Distinguishing technicolor models via tt-bar productions at polarized photon colliders

We study top quark pair productions at a polarized photon collider from an e(+)e(-) linear collider (LC) in various improved technicolor model, namely, the one-family walking technicolor model, the top-color-assisted technicolor model, and the top-color-assisted multiscale technicolor model. Recent constraint on the top-pion mass from the precision data of R(b) is considered. It is shown that, considering only the statistical errors, a polarized photon collider from a 500 GeV LC with an integrated luminosity of 500 inverse fb is sufficient for distinguishing the three improved technicolor models experimentally.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physical Review

Fiscal Illusion at the Local Sphere: An Empirical Test of the Flypaper Effect using South African Municipal Data

Despite South Africa’s relatively decentralized governance and administrative structure, an important feature of the country’s intergovernmental fiscal relations system is the gap that exists between the expenditure responsibilities of sub-national authorities and their assigned revenue bases. The resulting vertical fiscal imbalance is mainly addressed via significant intergovernmental transfers to provinces and local governments. This factor presents strong a priori grounds in assuming that in the South African context, the heavy dependence of many local governments on intergovernmental transfers may generate fiscal illusion. Despite this, no significant effort has been geared towards an empirical investigation of the issue of fiscal illusion. This paper extends existing literature on the empirical analysis of fiscal illusion by using the fiscal year 2005/06 financial and expenditure data from 237 local government authorities in South Africa to evaluate the flypaper variant of the fiscal illusion hypothesis. Empirical results indicate that the marginal effects of municipal own-source revenues on local expenditure exceed those of intergovernmental transfers. This outcome yields no statistical evidence in support of the flypaper hypothesis within the context of municipal expenditures in South Africa.Intergovernmental Transfers; Fiscal Illusion; Flypaper E¤ect; South Africa

Application of a Multi-Criteria Integrated Portfolio Model for Quantifying South Africa’s Crude Oil Import Risk

e availability of secure energy resources at sustainable quantities and affordable prices is fundamental to South Africa’s current objective of enhancing and sustaining its current growth trajectory. Economic reforms, since the early 1990s, have led to the economy growing at an average rate of almost 5% per annum. A major consequence of this strong growth is the rapid increase in domestic demand for oil energy. With small amounts of proven oil reserves, the rise in oil demand as an essential energy source has prompted an increasing reliance on external sources for domestic crude oil supplies. High oil prices, the extent of proven oil reserves, instability in major oil producing regions and the rise in ‘oil-nationalism’ have raised serious concerns about the security of South Africa’s oil supplies. In this context, a comprehensive understanding of oil import security risks is critical as it will guide in the formulation of energy policy framework aimed at alleviating the impact of oil import risks. This study utilises portfolio theory to provide quantitative measures of systematic and specific risks of South Africa’s crude oil imports over the period 1994 to 2007. It explains the relationship between supply sources diversification and oil energy security risks, and highlights the impact of different crude oil import policy adjustment strategies on the total crude oil import risk for South Africa. The results for the adjustment strategies show that: (a) a policy of having the same quantity of oil imported every month or a constant quantity of oil imported from the supply regions reduces both systematic and specific risks of oil import portfolio, and (b) a reduction in specific risks of South Africa’s oil imports can be achieved if some of the Middle Eastern supplies can be diversified to less risk regions of Europe, North America and Russia.Oil Import Risks, Portfolio Theory, Analytical Hierarchy Process

Peer Victimisations as Correlates of Sexual Behaviour among Senior Secondary School Students

AbstractThe influence of peer victimisations on sexual behaviour among senior secondary students has not been attracting proper attention from researchers probably because of the fact that it is not perceived as a serious social or educational problem. However, in recent time there has been a growing concern on the increasing level of student unrest, sexual victimisation, violence and cultism in Nigeria secondary schools, thus portend a great danger for the nation. This study therefore examined the influence of peer victimisations on the sexual behaviour of the students with a view of finding out the relationship and suggested ways of coping with the problem.The sample consisted of three hundred participants drawn with random sampling technique from ten selected senior secondary schools in both Oyo and Bayelsa states of Nigeria. Two valid and reliable instruments constructed by the researchers were used for data collection: Peer Victimisation Scale (PVS) (r =0.70) and Sexual Behaviour Scale (SBS) (r =0.72). The administration lasted four weeks, using simple percentages and correlation analysis. The results show that peer victimisations contributed to sexual behaviour of the students. On the strength of the findings, t he need to foster good peer relations to enhance positive sexual behaviour among students was stressed and advocated

Pattern formation in electrically coupled pacemaker cells : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Figures are re-used with permission.In this thesis we study electrical activity in smooth muscle cells in the absence of external stimulation. The main goal is to analyse a reaction-diffusion system that models the dynamical behaviour where adjacent cells are coupled through passive electrical coupling. We first analyse the dynamics of an isolated muscle cell for which the model consists of three first-order ordinary differential equations. The cell is either excitable, nonexcitable, or oscillatory depending on the model parameters. To understand this we reduce the model to two equations, nondimensionalise, then perform a detailed numerical bifurcation analysis of the nondimensionalised model. One parameter bifurcation diagrams reveal that even though there is no external stimulus the cell can exhibit two fundamentally distinct types of excitability. By computing two-parameter bifurcation diagrams we are able to explain how the cell transitions between the two types of excitability as parameters are varied. We then study the full reaction-diffusion system first through numerical integration. We show that the system is capable of exhibiting a wide variety of spatiotemporal behaviours such as travelling pulses, travelling fronts, and spatiotemporal chaos. Through a linear stability analysis we are able to show that the spatiotemporal patterns are not due to diffusion-driven instability as is often the case for reaction-diffusion systems. It is as a consequence of the nonlinear dynamics of the reaction terms and coupling effect of diffusion. The precise mechanism is not yet well understood, this will be subject of future work. We then examine travelling wave solutions in detail. In particular we show how they relate to homoclinic and heteroclinic solutions in travelling wave coordinates. Finally we review spectral stability analysis for travelling waves and compute the essential spectrum of travelling waves in our system

Exchange rate volatility and non-oil exports in Nigeria : An empirical investigation / Sa’ad Babatunde Akanbi...[et al.]

