Effective Board Management and Good Corporate Performance in Nigerian Public Liability Companies

The need for effective board management and good corporate performance lies at the heart of good corporate governance theory because as the agency theory contends the managers’ interest and the interest of shareholders are not almost always the same. Good corporate performance is the basis of the business as reflected through enhanced shareholder value measured by return on investment, return on assets or return on equity. Effective board management necessary for good corporate performance requires significant dose of emotional intelligence competencies such as integrity, transparency and loyalty. Such will ensure that the board of directors exercises internal control through effective monitoring roles aimed at protecting shareholders’ interest as contemplated by the principles of good corporate governance. Ninety seven individuals participated in the study conducted through the exploratory research design. Data were analyzed through descriptive and regression statistical techniques and it was found that effective board management has significant positive correlation with good corporate performance. There is need for more understanding in this area, therefore further study could examine the relationship between corporate fraud and incessant bank failures in Nigeria despite various regulatory interventions. Consequent on the result of this study, it was suggested that the appointment of members of the board of directors of public liability companies in Nigeria must not be done without consideration to relevant experience.<br>

INTRODUCTION
Effective board management (EBM) requires that the chairman of the board of directors (BODs) should have the requisite knowledge, intelligence, experience, integrity, among other competencies necessary to offer effective board leadership. EBM provides the impetus for driving effective corporate governance practices for the major purpose of good corporate performance (GCP) in public liability companies (PLCs) everywhere, including Nigeria. GCP is often measured by enhanced shareholder value in terms of return on equity (ROE), return on investment (ROI), and return on assets (ROA).
GCP is equally a reflection of the quantum of turnover, productivity and profitability of the company driven essentially by the quality of board leadership through the mechanism of EBM. EBM is about board competence which provides the capacity for the effective management of the affairs of the company. No matter the nature of the corporate governance structure or the management structure of the company, EBM is the ultimate requirement to ensure compliance through best management practices.
Both the concepts of good corporate governance practice and good management practices suggest in a nutshell that the chairman or chief executive officer (CEO) of the company should have the capacity to comply with the basic principles of corporate governance for the efficient operation of the company. The different definitions about corporate governance try to emphasize that the board should be composed of good directors who have the critical competencies for the proper management of the company.
In which case, EBM would ensure that the long-term strategic goals of the company are well established to enhance the opportunities for the proper management and control of the company to produce the expected results. GCP lies at the heart of the whole idea of corporate governance and EBM, since the ultimate goal is that in proper application of the principles and practice, the company becomes more effective, efficient and simultaneously increases shareholder value and market value within the industry.
The principles of corporate governance provide the guidelines to ensure EBM for GCP.
For example, the OECD (1999) principles of corporate governance state that they are meant for companies where shares are traded, but they could also apply to non-traded companies, like private companies and state owned enterprises (SOEs). The assumption here is that the focus is on PLCs, in which case, the BODs, of such enterprises have the responsibility to ensure the strategic guidance of the companies, involving the effective monitoring of management and http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 the boards accountability to the company and its shareholders, and to enhance the effective management of the company at all times.

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EBM leads to good corporate governance which largely ensures that a proper management structure is constituted and put in place and ensures that the structure functions to maintain corporate integrity, reputation and responsibility of the company in relation to the interest of stakeholders and the public. GCP is best achieved through EBM rather than the traditional believe that board composition, or board size contributes to corporate performance of PLCs.
Whether the board size is small or large like 14 members and above or too small like below 5 members, so as to limit the inclusion of a wider expertise and competencies and abilities which are required for desired performance, it is important to promote EBM as the capstone for GCP. According to Gachoki and Rotich (2013) systems and structures can provide an environment conducive to good corporate governance practices but it is the acts or omissions of the people charged with relevant responsibilities that will determine whether governance objectives are actually obtained (NICHOLSON, et al, 2004;BHAGAT;BLACK, 2002;JENSEN;MECKLING, 1976;HERMALIN;WEISBACH, 1991).
The need for EBM and GCP corporate governance theory, because as the agency theory contends, the managers' interest and the interest of shareholders' are not almost always the same. For GCP in Nigeria, it is imperative for public quoted companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to comply with institutional corporate governance policies or face sanctions.
According to Onyema (2014) the "corporate governance rating system introduced by the NSE is to promote integrity and transparency in listed companies which would form a natural and integral part of companies internal policies and mechanism" (HERMALIN; WEISBACH, 1991). EBM requires an effective board leader, and no business can be run successfully without an effective board. A board is required to start a business from day one, or even day zero.
Having a concept of the business is one thing, the next thing is how to set up a board and appoint managers to run the business, guided by the board. The chairman as the leader of the board should be somebody who must understand the nature of the business, and the people in the organization and having the capacity to harness all available resources to achieve what is in the best interests of the enterprise, the people and shareholders (ACHEBE, 2019). http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 Corporate boards without integrity can pose a great challenge to the performance of management and the company. Some corporate failures around the world expose a lack of transparency and accountability in the management of PLCs. A major case of board weakness in Nigeria can be seen in the 2006 Cadbury Nigeria PLC's accounting and auditing scandal that cost the global company over 15 million pound sterling and over 26 percent drop in share price.

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Heavy losses in share prices of many PLCs in the recent decades relate to cases of board incompetence, fraud, weak and in-exemplary regulatory leadership. Like the case of the failed banks between 1990s and 2018, many of them were found to be in default of rendering statutory annual reports of many years, and the regulatory authorities watched helplessly.
At present the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is said to be in default of producing its own annual reports for four (4) years and is being accused of double standards by significant others. These are among the serious challenges that can threaten EBM and GCP in Nigerian PLCs (SALAKO, 2018).
In the wake of the Nigerian financial crisis many banks collapsed due to board and leadership failures characterized by incompetence, corporate governance breaches, inadequate disclosure and lack of transparency about the financial position of banks. Also the capital market was infested by fraud and mismanagement that led to the crash of market capitalization from N13.0 trillion in 2008 to N4.3 trillion in 2009N4.3 trillion in (SANNI, 2010OKORIE;UWALEKE, 2010;AYININUOLA, 2007;MING;LEE, 2014).
Even with the recent collapse of Skye Bank PLC due largely to board and management incompetence, there is evidence that other PLCs including banks are still having weak BODs.
For example, according to Arogundade (2018) one of Nigeria's leading banks, Diamond Bank PLC is no longer comfortable with the leadership of its Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer.
According to him, Diamond Bank PLC seems to be in dire need of new capital to fuel growth and profitability. He reports that the bank recently faced headwinds with profitability as it had challenges with its lending to the indigenous oil sector coupled with that, the bank lost some board members including the chairman who resigned in view of the unhealthy development in the board and management situation of the bank.
According to Ibrahim (2018) Forensic Investigation Reports (FIRs) show that the erstwhile management of the failed Skye Bank Plc contributed to its failure by engaging in http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 insider abuse, poor corporate governance and banking malpractices. The reports show other malpractices to include fraudulent false accounting, manipulation of accounting records to present false profits and ratios, unlawful loan and credit facilities, nondisclosure of directors' interests and lending beyond the single obligor limit.

