Agricultural Policy and Political Governance in Nigeria: Fiscal Sociology and the Challenges of a Rent-Seeking Economy

Despite the current financial crisis facing all levels of governments of Nigeria, virtually no efforts have been directed at the sociological analysis of the finances. The situation particularly begs for attention considering the dwindling agricultural status, focusing on cocoa, and the multiple socio-economic, political and cultural distortions embedded in its monolithic source of revenue. The literature is replete with the sociological analysis of pubic financial management. However, those analyses appear to be much more concentrated on the advanced than the developing economies. In this review article, we attempted a public economy discourse of developing economies, focusing on the deleterious interplays between the dominant oil income and agricultural outputs and how the duo has made Nigeria a rentier economy. With a critical review of integrated literature on the sociology of oil politics; the institutional and symbolic element of the tax-dependent economy; and the historical volatility of rentier economies; we critically drew a nexus between the current life-threatening revenue profile of Nigeria and her major, if not solitary, reliance on petrodollar as well as the socio-cultural manifestations. Like this, the essay advanced the significance of fiscal sociology as a veritable tool for constructing a theory about state finances. DOI: 10.7176/JESD/10-14-08 Publication date:July 31st 202

Colonial Basis of Anomie in African Youth: Implications for Political Governance

The festering phenomenon of morally deregulated conditions among African youths such as curricular impropriety, cult activities, from examination malpractice, cultism, viciousness, computer-related crimes, and sexual decadences depicts what Emile Durkheim (1893) used anomie to describe. Durkheim posited anomie as the inevitable expectations when societies become more complex, or organic, leading to impersonal behaviours, the dearth of the social bond, and normlessness. Emile Durkheim was a French Sociologist who had mobilised the coinage ‘anomie’ to explain the phenomenon of deregulated societies where interaction rules and expectations were breaking down. The demographic bulge in favour of youth in Africa has raised the stakes for the exacerbation of the lingering governance crisis should the youth continue to flounder in the disintegration of shared norms that hold the morality of societies firm from moral decadence. Most research studies have bordered on documenting that a good number of African youth have become enmeshed in depravities, such as lawlessness, violence, sharp practices, and scams. The focus of this paper provides an improved perspective by examining the social-economic and political foundations of irrational behaviour among African youth and the implications they portend. The paper argued that the youth in the modern States (former colonies) of Africa are unfortunate victims of a loose governance history: a manifestation of colonial masters’ ‘scramble for Africa’ without a whiff of consideration for the fate of the youth and post-independent leaders, who simply continued in the same fashion. The modern-day political praxis in Africa of low participation of youth and lack of youth liberty and self-development is a carry-over of not only the over-utilisation of elders as colonial proxies despite much aspiring youth but also the suppression of agitation by the youth against the commissioned elders. This conditioned many of the attitudes, which dominated policy-making and political victimisation of the youth in contemporary Africa. Thus, it is that colonial past that provided (or failed to provide) the definition of morality spectrum capable of insulating the youths against the festering anomic spree. Keywords: Youth Anomie, Social Norms, Colonialism in Africa, Moral Decadence; Political Governance DOI: 10.7176/DCS/10-7-05 Publication date:July 31st 202

Cooking Energy Nexus in the Policy on Rural-Urban Indices and Climate Change Mitigation in Nigeria

Despite the preponderance of solid fuels as a major source of cooking energy in Africa, mainstreaming their contributions to rural-urban inequalities and climate change in scholarly debates and policy advocacy appears incommensurate. This article engages the discursive reconstruction of the interdisciplinary debate about how energy choices shape poverty incidences and climate change. Emphasis is on the conceptualisation of rural-urban inequalities and climate change in relation to cooking energy sources. How may policy advocacy for cooking energy choices in Africa induce poverty alleviation and climate change? What lessons are discernible from national policies on cooking energy and why the tendency for more alternative cooking energy at the urban centres than the rural areas? These questions are analysed mainly from a systematic review of policy literature and quantitative data sourced from key rural and urban informants in the south-western region of Nigeria, the most populous state in Sub-Saharan Africa. The theoretical foundation is hinged on Rational Choice Theory to explain how individual cooking energy choices can interact to generate often surprising aggregate outcome on poverty incidences and climate change. Evidence mainly reveals that cooking energy choices significantly shape rural-urban indices and climate change mitigation. Implications for climate change and development are also discussed. Keywords: climate change mitigation, urban-rural indices, rational choice, alternative cooking energy, Nigeria, Africa DOI: 10.7176/JESD/11-8-10 Publication date: April 30th 202

Patrimonial Politics as a Functional Threat to Good Governance and Development in West Africa

