DISPUTES RESOLUTION AMONGST RESIDENTS OF TENEMENT PROPERTIES IN LAGOS, NIGERIA

Low income earners in Lagos metropolis have peculiar taste for a type of residential property, popularly referred to as face-me-I-face-you. The type of property usually consists of many units rooms flanking a central passage. Tenants with different orientation and background cohabit, and conflicts frequently occur amongst them. This paper examines the causes of conflicts that are common amongst tenants of tenement type of residential accommodation in Lagos metropolis. In so doing, questionnaires coupled with direct observation and interviews were administered on total of five hundred respondents randomly selected from five zones in the study area. The study found a number of factors causing the conflicts and recommends creative problemsolving strategies, amongst others, for managing such conflicts amongst occupiers of tenement houses in the study area

Power, norms and institutional change in the European Union: the protection of the free movement of goods

How do institutions of the European Union change? Using an institutionalist approach, this article highlights the interplay between power, cognitive limits, and the normative order that underpins institutional settings and assesses their impact upon the process of institutional change. Empirical evidence from recent attempts to reinforce the protection of the free movement of goods in the EU suggests that, under conditions of uncertainty, actors with ambiguous preferences assess attempts at institutional change on the basis of the historically defined normative order which holds a given institutional structure together. Hence, path dependent and incremental change occurs even when more ambitious and functionally superior proposals are on offer

Double-beta decay of 130^{130}Te to the first 0+^{+} excited state of 130^{130}Xe with CUORICINO

The CUORICINO experiment was an array of 62 TeO$_{2}$ single-crystal bolometers with a total $^{130}$Te mass of $11.3\,$kg. The experiment finished in 2008 after more than 3 years of active operating time. Searches for both $0\nu$ and $2\nu$ double-beta decay to the first excited $0^{+}$ state in $^{130}$Xe were performed by studying different coincidence scenarios. The analysis was based on data representing a total exposure of N($^{130}$Te)$\cdot$t=$9.5\times10^{25}\,$y. No evidence for a signal was found. The resulting lower limits on the half lives are $T^{2\nu}_{1/2}(^{130} Te\rightarrow^{130} Xe^{*})>1.3\times10^{23}\,$y (90% C.L.), and $T^{0\nu}_{1/2}(^{130} Te\rightarrow^{130} Xe^{*})>9.4\times10^{23}\,$y (90% C.L.).Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Monte-Carlo generator for e+e- annihilation into lepton and hadron pairs with precise radiative corrections

Recently, various cross sections of e+e- annihilation into hadrons were accurately measured in the energy range from 0.37 to 1.39 GeV with the CMD-2 detector at the VEPP-2M collider. In the pi+pi- channel a systematic uncertainty of 0.6% has been achieved. A Monte-Carlo Generator Photon Jets (MCGPJ) was developed to simulate events of the Bhabha scattering as well as production of two charged pions, kaons and muons. Based on the formalism of Structure Functions, the leading logarithmic contributions related to the emission of photon jets in the collinear region are incorporated into the MC generator. Radiative corrections (RC) in the first order of alpha are accounted for exactly. The theoretical precision of the cross sections with RC is estimated to be better than 0.2%. Numerous tests of the program as well as comparison with other MC generators and CMD-2 experimental data are presented.Comment: LaTeX, 23 pages with 18 figure

Influence of hydroxyethyl starch (6% HES 130/0.4) administration on hematology and clinical chemistry parameters

Background: The chemical inertness of hydroxyethyl starch (HES) might cause interferences of the colloid with a variety of laboratory tests. We aimed to evaluate potential influences of HES 130/0.4, the newest HES type, on several common hematology and clinical chemistry parameters. Methods and results: A convenient sample of 25 patients scheduled for rheological therapy with 500 mL 6% HES 130/0.4 was evaluated. Blood samples were drawn before and after colloid application. Comparing pre- and post-infusion values of a battery of laboratory tests (i.e., hematology and hemostasis parameters, electrolytes, enzymes, kidney and metabolic parameters, lipids, etc.) in time course, a median difference greater than the reference change value for a specific parameter was considered clinically relevant. Among all parameters tested, only serum amylase activity displayed a clinically relevant difference between pre- and post-infusion values (median increase of 85% due to HES administration). By applying in vitro experiments, we demonstrated that serum amylase values obtained in the samples diluted in a 1:1 ratio with HES 130/0.4 and in samples diluted in a 1:1 ratio with 0.9% NaCl displayed a negligible median difference of 3%. Conclusions: The in vivo effect of HES 130/0.4 administration on serum amylase activity observed in our study was pharmacological (real) in nature. With the exception of the influence of HES 130/0.4 on amylase activity, the effects of HES 130/0.4 on other parameters tested in this study can be interpreted as having no clinical relevance