Analysis of Foreign and Domestic Investment on Economic Growth in Nigeria (1980-2013)

Several factors have hampered economic growth in Nigeria, though there has been improvement in the recent times. Nevertheless, it remains fragile and is not strong enough to significantly reduce the prevailing level of poverty in the country. Against this backdrop, the study investigates the relationship between foreign and domestic investment on Economic growth in Nigeria, during the period 1980-2013, using Vector Error Correction Model (VECM). The study finds out that foreign and domestic investment have a strong influence both in short and long run, on the economic growth of Nigeria. The result shows unidirectional long-run causality between domestic investments to real GDP in Nigeria. Also, there is unidirectional long-run causality between exchange rate and real GDP in Nigeria. The result implies that change in current GDP is better explained by domestic investment and exchange rate rather than national income, foreign direct investment and credit to private sector. Hence, the government may encourage foreign investors to invest in the high risk areas, where the domestic investment lacks the technology and experiences needed

Corruption and Economic Growth in Nigeria (1980-2013)

Corruption is as aged as the existence of man and it exists in all sphere of human life. The  persistency  of  corruption  erodes  the  social  economic  value  of  a  nation. The study investigates the relationship between corruption and economic growth in Nigeria, in the period 1980-2013, using the VAR analysis. The study finds the existence of long-term relationship between corruption and unemployment growth on the economic growth of Nigeria. Also, the study found no short-term relationship in corruption and unemployment on economic growth. Hence, the result in the analysis shows that corruption positively has a strong influence on the output of Nigeria. So the rise in growth rate experienced in Nigeria is influenced by high corruption rate in the country, which is making the few rich to be richer, eradicating the middle class and making the poor to be poorer. Therefore, there is a need to develop political will to prosecute anyone found guilty of corruption irrespective of their position, tribe, religion or party affiliation. Such a punishment would also serve as a deterrent to others and help improve real economic growth and development

Prediction of strong shock structure using the bimodal distribution function

A modified Mott-Smith method for predicting the one-dimensional shock wave solution at very high Mach numbers is constructed by developing a system of fluid dynamic equations. The predicted shock solutions in a gas of Maxwell molecules, a hard sphere gas and in argon using the newly proposed formalism are compared with the experimental data, direct-simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) solution and other solutions computed from some existing theories for Mach numbers M<50. In the limit of an infinitely large Mach number, the predicted shock profiles are also compared with the DSMC solution. The density, temperature and heat flux profiles calculated at different Mach numbers have been shown to have good agreement with the experimental and DSMC solutionsComment: 22 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in Physical Review

Ballistic Annihilation Kinetics: The Case of Discrete Velocity Distributions

The kinetics of the annihilation process, $A+A\to 0$, with ballistic particle motion is investigated when the distribution of particle velocities is {\it discrete}. This discreteness is the source of many intriguing phenomena. In the mean field limit, the densities of different velocity species decay in time with different power law rates for many initial conditions. For a one-dimensional symmetric system containing particles with velocity 0 and $\pm 1$, there is a particular initial state for which the concentrations of all three species as decay as $t^{-2/3}$. For the case of a fast ``impurity'' in a symmetric background of $+$ and $-$ particles, the impurity survival probability decays as $\exp(-{\rm const.}\times \ln^2t)$. In a symmetric 4-velocity system in which there are particles with velocities $\pm v_1$ and $\pm v_2$, there again is a special initial condition where the two species decay at the same rate, t^{-\a}, with \a\cong 0.72. Efficient algorithms are introduced to perform the large-scale simulations necessary to observe these unusual phenomena clearly.Comment: 18 text pages, macro file included, hardcopy of 9 figures available by email request to S

Fundamentals of microcrack nucleation mechanics

A foundation for ultrasonic evaluation of microcrack nucleation mechanics is identified in order to establish a basis for correlations between plane strain fracture toughness and ultrasonic factors through the interaction of elastic waves with material microstructures. Since microcracking is the origin of (brittle) fracture, it is appropriate to consider the role of stress waves in the dynamics of microcracking. Therefore, the following topics are discussed: (1) microstress distributions with typical microstructural defects located in the stress field; (2) elastic wave scattering from various idealized defects; and (3) dynamic effective-properties of media with randomly distributed inhomogeneities

Flux through a hole from a shaken granular medium

We have measured the flux of grains from a hole in the bottom of a shaken container of grains. We find that the peak velocity of the vibration, vmax, controls the flux, i.e., the flux is nearly independent of the frequency and acceleration amplitude for a given value of vmax. The flux decreases with increasing peak velocity and then becomes almost constant for the largest values of vmax. The data at low peak velocity can be quantitatively described by a simple model, but the crossover to nearly constant flux at larger peak velocity suggests a regime in which the granular density near the container bottom is independent of the energy input to the system.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures. to appear in Physical Review