The Interconnectivity of Weather System and Ozone Concentration Over West Africa

The relationship between some meteorological parameters and ozone distributions as revealed by satellite EPTOM over four West African stations namely, Lagos (Nigeria), Dakar (Senegal) Lamto (Ivory Coast) and Ekona (Cameroon) was studied for the period 1997 to 2002. The mean ozone concentration over these stations for the period were 270.8±0.3DU at Lagos, 264.9±0.3DU at Dakar, 269.8±0.3DU and 269.0±03DU at Lamto and Ekona respectively. The average monthly maximum ozone concentration of 288.6DU and 285.1DU respectively were observed for Lagos and Dakar, between July and August, which coincided with the period of tropical summer rain-fall over the West African region. This coincidence could be attributed to reduction in the effect of the extra-tropical suction pump (ETSP) action responsible for the transportation of ozone concentration from the tropical stratosphere into the mid and high latitudinal region. This re-duction may be due to decrease in the atmospheric heat engine expected to drive the ETSP, as the tropical surface temperature and evaporation are at their minimum during the raining sea-son. The surface temperature and evaporation at Lagos-Nigeria both had significant negative correlation values of -0.73 and -0.68 with the ozone concentration respectively

An evaluation of total quality management practices on business performance of the Nigerian telecommunications sector: a case study of MTN Nigeria Limited

This study examines the effects of The Total Quality Management practices on Business Performance of the Nigerian Telecommunications Sector. A review of literatures on TQM shows that no study has been carried out on its application in the Nigerian Telecommunication sector hence the need for this research. To assess the situation One hundred and fifty (150) questionnaires were administered to customers of MTN Limited within the Lagos environ. These customers were randomly selected from five (5) different MTN customer care centres within the five divisions of Lagos State. These divisions include Epe, Ikorodu, Lagos Island, Lagos Mainland and Badagry. Thirty (30) questionnaires were administered at each centre. Fifty (50) questionnaires were also administered to employees of MTN and a total of twenty (20) questionnaires were administered to top management in the same organizations. The data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis. Our finding revealed that 90.7% of the changes that occurred in employees’ satisfaction could be traced to the policy and commitment of top management. It also shows that 69.4% of the changes in customer satisfaction could be attributed to continuous training in quality. The study recommended among other things the training of telecommunications personnel on Total Quality Management practices and the adoption of alternative renewable sources of energy like solar to address their energy problems

A Model of TFP

This paper proposes an aggregative model of Total Factor Productivity (TFP) in the spirit of Houthakker (1955-1956). It considers a frictional labor market where production units are subject to idiosyncratic shocks and jobs are created and destroyed as in Mortensen and Pissarides (1994). An aggregate production function is derived by aggregating across production units in equilibrium. The level of TFP is explicitly shown to depend on the underlying distribution of shocks as well as on all the characteristics of the labor market as summarize by the job-destruction decision. The model is also used to study the effects of labor-market policies on the level of measured TFP.

A Model for the Schottky Anomaly in Metallic Nd2−yCeyCuO4Nd_{2-y}Ce_{y}CuO_{4}

We present a simple model for the doped compound $Nd_{2-y}Ce_{y}CuO_{4}$, in order to explain some recent experimental results on the latter. Within a Hartree-Fock context, we start from an impurity Anderson-like model and consider the magnetic splitting of the $Nd$-$4f$ ground state Kramers doublet due to exchange interactions with the ordered $Cu$ moments. Our results are in very good agreement with the experimental data, yielding a Schottky anomaly peak for the specific heat that reduces its amplitude, broadens and shifts to lower temperatures, upon $Ce$ doping. For overdoped compounds at low temperatures, the specific heat behaves linearly and the magnetic susceptibility is constant. A smooth transition from this Fermi liquid like behavior ocurrs as temperature is increased and at high temperatures the susceptibility exhibits a Curie-like behavior. Finally, we discuss some improvements our model is amenable to incorporate.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, and 13 reference