RESUMO
Home-based enterprises (HBEs), which involve the use of one's residence for commercial activities, have become a prominent research focus in the fields of entrepreneurship, sustainability, and environmental management. Despite this, the lack of data impairs the ability to accurately evaluate the economic merits of this rapidly growing business model relative to its environmental effects. This article, detailing data on the demographic features of HBE operators in Ikot-Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, contributes to ongoing data mining efforts towards realistic framing of HBEs. The current data represent HBEs from five Ikot-Ekpene neighborhoods: Uruk-Uso, Ifuho, G.R.A, Ibiakpan Akanawan, and Ikot Ekpene Urban. The target population of the survey included operators of HBEs and residents. A total of 400 questionnaires were issued through systematic random sampling across the five neighborhoods. The entire sample yielded 330 valid responses, which underwent a descriptive statistical analysis, compiled, and presented in tables and bar charts. Analysis of the data provided insight into the rating of the economic relevance of HBEs in relation to their associated environmental impacts. These data provide helpful insights for researchers and policymakers involved in regulating and controlling activities in the urban sphere. They also serve as a reference point for more rigorous studies on environmental management and urban informality in cities.
RESUMO
Nigeria's digital soil map (DSM) and database is the most comprehensive and detailed source of quantitative information on the country's soil distribution. Digital cartography and geographic information system (GIS) operations were methods used in producing the DSM and database. We obtained analogue soil data in 8 hard copy maps (each at a displayable scale of 1: 650,000) from the Federal Department of Agricultural Land Resources (FDALR), which archived the result of Nigeria's reconnaissance soil survey. The survey started in 1985 and by 1990; it has completed the compilation of hard copy maps that outline Nigeria's major soil distribution. Our experimental design begins with electronic scanning of these paper maps. We set the scanning system to 500 dpi, creating high-resolution raster images, which were imported into ESRI ArcGIS software, for orthorectification by geo-referencing to WGS 1984 geographic coordinate system. We applied a spatial processing tool on the orthorectified images and created a geometrically-seamless mosaicked raster image for the soil data of the whole Nigeria. Using GIS on-screen digitization - with optimal snapping tolerance - we created vector polygons (spatial data) of soil components (mapping units). Finally, we coded the metadata (attributes) of Nigeria's soil distribution into Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheet, which we linked to the soil spatial data. The combined spatial and attribute soil data forms the soil database for Nigeria and provides, on-demand, vital soil information, such as thematic maps of soil characteristics. The department of Geoinformatics and surveying University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus (UNEC) is the major repository of Nigeria's DSM and database.