Beyond the abstract use of the term patrimonialism and its variants appended with prefix neo- or adjectives modern traditional or developmental the leadership challenges in Africa manifesting in festering governance crisis have not benefitted from the deserved scholarly debate in a particularized manner From the writings of the German sociologist Max Weber 1864-1920 in particular his Economy and Society and his tripartite dichotomy of leadership legal traditional and charismatic to the different notions of patrimonialism patronage or clientelism employed by notable writers like Roth 1968 Lemarchand and Legg 1972 Eisenstadt 1973 all have fallen short of explaining the functional threat to destructive politics and underdevelopment of African societies Even the neo-liberal scholars like Le Vine s 1980 attempt to coin African patrimonialism have foundered in understanding the pattern of political organisation struggle and puzzling change translating into democratic authoritarian rule of the few characterized by co-optation factionalism and clientelism and other modes of elitist domination In contrast to all the works discussed above in which a universalistic approach to patrimonialism is taken this paper adopts a particularistic approach to grapple with the narrow and narrowing peculiarities that currently dominate the processes and structures of leadership crisis which has led to dearth of good governance and development occurring in Nigeria in particular and a number of West Africa countries The paper argues that a culture of institutionalised subjugation of the political sphere over the economic pervades in the sub-region leading to a norm of profoundly state-driven economy and a character of patron-clientele interactions between the state and the economy Following independence for instance both Ghana and Nigeria have a leading sector cocoa and petroleum respectively which might hav

Correlation between Averages Times of Random Walks On an Irregularly Shaped Objects and the Fractal Dimensions

This study is  strongly motivated by fractal dimensions concept and dearth of relevant literatures aimed at correlating the average time of Random Walks on irregularly shaped planar objects and their corresponding fractal dimensions. Twenty selected countries maps from around the World were investigated to determine their random walk parameters and their fractal dimensions. The images (maps) were scanned, burned and saved as black and white Jpeg files. A program – visual basic 6.0 was developed for fractal dimensions and random parameters estimation. The program calculated: for each image number of boxes around the boundary of an image for 20x20 grids, and the distance covered by 100 random walkers on an image for the same number of grids. Thereafter, the program displayed a log-log graph of boundary count versus grids and log-log average time versus distance. The corresponding slope of line of best fit represents respectively the fractal dimension and random walks parameters. Preliminary investigation focusing grid size suggests 20x20 grids as non-compromising in terms of results reliability and computation expenses. The random parameters estimated based on 20x20 ranges from 1.976 to 2.995 while the estimated fractal dimensions range from 1.116 to1.212. The correlation of fractal dimensions and random walks parameter had regression value R2 = 0.014. The estimated fractal dimension showed that maps (images) boundaries are statistically fractal. However, there is no correlation between their fractal dimensions and the corresponding random parameters. KEY WORDS: Random walk, Shapes, Grids, Parameters, Dimension

Lemon Juice Enhances Antioxidant Nutritional Quality of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicon)

The tomato plant is economically important and nutritionally beneficial to man. It is perishable in nature and preserved traditionally using lemon juice. The effects of this practice on antioxidant nutrients of this global vegetable food crop were investigated in this study. Tomatoes were preserved in four jars labelled 1 to 4. Jar 1 contained peeled, ground tomatoes (PG) and peeled non-ground tomatoes (PNG) without lemon juice. Jar 2 contained peeled, ground tomatoes and peeled non-ground with lemon juice (PG+LJ and PNG+LJ). Jar 3 contained unpeeled, ground tomatoes (UPG) and unpeeled non-ground (UPNG) samples while jar 4 contained unpeeled, ground and unpeeled non-ground samples with lemon juice (UPG+LJ and UPNG +LJ). The samples were analyzed for their antioxidant contents. Results revealed that concentration of ascorbic acid in tomato samples preserved with lemon juice varied from 14.70 – 20.30mg/100g FW. The values were significantly different (p<0.05) from the controls (PG, UPG, UPNG and PNG). The total phenolics content of lemon juice preserved tomatoes were also significantly different (p<0.05) from the control samples with UPNG+LJ having the highest phenolics content of 12.90mg/100g. The value of flavonoids ranged from 1.51 (PNG) to 2.95mg/100g (UPG+LJ) while ?-Carotene was from 1.78mg/100g (PNG+LJ) to 4.68mg/100g (PG+LJ). The unpeeled samples generally had higher antioxidant nutrients in comparison with the peeled samples. This study is relevant to the tomato canning industry and suggests that the use of lemon juice as tomato preservative agent should be encouraged. Keywords: Preservation; lemon juice; antioxidant nutrients, peeling; tomat

Cohen-Coon PID Tuning Method: A Better Option to Ziegler Nichols-Pid Tuning Method

