Does Governance Influence Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Poor governance in Sub-Saharan Africa has been a major hindrance to economic growth of the region compared to other regions in the rest of the world To examine the influence of governance on economic growth of Sub-Saharan Africa panel data on growth rate of Gross Domestic Product governance indicators and other indicators of the three selected Sub-Saharan Africa countries namely Nigeria South- Africa and Ghana for the period of 1996-2015 were sourced from World Development Indicators of the World Bank and World Governance Indicators The data were analyzed using Descriptive statistics Principal Component Analysis Ordinary Least Square Regression and Generalized Method of Moments The result revealed that South Africa and Ghana enjoyed better governance than Nigeria It was also found that governance impacts positively on the economic growth of South Africa and Ghana however a negative impact was experienced by Nigeria The disaggregated governance indicators regression showed that political stability and control of corruption increase economic growth in South- Africa and Ghana while voice and accountability as well as control of corruption had negative influence on economic growth of Nigeria The study thus recommends freedom of speech to citizens accountability of leaders political stability as well as control of corruption to enhance effective governance and economic growth in the regio

Investigating the Effects of Some Input Variables on the Operation of an Evaporator through Dynamics

The mathematical model of an evaporator, showing the dynamic behavior of liquid height and system temperature, has been developed. The model was used to investigate the dynamics of the system by simulating the obtained nonlinear differential equations using the ode45 command of MATLAB. Furthermore, using the realistic steady-state values obtained by solving the developed model with the aid of fsolve command of the same MATLAB, the system of transfer function model of the system was obtained via its state space form. Moreover, the Simulink model of the system was developed using the obtained transfer functions of the model. Thereafter, the dynamics of the system was investigated by simulating the Simulink model through the application of input steps to the liquid feed flow rate and the steam temperature of the system. The results obtained from the development of the transfer function models and the simulations carried out when steps were applied to the input variables of the system revealed that the steam temperature had not any effect on the liquid level of the system as their transfer function was found to be zero, and the application of a step to steam temperature did not result into any change in the steady-state value of the liquid level. It was also discovered that a step change in liquid feed flow rate affected both the liquid level and the system temperature. Despite the fact that a step change in steam temperature could not affect the liquid height (level) of the evaporator, the system has been found to be a Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO) type because, at least, the liquid feed flow rate (one of the input variables) could result into changes in the two output variables (liquid height and system temperature) of the system in addition to the effect the steam temperature (the other input variable) had on the temperature of the evaporator

Child Poverty in Rural Nigeria

Children are the most susceptible to poverty and it often directly affects them through access to sanitation, education, health, water, food and shelter. Poverty among them is however usually assessed using indicators such as income and expenditure which often do not reveal the extent of deprivation among them. This study investigates the extent of poverty among under five children in rural Nigeria and its distribution across household wealth status. The study used the 2013 DHS data. The Alkire and Foster counting approach was used to generate poverty profiles among the children while descriptive statistics was used to assess their distribution. The results revealed a significant level of poverty among the children and poor children were found in all classes of household poverty. The North-west and North-east had highest proportion of non poor children from extremely poor and moderately poor households, respectively while the South-south had the highest proportion of extremely poor and moderately poor children from non poor households. The study recommended that specific policies targeting deprivations suffered by children should be used to address child poverty. Keywords: Rural Households; Child poverty index; deprivation intensity; Alkire and Foster counting approac

Biodiesel production from waste frying oil via heterogeneous transesterification: Optimization study

This study deals with development of a new composite heterogeneous catalyst, anthill-eggshellpromoted Ni-Co mixed oxides (NiCoAE). Thecatalyst was synthesized via co-precipitationand also characterizedto evaluate its properties.The as-synthesized NiCoAEcatalyst was thereafter tested for transesterification reaction.The effects of variables affecting the transesterification process,reaction temperature (50-70 oC), reaction time (2-4 h), catalyst loading (3-7 wt%) and methanol to oil ratio (6:1-12:1) were investigated using central composite design (CCD). The biodiesel yield of 89.23% was obtained at the following optimum reaction conditions; 70 oC of reaction temperature, 2 h of reaction time, 3 wt% of catalyst loading and methanol to waste frying oil ratio of 12:1.This indicates thatNiCoAEas heterogeneous catalyst has potential to converthigh FFA feedstockinto biodiesel via singlestep transterification proces

Measurement of the top pair production cross section in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions using kinematic information in the lepton plus jets final state with ATLAS

A measurement is presented of the $t\bar{t}$ inclusive production cross-section in $pp$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV using data collected by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement was performed in the lepton+jets final state using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$. The cross-section was obtained using a likelihood discriminant fit and $b$-jet identification was used to improve the signal-to-background ratio. The inclusive $t\bar{t}$ production cross-section was measured to be $260\pm 1{\textrm{(stat.)}} ^{+22}_{-23} {\textrm{(syst.)}}\pm 8{\textrm{(lumi.)}}\pm 4{\mathrm{(beam)}}$ pb assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction of $253^{+13}_{-15}$ pb. The $t\bar{t}\to (e,\mu)+{\mathrm{jets}}$ production cross-section in the fiducial region determined by the detector acceptance is also reported.Comment: Published version, 19 pages plus author list (35 pages total), 3 figures, 2 tables, all figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/TOPQ-2013-06

