OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development
Open access peer-reviewed journal
Ethnicity-Militarism in Nigeria Democratization: A Typology and An Assessment
Emma Chukwuemeka a, Rose Anazodo b, Francisca Ogo Ezeigwe c
a, b Department of Public Administration, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria.
c Department of Public Administration, Federal Polytechnic Oko, Nigeria.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 11-18, 2011.
Abstract: Democratic governance and politics in Nigeria appear to be problematic due to ethnic consciousness and militarism in democratic practice. Ethnicity is the soldiering slogan or concept employed by the elites in Nigeria to mobilize and unify a category of people who have a common culture, myth of common origin and inhabit a particular territory who speak the same language. The objective indicator of oneness especially the myth of common origin and common language were manipulated by the elites particularly the petit bourgeoisie to ensure a monolithic support in politics. Political party formation to say the least is based on ethnicity.. The paper adopted content analysis technique. It is the opinion of the paper that the economy of Nigeria should be organized to make it more productive and also to devise a vision of society within which each person can reasonably perceive that equity and social justice are firmly on the national agenda. Furthermore development of national political education and making it part of school curriculum, is also a panacea to end ethnic politics and ethnic consciousness in Nigeria.
Keywords: Democratization, Ethnicity, Military, Politics, Party
Sustainable Urban Transport In Singapore: A Balanced Scorecard
Md. Habibur Rahman a and Hoong Chor Chin b
a, b Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 19-43, 2011.
Abstract: Singapore is a city state nation with a small area of about 710 square kilometres yet a dense population of 5 million with higher economic growth and denser commercial activities. This Asian tiger nation is often recognized for its very high yet smartly maintained huge and smooth traffic flow on its urban streets. While the success and achievements of Singapore land transport case can be a role-model to follow for other cities there are still challenging areas in its urban transport without a proper address of which may hinder betterment of its sustainability in the long run. Therefore while on the one hand it is necessary to record the successful aspects and learn their root underlying factors it is also essential, on the other hand, to identify the major critical and challenging areas which may stand against its long term sustainability. In order to address these two key issues it is necessary to make a holistic evaluation of the sustainability performance of Singapore’s urban transport. In the past, studies mainly focused on certain aspects while others remained ignored resulting in the lack of a balanced evaluation for urban transport of this city state. The aim of this study is to evaluate the sustainability of Singapore’s urban land transport in the framework of a Balanced Scorecard. The Balanced Scorecard reviews Singapore’s land transport system with a holistic framework of sustainability. Results show that the efficient institutional structure, deployment of advanced technologies, a world class land transport infrastructure system, good level of air quality, innovative approaches towards problems and strict control over private vehicles are key areas of excellent performance whereas moderate performing areas include mainly energy consumption, global carbon emission and public participation. In addition to these, major good performing areas where further improvements are still needed include service level of public transport, especially buses, congestion management, facilitation of non-motorized transport and car sharing and promotion of green vehicles.
Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Singapore; Sustainability; Sustainable Development; Urban Transport
Testing The Permanent Income Hypothesis: Micro Evidence From The East Coast Region
Of Malaysia
Noor Haslina Mohamad Akhir a, Nur Azura Sanusi b, Suriyani Muhamad c
a,b,c Department of Economics, Faculty of Management and Economics,
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, Terengganu. Malaysia.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 44-56, 2011.