Controller loop tuning is the process of manipulating the parameters (gains) in a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller in order to give satisfactory response to the process system. A satisfactory response is one that exhibits the desired speed of response, yet meets the required accuracy and stability criteria. Control processes are generally tuned under operating conditions, as opposed to start-up conditions, so that the process variable is stable at an operating point. In the industry, the PID human tuning method normally applies to machinery tuning is the Ziegler Nichols (ZN) tuning method, known as the ZN-PID tuning method. However, this PID controller tuning method is ineffective in the control of nonlinear and complex system with varied parameters, large inertia and large delay, as it tends to give a very higher overshoot, higher rise time and higher settling time in the system operation. These disturbances, due to the nonlinearity of the system under control cause the controller to produce poor responses at the output, leading to poor system performance. The limitations in this ZN-PID tuning method could be overcome by using Cohen-Coon-PID (CC-PID) tuning method to drive the system plant. In a nutshell, this research work takes a look at the CC-PID tuning method as betterment to the current ZN-PID tuning method being mostly used in the industrial machinery control. This research work finds application in any PID controlled plant.

Numerical Simulation and Modeling of UNSA91060 for Heat Transfer in Four-Stroke ICE Cylinder Head

This work concerns heat transfer principles in four strokes ICE from modeling and simulation standpoint.Heat transfer is one of a number of indispensable tools in studying of ICEs, due to its influence on decisive parameters of operation like temperature and pressure inside the cylinder. It is safe to say that modeling of the engine heat transfer is among the most complex problems for engineers. Application of numerical methods to predict the heat transfer in a cylinder of reciprocating ICEs is a process of high importance, which was recognized from the earliest stages of their development. This is done to examine performance optimization and design improvement in order to meet nowadays demands exhibited on the engines. This present study focuses on a 3-D transient state temperature distribution analysis on a gasoline engine model via formulated of models, simulating using FEM in-built in the COMSOL Multiphysics software 4.3a to determine the temperature distribution and gradient of the engine cylinder head model. The number of degrees of freedom solved for were 32685 in 383 s (12 minutes, 20 seconds) in the mesh optimization. From the result obtained it was discovered that the heat transfer in the combustion chamber of the ICE varies with time. Thus, it took the engine 10 minutes to complete a cycle vis-a-vis transfer of heat after combustion and that the heat transfer starts after 30 seconds of combustion. In addition, the temperature of the cylinder dropped from 1273.2 K to 301 K over a period of 10 minute.Self-sponsore

Application of Dynamic Programming Model to Production Planning, in an Animal Feedmills.

The problem of this study is that of determining the quantity of products to produce and inventory level to carry from one period to the other, with the objective of minimizing the total costs of production and the annual inventory, while at the same time meeting the customer’s demand. A mathematical model was formulated for a multi-product problem using Dynamic Programming approach. The model was solved using the solution procedure proposed by Wagner and Whitin. The results show that the minimum total cost will be achieved with production in periods 1, 2, and 4. While demand for period 3 are satisfied with inventory from period 2. The total cost of this plan is N225, 704, 210.00, which is N6, 155, 765.00 less than the existing plan. Keywords: Inventory, Model, Periods, Plan, Cost

Numerical Simulation of Temperature Distribution in A Tri-Cycle Engine Piston

This present study will focus on temperature distribution and heat transfer rate which are of much importance especially in spark ignition (SI) engines. This was achieved by formulating a model for analyzing the temperature distribution in an internal combustion engines piston as well as simulates the obtained results using COMSOL- Multiphysics.Pistons as one of the most complex components among all automotives and other industry field components are designed to withstand damage caused due to extreme heat and pressure of combustion process. Many of experimental studies regarding the internal combustion engines process have been carried out, but few had only focused on the numerical studies like stress distribution, thermal and heat transfer analysis. This present study focuses on a 3-D transient state temperature distribution analysis on a gasoline piston model of a tri-cycle. Mathematical model was formulated, solved and simulated using a Finite Element Method (FEM) in-built in the COMSOL Multiphysics software 4.3a to determine the temperature distribution and gradient of the piston model ranging from 523K – 673K. The parameters used for the simulation were liquid (Gasoline), Gases (Air) and Aluminium alloy UNSA96061 (Piston). The Completed mesh tetrahedral consists of 86225 elements and the number of degrees of freedom solved for were 18553 in 367 s (6 minutes, 7 seconds) in the mesh optimization. It was discovered from the results obtained that the temperature in the combustion chamber of the tricycle engine varies with respect to time, along the piston.The transient analysis from the time dependent solver revealed that the temperature of the piston at the TDC (Top Dead Centre) in the first power stroke is higher compared to the subsequent power strokes, which is an indication that more heat was transfer at subsequent power strokes. Probable recommendations were later made.Self-sponsore