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In Nigeria, roselle juice is quite popular among the populace presumably owing to its attractive colour, pleasant flavour and nutritional attributes. In the citrus industry, processing and packing material selection have significant effect on quality of juice product during storage. The effects of packaging materials, and storage temperature on colour and vitamin C retention of sobo juice extracted from local roselle plant were investigated.

Juice was extracted at three different temperatures: 20, 60 and 100°C for varying processing times of 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 min respectively. Freshly extracted roselle juice was divided into three batches and independently hot‐filled into 500 mL pre‐sterilised glass, film packages and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles allowing for minimum head space, capped, cooled and subsequently stored at 5 ± 1 and 28 ± 1°C respectively for eight weeks.

Optimum pigment extraction was obtained in 20 min with boiling water, while colour stabilisation of the extracted juice was affected with the use of food acidulants. Colour degradation on storage was pronounced in sweetened juice with greater colour loss in product held at ambient temperature. Colour and vitamin C retention with glass and plastic bottles provide higher retention of these quality attributes under cold and ambient storage condition than with the flexible polyethylene film.

Retention of colour and vitamin C was considerably higher in glass and PET bottles than in flexible film package. However, addition of table sugar or increasing storage temperature from 5 to 27°C affected colour stability.

This study investigates the effect of government domestic payment arrears on private investment. The authors argue that an increase in government domestic arrears can reduce private sector investment owing to the competition for credit.

The prediction is empirically tested using data for 33 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries for the period 2007–2018 using a panel general methods of moment estimation technique. This is also complemented with impulse responses derived from the standard vector autoregressive model.

The results show that an increase in government domestic arrears adversely affects private investment in SSA and most subregional communities within SSA. It also revealed that private investment negatively responds to shocks in government domestic arrears.

This is the first study that attempts to investigate the effect of government domestic borrowing arrears on private investment. It seeks to serve as a guide to governments in their domestic borrowing decisions to ensure timely servicing.

This paper aims to investigate whether negative and positive monetary policy (MP) shocks have asymmetric impacts on corporate firms’ investment decisions in Pakistan using firm-level panel data set. Moreover, the authors emphasized on symmetric effects of MP; the authors examine whether high-leverage and low-leverage firms respond differently to negative and positive unanticipated shocks in MP instruments.

In contrast to the conventional framework of VAR, it uses an alternative methodology of Taylor rule to estimate unanticipated MP shocks. The two-step system-generalized method of movement (GMM) estimation method is applied to examine the effect of MP shocks on firm investment through leverage-based asymmetry.

The two-step system-GMM estimation results indicate that unanticipated negative changes (unfavorable shocks) in MP instruments have negative, significant effects on investment. In contrast, unanticipated positive changes (favorable shocks) have statistically insignificant impacts on firm investment. The results also reveal that firm leverage has a significant role in establishing the effect of unanticipated negative changes in MP instruments on investments. Finally, the results indicate that high-leverage firms respond more to negative changes than low-leverage firms. Yet, the results show that only low-leverage firms positively respond to unanticipated positive shocks in MP.

The findings of the paper suggest that MP authorities should pay due attention to the asymmetric effects of MP shocks on firm investment while designing MP. Because firm leverage has a significant influence on the effects of MP shocks, firm managers should take into account such role of leverage while deciding capital structure of their firms.

First, unlike “Keynesian asymmetry” and most of published empirical research work, the authors use both unanticipated negative and positive MP shocks simultaneously. Departing from the conventional empirical literature, the authors differentiate between unanticipated positive and negative shocks in MP using the backward-looking Taylor rule. Second, the authors contribute to the existing literature by investigating the differential effects of positive and negative unanticipated MP shocks on firms’ investment decisions. Unlike the published studies that have emphasized on the symmetric effects of MP, the authors examine whether high-leverage and low-leverage firms respond differently to negative and positive unanticipated shocks in MP instruments.

Within the umbrella of technology and vocational education (TVET), technology or technical education in higher institutions of learning is obligated to produce the required manpower needed in the industry. Thus, it is pertinent to explore the interaction between the industry and higher education students. Drawing on the tenets of theory of planned behavior (TPB), this study offers valuable insights into the nomological networks of work-integrated learning (WIL), perceived behavioral control (PBC), subjective norm (SBN), personal attitude (PAT) and job search intention (JSI).

The study applied a structurally hypothesized model that was drawn from the TPB to collect data for the constructs. Using a cross-sectional survey after the WIL experiences of the students, we collected data from technology education undergraduates (N = 214) in their final academic year from universities in Nigeria.

With structural equation modeling, the study found that WIL is directly associated with JSI, PBC, SBN and PAT. In line with the tenets of the TPB, simple mediation models were supported about the influence of WIL on JSI via PBC and PAT discretely but not via SBN. Further, the results support two paths of serial mediation models, indicating sequential indirect links between WIL and JSI via SBN and PBC, as well as via SBN and PAT.

Our findings have implications for higher education practitioners, industry experts and employers of labor.

Although extant literature has relatively shown that WIL impacts employability skills, this study has remarkably shown the WIL-JSI nexuses within the variables of TPB.

Many youths are out-of-school with few having the basic sustainable skills to earn a living. Some of the engaged ones have interpersonal relationship and other problems that can sustain the successes of their business. Therefore, this study is set to investigate the relationship between affective behaviour, emotional intelligence and success of out-of-school youths in cell phone maintenance enterprise.

Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample. Of the total, 350 out-of-school youths who are engaged in cell phone maintenance enterprise in computer village Ikeja, Lagos State, Nigeria, were used as a sample, but 292 samples with completely filled research instrument were used for the study. Data collected were validated through the principal component analysis and the hypothesis tested through the confirmatory factor analysis using AMOS and SPSS.

The result of the study showed that affective behaviour and social skills do not necessarily predict but self-motivation predicts the career success of out-of-school youths in cell phone maintenance enterprise. Self-awareness, emotional regulation, social awareness and emotional receptivity significantly influence affective behaviour towards success in their chosen career.

This study enhances the cell phone maintenance association or group to adopt the participation of on-the-job training of their members to help them build good relationship and self-esteem. The training will improve their emotional intelligence and further enhance the creation of a formidable emotional intelligent workplace team.

The study affirms that the constructs of emotional intelligence are predictors of career success among out-of-school cell phone maintenance. It boosts their moral and psychological behaviours towards building good customer relationship which culminates into success in their career area. This study also motivates the out-of-school youths that success is multifaceted that involves building adequate personal and social relationship within the circle of their co-maintenance personnel and customers.

This study showed that success in any chosen career involves adequate training, inter- and intra-personal relationship and building adequate emotional intelligence to overcome the varying challenges that may be encountered. Also it indicated that personal development in a chosen career is essential and career successes can be built around personal goal orientation rather than building it in circle of people around. The study does not totally neglect social relationship because no man can live and succeed in isolation.

This study aims to investigate the effects of quality blended learning systems (QBLS) on the improvement of undergraduate students’ skills through the use of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) model.

The study sample includes 1,200 subjects of which 126 and 1,074 are lecturers and students, respectively. The subjects were selected from seven post-secondary institutions in Nigeria. A stratified sampling technique was used in data collection. Collected data were analysed using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.

The results reveal that QBLS influences the perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control towards intentions that culminate in the usage of blended learning tools (BLTs).

The study supports the belief that QBLS enhances users’ behaviour towards system usage with the TAM and the TPB predicting real usage of BLTs via users’ intentions. Practically, teachers should adjust the existing BLTs not only to create new ones but also to suit personalized teaching and learning activities.

Extending the theory of planned behaviour and the perspective of available resources, the purpose of this study is to expatiate the influence behavioural antecedents of available resources on electrical installation and maintenance work students’ (EIMW) entrepreneurial intentions (EIs) in technical colleges.

The study adopted a multistage sampling technique to select samples for the study. Data collected were analyzed using structural equation models in the empirical analysis.

The study showed that attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and perceived efficacy are behavioural antecedents that can be manipulated by exogenous factors to enhance EIMW students’ EIs.

This study stirs the government and other education agencies on the need to strengthen the technical institutions through adequate funding, employment of skilled personnel and provision of up-to-date types of machinery and equipment to help the students to compete globally. Therefore, adequate application of available resources will foster positive behaviours of EIMW students towards establishing their business venture.

This paper aims to examine the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) portrayal of the May 2022 Monkeypox outbreak in the West. The Monkeypox outbreak and the outcry from African journalists on some Western media outlets’ use of black people to portray the Monkeypox outbreak informed the present study to investigate, through empirical evidence, whether Western media portrays Africa negatively.

The paper opted for the content analysis method. The news recordings from BBC News analysed for this study were archived videos on Monkeypox retrieved from Blob of Broadcast, an on-demand audio and video streaming service in the UK.

Findings indicated that videos were the most used visuals by the BBC to depict the Monkeypox outbreak in the observed period. Findings also revealed that Black was the prevalent skin tone used in depicting those affected by the outbreak, while White was the prevalent skin tone used in depicting the scientists interviewed for their expert knowledge and at the forefront of the Monkeypox outbreak.

The paper includes implications for Western media outlets on how to portray Africa and its people.

This paper fulfils an identified need to investigate how Africa is portrayed in Western media through empirical evidence.

With critical reviews of previous studies in workplace learning, this paper aims to investigate workplace learning for pre-service teachers’ practice and quality teaching and learning in technical vocational education and training: key to professional development.

The study adopted multistage sampling technique to select sample for the study. Empirical analysis was adopted to analyse the data collected from technical vocational education and training pre-service teachers.

The result of the study revealed that the constructs of social learning theory had a stronger linkage with the constructive teaching than traditional management.

This study emphasizes the need to adequately train pre-service teachers on instructional delivery processes, building strong relationship with learners and build the ability to organize and execute necessary actions required to successfully carry out a specific educational task in a particular context.

This paper aims to assess the role of radio programmes in agricultural development and enhancing the capacity of farmers in Oyo and Ogun states, situated in the South-West region of Nigeria. Specifically, this study investigated Farm Radio International (FRI) radio broadcast strategies, their effectiveness and how they enhance the farmers’ knowledge, skills and practices.

The paper opted for a qualitative research design, using both interviews and focus group discussions to gather data from FRI radio partners and farmers.

Findings indicated that radio is effective in influencing the practices of farmers and helping them adopt new knowledge, ideas and skills. FRI partners use rural radio forum broadcasting strategy. Also, findings indicated that the most effective broadcasting strategy to reach the farmers with agricultural information is rural radio forum.

The paper includes implications for agricultural development organisations, providing a framework for monitoring and evaluating the impact of their communication interventions, helping ensure accountability and efficient use of funds.

This paper fulfils an identified need to investigate the broadcasting strategies that are most effective in reaching farmers with agricultural information and the influence of agricultural radio programmes on their farming practices.