Development of Hybrid Block Integrator for the Numerical solution of Stiff and Oscillatory Differential Equations for first order Ordinary Differential Equations

This paper discussed the development of a new numerical hybrid block integrator for the numerical solution of stiff and oscillatory differential equations for first order ordinary differential equations. The method of interpolation and collocation at some selected grid point to generate the continuous scheme was adopted. The research also investigates the consistency, convergence, zero-stability and region of absolute stability of the integrator using matlab and the integrator was tested on some numerical experiments for comparism. The analysis of the method showed that the method is Zero-stable, consistent, convergent and computationally stable. The method handles stiff and Oscillatory differential equations effectively. AMS Subject Classification: 65L05, 65L06, 65D3

PENGARUH PENGGUNAAN MEDIA PEMBELAJARAN BERBASIS TEKNOLOGI INFORMASI PADA MATERI STRUKTUR ATOM DI SMAN 1 ENDE

Penelitian ini bertujuan  mengetahui  pengaruh penggunaan media pembelajaran berbasis teknologi informasi  pada materi  srruktur atom pada  dua kelas paralel yaitu kelas XI IPA-3 SMAN 1 Ende sebagai kelas kontrol dan kelas XI IPA-4 sebagai kelas eksperimen. Kelompok X, XI IPA 4 (kelas eksperimen) kegiatan pembelajaran dilakukan dengan menggunakan media pembelajaran berbasis TI, sedangkan kelompok Y, XI IPA 3 (kelas kontrol) kegiatan pembelajaran dilakukan tanpa menggunakan media pembelajaran. Metode Pembelajaran yang sama yaitu metode ceramah, diskusi dan tanya jawab. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan penggunaan media pembelajaran berbasis TI dapat meningkatkan prestasi belajar terhadap materi  struktur atom, pada kelas yang menggunakan media pembelajaran (kelas eksperimen ) dengan nilai rata-rata sebesar 83,84 ± 4,21 sedangkan kelas yang diberi perlakuan tanpa menggunakan media pembelajaran (kelas kontrol) memperoleh nilai rata-rata sebesar 39,91 ± 10,66. Untuk menguji hipotesis digunakan uji statistik t, dari hasil perhitungan diperoleh thitung sebesar 0,557 berada dalam daerah -2,06 < t’ < 2,06.   ttabel pada taraf signifikansi 5% yaitu 2,06, hal ini menunjukkan bahwa Ho dalam penelitian ini diterima dan menolak Ha, artinya ada pengaruh penggunaan media pembelajaran berbasis TI pada materi pelajaran struktur atom terhadap prestasi belajar siswa kelas XI IPA SMA Negeri 1 Ende

Treasury Single Account: A Viable Tool for Repositioning Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for Sustainable Development in Nigeria

Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy in Nigeria is a government accounting system under which all government revenue receipts and income from Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) are collected into one single account, usually maintained by the Central Bank of Nigeria and all payments done through this account as well in order to enhance accountability of government revenue; transparency and avoid misapplication of public funds. The implementation of TSA policy in Nigeria has generated mixed reactions on it effect on Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Based on the foregoing, the study assessed the effects of TSA on Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). To achieve the objective of the study, primary and secondary sources of data were used. Questionnaires were used for the collection of primary data. A sample size of 150 was purposively drawn from the study population which comprises of Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs. Descriptive statistic (percentages) and Chi-square (X2) analytical technique were utilized in the analyses of data and test of hypothesis. The calculated Chi-square (X2) results for the hypothesis Ho1: Treasury Single Account does not enhance the repositioning of Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for sustainable development, shows; X210.71 and the table X2 value at 5% level of significance was 2.733.The results show that Treasury Single Account has enhanced the repositioning of Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) for sustainable development. The study results also shows that TSA has enhanced regular monitoring of government cash balances, accountability and transparency, efficient use of government financial resources, probity, reduction of cost of borrowing and help to check corruption in Federal Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs). Also the study shows that MDAs in Nigeria have not been able to adequately used TSA to enhance economic development in Nigeria among others. The study recommended among others that TSA should be embraced by all Government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) at all level of governments; federal, states and local government councils in Nigeria and that MDAs in Nigeria should take advantages of TSA policy implementation to enhance economic development in Nigeria by keying into all aspects of the policy drive and urgently addressing all the shortcoming associated with the policy. The study concluded that TSA is a viable tool that enhanced repositioning of MDAs in Nigeria and as such it should be use to facilitate economic development in Nigeria. Keywords: Treasury Single Account, Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and Sustainable Development

