The effect of board size and composition on the efficiency of UK banks

We examine a sample of 17 banking institutions operating in the UK between 2001 and 2006 to provide empirical evidence on the association between the efficiency of UK banks and board structure, namely board size and composition. Our approach is to use data envelopment analysis to estimate several measures of the efficiency of banks, and then to use panel data regressions for investigating the impact of board structure on efficiency. After controlling for bank size and capital strength, we find some evidence of a positive association between board size and efficiency, although this is not robust across all our specifications. Board composition, by contrast, has a robustly significant and positive impact on all measures of efficiency. © 2011 Copyright International Journal of the Economics of Business

Indigenous Knowledge for Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract: Higher temperatures, more variable precipitation and changes in the frequency and severity of extreme climate events will have significant consequences on food production and food security. The frequency of heat stress, drought, and flooding are also expected to increase, even though they cannot be modeled satisfactorily with current climate models. All of these will undoubtedly have adverse effects on crops and agricultural productivity over and above the effects due to changes in mean variables alone. The impacts of climate change on agriculture are likely to be regionally distinct and highly heterogeneous spatially requiring sophisticated understanding of causes and effects and careful design and dissemination of appropriate responses. Adaptation measures are needed urgently to reduce the adverse impacts of climate change, facilitated by concerted action and strategic planning. As a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture also has much untapped potential to reduce emissions through reduced deforestation and changes in land use and agricultural practices. This is where indigenous knowledge comes in to play as a key to climate change mitigation and adaptation. African communities and farmers have always coped with changing environments. They have the knowledge and practices to cope with adverse environments and shocks

Human factors analysis and classification system for the oil and gas industry (HFACS-OGI)

The oil and gas industry has been beset with several catastrophic accidents, most of which have been attributed to organisational and operational human factor errors. The current HFACS developed for the aviation industry, cannot be used to simultaneously analyse regulatory deficiencies and emerging violation issues, such as sabotage in the oil and gas industry. This paper presents an attempt to improve the existing HFACS investigation tool and proposes a novel HFACS named the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System for the Oil and Gas Industry (HFACS-OGI). Results found the HFACS-OGI system to be suitable for categorising accidents, following the analysis of 11 accident reports from the US Chemical Safety Board (US CSB). The HFACS-OGI system moreover revealed some significant relationships between the different categories. Furthermore, the results indicated that failures in national and international industry regulatory standards would automatically create the preconditions for accidents to occur

Crop Farmers and Pastoralists’ Socio-Economic Characteristics Influencing Agricultural Land Use Conflicts in Abia State, Nigeria

This study analyzed the influence of socioeconomic characteristics on crop farmers and pastoralists’ land use conflicts in Abia State, located in the Southeastern part of Nigeria. Data were collected with structured questionnaire, complimented with observation from 300 crop farmers and 40 pastoralists and analyzed using ordinary least squares regression model. On the part of the crop farmers, the result indicates that three of the ten independent variables (sex, family size and farm size) influenced positively and significantly the perceived causes of crop farmers and pastoralists land use conflict. On the part of the nomads, household size (t = 2.131), educational level (t = 2.222.) and social organization membership (t = 2.144) all influenced positively the perceived causes of land use conflict at 0.05% probability level. Herding experiences (t = 3.141) also influenced positively and significantly the perceived causes of land use conflict at 0.01% level of significance. It was recommended that the government should fasten the creation of more grazing reserves following the challenges of climate change for easy access by the pastoralists. The government should fasten the proposed demarcation of livestock route from the North to the South

Mineral Composition of Seed and Leaf of Terminalia cattappa (Almond Tree) Tree species Collected from a Forestry Arboretum in a Teaching and Research Farm, Rivers State, Nigeria

The Objective of this Paper was to evaluate the Mineral Composition of Seed and Leaf of Terminalia catappa (Almond Tree) tree Species Collected from a Forestry arboretum in a teaching and research farm, Rivers State, Nigeria after using Standard methods after acid digestion. The result in Minerals Content showed that the seed had Zinc 2.57±0.01, Iron 8.76±0.01, Potassium 152.0±1.00, Sodium 109.4±17.8, Manganese 2.10±0.25 while the leaf had Zinc 2.57±0.01, Iron 8.89±0.01, Potassium 480.5±0.50, Sodium 114.1±40.2, Manganese 52.6±1.80.Also, the result in total mineral content shows that potassium had the highest both in seed and leaf 316.3± 189.7 followed by sodium .In conclusion, the leaf had the highest mineral content as compared to the seed. There is need to establish the plantation of Terminalia catappa for conservation and optimum utilization of this important socio-economic tree species

Structural brain preservation: a potential bridge to future medical technologies

When faced with the prospect of death, some people would prefer a form of long-term preservation that may allow them to be restored to healthy life in the future, if technology ever develops to the point that this is feasible and humane. Some believe that we may have the capacity to perform this type of experimental preservation today—although it has never been proven—using contemporary methods to preserve the structure of the brain. The idea is that the morphomolecular organization of the brain encodes the information required for psychological properties such as personality and long-term memories. If these structures in the brain can be maintained intact over time, this could theoretically provide a bridge to access restorative technologies in the future. To consider this hypothesis, we first describe possible metrics that can be used to assess structural brain preservation quality. We next explore several possible methods to preserve structural information in the brain, including the traditional cryonics method of cryopreservation, as well as aldehyde-stabilized cryopreservation and fluid preservation. We focus in-depth on fluid preservation, which relies on aldehyde fixation to induce chemical gel formation in a wide set of biomolecules and appears to be a cost-effective method. We describe two theoretical recovery technologies, alongside several of the ethical and legal complexities of brain preservation, all of which will require a prudent approach. We believe contemporary structural brain preservation methods have a non-negligible chance of allowing successful restoration in the future and that this deserves serious research efforts by the scientific community