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CHALLENGES OF RURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SOUTH AFRICA: INSIGHTS FROM NKONKOBE MUNICIPAL AREA IN THE EASTERN CAPE PROVINCE

G.P.K. Ngorora and S. Mago

The purpose of this paper is to identify the challenges of rural entrepreneurship in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A quantitative research methodology was used while the survey research design was adopted for the collection of data. Questionnaires were administered to establish the perceptions of 53 rural entrepreneurs. Most respondents (83%) depended solely on entrepreneurship for income generation. This paper is significant in that it brings insights on challenges for rural entrepreneurship in developing countries, since most information available in literature is biased towards developed countries. Findings from the study suggest that lack of finance, small markets, lack of networking, distant markets, lack of electricity; poor transport system, lack of equipment, corruption and lack of marketing initiatives hinder rural entrepreneurship in Nkonkobe Municipal Area. The paper recommends that training and educational programs, capacitating as well as support from government should be improved for entrepreneurship growth in the area.  It is further recommended that funding programmes and microfinance schemes will increase the prospects of rural entrepreneurship in Nkonkobe Municipal area.

PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS IEEE 802.11 BY TUNING PARAMETERS TO ENHANCEMENT NETWORK THROUGHPUT

Khalil I. Alsaif, Ekhlass A. Altaii

With the increased of wireless network many problems appears one of the most problems is the competing between stations to access medium, reduce transmission collisions and packet drop after number of retransmissions which reduce network performance. In this work, we are evaluating performance of 802.11 WLAN using Opnet Modeler 14.0. Throughput WLAN is evaluated in the presence of different number of stations and (high, medium, low) traffic. Results are shown in detail with the help of graphs.

GRADUATE STUDENTS’ PROFICIENCY LEVEL FOR AN ENHANCED SKILLS TRAINING PROGRAM

Erlinda Abletes-Cayao

This descriptive-correlational study was conducted to evaluate the reading and writing proficiency level of selected graduate students who are presently enrolled in the program Master of Arts in Education majoring in Educational Administration or Educational Management in selected higher education institutions during second semester of academic year 2010-2011. The proponent made use of the following instruments to carry out the purpose of the study: reading and writing proficiency inventories, critical reading and writing tests and rubrics for evaluating composing skills of graduate students. Experts in the area of language education and communication served as validators of the instruments used and they also evaluated the writing prompt of the respondents. The focus of evaluation for reading area are identifying syntactic meaning of words, pointing out details, determining logical relationships, detecting evidences, predicting outcomes and making informed judgments. In the area of writing, the following are covered: establishing clear purpose, organizing ideas logically, demonstrating control over sentence structure and style and exhibiting mastery in mechanics. This study is anchored on the idea with that of Marzano’s proposed New Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (2001). It aimed to respond to the shortcomings of the widely used Bloom’s Taxonomy.

KEY DETERMINANTS AFFECTING DIGITAL INNOVATION ADOPTION: A PILOT STUDY AMONG SMALL ARCHITECTURAL ORGANIZATIONS

Runddy Ramilo and Mohamed Rashid Bin Embi

The rapid development of digital technology has made architecture a succession of different evolutionary design methodologies. As a result, the rise of computationally driven processes has gain popularity in research and shows a great potential to dramatically improve the design process and productivity that evoke innovations in design practices wherein computer-based project plays a vital role. However, as these technologies rapidly develops and increasingly used in practice, there is a realization that substantial organizational and technological barriers exist that inhibit the effective adoption of these technologies in architectural practices wherein complex projects are being handled. Undeniably it happens in small architectural practices whereby resources are very limited. Relevant literature of the subject shows that research in innovations in manufacturing, product design, technology, construction and engineering practices is substantially conducted but research in digital innovation in design practices is very limited. This paper investigates the factors that impede the effective adoption of emerging digital technologies for the efficient delivery of design projects that are computationally and digitally driven. This involves evaluating digital technologies, technical, financial and organizational barriers when digital innovation is implemented. In order to gain insights of these issues, a pilot study was conducted from several small architectural organizations, and found out relevant attributes and pattern of variables that can be used in establishing a framework for digital innovation.

