An annotated catalogue of the Odonata collection of Guido Lanfranco at the National Museum of Natural History in Malta

An annotated list of the Odonata collection of Guido Lanfranco, is provided. The specimens were captured between 1952 and 1971, and may be the oldest surviving specimens caught and still available in local collections from Malta. Almost all locally occurring species are represented, with some specimens collected in sites and habitats that have since been destroyed by urban development. A portion of the specimens bear no data labels and do not contribute to the knowledge of the distribution of the species. During the cataloguing process, specimens in poor condition were restored.peer-reviewe

Blank Five

Poetry by Elizabeth Godwi

The Economics of Politics vs the Politics of Economics: Nigerian case

Indeed, the recent emphasis on eco-political governance in Nigeria is unique in that it was initiated by external donors (international organizations) and not by domestic leaders under pressure from their own constituencies. Thus, while Nigeria have embraced the market economy and liberalized their policies; issues related to political participation, democracy and institution building have proven harder to tackle. This paper therefore argued that government must devote resources and political will to overcoming the harsh poverty experienced by the majority of Nigerians. In this regard, the emerging participatory e-development and traditional development strategies should not be seen as mutually exclusive but rather complementary (so as to avert the status of a failed state).politics;economics;corruption;economy;Nigeria; e-development;ICT;participation;governance;policies; development;resources;new economy;financialcrisis;poverty; economicmanagement;electoralprocess;technology

A vector error correction and nonnested modeling of money demand function in Nigeria

This paper examines the stability of the demand for money in Nigeria. With relatively simple model specifying a vector valued autoregressive process(VAR),the money demand function was found to be stable and evidence gathered from the non-nested tests suggest that income is the more appropriate scale variable in the estimation of money demand function in Nigeria.consumption

Technique for highly efficient recovery of microbiological contaminants

Collecting and recovery small assay samples of viable microbiological contaminants in a gas stream involves use of a commercially available water-soluble paper. This paper is nontoxic to a number of microbiological organisms and can be dry-heat-sterilized

The media, ethnicity and religion as determinants of failed republics in Nigeria

This paper analyses the covert influence of ethnicity and religion on the media and voting in Nigerian elections and demonstrates how previous Nigerian republics have been hindered because of the impact of ethnic disservice and election crises, thereby providing opportunities for the military to topple each of those failed civilian administrations. Unfortunately, the press could not play a meaningful role in the 1964/65 election crises because the leaders of the factional groups in those conflicts were equally the owners of the early newspapers. So, they simply converted their papers into channels for fighting wars of personal vendetta. In fact, ethnic rivalry and religious intolerance are today the two major sources of conflict in Nigerian politics. For these reasons the paper advises the media to avoid playing the role of an advocate in the support of individuals and governmental agencies as well as ethnic nationality whose aims and objectives are inimical to the national interest and religious tolerance among the Nigerian public

Energy Power, Digital Infrastructure and Elearning Platforms: Afrrican Experience.

Information and communication technologies are one of the most pervasive technologies in the world, second only to 'human intelligence' or the human brain. Thus, understanding the factors that determine the diffusion of new technologies across african countries is important to understanding the process of economic development. And whereas, energy is linked with the capacity to perform, the rate at which energy is consumed for the acceleration of the pace of socio-economic activities is regarded as power. Consequently, it will be obvious that the magnitude of the standard of living in any society; the growth and development of such an economy; and its ability to affect the course of events(such as ICT revolution)will be a function of the extent to which its energy(power) resources are developed and utilised. This paper therefore argued for the need to provide assistance in reducing vulnerability and building the capacity of african countries to more widely reap the benefits of the clean development mechanism in areas such as the development of cleaner and renewable energies. Inevitably, this is the critical condition for the sustainability of the emergent e-learning platforms and digital networks in africa.ICT, learning, elearning, development, energy, power, information, communication, solar, electricity, wind, governance, africa, electronics, telecommunications, internet, digital, satellite, renewable energy, gas turbine, power plants, bandwidth, coal, hydro, biomass, steam, transmission, distribution, utilisation

Multivariate Statistical Evaluation of the Chemical Composition of Fine Particles : A Case Study

Monitoring and assessment of the physical and chemical constituents of airborne pollutants are now common features of the efforts of Queensland Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to protect the public from the adverse effects of ambient air pollution. This paper describes the evaluation of the profiles of the 21 chemical constituents of 24-hourly integrated fine particle samples collected by EPA at Rocklea from 1995 to 2003. Because of the multivariate nature of the data, they were subjected to the multi-criteria decision making method, Preference Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and Principal Component Analysis. The PROMETHEE results indicated that the quality of the fine particulate constituents at the site decreased in the order 1995 >1997 >1996 >1998 >2002 >2000 > 2003 > 2001 > 1999. The most important constituents influencing the ranking included the elemental carbon, sulfur, lead, bromine, vanadium, and chromium contents of the samples. Such multi-criteria ranking provides information that can assist the formulation and prioritization of mitigating measures. For example, the phasing out of leaded fuels contributed significantly to the lowering of Pb and Br in the samples. On the other hand, Principal Component Analysis showed that the major constituents clustered into groups with compositional profiles which suggested that the main sources of the particles were airborne soil, combustion activities (vehicular emission and vegetative burning), industrial emissions, secondary aerosols and sea salt. Correlation with other pollutants and meteorological data concurrently measured at the site provided further insights into the sources of the fine particles