Abstract: Based on the Milton Freidman views, permanent income has an impact on the total household consumption. The life cycle hypothesis stated that individual consumption is based on the changes in income. Both views emphasised on the relation between income and consumption. Based on PIH studied by Freidman in 1957, people opt to make a less saving when the expected future income to rise and it indicates the negative relationship between those two factors (Ireland. P.N, 1995).Meanwhile Robert Hall (1978) derived the Permanent Income Hypothesis from mathematical theory using the joint behavior of consumption, income and saving. In other related study by David Hage (1994), these three variables (consumption, income and saving) have been adopted to forecast the US economy in 1994.The purpose of this study is to identify the impact of income on household consumption using PIH. A total of 645 household samples have been collected from the East Coast region of Malaysia. The estimation model utilized the cross-sectional regression with household income as a proxy to test the Permanent Income Hypothesis. The basic regression model take into account the basic variables for Permanent Income Hypothesis; income, saving and loan and socio-economic and demographic factors represented by age, educational level, job sector and household member. There were several important results based on this study; i) as household income increases by RM1.00, consumption rises by RM0.07 ii) as household saving increases by RM 1.00, household consumption goes up by RM0.45 and iii) as household loan increases by RM1.00, the
household consumption increases by RM0.94. Apart from these results, there were also interesting findings revealed on the socio-economic and demographic factors on the household consumption patterns. From the regression estimation, the results indicated a positive significant relationship between household consumption as dependent variable with household income, loan, saving, education level, type of employees and family size.
Keywords: East Coast Region; Household Consumption Pattern; Permanent Income Hypothesis.
Introducing large scale urban model to Sydney’s metropolitan planning
Ji Yuan Yu a
a Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales, Ryde, NSW, Australia.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 52-72, 2011.
Abstract: By 2036 Sydney’s population is expected to reach six million, an increase of 1.7 million since the 2006 census. To achieve a liveable and attractive city, Sydney Metropolitan Strategy 2006 presents detailed plans for Sydney’s future and allocates a precise number of additional residents to each local government area using the planning tool named METRIX. As the pattern of human settlement directly impacts on the issues of transport, environment and economy, METRIX, however, is limited and incapable of accounting for the external restrictions to population distribution. There is a further question of the extent to which this strategy will be implemented, since there is no appropriate planning system currently in place. Therefore, a planning model capable of evaluating the suitable locations to accommodate the growing population and providing alternative options for Sydney’s future, as well as facilitating the cooperation among different departments, is in urgent need to produce a flexible and responsive metropolitan strategy.
To resolve these practical issues, this paper turns to academic research on the concept of planning support system. By reviewing the presently popular urban models, the author argues that most previous efforts are forced on modelling techniques, and these methods cannot simulate the correct process of urban growth. This also makes the relative research more successful in the laboratory than that in practice. The proposed model in this paper, instead, takes the notion of “Enterprise Resource Planning” to pull the endeavour back to constructing a collaborative population distribution model.
The model first examines the macro level influences in people’s choice of living through spatial regression, and then generates suitability score using factor analysis to reflect the micro fitness. Afterwards, the additional population is distributed along the logistic curve with a yearly basis. The whole model is constructed in ModelBuilder of ArcGIS 10 employing the data of 55158 polygons, where the smallest area of residential block is 154 m2.
Keywords: Urban planning, Planning support system, Metropolitan Planning
Measuring Corporate Sustainable Development in Facilities Management with Key Performance Indicators
Mascha Reineck a, John Poltermann b, Michael May c, Andrea Pelzeter d
a,d Department of Facilities Management, Faculty of Cooperative Studies,
Berlin School of Economics and Law, Alt-Friedrichsfelde 60, 10315 Berlin, Germany.
b,c Department of Engineering (II), University of Applied Sciences HTW Berlin,
Wilhelminenhofstraße, Berlin, Germany
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 69-79, 2011.