Effects and influence of the urea component of an organomineral fertiliser on phosphorus mineralisation in a low-P index arable and grassland soil

Addition of organic waste such as sewage sludge (biosolids) has been recognised as one of the cost effective method of waste recycling practice of maintaining levels of organic matter in agriculture. Biosolids are a slow-release nutrient (N and P) which also improves soil physical and microbiological properties and as such offer a promising plant nutrient with less impact on soil than mineral fertilisers. Implementation of wastewater treatment directive 91/271//EC has caused large amount of sewage sludge production and availability. Hence, management of biosolids to provide available phosphorus through soil recycling would reduce reliance on finite rock phosphates (over 85% P-fertilisers) extraction, protect or minimise environmental problems such as eutrophication and also help the resource-limited farmers particularly in developing countries, to mitigate P-fertiliser limitation in the soil. More awareness of the impact of different agricultural fertiliser management practices on soil quality and sustainability has led to more interest of combining organic residuals with inorganic fertilisers to prevent further fertility decline and degradation of soil. Amongst recent nutrient integration, was the nutrient-balanced sludge-based (biosolids with urea and potash) called organomineral fertiliser (OMF), which shows agronomic efficiency of phosphorus management when applied to the field crops such as winter wheat. However, to manage phosphorus mineralisation effectively in the organomineral fertiliser treated soil, it is important to understand the effects of urea components in OMF during mineralisation of phosphorus in soil. This research aimed to understand the influence that the urea component of an organomineral fertiliser (OMF) has during phosphorus mineralisation in soil. Therefore urea granules were grounded into powdered form and mixed with grounded biosolids pellets as a source of phosphorus to obtain organomineral fertilisers. This whole research included two different control soil incubation experiments (1a & 1b) both observed over a 60 days period. Incubation experiment 1a (involved mixing various rates of biosolids and urea in soil) had two different soil samples from the grassland (sandy clay loam) and arable (clay loam) sites. In terms of initial soil phosphorus content, the grassland and arable soils are classified as P-index 1 and 2 respectively. Soil samples were analysed for pH, mineralisable nitrogen (NH4 + , NO3 - ), available phosphorus, microbial biomass carbon and phosphorus and phospholipids fatty acids profiles during 0, 6, 15, 20, 35, 45 and 60 days incubation period. While in the incubation experiment 1b (mixing different rates of urea with fixed quantity of biosolids in soil), soil from the same grassland, were being sampled at 10 day intervals (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60) after taking the initial sample of day 0 and analysed for pH, mineralisable P and phosphomonoesterase enzyme activities. The incubation experiments showed that, mineralisation of available phosphorus were significantly (p<0.001) higher in the biosolids and organomineral (OMF) fertiliser treated soils compared to control during 20 and 30 days period. The mean values of mineralisable P from OMF treatment for the incubation experiment 1a were 14.5 and 19.5 mg/kg in the grass and arable soils respectively. The mineralisation rates of biosolids-P from organomineral fertiliser (OMF) amended soils were also reduced significantly, as the dosages of urea component were increased according to the 50, 150 and 250Kg/N equivalents during the 60 days incubation experiment 1b. The mean available P values from the OMF amendments were 28.0, 25.7 and 23.4mg/kg respectively; according to the increasing amount of urea content at 50, 150 and 250Kg/N equivalents respectively. The overall trend of organomineral fertiliser phosphorus (OMF-P) mineralisation rate have shown significant (p<0.001) reduction with increased doses of urea components, with the fixed biosolids equivalent rate of 250Kg/ha during the incubation experiment 1b. There were no significant (p>0.01) changes in pH from both soil incubation experiment 1a and 1b, except for the urea only treated samples at the 250KgN/ha equivalent rate from the sandy clay loam grassland soil, which shows up to 1 unit increase (pH=8.1) compared to other treatments, just a day after kick-starting the incubation experiment, but eventually becomes reduced to the original pH (6.9) during the incubation period. Microbial community change in both arable and grassland soil from initial day zero showed distinct and consistent shifts in trends through the 20 and 45 days respectively, irrespective of their treatments, and then gradually shifted towards the original starting point at the final incubation study of day 60. This was however attributed to the function of change with time, since it could not be categorically assigned to the OMF application effects only, but perhaps community change effects with time could be the main factor. Even though there was no any important patterns or trends observed between the indigenous treatments, but the wide spreading and shift distances amongst treatments during 20 and 45 days were higher compared to the 0 and 60 days, and this is probably because there were more phosphorus mineralisation when microorganisms were able to access more dissolved organic carbon as shown by high biomass carbon during 20 and 35 days incubation time, and utilise it to generate energy that kept them more active within those period before it gradually becomes exhausted, since there was no external source of energy being added. Similarly, phosphomonoesterase enzyme activities in the soil treatments except for the urea only amended samples, showed significant (p<0.01) differences between days 20, 30 and 40 compared to days 0, 50 and 60 and the phosphatase activities in the OMF amendments had significantly higher acid than alkaline phosphatase activities. Organomineral phosphorus (OMF-P) mineralisation in soil during 60 days incubation in this short-term study have shown potential P release in both soils, and the OMF-P mineralisation rate was highest in the formulation having fixed biosolids with urea at 150KgN/ha equivalent compared to other formulations (50KgN/ha and 250KgN/ha) and therefore effects of urea component of the organomineral fertiliser is an important factor when considering OMF as a promising P alternative or source in low-P soil during phosphorus management. Appropriate product formulation depending on the crop needs is therefore very important for soil phosphorus nutrient management and sustainability