Digital Innovation, Architectural Practices, Technologies, Challenges, Barriers

RISK AVERSION AND ISLAMIC FINANCE: AN EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH

                                         Suzanna El Massah, Ola Al-Sayed

This article examines the effect of investor’s risk aversion on his choice between conventional contract and Islamic contract. The authors focused on the choice of profit loss sharing (PLS) contracts, and to what extent other factors ‎affect choice, such as experience, religion and political factors. Lab experiment approach was applied to test the role of risk aversion, along with other factors, in affecting investor`s choice. The paper concluded that neither Islamic religion views nor risk behavior affect the choice of people with no experience in borrowing. However, inexperienced investors are affected by both political-religious orientation and risk behavior. Such finding, contradicts with the widely held belief that Islamic bank transactions are more suitable for risk-lover depositors and risk-averse borrowers. Furthermore, the paper`s results call for more unique and innovative Banks` marketing strategies specially designed for the pre-experienced investors.

Islamic finance, risk aversion, conventional credit, profit loss sharing (PLS), behavioral finance, Lab experimental Islamic banks.

WATER QUALITY AND POLLUTION SOURCES OF GULSHAN LAKE

Mafruha Ahmed

The study focuses on the monitoring of water quality of Gulshan Lake and identification of sources of pollution of the Lake through field observations and discuss with local people.
Gulshan Lake is the northernmost lake in a chain of water bodies (Gulshan Lake, Hatirjheel, Begunbari Khal, Balu River and Shitalakhya River) in Dhaka, suffering from highly significant pollution thus increasing pollution from north to south. Gulshan-Baridhara Lake was declared an Ecologically Critical Area (ECA) in 2001. It is very important to take immediate steps to restore the water quality of Gulshan Lake. 
To monitor the Gulshan water quality, the samples were collected from four cross sections starting from September2012 to March 2013 covering both dry season and wet season. Collected samples were analyzed in the Department of Civil Engineering Laboratory of University of Asia Pacific (UAP).
The various parameters of the water such as pH, Color, Total  Dissolved   Solids (TDS) , Total Suspended Solid(TSS), Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen (DO) and  Biochemical  Oxygen Demand (BOD) were examined for water of each sampling points to monitor  the level of these parameters where it exceed or within the permissible limit of Bangladesh  standard.………………

STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES, OPPORTUNITIES AND THREATS
(SWOT) ANALYSIS ON GLOBACOM LTD.

Nura Abubakar and Garba Bala Bello, PHD

This paper is on applying SWOT analysis in the Nigerian Mobile Telecommunication Industry, which is one of the most competitive industries/markets in the world, using Globacom Limited as a case study, with a view to determining its competitive advantage. This study therefore presents a SWOT analysis from an independent observer’s view on a private organization in a very competitive industry. The data used for the analysis are secondary data. The data were collected from magazines, newspapers and the websites of the organization under study (Globacom), independent media organizations and the industry regulator – the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). In the analysis, some key factors were selected and the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of Globacom in relation to its competitors and environment were analysed. Among the findings are that Globacom is the second in terms of market share (Subscriber base). Also, having the most advanced network (technology), fast, robust and cheap excess bandwidth from Glo-1, being the financially strongest and most innovative telecom operator in Nigeria constitute its competitive advantage. Thus, some of the recommendations are that the company should continue with its network expansion towards achieving its vision of becoming the biggest and best network in Africa and that it should try to consolidate and further its success through continuous network upgrading, being innovative and always keeping abreast of relevant local and international developments.

A UNIFIED APPROACH TOWARDS E-COMMERCE ADOPTION BY SMMES IN SOUTH AFRICA

Patrick Ndayizigamiye

E-commerce has been identified as an enabler of economic development/growth in developing countries. This is due to the preponderant role that e-commerce plays in developing world as a catalyst towards improved customer service [4]; expansion of market reach [11]; improved customer relationship and communications [15,16] and supply chain integration [9]. In the South African case, the currently installed undersea cable which promises faster and more reliable Internet connection and the current government efforts to increase SMMEs online visibility make e-commerce an attractive platform to conduct online business. It is in this context that this paper seeks to investigate factors that contribute to e-commerce adoption. Using theUnified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) model, this paper investigates the adoption of e-commerce from 180 SMMEs in Pietermaritzburg area in South Africa. The findings reveal that although facilitating conditions have not influenced the decision to adopt e-commerce in the surveyed SMMEs, social influence, effort expectancy, performance expectancy are determinants of e-commerce within the selected SMMEs. Thus, this paper recommends a managerial approach towards the adoption of e-commerce focusing on making it easier for employees to execute their daily tasks.

