Effect of Public Educational Spending and Macroeconomic Uncertainty on Schooling Outcomes: Evidence from Nigeria

This study examines the effect of government educational spending and macroeconomic uncertainty on schooling outcomes in Nigeria using the econometric methods of cointegration and error correction mechanism together with the vector autoregression methodology. The results indicate that schooling outcome cointegrated with all the identified explanatory variables. The study found that public educational spending impacts positively on schooling outcome while macroeconomic instability impacts negatively. The variance decomposition analysis shows that “own shocks” constitute the predominant source of variation in schooling outcome. The impulse response analysis shows that any unanticipated increase in the macroeconomic uncertainty rate will have a contractionary impact on literacy rate. The policy implication of this study is that government should pay attention to policies that enhance educational attainment through adequate public social investment under stable macroeconomic environment.Public spending; education expenditures; education/schooling outcomes; macroeconomic uncertainty.

Understanding the Impediments to Sustainable Structural Retrofit of Existing Buildings in the UK

Structural retrofit of existing buildings for reuse remained one of the key steps toward decarbonisation of the existing housing stocks in the UK. This implies that any structural retrofitting procedure should aim at sustainability by ensuring net reduction in energy use with minimum cost, environmental and social impact. However, several factors impede the attainment of sustainable structural retrofit programs. In this study, quantitative data collection and exploratory factor analysis were used to investigate the factors that impede achieving sustainability in structural retrofitting of existing buildings. The study conducted a review of pertinent literature to draw up a list of potential impediments to sustainable structural retrofit. The lists were used to form Likert scale questionnaire that was administered to 126 professionals within the built environment sector in the UK. The data collected were subjected to reliability analysis and exploratory factor analysis using the SPSS IBM Statistics v24. The analysis revealed that there are four groups of barriers that impede sustainability in structural retrofitting of existing buildings. These are (i) cultural barriers involving factors that are characterised by human behaviour and interest; (ii) economic barriers involving cost functions; (iii) technical knowledge barriers involving education & skills factors and (iv) regulatory barriers involving legislation and policies around retrofitting old buildings. The findings of this study contribute to the broader discussion of sustainability within the built environment by increasing awareness of the key barriers to overcome to promote sustainable structural retrofit of existing building

Preparation of High Grade Silica from Rice Husk for Zeolite Synthesis

Silica powder with approximately 96% purity was extracted from rice husk (RH) and used as a silica source for the synthesis of zeolite Y by hydrothermal process. The effect of synthesis parameters such as pH, temperature of burning the rice husk, acid leaching prior to formation of rice husk ash (RHA) on the properties of final product were studied. The acid-leached rice husk calcined at 650 °C for 6 h produced rough powder of rice husk silica, light brown in colour. The silica purity of the rice husk ash (RHA) calcined at 400, 450 and 5000C were 95.6wt%, 96.1wt% and 95.89 wt% respectively. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) pattern of the silica obtained show that the silica was amorphous with traces of crystalline phase. The amorphous nature of the RHA and the relatively high purity of silica content in it make it a suitable source of silica for zeolite synthesis.Keywords: Silica; RHA; Zeolite; Synthesis; Hydrothermal; Temperatur

Poverty and employment impact of trade liberalization in Nigeria: empirical evidence and policy implications

This paper analyzes quarterly data which spans the period 1985 to 2010 to investigate the interrelationship between trade liberalisation, employment dynamics and the implications for poverty alleviation in Nigeria. An overview of macroeconomic trends and patterns during the period show that although the Nigerian economy experienced growth, it was accompanied by rapid rise in unemployment and poverty. The econometric analysis, estimated by systems equation model, related terms of trade, implicit producer price incentives, openness and macroeconomic policy outcomes on agricultural and industrial sector incomes per capita and total trade. The findings tended to show that the fortunes of these sectors deteriorated contrary to the assertion that a positive relationship exists between liberalization and poverty reduction via improved productivity of labor intensive smallholder farm and firms enterprises. While the apparent growth in total trade seemed to be buoyed by positive export supply shocks, deteriorating terms of trade and biased producer incentives structure penalized domestic manufactures and farming, thereby accentuating poverty. This adverse consequence is attributable to the adoption of import substitution industrialization strategy which encouraged the influx of foreign firms that are appendages of multinationals. In concluding, the paper calls for a shift in policy approach to economic development from the pervasive import substitution trade strategies which tended to displace labor to an export led strategy guided by the doctrine of factor endowments

Influence of Sulphuric Acid on the Compressive Strength of Ternary Blended Geopolymer Mortar