Measurement of the cross section for isolated-photon plus jet production in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV using the ATLAS detector

The dynamics of isolated-photon production in association with a jet in proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are studied with the ATLAS detector at the LHC using a dataset with an integrated luminosity of 3.2 fb−1. Photons are required to have transverse energies above 125 GeV. Jets are identified using the anti- algorithm with radius parameter and required to have transverse momenta above 100 GeV. Measurements of isolated-photon plus jet cross sections are presented as functions of the leading-photon transverse energy, the leading-jet transverse momentum, the azimuthal angular separation between the photon and the jet, the photon–jet invariant mass and the scattering angle in the photon–jet centre-of-mass system. Tree-level plus parton-shower predictions from Sherpa and Pythia as well as next-to-leading-order QCD predictions from Jetphox and Sherpa are compared to the measurements

A search for resonances decaying into a Higgs boson and a new particle X in the XH → qqbb final state with the ATLAS detector

A search for heavy resonances decaying into a Higgs boson (H) and a new particle (X) is reported, utilizing 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data at collected during 2015 and 2016 with the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The particle X is assumed to decay to a pair of light quarks, and the fully hadronic final state is analysed. The search considers the regime of high XH resonance masses, where the X and H bosons are both highly Lorentz-boosted and are each reconstructed using a single jet with large radius parameter. A two-dimensional phase space of XH mass versus X mass is scanned for evidence of a signal, over a range of XH resonance mass values between 1 TeV and 4 TeV, and for X particles with masses from 50 GeV to 1000 GeV. All search results are consistent with the expectations for the background due to Standard Model processes, and 95% CL upper limits are set, as a function of XH and X masses, on the production cross-section of the resonance

Measurement of the View the tt production cross-section using eμ events with b-tagged jets in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper describes a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross-section (σtt¯) with a data sample of 3.2 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of √s = 13 TeV, collected in 2015 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This measurement uses events with an opposite-charge electron–muon pair in the final state. Jets containing b-quarks are tagged using an algorithm based on track impact parameters and reconstructed secondary vertices. The numbers of events with exactly one and exactly two b-tagged jets are counted and used to determine simultaneously σtt¯ and the efficiency to reconstruct and b-tag a jet from a top quark decay, thereby minimising the associated systematic uncertainties. The cross-section is measured to be: σtt¯ = 818 ± 8 (stat) ± 27 (syst) ± 19 (lumi) ± 12 (beam) pb, where the four uncertainties arise from data statistics, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, the integrated luminosity and the LHC beam energy, giving a total relative uncertainty of 4.4%. The result is consistent with theoretical QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order. A fiducial measurement corresponding to the experimental acceptance of the leptons is also presented

Search for H→γγ produced in association with top quarks and constraints on the Yukawa coupling between the top quark and the Higgs boson using data taken at 7 TeV and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search is performed for Higgs bosons produced in association with top quarks using the diphoton decay mode of the Higgs boson. Selection requirements are optimized separately for leptonic and fully hadronic final states from the top quark decays. The dataset used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 4.5 fb−14.5 fb−1 of proton–proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and 20.3 fb−1 at 8 TeV recorded by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. No significant excess over the background prediction is observed and upper limits are set on the tt¯H production cross section. The observed exclusion upper limit at 95% confidence level is 6.7 times the predicted Standard Model cross section value. In addition, limits are set on the strength of the Yukawa coupling between the top quark and the Higgs boson, taking into account the dependence of the tt¯H and tH cross sections as well as the H→γγ branching fraction on the Yukawa coupling. Lower and upper limits at 95% confidence level are set at −1.3 and +8.0 times the Yukawa coupling strength in the Standard Model

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector during 2011 data taking

The performance of the jet trigger for the ATLAS detector at the LHC during the 2011 data taking period is described. During 2011 the LHC provided proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV and heavy ion collisions with a 2.76 TeV per nucleon–nucleon collision energy. The ATLAS trigger is a three level system designed to reduce the rate of events from the 40 MHz nominal maximum bunch crossing rate to the approximate 400 Hz which can be written to offline storage. The ATLAS jet trigger is the primary means for the online selection of events containing jets. Events are accepted by the trigger if they contain one or more jets above some transverse energy threshold. During 2011 data taking the jet trigger was fully efficient for jets with transverse energy above 25 GeV for triggers seeded randomly at Level 1. For triggers which require a jet to be identified at each of the three trigger levels, full efficiency is reached for offline jets with transverse energy above 60 GeV. Jets reconstructed in the final trigger level and corresponding to offline jets with transverse energy greater than 60 GeV, are reconstructed with a resolution in transverse energy with respect to offline jets, of better than 4 % in the central region and better than 2.5 % in the forward direction