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He opines however, that the bridge bank resolution option of the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) helped to save over 6,000 jobs and also resulted in depositors' unhindered access to their funds and the continuity of operations in 300 branches through Polaris Bank Ltd. For example, in the process of bank management, the role of the BODs, not only youthful exuberance matters, but also experience in the business of banking counts.
Diamond Bank that was once the choice of many Nigerians will be finally swallowed With about N200b NPLs and a liquidity ratio below 30% minimum regulatory benchmarch, there is no doubt that the bank had reached the funeral level. Insider abuse is a major bank killer and a situation like this case where the GMD/CEO is also a supplier of services to the bank he s leading runs contrary to sound business ethics and the principles of good corporate governance and good management.
According to Alagbe (2018) you cannot compete with the man that will approve a contract for supply and maintenance services to the bank he leads, but this is bad management in the present century (SANUSI, 1995).

Conceptual Framework of the Study
A conceptual framework is a structure of the study idea or concept and how it is arranged and which summarizes the research problem in relation to relevant literature. It is often put in a schematic form that presents the principal variables and their hypothesized relationships. The conceptual framework of this study as shown in figure 1 was based on the model previously developed by Cavusgil and Zou (1994). http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013  An effective board of directors (BODs) should be comprised of people with a high dose of emotional intelligence and experience that will enhance compliance, enforcement of ethical standards, transparency and probity of the board. Management performance is often measured by the amount of wealth management is able to create for shareholders.

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The creation of such wealth reflects in GCP. EBM is imperative for GCP in Nigeria today to arrest the potentials of enterprise failures as witnessed in the last decades. This researcher is not aware of many studies in these areas at this time, when new rules are being put in place to restrict managing directors (MDs) from succeeding board chairmen so as to create EBM and GCP among PLCs in Nigeria.
According to Okwe (2018) it may soon become illegal for the managing director and chief executive officer of a publicly quoted company to succeed the chairman of the BODs except after a period of not less than three years of exiting the first position. Also under a proposed draft code, it may become unlawful for a person to hold concurrent appointments as chairman or executive director in more than one company, or for a managing director or an executive director to head committee in companies in which he is serving.
He explains that the code will promote ease of doing business, attract local and foreign investments and enhance the integrity of the Nigerian capital market by way of entrenching a culture of disclosure, transparency and accountability in the management of PLCs in Nigeria.
The code will raise public awareness of good corporate governance in Nigeria. In view of the evolving scenario, it is expected that this work will provoke more studies by local researchers http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 in the areas aimed at finding a balance between EBM and GCP in PLCs in Nigeria (UGOANI, 2018; OPARANMA, 2010).

Objective of the Study
The study was designed to explore the relationship between EBM and GCP in Nigerian PLCs.

Significance of the Study
The study is expected to raise public awareness over the relevance of emotional intelligence, ethical codes, integrity, on EBM and GCP in Nigerian PLCs.

i.
Does emotional intelligence influence EBM and GCP in organizations? ii.
Are you sure that experience has no relevance in EBM and GCP? iii.
Is compliance with regulatory framework critical for EBM and GCP?
iv. Do you believe that ethical codes are not important to enhance EBM? v.
Can probity by BODs enhance EBM and GCP?

Hypothesis
To meet the objective of the study the following hypothesis was formulated and tested at 0.05 level of significance.
 Ho: There is no relationship between EBM and GCP among PLCs in Nigeria.
 Hi: There is a relationship between EBM and GCP among PLCs in Nigeria.

LITERATURE REVIEW
Many factors can influence EBM and GCP among PLCs in Nigeria, including emotional intelligence and institulization of ethical standards. Emotional intelligence encompasses the competencies of self-regulation and integrity necessary for outstanding job performance, while ethical codes enhance the opportunities for the BODs of a company to do the right things in the interests of stakeholders.
A major task of Cadbury (1993) work on the financial aspects of corporate governance is to encourage self-regulation with the aim that would promote good management, shareholder value and ultimately increase market value for the interests of stakeholders. Nobody can seriously challenge the critical link between EBM and GCP because in Nigeria PLCs operate mainly pyramid structures and if members of the BODs lack emotional intelligence their action
Huge academic research reveals that effective corporate governance is closely related to effective management to reflect integrity, reputation, probity, transparency, accountability, and GCP. The concept of EBM connotes the need for optimum firm performance or GCP often reflected by profitability. In the last decades in Nigeria there have been low performances in Many PLCs, mostly banks failed in the past decades largely due to the inability of the BODs to adequately regulate the remuneration of executive directors in tandem with good business ethics. However, to encourage GCP and to ensure that directors are fairly but responsibly, rewarded for their individual contributions, remuneration issues must be settled by negotiation and subject to the approval of a remuneration committee. Subsequently, reviews of base salary can be undertaken by reference to market movements, conditions and success as often measured by profitability and growth rates.
According to Greenbury (1995) decisions on base salary of directors are important not only in themselves but also because the level agreed is likely to be the platform on which so much else rests. It suggests that bonuses of directors should be expressed as a percentage of their base salary, share option may be allocated as a declared multiple of base pay and commonly, pension will be a proportion of final salary. This is critical to increase executive motivation and therefore business performance. http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 During the global financial crisis in 2008, it was brought into focus that the system of bonuses and remuneration of directors in financial institutions were unethical. It is argued that it encouraged excessive risk taking and irresponsible lending that led to the downfall of some of the world's biggest lenders and in turn the insurers insuring such risk.

EBM and OECD Principles
The OECD (1999) principles of good corporate governance stress on the need for EBM to enhance shareholder value. In essence, the principles emphasize that EBM is crucial for GCP, especially in the case of PLCs that often operate a pyramid structure of management. For example, Gachoki and Rotich (2013) suggest that incompetence, irresponsibility, lack of accountability, probity, transparency and mismanagement by the BODs are responsible for poor performance of state owned enterprises (SOEs) and other PLCs in Kenya. Nicholson, et al, (2001) argue that diagnosing and understanding the dynamics of board effectiveness is a major focus of corporate governance and performance. EBM ensures internal control through BODs effective monitoring roles aimed at protecting shareholders' interests (ZAHRA; PEARCE, II, 1989).
It also enhances external cohesion through compliance with regulatory control mechanisms, and corporate reporting, disclosure and codes to enhance GCP. EBM also provides the necessary managerial behavior that makes it possible for the providers of corporate capital to be equitably rewarded.
The OECD (1999) principles of good corporate governance state that they are mainly for companies where shares are traded but that they could also apply to non-traded companies, like, private companies and SOEs. The implication of this basic assertion is that the focus is on PLCs in which case the BODs of such companies have the responsibility to ensure the strategic guidance of the company, the effective monitoring of management and ensuring the board's accountability to the shareholders. Therefore, EBM would mean that the BODs must have the relative competence to passionately cultivate the culture of driving the affairs of the company to achieve its specific objectives. In this process, it must focus attention on ethics, corporate social responsibility (CSR), honesty, transparency and respect for employees. The goals of the enterprise must be in constant focus, there must be a sound organizational structure to show lines of responsibilities, communications and the type of management style and culture. http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 The concept of EBM also embraces the ideas of operational effectiveness, efficiency, probity, accountability and transparency in terms of financial reporting, disclosure requirements and compliance with statutory codes and regulations. The ability of the BODs to enhance EBM for GCP requires strong board leadership as well as the critical competencies embedded in the theory of emotional intelligence (EI).

