The legal implications of gas flaring on climate change in Nigeria

Global atmospheric concentration of substances that trap heat causing warming and change of climate is caused mostly by man’s activities- anthropogenic. Since efforts to curtail anthropogenic climate change commenced and countries came together to agree under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon emissions, incidentally a larger percentage of the world was left out, constituting the developing countries, some of which eventually turn out to become leading carbon emitters, like Nigeria and others. Nigeria is a large carbon emitter through its oil exploration activities involving gas flaring. The country’s mainstay is its oil which predominantly dominates its revenue profile. The consequences of its gas flaring are enormous, which constitutes a threat to its environment and to the entire region. Keywords: Gas flaring, oil exploration, legislation, pollution, environment

Ambiguous keyboards for AAC

Purpose – “Ambiguous keyboards” and “disambiguation processes” are becoming universally recognised through the popularisation of “predictive text messaging” on mobile phones. As this paper shows, although originating in the AT and AAC fields, these terms and techniques no longer appear to be widely understood or adopted by practitioners or users. The purpose of this paper is to introduce these techniques, discussing the research and theory around them, and to suggest them as AT and AAC strategies to be considered by practitioners and users. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper that describes the use of ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation. The hypothesis of the paper is that ambiguous keyboards and disambiguation processes offer potential to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of AAC and should thus be considered further in research and practice. Findings – The two broad methods for removing the ambiguity from the output of an ambiguous keyboard are presented. A summary of the literature around the use of disambiguation processes provided and the use of disambiguation processes for AAC discussed. Originality/value – This paper suggests that ambiguity should be adopted as a characteristic of an AAC keyboard as should the method of removing ambiguity – namely either coding or a disambiguation process

Leveraging the Grid to Provide a Global Platform for Ubiquitous Computing Research

The requirement for distributed systems support for Ubicomp has led to the development of numerous platforms, each addressing a subset of the overall requirements of ubiquitous systems. In contrast, many other scientific disciplines have embraced the vision of a global distributed computing platform, i.e. the Grid. We believe that the Grid has the potential to evolve into an ideal platform for building ubiquitous computing applications. In this paper we explore in detail the areas of synergy between Grid computing and ubiquitous computing and highlight a series of research challenges in this space

Board of Director Monitoring and Firm Value in REITs

This article examines the influence of board of director composition and characteristics on real estate investment trust (REIT) shareholder wealth as measured by firm market-to-book ratios. Results show that increased outside director representation on the board leads to increased market-to-book ratios up to a point. However, as outside representation becomes too large, the market discounts REIT shares. In addition, a positive relationship is observed between REIT market-to-book ratios and the dollar values of director ownership, providing support for alignment benefits associated with increased director stock ownership.

Future wireless applications for a networked city: services for visitors and residents

Future wireless networks will offer near-ubiquitous high-bandwidth communications to mobile users. In addition, the accurate position of users will be known, either through network services or via additional sensing devices such as GPS. These characteristics of future mobile environments will enable the development of location-aware and, more generally, context-sensitive applications. In an attempt to explore the system, application, and user issues associated with the development and deployment of such applications, we began to develop the Lancaster GUIDE system in early 1997, finishing the first phase of the project in 1999. In its entirety, GUIDE comprises a citywide wireless network based on 802.11, a context-sensitive tour guide application with, crucially, significant content, and a set of supporting distributed systems services. Uniquely in the field, GUIDE has been evaluated using members of the general public, and we have gained significant experience in the design of usable context-sensitive applications. We focus on the applications and supporting infrastructure that will form part of GUIDE II, the successor to the GUIDE system. These developments are designed to expand GUIDE outside the tour guide domain, and to provide applications and services for residents of the city of Lancaster, offering a vision of the future mobile environments that will emerge once ubiquitous high-bandwidth coverage is available in most cities

Mobile-awareness:designing for mobile interactive systems

In recent years, we have witnessed a significant increase in the availability and adoption of mobile devices with wireless communications capabilities. Such devices can be used as the end-system in network-based (single or multi

Mechanical and Physicochemical Evaluation of Alkaleri Fireclay for Refractory Application

The mechanical, chemical and physical property of Alkaleri fireclay was investigated for its appropriateness for refractory application. The chemical composition was performed and analyzed using the X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer Bench top XRF analyzer technique. Chemical property result indicated that the clay contained 67.4 % silica (SiO2), 30.06 % aluminum (Al2O3), and other impurities. The clay was subjected to mechanical activation through sintering process at varied sintering temperatures of 900 °C, 1000 °C, 1100 °C and 1200 °C. At the best sintering temperature of 1200 °C, the cold crushing strength (CCS) was 17.82 MPa, in the physical properties; apparent porosity was 22.8 %, bulk density was 1.8 g/cm3, and firing shrinkage was 8.9 %. The Alkaleri clay belongs to alumino-silicate fireclay group and therefore, suitable materials for refractory application of ladle, kiln dryer, boilers, cook stoves, furnace lining and bricks.