling system equipment have been studied and generally believed to be associated with so many complications. Several other methods of risk assessment especially in the maritime industry, have not yielded the much required results, hence the need to minimize risks associated with maritime operations using fuzzy logic necessitated this study. Results from the traditional methods of carrying out risk assessment during installation and construction or after occurrence of accidents were reviewed which proved to be costly and often saddled with lack of flexibility for alternative remedial options.

Keywords: Fuzzification, De-fuzzification, Mari-time facilities, Artificial intelligence.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1. Risk Management Concept

Every activity we carry out, involves one form of risk or the other. Hence, risk is said to be associated with every aspect of our

daily life. Furthermore, wherever risk exists, the tendency to adequately mange it will be found. However, on critical examination of the maritime industry, one would see that formal risk management has only become an integral process in the past few decades. One of the drivers for the recent sudden increased need to manage risk is the rapid development of tech-nology; as a result risk and its management have turned to be wholly specialized subject. When it comes to requiring numerical data, these may be hard to trace or unreliable while formulating a mathematical model may be dif-ficult, costly, and even impossible. This means that efforts to communicate an understanding of the system and propose policies will have to rely on natural language arguments in the absence of formal models.

With the adequate assistance of risk management two essential advantages will be captured, more confidence can be given to the estimated project costs and profits will be max-imized (Baker et al., 1999). For the context of this chapter, the available risk definitions from business perspective will be revealed, and then the offered risk management practices will be examined to depict the essential role of the identification and assessment steps in the risk management process. This paper however is intended to provide an extensive literature re-view on how safety concept and system have been used to develop several complex safety management approaches to facilitate decision making process. Current safety management systems and models are introduced, and their processes are described and discussed in the

KNOWLEDGE-BASED AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM APPLICATION IN THE FUZZIFICATION AND

DE-FUZZIFICATION OF RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MARITIME DRILLING FACILITIES

Ezurike B.O, Ezurike O, Okoronkwo C.A, Osueke G.O, Igbokwe J.ODepartment Of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Technology, P.M.B. 1526 Owerri, Imo State,

Nigeria. Department of Computer Science, Federal Polytechnic Nekede, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.Email: [email protected]


Articles

Corresponding AuthorEzurike B.O, Department Of Mechanical Engineering, Federal University of Technology, P.M.B. 1526 Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria.Email: [email protected]


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following sections. As mentioned above, there are many

forms of safety management systems but the most commonly used ones are (i) the tradi-tional method of safety and, (ii) the proactive methods and philosophies of quality in con-junction with safety. Safety professionals in companies adopting the traditional method of safety directly ensure that workers comply with the expected company safety standards and regulations as well as enforce laws and government regulations. They are informed on new regulations, devoted to impose rules and regulations to their employees, carry out inspections, audit the system, direct investi-gations of accidents and injuries, and estab-lish recommendations in order to prevent ac-cidents and injuries in future. For the safety professionals, adhering to this concept means modifying the behavior of the workers, moti-vating them, and using prizes and incentives to help them work in a safer way. Rewards are given only to those workers or depart-ments that meet the pre-set safety objectives (Council, 1989). The traditional safety man-agement programmes do not always improve the results of safety because they are centered exclusively on the technical requirements and achievement of short-term results. It has been observed that organizations adopting the tra-ditional safety management only respond after occurrence of accidents or injuries.

Another shortcoming of the traditional safety management program is that the pro-gram is isolated and most times disconnected with the rest of the functions of an organiza-tion. The common elements of traditional safety management structure include: safety director, safety committee meetings relating to safety, list of rules pertaining to safety, posting of slogans, posters, and programs of safety in-centives. The responsibility of the safety pro-gram falls on the safety director, who occupies a position inside the organization of the com-pany and, in many cases, does not have the authority to make changes (Council, 1989).

1.2. The Fuzzy Reasoning Approach

A fuzzy set A on a universe of discourse U is defined as a set of ordered pairs (Bo-jadziev & Bojadziev, 1995)

Where µA (x) is called the membership function (MF) of x in A that takes values in the interval [0, 1]. The element x is characterized by linguistic values e.g. in offshore risk as-sessment, the failure probability or likelihood (FP) is defined as very low, low, average, high and very high; the consequence severity (CS) is defined as negligible, marginal, moderate, severe, and catastrophic; and the risk level (RL) is defined as minor, tolerable, major, and intolerable. In fuzzy reasoning various types of MFs can be used, such as triangular, trap-ezoidal, generalized bell-shaped and Gaussian functions. However, the most frequently used in risk analysis practice are triangular and trapezoidal MFs. It is also important to note that, the most common fuzzy set operations are union and intersection, and that they essen-tially correspond to OR and AND operators, respectively for example consider two sets A and B to be two fuzzy sets (An et al, 2007; Bojadziev & Bojadziev, 1995; Maseguerra et al, 2003).