Building EBM Through EI
EI is a form of intelligence that involves the ability to monitor one's own and others' feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use such information to guide thinking and actions. It is a set of skills that underlie the accurate assessment, evaluation, expression, understanding and regulation of emotions. Goleman (1998) argues that EI is a constellation of the qualities that identify high work performers. He suggests that emotional competencies are twice as important to people's success today as raw intelligence or technical know-how. He also argues that the further up the corporate ladder that a manager goes, the more important EI becomes for effective performance in the organization.
Therefore, EBM that is concerned with enhancing boardroom skills must take cognizance of the concept of EI. Goleman (1998)  According to Goleman (1998) EI competencies seem to operate most effectively in synergistic clusters, with the evidence suggesting that mastery of a critical mass or cluster of competencies is a necessary prelude to arouse the competencies in the other clusters, but when http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 both are demonstrated the individual becomes typically more effective in professional and managerial positions.

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The self-awareness cluster suggests the ability to recognize and understand one's moods, emotions, and drives as well as their effect on other people. This cluster is linked to three competencies: self-confidence, realistic self-assessment, and emotional self-awareness.
The self-management cluster deals with the ability to control or redirect disruptive impulses and moods and to regulate one's own behavior together with a propensity to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
The six competencies associated with this component are: self control, trustworthiness and integrity, initiative and adaptability, comfort with ambiguity, openness to change and strong desire to achieve. The social-awareness cluster identifies the ability to understand the emotional make-up of other people; and skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions. This is also linked to six competencies; empathy, expertise in building and retaining talent, organizational awareness, cross-cultural diversity, valuing diversity, and service to clients and customers. The last which is the relationship management cluster teaches about proficiency in managing relationships and building networks to get the desired result from others and reach personal goals, and the ability to find common ground and build rapport.
The five competencies associated with this component include: leadership, effectiveness in leading change, conflict management, influence, communication and expertise in building and leading teams, including resilience. Numerous academic researches' suggest that mastery of EI and the related competencies is the critical ingredient for effective performance (ARMSTRONG, 2004).
It is highly agreeable that EBM and GCP both require critical EI competencies. For example, the board chairman of a company requires superior leadership qualities to be effective in his position. Emotional competencies are based on a common underlying EI capacity that results in outstanding performance. Also, individual EI determines the potential for learning the practical skills that are based on its four main elements described in figure 2 and which are needed for workplace success.
In a typical boardroom situation, if board members are deficient in social awareness, for example, they will be inept at persuading or inspiring others at leading teams or catalyzing http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 change. Also, if they have little self awareness, they will be oblivious to their own weaknesses and lack the self-confidence that comes from certainty about their strengths.

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For EBM, EI is capable of minimizing the incidence of non-compliance with laid-down internal controls and operational procedures, poor governance practices, disagreements between board and management, ineffective board oversight functions, inordinate MD/CEO ambition, like thinking of going on to succeed the chairman without a break, among other irregularities. This is imperative because EI has won global recognition in general management and administrative perspectives, as the minimum benchmark for equity, equality, modesty, hardwork, focus, tenacity, love and spirituality, and performance. It is established from available academic and professional research that company directors with a high degree of EI are often motivated and willing to defer immediate benefits for long-term company success, and effective in promoting good governance of the corporate board.
According to Akpala (2011) good governance is the process by which the BODs, working through management, guide a company in fulfilling its corporate mission and safeguarding the company's assets. Fundamental to governance is the ability of individual directors to work in partnership so that they can balance long-term strategic and short-term operational responsibilities.
Also, good governance occurs when a board provides proper guidance to management regarding the strategic direction for the company and oversees management's efforts to move in that direction. Therefore, the interplay between board and management centres on managing the relationship between strategy and operation, both of which are very essential for corporate performance.
In the circumstance therefore, EI becomes invariably inescapable in EBM because while the BODs must be responsive for the interests of internal and external stakeholders, such as clients, employees, regulators and investors individual directors must be guided by the highest standards of ethical behavior, which is critical for protecting the trust the public places in the PLC.

Research Design
The exploratory research design was adopted for the work. The exploratory design is historical in nature and does not often require a large sample nor a structured questionnaire. A combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques can be used in exploratory design (BRANNEN, 2005).

Sources of Data
Data were generated through primary and secondary sources. Secondary data are information that has been previously collected for some other purposes other than the research project at hand, while primary data are information gathered and assembled specifically for the research project at hand (AAKER, et al, 2004).
Each data collection method has advantages and disadvantages. However, the best approach is to use multiple methods of data collection because it affords the researcher a chance to cross-check the information obtained through the various methods (NELSON; QUICK, 2003).

Sample Frame
The sample frame comprised of the population in Nigeria interested in the topic under investigation (AAKER, et al, 2004).

Sampling Technique
Purposive sampling technique was used to select the sample for the study. This technique involves the selection of units based on factors other than random chance (ASIKA, 2004).

Sample Size
The sample size was determined through the sample ratio concept (Asika, 2004).

Area of Study
The study conducted in South-East Nigeria, comprised of five out of thirty six states in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Based on the 1/10 th principle, it is believed http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 that the opinion of the people in the zone is a good representative of the opinion of the people in Nigeria (Ezejelue, et al, 2008).

Decision Rule
The decision rule for the cut-off point for the analysis of responses to the research questions was at 3 points. This method is most appropriate to answer research questions (NWANKWO, 2011).

Data Analysis
Data were analyzed through descriptive and regression statistical methods and result presented in tables. Regression analysis is used to determine the level of relationship between the independent and dependent variables of study (NWORUH, 2004).
Ordinary Least Square (OLS) technique is a method used to estimate the unknown parameter in a linear regression model with the goal of minimizing the differences between observed variables in a dataset. The method was not chosen because of its simplicity but due to its unique properties of linearity, efficiency, sufficiency, least variances, unbiasedness and least mean errors (KOUTSOYAINNIS, 1977).

Model Specification
Model specification is the expression of a relationship into precise mathematical form.
According to Koutsoyiannis (1977) economic theory does not indicate the functional form of any relationship. This means that economic theory does not state whether a relationship will be expressed in a linear form, quadratic form or in a cubic form. On the basis of this, the model specification for this analysis is:   (2019) Table 1 was used to illustrate that the respondents to the research statements were qualified and therefore competent to give reasonable answers to enhance the quality and potency of the study. The analysis in table 2 justified the potency of emotional intelligence and experience on EBM and GCP in PLCs. It also supports the widely held notion that probity of the BODs among others are critical for EBM and GCP. http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013  The regression result showed the relationship between the independent variables and dependent variable. The goodness-of-fit result with R 2 = 0.93, and adjusted R 2 = 0.91 values are impressive. The implication is that about 93 percent of the systematic variations in the dependent variable are explained by the independent variables. This is the interest of the study.