The adoption of a flexible exchange rate system since 1986 in Nigeria has made the country witnessed varying rate of the naira vis-à-vis the U.S dollar. This paper examines exchange rate volatility with ARCH model and its various extensions (GARCH, TGARCH, and EGARCH) using quarterly exchange rate series from 1986-Q1 to 2014-Q4.The impact of exchange rate volatility on non-oil exports was also examined using Error Correction Model (ECM) with two different measures of volatility. The results obtained confirm the existence of exchange rate volatility and also found a significant negative effect on non-oil export performance in Nigeria. Therefore, the Nigerian government should ensure an appropriate policy mix that not only ensures a stable and realistic exchange rate but also conducive atmosphere for production and exportation

Soil, location, and climatic factors influencing available phosphorus level with depth in subsoil horizons of Iowa soils

Objectives of this dissertation research were: (1) to develop multiple regression equations to predict available (Bray-1) P levels at various subsoil depths, using soil horizon, soil profile, parent material, location, and climatic variables; (2) to develop prediction equations for subsoil P without the soil horizon variables; and (3) to compare location (legal township and range numbers) and climatic variables (mean annual precipitation and temperature) for predicting subsoil P. Input data were from 3913 soil horizons from 696 soil profiles from 22 Iowa counties representing the most soil association areas;The depth to each horizon variable was included in all regressions. Soil horizons variables included pH, soil test P (dependent variable), soil test K, clay, organic carbon, and bulk density. Parent material variables included loess, pedisediment materials above till, till and paleosol, colluvium in loess areas, alluvium in loess and till areas, and eolian sands. Profile variables included genetic horizon, site slope, thickness of A horizon, minimum pH, depth to minimum pH, drainage class, biosequence, and depth to maximum clay horizon;Variables were initially selected in alternate models including linear functions of parent material variables, cubic function of depth, and quadratic functions of all others. Climatic variables, more important than location variables, were retained. Significant interactions between linear, quadratic, and other variables and then interactions between other variables were then selected. Three final prediction models were selected from (1) all variable groups (88 variates, R(\u272) = 0.776), (2) all except horizon variables (81 variates, R(\u272) = 0.745), and (3) all except horizon and genetic horizon variables (75 variates, R(\u272) = 0.719). Appropriate final model depends on availability of horizon data and soil profile descriptions;The final all-variable prediction model (MODEL M-6) for subsoil P (STP) included 18 linear, 7 quadratic, 1 cubic, and 62 interaction variates (15 DEPTH*X(,i), 9 DEPTH(\u272)*X(,i), 2 DEPTH(\u273)*X(,i), and 36 linear*linear interactions between other variables. Effects of the variables on STP were examined in MODEL M-6 using partial derivatives of STP with respect to the X(,i) variables and by computing predicted STP values for depth and combinations of two other variables from simplified regression equations. The dominant effects of biosequence modified by interactions with the cubic function of depth and many other variables and the joint effects of pH and bulk density with depth on STP showed that MODEL M-6 can predict widely varying STP distributions. Effects of other variables on STP distributions were also shown

The effects of photoperiodism on energy metabolism in broiler chickens

The effects of sex, light treatment (16L:8D versus constant light), and dietary energy and their interactions on growth performance of broiler chickens were evaluated. The diets used were isonitrogenous (23% CP); the dietary energy concentration was either 3300 kcal ME/kg diet or 2475 kcal ME/kg diet. The results indicated that light treatment had significant effects on weight gain, feed consumption, and gain/feed ratio. Constant light depressed growth after the third week of age in each trial. Birds reared under a 16L:8D photoperiod and fed a high energy diet performed best. Within light treatment, males gained more, consumed more feed, and had a higher feed efficiency than females. The light treatment x dietary energy concentration interaction was found to be significant for feed consumption and gain/feed ratio. It was concluded that combining a photoperiod of 16L:8D with high dietary energy under either an ad-libitum or restricted feeding regime resulted in a substantial and significant improvement in overall performance of broiler chickens

The impact of foreign capital inflows on economic growth in selected West African countries

The West African countries have been identified with inadequate capital for investment, being one of the poorest sub-regions in the world. This study employed panel data from 1980 to 2013 to examine the impact of foreign capital inflows on the economic growth in the selected West African countries using Two Gap Theory. The objective of this study is to examine the nature of relationship between foreign capital inflows and the level of economic growth selected West African Countries and to observe the causality between foreign capital inflows components and economic growth. The study adopts Pedroni cointegration and granger causality test. The result shows the existence of long run relationship between foreign capital inflows and economics growth in selected West African country. All the variables were positive but only foreign direct investment is significant. Net migrant remittance, foreign direct investment and official development assistance cause growth in the short run. The study recommends policies to encourage capital inflows via macroeconomic management, a flexible exchange rate, financial sector supervision, large reserves and diversification of domestic economies