Effect of Crude Oil Price on Agricultural Productivity in Nigeria (1981-2010)

This study examined the effects of crude oil price on agricultural productivity in Nigeria between 1981 and 2010. Agricultural productivity (proxy as agricultural GDP) was specified as a function of factors such as exchange rate, crude oil price, capital stock, labour, land and fertilizer. Quantitative estimates, based on Augmented-Dickey Fuller (ADF) unit root test, Co-integration and Error Correction modelling, indicate that the exchange rate, capital, labour and trend are the major determinants of agricultural productivity in the long-run, while price of crude oil price is the most important determinant of agricultural productivity in the short–run. The results further show that the error correction mechanism (ECM) indicated a feedback of about 112.5% of the previous year’s disequilibrium from long-run domestic agricultural production.Keywords: Agricultural productivity, crude oil price, error correction, co-integration

Personal narrative assessment for Cantonese-speaking school-age children

This study investigated the oral personal narrative production in 60 Cantonese-speaking children between 6 and 9 years of age. Three language measures, namely Total Personal Narrative Score, Macrostructure Score and Microstructure, were derived from three personal narratives produced by each participant after listening to the sample stories. The participants also completed the Cantonese Grammar subtest of the Hong Kong Cantonese Oral Language Assessment Scale (HKCOLAS). Analysis of the data demonstrated that there were significant group differences in narrative production skills with respect to all the tested language measures. Further investigation identified that the high point element ‘Resolution’ at the macrostructure level was the most sensitive to age, and ‘Conjunction’ was a better age indicator than ‘Referencing’ at the microstructure level. The correlation between the Macrostructure and Microstructure scores was positive but weak, while the correlation between Total Personal Narrative and Cantonese Grammar scores was positive and strong. No significant group difference was found with respect to the length of narratives. These findings supported McCabe and Bliss (2003) and Cheng’s (2004) reports that personal narrative production can be further developed as an efficient tool for screening and assessment of language capabilities of Cantonese-speaking school-age children.published_or_final_versionSpeech and Hearing SciencesBachelorBachelor of Science in Speech and Hearing Science

Contour integration: Psychophysical, neurophysiological, and computational perspectives

One of the important roles of our visual system is to detect and segregate objects. Neurons in the early visual system extract local image features from the visual scene. To combine these features into separate, global objects, the visual system must perform some kind of grouping operation. One such operation is contour integration. Contours form the outlines of objects, and are the first step in shape perception. We discuss the mechanism of contour integration from psychophysical, neurophysiological, and computational perspectives

Impact of secondary education reform on tertiary students’ generic competencies: A case study of associate degree freshmen in Hong Kong

This paper examines the correlation between curriculum reforms and the development of generic competencies among Hong Kong tertiary students (or secondary leavers who were admitted to Associate Degree and Higher Diploma). A total number of 3626 freshmen completed a set of self-assessment questionnaires, which were used to analyse the correlation between five generic competencies, across three academic years from 2010 to 2012. Five of the generic competencies, which were highlighted in the proposed new three-year New Senior Secondary (NSS) academic structure, were measured and compared between students from different academic backgrounds. The finding of the study indicated significantly higher scores in generic competencies for the traditional Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination (HKALE) secondary school curriculum in 2012 compared to earlier cohorts, whilst in general no significant difference was found between students from the traditional curriculum and the new academic structure of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE) in the mixed ‘double cohort’ year of 2012. The result points to the potential early impact of NSS on students’ generic skill development across both the old and new curriculum

Processed meat consumption and Lung function: modification by antioxidants and smoking

This article has supplementary material available from www.erj.ersjournals.com: This study was supported by the Medical Research Council, UK. H. Okubo was supported in part by fellowship of the Astellas Foundation for Research on Metabolic Disorders, Japan and the Naito Memorial Grant for Research Abroad from the Naito Foundation, Japan

Temperature dependent core-level photoemission study of UNiSn

UNiSn undergoes an anomalous phase transition at T-N = 47 K, at which temperature it transforms from an antiferromagnetic metal to a paramagnetic semiconductor with an energy gap similar or equal to 70 meV. In order to investigate how the electronic structure of UNiSn changes as it crosses the transition temperature, we have used the X ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS) technique from 20 to 70 K. According to the XPS studies, the U 4f core levels are almost temperature independent while the Ni 2p core levels and the satellite structure display a weak anomaly at T-N