Discussion
The R 2 = 0.93 result of the regression analysis confirms that the independent variables of the study explain the dependent variable. The implication is that about 93 percent of the systematic variation in the dependent variable is explained by the independent variables. The goodness-of-fit test of the model is also splendid as the adjusted R 2 is 0.91.
The value D. W. is 0.25 that lie within the range between 1.5 and 2.5, so it can be stated that there is no autocorrelation among the independent variables of study. The analysis of the profile of respondents showed that they were competent to offer necessary information to enhance the quality of the study. The frequency and mean analysis provided credible evidence to support the regression result that overall, EBM has strong positive correlation with GCP.
This result supports the earlier finding of Zahra and Pearce, II, (1989) that an effective BODs has a strong relationship with good financial performance of a company. Also, Cherniss (2001) in a study of many organizations reports that emotional intelligence has positive relationship with organizational effectiveness, while Goleman (1998) equally opines that emotional intelligence of individual members in the workplace greatly enhances performance.
Ineffective supervision on the part of the BODs would invariably result in a lack of knowledge about the true position of the affairs of the company, lead to strategic myopia, complacency and poor performance. For example, at the heart of the banking system distress http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 in the early 1990s, the regulators found out that most of the BODs of distressed banks in Nigeria were incompetent and ineffective.

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To this extent, and to rekindle the integrity of the system the Central Bank of Nigeria had to sack the incompetent BODs and appointed Transitional Supervisory Boards (TSBs) to operate with adequate supervisory guidelines as regularly as they thought fit while rationalization and prudent management would be the watchword of the new management teams. At the end of their tenure some members of the TSBs who performed creditably retained their positions or were swapped, and those found incompetent were relieved of their positions (SANUSI, 1995).
A major reason for the election of the BODs by the shareholders of a PLC is the belief that a professional team can manage the business more effectively and more successfully than a roomful of shareholders, each with his own opinion could ever try to achieve. It is therefore expected that PLCs will grow and expand as the result of good management and operating efficiency based on EBM. Therefore EBM connotes the proper conduct, control, prudential and professional management of the company by the BODs to meet regulatory standards and laws to enhance shareholder value.
Companies that failed have been noted to have had about 60 percent weakness in their boards, including lack of a core sense of responsibility, transparency, accountability, as well as sound knowledge and experience in the broad area of management. Experience for instance, is an intrinsic affair that is ever required by directors for the core need of organizational performance. EBM requires transformational leadership and competency in the management function intrinsic to the business of the PLC. A PLC as a form of business organization which is authorized by law to act as a single person even though it may be owned by any number of persons, who are the shareholders, and are responsible for electing a BODs.
The BODs carries out policies and decisions of the shareholders and is responsible for reporting on the company's progress to the shareholders. It elects the officers or managers of the company, on whose skill the success of the company lies. In effect, therefore, the BODs once elected control the entire wealth of the company. If the BODs act with integrity, the shareholders value will increase, otherwise it will diminish or lead to losses and failure.
In order to enhance shareholder value, and the fact that the individual shareholders are willing to give up control over their funds in return for sharing in a business that is operated by highly skilled directors. In this regard, the BODs must demonstrate robust leadership and http://www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 relationship management skills in attempts to meet the expectations of shareholders who believe that their investment enables skilled management to direct the business on a larger, more efficient scale than would otherwise be possible and resulting in a share in the profits from skillful management.

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With such bad cases like the widely publicized Enron's bankruptcy amid serious criminal charges against its accounting and auditing firm, the spotlight has shifted on the BODs on the need for probity to ensure accurate current and adequate financial reporting aimed at increased business support for its management, higher stock prices and greater ease for attracting and sustaining new capital.
EBM also implicates the need for the BODs to enforce the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SECs) guidelines requiring full disclosure of any information that would make a significant difference in the financial results of a PLC which could jeopardize GCP.
Obviously for the purpose of EBM and GCP board governance rules anticipate that the performance of the board chairman should be evaluated annually or on any other basis recognized by the BODs, and the performance of the CEO should also be evaluated at least once a year by the chairman or a committee of the board for that purpose. EBM requires that the BODs must hold meetings at least once every three months and for the effectiveness of the board itself a committee of the board should carry out a review of the board to assess its mix of skills and experiences needed for GCP.

Scope for further Study
Further study should examine the relationship between corporate fraud and incessant bank failure in Nigeria. This is urgent because despite the worrisome bank failure episode of the 1990s through 2011, Skye Bank PLC recently failed against government assurances that the banking system is sanitized. It has therefore become necessary to find out new ways to cope with the challenge as the federal government has vowed to prosecute any director or member of the executive management that contributed to the failure of the bank (EGWUATU, 2018).

Recommendations
i.
Integrity of individual directors will reflect in EBM and GCP. It is therefore necessary for shareholders to always ensure that persons without dubious character are elected into the BODs.
ii. During the Nigerian banking system crisis of the 1990s it was noted that most bank directors did not have the requisite experience in the broad area of management

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http: //www.ijmp.jor.br v. 11, n. 1, January-February 2020ISSN: 2236-269X DOI: 10.14807/ijmp.v11i1.1013 to function effectively as directors. This contributed highly to the unprecedented number of failed banks during the period. It must therefore be born in mind that paper qualifications and physical appearance are not the most important elements to be considered in the election or appointment of directors by shareholders of PLCs in Nigeria. iii.
Audit committees in PLCs must be headed by a competent individual who has enough time to ensure that proper checks and balances take place to forestall discrepancies. The Cadbury Nigeria PLC financial manipulation went on for many years largely due to weak internal audit and control.
iv. The Managing director/chief executive officer of PLCs should not aspire to succeed the chairman without a break. This is important to ensure that a fresh hand comes on board with new ideas and also to mitigate the possibility of covering insider deals between former chairman and the new chairman that could impair the reputation of the company.
v. Directors must observe high ethical standards for EBM. Ethics as values and rules of conduct can help directors to develop essential skills such as discipline, honesty and loyalty in handling shareholders' funds put under their watch. Ethical standards will guide the BODs to appreciate what they are expected to apply to their work and where the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior lie.

CONCLUSION
EBM demands that the chairman of the BODs must be a transformational leader who has integrity and the requisite knowledge to lead the PLC on the paths of profitability and sustainability. A BODs composed by people who are emotionally intelligent are more likely than those without the competencies of loyalty, honesty and probity to achieve GCP.
EBM ensures internal control through BODs effective monitoring roles aimed at protecting shareholders interest. 97 persons participated in the study conducted through the exploratory research design. Data were analyzed through descriptive and regression statistical techniques and it was found that EBM has significant positive correlation with GCP. This result supports the findings of Zahra and Pearce, II, (1989), among others, that EBM is necessary for GCP.


