Business and Economics Journal

In the sense of my paper, the essence of standard of living is the material goods and necessities available to a certain socioeconomic class or a certain geographic area. The study purpose is to find out the standard of living for a panel of twelve selected regions among the eighteen regions in Somalia. The cost of minimum basket (CMB) together with estimated educational fees, high school salary and the exchange rate (ER) from periods of 2009 to 2016 are considered as the study constructs. Random effect model is applied. Cross regional analysis is also employed to check which regions do have higher living standards. The results show a positive and significant relationship between CMB and high school salary and between ER and CMB. For the cross regional analysis, Mudug, Nugaal and Bari have got higher standard of living compared to the other regions. Lower Juba, Togdheer and middle Shabelle have lower standard of living.

We present an enhanced framework for sentiment analysis which can be used for universities to improve student retention, teaching, and facilities. In addition, our proposed framework can be an important source for further analysis and improved decision-making. To best of our knowledge, this is the first work which targets student comments within surveys. We believe that students’ comments are a good source to capture the overall students’ sentiment. Our framework shows 0.8 accuracy when using 4 grams.

This paper is going to highlight the preferences of investors towards the various investment alternatives, as what investors going to invest their money out of the best choices of alternatives available in the market and investors also must be fully aware about the rates of the alternatives in the market. Investing in various types of alternatives is an interesting act to induce people from all walks of life with respect to their economic background and their income level, and the investors who are having extra money to invest in the other form of investment instruments. At present a wide investment alternatives are open to invest the investor’s suitable form of investment alternatives like real estate and bank deposits etc.to conduct the present study the primary survey has been done and the data is been collected via questionnaire for the fulfilment of the present study.

Kenyan black CTC tea is applauded globally as a high quality product available all year round and sold as a blend and not as an original tea. The core objective of the study was to examine the effect of strategic product development practices on competiveness of Kenyan Tea in the global market. The study used cross-sectional survey design. The target population comprised of all 189 members of the East Africa Tea Trade Association (EATTA) who participate in the tea auction at Mombasa. Stratified sampling technique was used to select the study sample. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the managers who represented both the small-scale and large-scale producers. The sample was obtained using Slovin’s formula (1960); n=N/(1+Ne2). Structured and unstructured questionnaire was used to collect primary data. Pilot study tested for the validity and reliability. Cronbach’s Coefficient Alpha (α) was used to determine internal consistency. Collected data was analysed using SPSS to generate descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was derived while coefficient of determination (R2) was used to measure the amount of variation of the variables. The study findings indicated weak positive relationship of 31.0% between Strategic Product Development practices and Competitiveness. The study revealed that 1% change in Strategic product development practices decreased competitiveness of Kenyan in the global market by 0.089 units. Hence the conclusion that competitiveness of Kenyan Tea in the global market was influenced by other factors other than strategic product development Practices. The study recommended that other than strategic product development practices, the Kenyan Tea industry players should diverge from a long linear supply chain to a value network in order to make Tea a ‘hero’ crop and enable creation of a more sustainable industry and counter the escalating global competition.