The deteriorating effect of acid media on cement based constructions has become a worrying problem all over the world. These media generally occur as solutions in various branches of the industry, acid rains and mists, and acid ground-waters. A very popular form of acid attack on concrete that is usually referred to as biogenic sulphuric acid attack also occurs in both industrial and urban sewer systems. The emergence of new cementitious materials, like geopolymer cements, during the past decades necessitates detailed experimental work and research activities to investigate their durability in aggressive acid environments. The study therefore explored the development of alkali-activated CPA-SHA-MK ternary blended geopolymer mortar (GPM) using sodium silicate (Na2Si3) and sodium hydroxide (NAOH) solutions with 9M constant concentration as alkaline activators under both the aggressive and ambient-temperature curing media. The mass ratio of sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide (NS: NH) and as well as the binder to fine aggregate were fixed at 2.5 and 0.8 respectively. The durability of the ternary blended geopolymer mortar was examined through acid resistance test using 50 mm cubes after 28, 56 and 90 days of curing. The results revealed that the setting time prolonged as the replacement levels of RHA-MK increased at a decrease in the replacement levels of CPA. The results also showed that both the PCM and GPM samples studied suffered mass and strength losses in the acid solution and the loss increases at an increase in the hydration periods. The strength losses were observed to be higher in PCM mix (12.19 N/mm2 at 90 days) as compared to the GPMs (6.67 N/mm2 at 90 days) while the mix incorporated 50% CPA, 33% MK and 17% RHA (C50M33R17) was observed to be better compared to other mixes in durability behaviour. The study therefore recommends C50M33R17 mix proportion for good durability performance.&nbsp

Implications of financial development on poverty and inequality: Evidence from Nigeria

This paper examines the short and long run implications of the four measures of financial development on poverty reduction and income inequality in Nigeria within the period 1996-2017. The study employs the Autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) long run co-integration approach. The results revealed a positive but economic insignificant relationship between financial development, poverty and inequality both in the short and long run. The study further revealed that corruption and inflationary levels exhibited positive effect on poverty reduction and income inequality. These results advocate for an establishment of more bank branches as well as the development of informal/micro financial institutions in the rural areas. Since the result particularly pointed out the significance of the financial institution efficiency and stability has germane to foreign and domestic investment attraction, the government should embark on policies that strengthen the efficiency and stability of the sector. It also recommends that since the control of corruption has been highlighted as a panacea for poverty and inequality reduction, the government should tilt toward policies that would address corruption which is the most important element in institutional quality

Poverty and employment impact of trade liberalization in Nigeria: empirical evidence and policy implications

This paper analyzes quarterly data which spans the period 1985 to 2010 to investigate the interrelationship between trade liberalisation, employment dynamics and the implications for poverty alleviation in Nigeria. An overview of macroeconomic trends and patterns during the period show that although the Nigerian economy experienced growth, it was accompanied by rapid rise in unemployment and poverty. The econometric analysis, estimated by systems equation model, related terms of trade, implicit producer price incentives, openness and macroeconomic policy outcomes on agricultural and industrial sector incomes per capita and total trade. The findings tended to show that the fortunes of these sectors deteriorated contrary to the assertion that a positive relationship exists between liberalization and poverty reduction via improved productivity of labor intensive smallholder farm and firms enterprises. While the apparent growth in total trade seemed to be buoyed by positive export supply shocks, deteriorating terms of trade and biased producer incentives structure penalized domestic manufactures and farming, thereby accentuating poverty. This adverse consequence is attributable to the adoption of import substitution industrialization strategy which encouraged the influx of foreign firms that are appendages of multinationals. In concluding, the paper calls for a shift in policy approach to economic development from the pervasive import substitution trade strategies which tended to displace labor to an export led strategy guided by the doctrine of factor endowments

Design and fabrication of a cocoyam (Colocasia esculenta) peeling machine

The processing of cocoyam tubers for industrial or human use involves different operations of which peeling is the major problem. This study was aimed at designing, fabricating and carrying out performance evaluation of a cocoyam peeling machine, taking into consideration some physical and mechanical properties of the cocoyam tubers. The machine was evaluated based on the following parameters which includes; throughput capacity and peeling efficiency at the speeds of 400 rpm, 700 rpm and 933 rpm. Results revealed that, for all the speeds tested in the experiment, the corresponding peeling efficiencies of the machine were 50%, 64% and 68% respectively while that of the throughput capacities were 63.20 kg/hr, 84.90 kg/hr and 112.92 kg/hr respectively. It was observed that 933 rpm speed was the most suitable speed for the operation of this machine, as it had higher peeling efficiency of 68% with a throughput capacity of 112.92 kg/hr. These results showed appreciable improvement over manual method which is 20 – 35 kg/hr