Research on the Method of Determining Highway Truck Load Limit Based on Image Processing

Over-limit transportation is the leading cause of highway pavement diseases and traffic accidents. The Ministry of Transport of China has determined the weight limit for different trucks entering the highway based on the number of truck axles and the coupling method. However, because determining the truck weight limit is more complicated, the current work is mainly done manually by the toll station staff at the expressway entrance, and the recognition speed is slow Cand the recognition result is inaccurate. In response to this problem, we first analyzed and established the relationship between the number of axles and the position distribution, and the truck weight limit. Based on the above, we developed a circle detection method with an improved Hough and CURE algorithm as the core to identify truck wheel axles. We collect 100 test images at the expressway entrance and use 50 of them to perform detection experiments to determine the radius step, angle step, and the maximum and minimum circle values during the detection process. After using the entire data set, comparing the hough algorithm, the improved Hough algorithm, and our proposed method, the results show that our proposed method has higher accuracy and efficiency.

I. INTRODUCTION
Overload transportation will damage highway pavement and subgrade and bridge, which will shorten the service life. Simultaneously, overload transport due to its large carrying mass, motion inertia, and braking distance will increase transport safety hazards. China banned overloaded trucks from entering expressways on January 1, 2020, from comprehensively banning crowded transportation. Due to the different towing form and axle number of transport trucks, other transport trucks have different weight limit values, so transport trucks' entrance detection on expressways mainly consists of two parts: entrance weighing and weight limit identification. The form of towing and the number of axles make the determination of truck weight limit complicated, which is why it is mainly judged by manual title. However, due to the expressway toll collection, personnel have to handle the toll procedures and carry out identification. Simultaneously, there is a low line of sight and other conditions, resulting in a long time for manual titles and a high error rate. This study developed a method to determine highway trucks' load limit based on image processing based on the above problems.
The associate editor coordinating the review of this manuscript and approving it for publication was Yiming Tang .
It is necessary to develop an automatic method for determining the weight limit of highway trucks. The weight limit value of highway trucks has a specific correlation with their axles' number and arrangement. The truck axles' number and structure can be identified through image processing, and then the weight limit value of the truck can be obtained. Based on the analysis of the relationship between the number and arrangement of truck axles and their weight limits, Research has developed a method for determining highway truck load limits based on image processing. This method can replace the determination of the truck weight limit completed by the highway toll personnel, quickly and accurately complete the truck weight limit at the highway entrance, ensure highway transportation safety, and improve highway entrance efficiency.
The truck's profile feature is one of the most significant parts of the car. It has a useful recognition feature, so most truck type recognition algorithms are based on the truck profile for truck identification. This research aims to solve the truck's towing characteristics and the number of axles through image recognition. Both of these problems can be solved by identifying the side wheels of the truck. The number of axles is equal to the number of side wheels of the truck. The distribution of the side wheel positions is obtained, so the VOLUME 8, 2020 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ critical issue in this research is identifying the truck's side wheels. In recognition of truck side profile features, recognizing truck tires' profile and position is the core content. Therefore, according to the tire profile characteristics, circle detection technology has become a key technology. In recognition of truck profile features, truck tire profile and position recognition are the core content. Therefore, according to the characteristics of the tire profile, circle detection technology becomes the key technology. The circle detection algorithm originally comes from an extension of the Hough transform algorithm for detecting straight lines, which has developed many unique algorithms with their characteristics after several decades. The existing circle detection algorithms can be roughly divided into voting/clustering algorithms and optimization algorithms.
The voting/clustering algorithm mainly uses the Circle equation and the points' coordinates to map the image's edge points to parameter space. This algorithm includes mostly the Circle Hough Transform (CHT) and various improved methods. The Hough Transform (HT) was initially used to detect and draw the linear trajectory of subatomic particles in the bubble chamber photos. The author skillfully transformed the global curve detection problem into the peak detection problem in the parameter space by using the linear point-slope equation.
The optimization algorithm mainly includes the leastsquares algorithm and genetic algorithm. Direct least square fitting and numerical stable least-square fitting fit the circle to the edge to obtain the minimum error. This kind of method's detection results are accurate and can get the product with the minimum deviation. However, they can only fit one target at a time and are highly susceptible to the influence of interference points. Sometimes, the results with a variation or even complete errors will be produced. In our study, multiple circles need to be detected simultaneously, so the voting/clustering algorithm is adopted. Now the commonly used Hough transform is an important tool for circle recognition. Hough transform was originally used to detect and draw the subatomic particles' straight-line trajectory in the bubble chamber photograph and then applied to the circle detection direction. Its basic idea is to transform the original image into the parameter space [1]. To reduce the Hough Transform of a circle's calculation amount and memory consumption, some researchers propose the Randomized Hough Transform (RHT) and the Randomized Algorithm for Detecting Circles (RCD). RHT is used to avoid the huge calculation amount formed using standard Hough transform [2], [3]. When the image noise is lower than 170%, RCD's detection speed is significantly better than that of the RHT algorithm [4]. Although RHT only accumulates the number of parameter allocation units from more than one mapping, it still introduces many invalid units into complex image processing, The gradient-based Hough transform is introduced to use the edge points' gradient information to detect The center of the circle. finally, the one-dimensional Hough transform is used to solve the radius length to reduce invalid accumulation (Yuen et al., 1990). Later, the gradient direction information was used to judge the validity of random 3 points in THE RHT algorithm, which also reduced the invalid accumulation to a certain extent [6]. Kiryat N and some people proposed a probabilistic Hough transform [7], [8]. To overcome the increase of computation and the increase of dispersion degree of statistical results caused by arbitrary selection of combination points, the point Hough transform is proposed to realize circle detection. [9]. Later, a circle analysis method was proposed to identify the edge of the target for chain code. On this basis, the basic elements of roundness and radius were analyzed and calculated [10]. For the detection of circular objects in the circle analysis class, an adaptive random Hough transform is proposed [11]. To optimize the edge chain coding, Chen proposed a method that uses four adjacent priority eight directions to track points on the edge of a circular target, thereby forming a series of edge chains. Then, three non-collinear points on edge were randomly selected to determine the circle's position, thus improving the accuracy and speed of circle detection [12]. A threedimensional Hough transform method is proposed. The radial distance, azimuth, and time in radar echo data correspond to three cartesian coordinate systems. Then, the range-time plane and angle-time plane are respectively Hough transform method to realize target detection. The formula of Hough transform in three-dimensional space is also derived [13]. For the multi-dimensional Hough transform, a weak target TBD algorithm based on the multi-dimensional Hough transform is proposed, which has good robustness for detecting and tracking linear moving targets in three-dimensional or highdimensional space [14].The multi-dimensional Hough transforms pre-detection tracking algorithm based on odorless transformation USES the target amplitude, prior information, and odorless transformation method, and improves the detection and tracking of Hough's performance transform while reducing the amount of computation [15]. When the image data is messy, random Hough transform is not ideal, and real-time detection is poor. Therefore, a K-means clustering method is proposed first to separate the arc data points from the contour image, and finally use the random Hough algorithm to detect the circle [16]. Research on the Circle Detection Algorithm based on the Connected Region Marker algorithm [17]. To solve the problems of the large calculation amount, low operating efficiency, and low detection accuracy in the traditional Hough transform circle detection algorithm, an improved Hough transforms circle detection algorithm based on circular symmetry, and a random selection is proposed [18]. Aiming at the traditional random algorithm's problems with many invalid accumulations, low execution efficiency, and improved circle detection algorithm is proposed. The two-step invalid circle model selection strategy is studied [19]. Contour tracking is to track the boundary by sequentially finding the edge points. The criterion is to scan pixel by pixel from the lower-left corner of the image. When an edge point is encountered, it starts to track 205478 VOLUME 8, 2020 sequentially until the tracking return is following points to the starting point (for closed lines). Alternatively, there is no new follow-up point (for non-closed line) or its follow-up point [20].To solve the problems of multiple interference factors, the irregular shape of circles under complex background, slow detection speed of traditional random Hough transform circle, and low detection accuracy, detecting irregular circles under complex background was proposed [21]. In recent years, optimization algorithms have been widely applied to the detection of circles. Proportional genetic algorithm [22], bacterial foraging algorithm [23], differential evolutionary algorithm [24], electromagnetic optimization [25], artificial immune algorithm [26], and artificial bee colony algorithm [27] have been successively applied to the detection of circular targets. These methods do not adopt the hypothesis verification method but set an objective function in advance and repeatedly iterate the feature information extracted from the image to the objective function to obtain the circle's center and radius. The time complexity of these methods is large and cannot guarantee a more accurate recognition result. Simultaneously, because of the image's complexity, more interference factors in the image will harm circular detection accuracy. This paper proposes a circle detection algorithm that improves Hough circle detection and CURE cluster analysis to solve these problems. The algorithm can effectively process the image and reduce the noise of the image. Combined with the typical CURE cluster analysis algorithm in data mining, the circles existing in the image can be detected by better classification, improving detection speed, and efficiency.