Influence of Firms Attributes on Environmental Disclosure in Listed Brewery Companies in Nigeria

The thrust of this study was in the influence of firm attributes on environmental disclosure of listed breweries companies in Nigeria. The population of the study consist of five breweries companies listed on the floor of Nigerian stock exchange. The sample size of the study is four companies. The sample was drawn based on data accessability. Data were collected from annual reports of the selected companies for the period of five years that is from 2012 to 2016. Multiple regression technique was employed to analyse the data. Profitability (PROF), firm size (FRMS), leverage (LEV) and board size (BDS) were used as proxies to measure the firm attributes. While contents analysis was maintained to measure environmental discloure.The study found board size has negative but significant influence on environmental disclosure wirth value 0.0089, leverage has negative and insignificant influence on environmental disclosure with value 0.8229. Where firm size has positive insignificant influence on environmental disclosure with value 0.1951, profitability has positive significant influence on environmental disclosure of listed breweries companies in Nigeria. The study recommended that breweries companies should disclose more environmental information as it lead to increase in profit. Keywords: Environmental Disclosure, Firm Size, Leverage and Profitability

Nigeria’s public service and new public management reform / Ahmad Sanusi and Abubakar Abdullahi

The seeming failure of public service in Nigeria is demonstrated by a series of reforms introduced by successive governments to redefine and reinvigorate it. While some of these reforms are internal, some were externally induced. The climax of such reform initiatives in contemporary democratic Nigeria was the introduction of New Public Management commonly known as NPM. New Public Management reforms offer many alternatives towards efficient service delivery. However, because of its market-cum-democratic characteristics, it seems very difficult to operate in an unstable democratic system. Premised on the apparent desire to achieve efficient service delivery, Nigeria implemented New Public Management reform as a catalyst to redefining and retransforming its public service. This paper investigates the implementation of NPM in Nigeria and argues that minimal if any results are likely to be achieved. This is largely because of the inherent contradictions between the main requirement of NPM and the structure and the context of Nigeria’s public service and its political system. Putting it in another way, the features of NPM are at variance with the main structure and the character of Nigeria’s political environment. From the period of active colonialism up to today, the government has set up different public service review commissions to restructure, invigorate and reorganize the battered public service but her dream is yet to become a reality