Union: - The union of A and B, denoted by A∪Bor A OR B ,contains all elements in either AorB , which is calculated by the maxi-mum operation and its MF is defined as (Bo-jadziev &Bojadziev, 1995):

As stated earlier FRA is a rule-based methodology developed from human knowl-edge in the form of fuzzy if–then rules ex-pressed in form of statement in which some words are characterized by continuous MFs; e.g. the following is a frequently used fuzzy


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if–then rule in risk assessment (An et al, 2007).If failure probability (FP) is high AND

consequence severity (CS) is severe, then risk level (RL) of the failure event is major.

Here, FP, CS, and RL are linguistic vari-ables while high, severe and major are linguis-tic terms characterized by MFs.

A fuzzy rule base consists of A set of fuzzy if–then rules. Consider the input space

and the output space V R . Only the multi-input–single-output case is considered here, as a multi-output system can always be decomposed into a collection of single-output systems. To be precise, a. fuzzy rule base comprises the following fuzzy if–then rules (Bojadziev & Bojadziev, 1995):

1.3. Fuzzification Process in An Artificial Intelligence System

The fuzzification process consists of two basic steps. During the first step the interval of each concept is analyzed into trapezoidal membership functions, as shown in Figure 1. Since the concept activation levels fall in the range between 0 and +1, the concept intervals themselves must also fall in this range. The minimum and maximum number of intervals in our model is two and eight respectively hav-ing a fixed width or variable length, as show

1.4. Fuzzy Rule Evaluation

Evaluation of fuzzy rules is conducted to determine which rule in the rule base is fired or not through the application of fuzzy logic principles to combine fuzzy if– then rules in fuzzy rule base into a mapping for example

from a fuzzy set A and U to a fuzzy set B in V Following the fuzzification of inputs, these fuzzified values are applied to each rule to de-termine whether the rule will be fired. If a rule has a true value in its antecedent (input part), it will be fired and then contribute to the conse-quent (output part). If the antecedent of a given rule has more than one part, the fuzzy operator will then be applied to evaluate the composite firing strength of the rule for example assume an i-th rule has two parts its antecedent or in-put part (An et al, 2006 & 2007).

where i = 1,.2,...,.r

1.5. De-fuzzication Process in An Artificial Intelligence System

As we have already pointed out the de-fuzzification process is more complicated than the fuzzification and consists of four basic iterative stages which include the iteration, max-min computation, categorization and in-ference realization .

The aggregate output fuzzy set is used as input for the defuzzification process to obtain an output in a single number. Although fuzzi-ness is required during the intermediate steps for the evaluation of the rule, the defuzzifica-tion is still necessary in order to determine a crisp value of the output.

Even though the defuzzified single value is calculated using Equation (6) shown above, its discrete form is always used for simplic-ity. This discrete form is given in Equation (3) below and will thus be applied to compute to obtain the crisp value of the output as below:


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where;n = the number of aggregated risk level

conclusionsyi = the support value at which the i-th

membership function reaches its maximum value

uagg ( yi ) = the degree of truth of the i-th membership function ydef = the Weighted Mean value of Maximum conclusion

2. ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION

As mentioned earlier, Fuzzy algorithm, like every other artificial intelligence model have been built upon the tools and techniques of many different disciplines, including for-mal logic, probability theory, decision theory, management science, linguistics and philoso-phy. This is a modernized approach to solving risk problems. Due to the extreme difficulty in conducting probabilistic risk assessment in analyzing and estimating the occurrence like-lihood of hazards and the magnitudes of their possible consequences because of the uncer-tainty in the risk data, however, the applica-tion of FRA in risk assessment may fill the gap created by other methods due to the following advantages (An, 2007).

• The risk can be evaluated directly by using qualitative descriptors;

• It is tolerant of imprecise data and ambiguous information;

• It gives a more flexible structure for combining qualitative as well as quantitative information.

• It focuses on qualitative descriptors in natural language and aims to pro-vide fundamentals for approximate reasoning with imprecise proposi-tions.

Conflict of interests Authors declare no conflict of interest.

REFERENCES

Tsadiras AK, Margaritis KG, Using Certainly Neu-rons in Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. Neural Network World, Vol.6, 1996, pp.719-728

Tsadiras AK, Kouskouvelis I, Margaritis KG, Making Political Decision using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps: The FYROM crisis. Proceedings of the 8th Pan-hellenic Conference on Informatics,Vol.1, 2001, pp.501-510

Zadeh LA, An introduction to fuzzy logic applications in intelligent systems,1st edn. Kluwer Academic Publisher, Boston, 1992

An, M. (2003b). Application of a knowledge- based intelligent safety prediction. A Lecture note for construction management course, University of Birmingham.

An, M., Wang, J. &Ruxton, T (2000a).The development of fuzzy linguistic risk level for analysis of off-shore engineering products using approximate reasoning approach. Proceedings of OMAE 2000, the 19th International Conference of off-shore mechanics and Arctic Engineering. New Orleans, USA. pp.321-329.

Bazovesky, I. (1961). Reliability theory and practice. New Jersey, Prentice Hall, Eaglewood Cliffs.

Bojadziev, G. Bojadziev., M (1995). Fuzzy sets, Fuzzy logic, Applications. Singapore, World Scientific.


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