II. DETECTION PROCESS
There are various types of trucks with different models and different classification standards. In China, highway management departments have other load limits for different kinds of trucks.
The weight limit value of an ordinary lorry with four axles and below is the lowest. In contrast, the middle axle's weight limit value, articulated, and the fully articulated car is higher. Take the four-axle truck as an example to compare its axle distribution. It can be seen from Figure 1 that the distance between the first two axles of the four-axle ordinary truck and other trucks is smaller than that of different types of trucks, to make a judgment based on this. Of the five-axis trucks and above, only the articulated car type 2 differs. The axles of freight cars' distribution characteristics with different towing forms are other, and the distribution characteristics are similar to those of four-axle trucks.
Through the truck's side's image processing, the number and position of the wheel and axle of the truck can be identified, and then the number and distribution position of the wheel and axle can be obtained. If the wheelbase ratio range is met, the weight limit within the field is output. If it is not completed, other weight limits are output. It can be seen that determining the number and location of freight car wheels through image processing is the key to the research.  Based on this decision basis, we designed the fusion algorithm. After determining the freight car's wheel and axle's number and position, the freight car's limited weight value shall be determined according to the ratio as mentioned above of the wheel and axle. The whole detection process is divided into two parts: image processing and upper limit calculation. The image processing part mainly includes image preprocessing, edge detection, and wheel recognition.

III. IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD A. IMAGE PREPROCESSING
The identified truck image should be preprocessed to obtain the image information with recognition value and extract and recognize the truck profile better. Images taken by cameras on highways can contain many things that are not needed for recognition, such as color information and light intensity. VOLUME 8, 2020 TABLE 2. Truck wheelbase ratio. The wheelbase ratio range under the coaxial number is determined through the wheel axle distribution characteristics, and the wheelbase ratio range is satisfied. The weight limit within the field is output.

FIGURE 2.
Detection flow chart. The image processing part mainly includes image input, image preprocessing, edge detection, identify the axle, wheel recognition, and determine weight limit.
The preprocessing of the identified truck images is mainly to convert the color images into grayscale images.
In image preprocessing, sometimes the grayscale image obtained during image preprocessing is too low in brightness, so it is necessary to adjust its brightness. Gamma correction [28] is applied to the image to increase the contrast of features recognized in the image, thus improving its display effect. There is the mathematical formula of Gamma correction: wheres is the pixel value of the image after transformation, r is the pixel value of the image before the conversion, c and γ are constants. When γ > 1, the grayscale value of short-ranges and the grayscale value of the large-ranges are interchanged, the low grayscale value of the short-range transition to the high grayscale value of the large-ranges, while the high grayscale value of the large-ranges transition to the low grayscale value of the short-ranges; When γ < 1, on the contrary, the high grayscale value of the short-ranges transition to the low grayscale value of the large-ranges, while the low grayscale value of the large-ranges transition to the high grayscale value of the short-ranges. The gamma curve of CRT can be changed by changing the power value (γ ). It is experienced that γ = 1 is the calculated boundary value when c is 0.5.

B. EDGE DETECTION
After the pretreatment, the edge detection of the truck should be carried out. The commonly used edge detection operators are Roberts edge operator, Sobel edge operator, Prewitt edge operator, Laplacian edge operator, Laplacian of Gaussian edge operator, and Canny edge operator [29]- [34]. The Canny edge detection operator is a multilevel edge detection operator proposed by John F.Canny in 1986 [35]. The Canny operator and other operators' main difference is that the Canny operator calculates and stores the gradient and amplitude in all four directions. The direction with the largest amplitude is more likely to be the direction of the edge. Then the lag threshold is used to limit the gradient amplitude and determine the edge of the image. The steps of the Canny operator to find the edge point are as follows.
1) Smooth the image with a Gaussian filter: σ is the standard deviation of the Gaussian function. The value of σ directly affects the weight of the spatial domain. The smaller the value is, the smaller the weight of the spatial domain will be. f (x, y) is the input image; I (x, y) is the image filtered by a convolution operation.
2) The first partial derivative is used to calculate the gradient amplitude and direction. The first partial derivative sum of each pixel point is calculated in the 2 × 2 neighborhood to obtain the image pixel gradient amplitude and direction. The calculation method is as follows: The gradient amplitude M and direction at point (x,y) are: 3) The maximum gradient amplitude inhibition: NMS's maximum inhibition for short can refine the image edge and restrain the edge points. The canny algorithm in which the vertical and horizontal comparison gradient size, simultaneously all pixel points in the gradient direction of the four trends similar to replace. If the pixel gradient value is greater than the adjacent point gradient in the direction of the gradient values, is to determine the pixel edge points and keep the gradient value; If the gradient value is less than the adjacent threshold in the same direction, the pixel point is judged as a non-edge point, and the gradient value is set to 0, to realize the refinement treatment of the edge. 4) The double threshold method is used to detect and connect edges: after non-maximum suppression, the gradient threshold needs to be set to extract reality. By placing a high and low point, the real edge's credibility can be improved, and the false edge can be reduced. Canny Canny selects 1/2 of the high threshold as the low threshold, and the high point divides the image into three parts: the right edge part, the false edge part, and the non-edge part. The faulty edge part contains both edge points and non-edge points, and it is determined whether the issue is an edge point according to the number of edge points in the neighborhood of the pixel point of the false edge part. The Canny algorithm parameter can be adjusted appropriately according to different occasions to meet different edge characteristics, and it has more substantial applicability in the application and better detection effect. Therefore, a Canny operator is used in this paper to detect the edge of the image.