Utilization of and Constraints on Animal Traction in Jigawa State, Nigeria

A survey was carried out to investigate the utilization of and constraints on animal traction in Hadejia Local Government Area of Jigawa State, Nigeria. Farmers having five hectares farm size and below were selected for the study. Farmers were categorized into four (4) groups based on their farm sizes, which are Group I – farmers having farm size equal to or less 1 hectare, Group II – farmers having farm size of 2 hectares, Group III – farmers having farm size between 3-4 hectares, Group IV – farmers having farm size of 5 hectares. Thirty (30) farmers were interviewed in each of the groups. A total of 120 sample data were collected and analysed using simple descriptive statistics. Data on breed types, implement and yoke used, source of the work animals, animal feeds and shelter were collected using structural questionnaire and oral interviews. The results showed that Sokoto Gudali bulls were the popular breed (73.3%) of cattle used by the respondents across the four groups while 26.7% of the respondents used White Fulani bulls. Source of work animals were mostly through personal purchased (45.8%) and loan by State Government (33.4%), while very few farmers acquired by inheritance (20.8%). Eighty percent of the respondents used Emcot and Kazaure animal drawn implement while 20% of the respondents used Arava and Strad. Yoke and rope were the common harness tools having 93.3% of the respondents using them while 6.7% of the respondents used combinations of yoke, rope and chain as harness tools. Work animals were training between 4-6 weeks before fully use for farm operations. Feeding of animals was mainly on free range during the rainy season and crop residues during the dry season. The constraints reported by the farmers include lack of funds, inadequate formal education, limited feed resources, few implements are used, disease treatment, lack of shelter for the animals and poor extension services. It was suggested that utilization of animal traction would be increased significantly if more fund are injected in animal traction technology by the state and local Government

Pattern of Energy Consumption in Millet Production for Selected Farms in Jigawa, Nigeria

A study was conducted on the evaluation of energy use patterns in millet (Pennisetum glaucum [L.] R. Br.) production for some selected farms in north eastern part of Jigawa State, Nigeria. Millet farmers were categorized into five (5) groups base on the their farm sizes, that is Group I – farmers with farm size greater than or equal to 5 hectares, Group II – farmers with farm size between 3-4 hectares, Group III – farmers with farm size between 2-3 hectares, Group IV – farmers with farm size between 1-2 hectares, Group V – farmers with farm size equal to or less 1 hectare. Fifty (50) farmers were interviewed from each of the groups. Data for energy input resources during millet production from land preparation up to harvesting/threshing were collected using structural questionnaire and oral interviews. A total of 250 sample data were collected. Results show that energy resources used by the farmers in the five groups considered were manual (human labour), animal draft, manure, chemical fertilizer, farmyard manure, mechanical and seed (millet) as biological. The various field operations considered during this study were land clearing, soil tillage, planting, weeding, farmyard manure/fertilizers and harvesting and threshing. The study revealed that all farmers group studied had the least amount of energy input for land clearing that varied between 4-8% and highest intensities of energy used in was soil tillage and weeding that varied between 25-40%. It was shown that group V farmers consumed the highest total energy values of 6078 MJ/ha in their millet production while farmers group I expended the least amount of total energy value of 1705 MJ/ha and total energy output during millet crop production was the highest found in group I farmers and the least total energy output was found in group II farmers with values of 13100 MJ/ha and 2300 MJ/ha respectively. A linear relationship between total energy inputs and outputs was obtained with R2 values of 0.88 using t-test at 0.05 level of significance it shows significant increase in energy input increases energy output. Energy use ratio values revealed that there was high efficient level of energy use by group III farmers low efficient energy use by group I farmers with values of 2.4 and 1.3 respectively. It is recommended that similar studies be carried out for some other crops commonly produced in north eastern Jigawa State in order to have more data for comparison

An Empirical Investigation into Literature in English as a Support to Students Improved Performance in English Language at the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination in Yobe State - Nigeria

Language and literature are both methods of knowledge linguistic. Language provides man his intelligent form, categorization and consistency. Language creates culture, whereas literature functions as the collection house of culture. In fact relatively few researchers’ appear to focus on literature as an aid to learning of language as assert by (Adeniyi, 2010). The purpose of this investigation therefore, is with the former. That is, it asks the question “How does the study of English Literature aid performance in English Language at the School Certificate Examination in Yobe State?" It is hoped that the outcome of the research on factors affecting attainment in English Language in Yobe State and the recommendations may offer a working tool for tutors and supervisory authorities and general public. Especially, with current public outreach and disappointment about the poor performance of students in English Language at the Secondary School level of the state