NEW TECHNIQUE FOR SKEW ANGLE DETECTION OF

Khalil Ibrahim Alsaif & Montaha Tariq Alsarraj

Image text document can be acquire via scanner or other type of machines which cause sometime a skew angle (alignment) on its horizontal direction so many techniques were developed to treat that skew .
In This Research a new idea based on Fan filter will be achieved to detect  the skew angle of a text image. A fan filter will be designed in different level and size to be suitable to decompose the image to its component with the same number of filter level, then looking for which coefficients hold the highest energy.  The skew angle of the text image will be extracted from The fan filter component rank which match the highest energy component in the image slices. 
The proposed algorithm applied on different type of skew with different images. The difference between the measured angle and the actual angle in the range of ± 1.5º. the proposed algorithm was simulated  using Matlab software Version (R2011a).

Image processing, image documents processing, Fan filter, Directional filter, contourlet transformation.

 STEGANOGRAPHY IN  MOBILE PHONE OVER BLUETOOTH

     Shatha A. Baker  & Dr. Ahmed  S. Nori

 After expanding  use of mobile phones,  establishing hidden communication is an important subject of security that has gained increasing importance. One of the methods for establishing hidden communication is Steganography.
Steganography is a powerful security tool that provides a high level of security, it is used for the  hidden exchange of information.
In this paper we examine how to hide text or image in mobile phone through Bluetooth. This paper is implemented on J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) platform and has been implemented on Nokia mobile phones.

Steganography, J2ME, mobile phone, Bluetooth.

FORECASTING TECHNIQUES IN FAST MOVING CONSUMER GOODS SUPPLY CHAIN: A MODEL PROPOSAL

Ozalp Vayvay, Ozlem Dogan,Semih  Ozel

This research contains supply chain analysis of Fast Moving Consumer Goods   (FMCG) and it shows working styles, tools, organization structure, relations with other departments, procedures and all the processes in the supply chain management discipline.  Furthermore, it focuses on the return/stale products that are date expired, damaged and then return from customer side to the company. “Return/Stale Products” has a big impact on the Profit & Loss Statement (P&L) of the company and also it is an important part of total sales volume. To solve this problem, with analysis of supply chain of the company was started with some key parameters, reviewed the return/stale process and updated account-based processes. After the analysis phase, the new concepts of the global world about return products were searched and in the design phase they were integrated into the alternative solution ways that were presented to the company. On the other hand, forecasting methodology was an important concept to search while the alternative solution was being designed.

VALUE AT RISK PERFORMANCE IN DEVELOPED AND EMERGING STOCK MARKETS

Ivica Terzić, Marko Milojević, Vladimir Džamić

The aim of this paper is to investigate stock returns stylized facts of both developed and emerging capital markets and to validate market risk measurement models in circumstances of global financial crisis. In order to analyze characteristics of stock returns we employ descriptive statistic, normality tests, white-noise and ARCH effect test. We present results on both VaR 1% and VaR 5% on a one-day horizon for the following indices: S&P 500, DAX, SAX, PX and Belex 15, which show us potential maximum expected losses that investors can suffer on daily basis. To examine the validity of VaR results we employ three backtest: unconditional coverage, independence and conditional coverage. Our results show that Historical Simulation and EWMA VaR methodology during the crisis period underestimate the true level of market risk, because both methodologies failed to satisfy unconditional coverage and independence properties of backtest at same time. We believe that our findings and contribution can help investors to make appropriate decisions when investing in emerging stock markets in volatile times.

Value at risk, backtesting, market risk, historical simulation, EWMA