C. HOUGH CIRCLE DETECTION BASED ON EDGE GRADIENT IMPROVEMENT
After a Canny operator was used for edge detection, the detection edge deviated from the actual boundary due to the image and edge detection algorithm, so the circle could not be intuitively detected.
The Hough transform algorithm uses the line-point duality of image space and Hough parameter space to transform the image space's detection problem into parameter space.
The general equation of a known circle is in the formula: (a, b)-center of the circle, r-radius of the process. Invert the unknowns in the above formula; y and x are constants. Furthermore, a, b, r as unknowns. The above equation becomes a cone equation. Three points on the circle can determine the circle equation. Then three points on the image can determine a set of parameters, determining a circle. This algorithm uses this principle. Randomly go to three points in the image space to determine a set of parameters, then go to three points, and then determine a set of parameters. The latter is compared with the former. If the same, the parameter is added. If it is different, use it as a new parameter source, put it into the parameter table. We know that the accumulator of a parameter group reaches the preset threshold or reaches the upper limit of the number of cycles we set. The test stops.
The random Hough transform algorithm can recognize the circle, but it can also introduce invalid accumulation. A flexible gradient calculation is presented in the algorithm, and the Canny operator is used to calculate the edge gradient [36] to reduce the invalid accumulation. We use this method to detect circles.
The gradient detection circle can be used in the following steps: 1) The Canny operator formulas (4)-(7) are used to calculate the first-order derivatives in the x and y directions of the non-zero points of the preprocessed image to obtain the gradient. 2) Store gradients of all non-zero points; 3) All non-zero curves are defined by the slope. According to the circle's characteristics, it finds the gradient of the point on the circle and makes straight lines. Straight lines intersect at the center of the circle. 4) The intersection points of all the lines are accumulated.
When the line through the intersection points is accumulated to the preset threshold, the candidate center and radius are determined. 5) Calculate the distance between the radius and the center of the circle, and determine it to be a right circle when it conforms to the maximum value r max and minimum value r min of the set radius and the minimum distance d of the center. 6) Draw the right circle in the original image. 7) At the end of the detection, the circle in the original image is displayed.
Using the gradient to determine the center and radius of the circle and relative random Hough transform can avoid invalid accumulation, reduce operation time, increase accuracy, and avoid false detection and missing detection.

D. CURE CLUSTERING ALGORITHM
After the detection circle is completed by improving the Hough transform, multiple circles can be detected for each wheel. Meanwhile, circles can be detected at the non-wheel in the picture due to some disturbances, which will cause specific interference to the detection results. In this case, it is necessary to gather the data into a similar sample point through cluster analysis, and then gather the similar sample points into the same class cluster to minimize the similarity between sample points of different classes of clusters and thus reduce the interference of non-wheel circle. The present clustering analysis techniques mainly include dividing clustering, merging clustering, density-based clustering, grid clustering, spectral clustering. The CURE algorithm applied to cluster analysis has several essential characteristics [37]: a. It can recognize clusters of arbitrary shapes, such as round, oval shape; b. It has linear space complexity and time complexity, and for images in low-dimensional data space, the complexity is relatively simple; c. Most of the clustering algorithm is good VOLUME 8, 2020 at dealing with similar object clustering, only in outlier presence when dealing with low efficiency and accuracy. CURE algorithm chooses not to use a single center of mass or object to represent a cluster. It chooses to have a fixed number. It has a particular representative in the space point to represent a cluster. The more representative points in the clusters are used to indicate a cluster to reduce the wheel around the interference of the results significantly. We use this method to determine the location of the circle, finally.
First, choose the furthest distance cluster center of mass of a point as the first point, and then select from the selected to the point farthest point, until it is chosen to n (generally n ≥10), these points to capture the shape and size of the clusters. Then the study according to the parameters α(0≤ α ≤1) less to the bunch of contraction and get after contracting representative point, the distance between the clusters can be defined as the distance between the two representative points, are defined as follows: The calculation steps of the CURE clustering algorithm are as follows: Input: the original data set X, cluster number K, represents the point number m, the q shrinkage factor Output: Clusters clustered 1) Sample set D was obtained from the original data set through random sampling 2) Evenly divide the sample set D into N parts 3) Select representative points for each divided area for local clustering, and shrink the representative points in each cluster with α toward the cluster center.
W is the whole area, U and V are W classifications. There is a |U | = m representing a point in the U category, and |V | = n representing a point in the V category.
Step1: Find the mean value of representative points W i : Step2: Choose any k points P i , i ∈ [1, k] from U and V classification. Anyone represents the point: α is the shrinkage factor. U , V classification has done agglomeration and contraction operation, and the representative point W i , (i = 1, 2, 3, . . . , k), on the whole W represents the new information after agglomeration. 4) Perform further CURE hierarchical clustering with a clustering number of K for all the obtained clusters 5) Eliminate the noise points and divide the remaining samples in the sample set to obtain the final cluster

IV. PARAMETER OPTIMIZATION
Our proposed algorithm maps the edge points in the circle image to the parameter space (a, b, r) through a = x-r * cos(angle), b = y-r * sin(angle). Since the digital image uses polar coordinates, angle, and r both take a certain range and step length. Through the double loop (angle loop and r loop), the points in the original image space can be mapped to the parameter space, and then the center of the circle can be found in the parameter space (that is, a large cube composed of many small cubes), and finally the radius coordinates are calculated. The parameters to be set in the algorithm implementation include detection radius step size, angle step size, minimum circle radius, and maximum circle radius.
Different pictures will affect axle circles' detection due to the different axle numbers, shooting Angle, and image graying according to the detection data set. Therefore, we need to adjust the parameters so that the Hough circle detection algorithm in this paper can achieve the highest detection accuracy in the entire data set's detection process.
To calibrate the relevant parameters in our proposed method and test our proposed method's effectiveness, we continuously took (100) pictures of trucks entering the highway at the highway entrance at a fixed point. We select (50) sheets as the parameter calibration data set. With the increase of step size, the detection time becomes shorter, and the detection accuracy presents a trend of first increasing and then decreasing. Within a specific range, the step size will not have a significant impact on the detection results. When the detection step size is 1, the detection efficiency is guaranteed, and the highest detection accuracy is achieved to achieve the optimal result.

A. STEP SIZE OF CIRCLE RADIUS IS SELECTED
Select the radius step interval from 0.1 to 2.0, and take 0.1 as the step to carry out experimental analysis, respectively, count the calculation time and detection accuracy under different circle radius steps.

B. ANGLE STEP SIZE SELECTION
Select the angle step length interval from 0.1 to 1.0, and take 0.1 as the step length to count the calculation speed and detection accuracy under different angle steps. 205482 VOLUME 8, 2020 FIGURE 4. It can be seen in Figure 5 that with the increase of the angle step, the detection accuracy decreases linearly, and the calculation time decreases from large to small. The angle step size will affect the center of the circle's position, and the change of the value will bring a massive change of the center. In detecting the whole data set, the angle step size of 0.1 is the best.

