Effects of Maritime Illegal Oil Trading on Economic Growth in Nigeria
Purpose: Illegal oil trading involves the theft of crude oil and its derivative products through a variety of different mechanisms with significant economic implications. This study therefore, investigates these implications covering the period of 1995-2012. Methodology: Employing the e-views econometric software, the unit root, co-integration, and granger causality tests were carried out on the secondary data set to make it amenable to the application of the vector autoregressive (VAR) modeling of the ordinary least square multiple regression to reveal among others, that a significant relationship exists between the illegal oil trading and the economic growth in Nigeria. Findings: Other findings are that the volume of oil theft as an explanatory variable met the a priori expectation with its negative coefficient, but together with the one-year lagged variables of the dependent variables, was statistically significant in terms of contributions to the dependent variable. The study concludes that illegal oil trading has negative effects on the Nigerian economy, especially within the study period and should be checked by the law enforcement authorities. Recommendations: Prominent among the recommendations is the need to institute adequate and effective sanctions against offenders to serve as a deterrent.
Survival at the margins: Economic crisis and coping mechanisms in Rural Nigeria
This paper examines the diverse strategies being adopted by rural dwellers to cope with the worsening economic crisis in Nigeria, in which they absorb a disproportionate burden as the most marginalized social category. While it draws from secondary materials, it nevertheless relies on the personal observations and experiences of the author's long contact with rural communities across the country. This contact, spanning over a decade, was also complemented with interviews and focus group discussions with rural dwellers. The findings reveal that rural dwellers in Nigeria—irrespective of geographical location and creed—are united by the poverty precipitated by the lingering and excruciating economic crisis that has enveloped the country since the 1980s. The paper concludes on the note that while the various strategies evolved by the people to actualize their survival may seem a creative response, given how they have enhanced their organizational dynamics and self-reliance, they are nevertheless mere survival mechanisms, not a long-term substitute for the development of a sound, healthy and robust economy that can effectively respond to the much-talked-about national rebirth.
Ceramic microwave antennas for mobile applications
Due to their medium to high permittivity values, ceramic microwave materials are attractive as building blocks for miniaturised antenna solutions. Further advantages are low dielectric losses and an excellent temperature stability of standard ceramic materials. Yet, the permittivity of the ceramic material also has a strong influence on the radiation efficiency and bandwidth of the antenna. This implies that in the design process a suitable compromise has to be found between the degree of miniaturisation on the one hand and the antenna efficiency and bandwidth on the other. We describe two approaches towards efficient miniaturised ceramic microwave antennas: the dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) with partial metallisation and the shorting post patch antenna. We focus on design steps taken to ensure both a high degree of miniaturisation and high values of the radiation efficiency, the choice of the ceramic material and the experimental performance of the antennas.