Asian Journal of Advanced Research and Reports

Background: Occupational Hazards has been identified as one of the primary cause of disability and mortality among the working population globally. Estimates also show that 8% of unintentional injuries and more than 10 million disability-adjusted life years or healthy years of life lost either to disability or premature death is primarily caused by occupational injuries.

Objective: The study was aimed at determining the knowledge level, risk perception of occupational hazards and safety practices amongst carpenters in Southern Nigeria.

Methods: The study adopted a descriptive cross-sectional study design. Snowball sampling technique was used to select 200 carpenters to participate in the study. A pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to generate data from the selected respondents at their workplace (workshops). The questionnaire was subjected to face validation and test of reliability using the test-retest method before it was used. Data generated was synthesized and analyzed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences Software (SPSS version, 2010). Results were calculated in percentage and presented in tables and charts.

Results: The results showed that 195 (97.5%) were males, 73 (36.5%) were aged between 26-35 years, 88 (44.0%) had secondary education, 83 (41.5%) were single and 133 (66.5%) learnt their trade through apprenticeship. Most respondents 142 (71.0%) recorded good knowledge of occupational hazards and exhibited low risk perception towards occupational hazards. Of the 63 (44.4%) respondents who have heard of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and 61 (43.0%) confirmed to have used PPE at workplace.  Types of PPE used were mostly disposable nose mask 61 (43.0%), face mask/eye Google 58 (40.8%) and ear plug 47 (33.1%). Barriers to PPE use highlighted by the respondents were mostly lack of knowledge on how to use PPE 43 (53.1%), inconveniences 38 (46.9%), non-availability of PPE 42 (51.9%) and lack of money to buy PPE 33 (40.7%).

Conclusion: Institutionalizing appropriate regulatory authorities in Nigeria is imperative to ensure adequate availability and use of PPE for workers at workplace to minimize their exposure to workplace hazards and punishment should be accorded to defaulters. Public health experts and health educators should take up the responsibility to educate carpenters about the adverse health effects of occupational hazards, control measures and the operationalization of PPE available for them.

Purpose: There is a resistance in the adoption of e-commerce in certain parts of the world even though most successful businesses in the world has successfully adopted e-commerce to their businesses gained an increasing success. The study aims to find the crucial factors affecting to the adoption of e-commerce by using the evidence of retail sector in Sri Lanka as a developing nation.

Methods: The targeted population for the study was the retail sector registered as Small and Medium Enterprises in Colombo District. Adopting stratified simple random sampling technique, the study selected 200 SMEs in Colombo District who are engaged in retail sector. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Five dimensions namely adoption of e-commerce, perceived benefits, computer literacy, government support and technology infrastructure were measured by using a Likert scale measurement items, acknowledging the prior studies.

Findings: The results revealed that computer literacy, government support and technology infrastructure had significance influence on e-commerce adoption of SMEs in Sri Lanka even though perceived benefits had less impact on e-commerce adoption.

Implication: It has been realized that Sri Lankan government support and intervention is necessary to build speedy technology infrastructure in order to encourage the usage of e-commerce as government support and technology infrastructure share a significant correlation with e-commerce adoption.

Aim: Online shopping is the most popular feature around the world as well as in Sri Lanka. People are tending to do online shopping by using those social media and also by using online shopping websites. As well as most of the business organizations try to use online shopping to sell their product and to increase their market. The objective of this research is to assess the factors influencing customer satisfaction while doing online shopping. Further, the study tested the moderating effect of income level on the relationship between factors influencing customer satisfaction on online shopping.

Design: This study used the deductive approach and research design was based on quantitative and cross sectional. The targeted population for this study is customers living around the Colombo area, those who have internet facility in their living place or working place. The sample size was 380. The survey method is employed to collect data through a standardizes questionnaire. The selected dimensions (customer satisfaction, convenience, security, website functionality and customer service) were measured by using a Likert scale measurement items, acknowledging the prior studies.

Findings: According to the survey findings of this study, Convenience, Web site functionality, Customer service have significant influence on customer satisfaction on online shopping. The results also indicated that the income level has a significant moderating effect on the relationship between Convenience, Web site Functionality, Security and Customer service and Customer satisfaction on online shopping.

Implications: According to the findings of this study online retailers can identified that their consumers are more concern about the website functionality, customer service, and convenience of the online shopping. Therefore, online retailers can develop their website by adding more functions which will be helpful and easy for the customers and they can further improve their customer service at the prior purchase level as well as at the post purchase level in order to attract more customers and retain the existing customers with their business.

A spherical cap harmonic analysis (SCHA) model has been used to derive a high resolution regional model of the geomagnetic field in the southwest Pacific region over the past 400 years. Two different methods, a self-consistent and the gufm1 dipole method, have been used to fill in gaps in the available data. The data used in the analysis were largely measurements of the magnetic field recorded in ships logs on voyages of exploration in the region.  The method chosen for the investigation used a spherical cap of radius

This study examined the Effect of Financial Liberalization on Nigerian Economic Growth (1990-2018) using secondary data from Statistical bulletin of Central Bank of Nigeria. The research work selected Nigeria as its sample and used the ECM to test the effect of the independent variables (Foreign direct investment, Interest rate, Trade openness, Foreign portfolio investment, Currency exchange rate Aggregate savings) on the dependent variable, economic growth (proxy by Gross Domestic Product). The study found that financial liberalization had negative and insignificant effect on economic growth of Nigeria. The study therefore recommends among others that Government should aim at creating conditions which make private investment attractive, avoid drastic policy reversal and implement appropriate interest rate policies.