C. SELECT THE RADIUS OF THE MINIMUM CIRCLE AND THE MAXIMUM CIRCLE
Set the minimum circle's value range to be 0-20, step size to be 1, the full circle's value range to be 10-40, step size to be 2, and calculate the detection accuracy. This is mainly because the minimum circle's value affects the size of different circle detection, too small a minimum circle increases the rate of false detection, too large a minimum circle increases the rate of missing detection. This is mainly because too small the maximum circle will increase the omission rate, while too large a large circle will not affect the omission rate because there are few Outlines of the large circle on the truck. However, with the increase of detection radius difference, the calculation time will increase. Therefore, we choose the minimum radius of the circle to be 10 and the maximum radius of the circle to be 30.
In the Hough detection algorithm, (1,0.1, 10,30) is used as the input parameter to detect the data set, and the detection accuracy can reach about 90%, thus completing the parameter adjustment analysis of the algorithm.

V. METHODS OF CONTRAST
To verify our proposed scheme's reliability, we will use all the acquired pictures as the test data set. This data set was taken during the actual truck operation, which satisfies scientific and practical test research. Then compare with the traditional Hough algorithm, the latest improved Hough algorithm, and the mainstream contour tracking [20] algorithm in detection time and detection accuracy. We took 100 pictures of the test object data to test the average detection time and detection accuracy of these four methods (whether the axle is fully and accurately identified). The method in this article is compared with the other three methods.
From the above table, it can be seen that when the traditional Hough algorithm is used for recognition, the average time used is 162.11s; the average time used by the latest improved Hough algorithm is 11.62s; the average time used by the contour tracking algorithm is 7.51s. Traditional Hough algorithm has a significant disadvantage due to its long iteration time and time-consuming detection. Although the newly improved Hough algorithm has obvious advantages over the traditional Hough algorithm in time-consuming, it is better than the algorithm in this paper. The detection time of the contour tracking algorithm is similar to the algorithm in this paper. In terms of accuracy, the traditional Hough algorithm only has a good recognition effect for simple circles with small noise and clear outlines. When detecting a complex circle like an axle, the detection effect is not ideal. The latest improved Hough The algorithm's recognition rate for truck axles is 57%, and the performance is average. Although the contour tracking algorithm has a more significant improvement in accuracy to 80%, it has higher accuracy requirements. Moreover, this paper's accuracy is 91%, 11% higher than the contour tracking algorithm, the best performance. VOLUME 8, 2020 FIGURE 6. Due to the poor performance of traditional Hough changes, the accuracy of the latest improved Hough algorithm and the algorithm presented in this paper is compared in the following paragraphs. Some data sets are extracted from the comparison sample.
The original random Hough transforms circle detection algorithm is improved, which is divided into three parts: (1) obtaining the ROI of the circle by the Connected Area Marking Algorithm; (2) sampling the edge points of the circle to calculate the parameters of the circle; (3) take the 8 neighborhood pixels of the center of the circle as the center of the circle and make the circle respectively, and get the optimal circle [37].
When recognizing a circle target in an image, it is often necessary to track the target's edge, which is also called contour tracking. If the image is a binary image or different regions in the image have different pixel values, but the pixel values in each area are the same, the following algorithm can complete contour tracking based on 4-connected or 8-connected regions.
Step 1: First, scan the image from top to bottom, from left to right, and look for the first boundary starting point A 0 without marking the tracking end mark. A 0 is the boundary point with the smallest row and column value. Define a scan direction variable dir, which is used to record the movement direction from the previous boundary point to the current boundary point in the previous step, and its initial value is: (1) dir = 3 for 4 connected regions; (2) Take dir = 7 for 8 connected areas; Step 2: Search the 3 * 3 neighborhood of the current pixel counterclockwise, and set the initial search direction as follows:(1) Take (dir +3) mod 4 for 4 related areas; (2) For 8 related areas, if dir is odd, take (dir+7) mod 8; if dir is even, go (dir+6) mod 8; The first pixel with the same value as the current pixel found in the 3 * 3 neighborhood is the new boundary point An, and the variable dir is updated to the new direction value.
Step 3: If An is equal to the second boundary point A 1 and the previous boundary point A n−1 is equal to the first boundary point A 0 , stop searching and end tracking. Otherwise, repeat step 2 to continue searching.
Step 4: The boundary formed by boundary points A 0 , A 1 , A 2 , . . . , A n−2 is the boundary to be tracked.
According to the comparison of Figure 7-9, the improved Hough algorithm overcomes the shortcomings of traditional   Hough detection for axle circle detection and can effectively identify the axle position and outline. However, in the detection process, it is difficult to identify the weak edge points. When multi-circle is recognized simultaneously, it can not effectively cluster the axle contour, leading to a high false detection rate and can not effectively identify the axle's exact position. Therefore, this method does not achieve the ideal effect. Most of the clustering algorithm is good at dealing with similar object clustering, only in the presence of isolated points when dealing with low efficiency and accuracy. CURE algorithm chooses not to use a single mass center or object to represent a cluster. It chooses to have a fixed number. It has a particular representative in the space point to represent a cluster. The more representative points in the clusters are used to indicate a cluster. Simultaneously. The CURE algorithm is a novel hierarchical clustering algorithm that is more robust to the isolated point and can effectively identify classes that are non-circular and vary in size. However, our algorithm also made some detection errors, mainly since the truck contour contained an edge similar to a circle. Simultaneously, each image's color, background, and size were different, so the optimal parameters of axle circle detection were different in the parameter adjustment process. The change of parameters will lead to detection time and detection accuracy, especially in Angle step size. To make the detection accuracy reach more than 95%, we need to improve the algorithm and optimize the parameters in more detail. While improving the accuracy, the detection time should be kept short, which is also the research to be carried out in the future.

VI. CONCLUSION
The detection method of truck weight limit for the highway we proposed has high accuracy and detection speed and is suitable for over-limit management of highway entrance trucks. This method can replace the manual detection of the workers' truck weight limit at the highway entrance and improve the highway entrance's traffic capacity to ensure the detection efficiency. At the same time, the method we developed is easy to implement. Set up a camera at the expressway entrance, connect it to a central computer, and transfer the picture to the computer for processing. The overall system hardware investment cost is low, the detection speed is fast, and the application prospect is broad.
We analyzed the relationship between the truck weight limit and the number and arrangement of its axles. We designed a method for determining the truck weight limit based on the truck axles' number and arrangement. The key to this method is to obtain the number and arrangement of truck axles through image processing. The traditional Hough circle detection algorithm has a better detection effect for circles with clear outlines, but in practice, this method's applicability is low due to problems such as light and shadows during shooting. Based on the existing circle detection technology, we combine the hough algorithm with the canny operator and the cure algorithm. This method can comprehensively detect the circles in the picture through the Hough algorithm with the canny operator. The cure algorithm can be very Good to eliminate false detection circles. Through experimental analysis, compared with existing ideas, our proposed method has higher accuracy and calculation speed.
Although the proposed method has a high detection speed of accuracy, it has a high error rate in detecting some trucks with circular appearance features. In the next step, we will further optimize the method through the array features of circles to reduce truck body circular features' impact on the detection results. Simultaneously, the proposed method is applied in good weather, and the weather, such as rain and fog, will have a particular influence on the proposed method. The algorithm optimization in the case of rain and fog is also a focus of our future research.