Abstract: Real Estate owners are deeply concerned about the environmental friendliness of their buildings. However, the current topic of sustainability has not yet been fully adopted by the facilities management (FM) industry. So far the main approaches on sustainability for buildings are concerned with the way they are constructed. But in order to completely incorporate the idea of sustainability, which next to environmental ideas includes social and economic aspects, not only the construction of a building has to be considered; but the maintenance of the building, namely the services provided by facilities management, need to be run under the aspects of sustainability as well. Indeed some FM service providers have already included green products such as eco-friendly cleaning solutions into their product range. What is still missing is the measurement of the sustainability impacts of FM services. The research project “Return on Sustainability System” (RoSS) aims at defining a relevant and practicable set of indicators for measuring the sustainability of FM services and develops a software application to evaluate the indicators. The project is carried out by the Berlin School of Economics and Law, the University of Applied Sciences HTW and the Beuth University of Applied Sciences as well as five professional partners. As a result a set of 30 indicators is identified that reflects the different aspects of sustainability relevant to the FM industry and their specific processes. The software application facilitates the calculation and ensures a continuous evaluation of these indicators
Keywords: facilities management; key performance indicator; sustainability monitoring IT tool; sustainability reporting
Predicting The Intentions To Buy Fair-Trade Products: The Role Of Attitude, Social Norm, Perceived Behavioral Control, And Moral Norm
Astrid de Leeuw a , Pierre Valois b , Claude Houssemand c
a, b, c Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education,
University of Luxemburg, EMACS Research Unit,
Route de Diekirch, L-7201 Walferdange.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 77-85, 2011.
Abstract: The current study examined to what extent attitude, social norm, and perceived behavioral control explain students’ intentions to buy fair-trade products. Moreover, it was explored whether the addition of moral norm to these three factors permitted the better prediction of the intentions in question. Questionnaire data was collected from 192 students of the University of Luxemburg. The results of structural equation analyses revealed that attitude and perceived behavioral control explained 61% of the variance in intention. The addition of the moral norm construct increased the explained variance of intention from 61% to 73%. These results suggest that to encourage students to buy fair-trade products, applied social psychologists or educational institutions should create programs that develop their perceived control over the behavior, for instance, by offering the products in their canteens as well as in their food and drink dispensers. In addition, they should insist on the advantages of fair-trade consumerism to favor the development of a positive attitude. Finally, they should emphasize the moral correctness of the behavior.
Keywords: fair-trade products, moral norm, sustainable social development, theory of planned behavior
Efficiency of the coagulation-flocculation for the leachate treatment
Lee Mao Rui a, Zawawi Bin Daud b
a, b,Department of Water and Environmental Engineering,
Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering,, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 86-91, 2011.
Abstract: Leachate will be treated by using coagulation-flocculation. Coagulation and flocculation are essential process in a number of diverse disciplines, including biochemistry, cheese manufacturing and in water and waste water treatment. It is effective for removing high concentration organic pollutant and heavy metals in wastewater. However, coagulation-flocculation examined the effectiveness of alum and ferric chloride as well as the use of cationic polymer and micro zeolite on removal of suspended solid (SS), color, COD and ammoniacal nitrogen (NH3N) from leachate. The coagulant dosage has typically been determined through jar test, which requires a long experiment time in a field water treatment plant.
Keywords: coagulation-flocculation, leachate, polymers, micro zeolite
Cogeneration of biochar and energy from rice hull: towards sustainable agriculture in marginalized philippine farms
Ricardo F. Orge a, John Eric O. Abon b
a, b Rice Engineering and Mechanization Division, Philippine Rice Research Institute,
Maligaya, Science City of Muňoz, Nueva Ecija, Philippines.
Volume 02, Issue 10, Pg. 92-101, 2011.
Abstract: This study seeks to integrate both energy and food security alongside pollution mitigation activities at farmers’ level. In particular, it aims to utilize the heat generated during the production of rice hull (RH) biochar for pumping water. A small boiler and a jet pump were designed, fabricated, and retrofitted into the PhilRice-developed continuous-type RH carbonizer. The boiler was used to recover the heat from the exothermic carbonization process in converting water into steam. The generated steam was then used as the motive fluid of the jet pump for pumping water. A complete set up of the carbonizer-pump system was established to evaluate its technical feasibility. Performance test results showed that the system, equipped with a 5mm jet pump, was able to pump water from a pond (2.1m suction head) at a discharge rate of at least 15.5 liters/min, consuming 22.7 kg RH/h while producing biochar at 9.1 kg/h and a smokeless emission with CO content of 431 ppm. Higher discharge rates were observed at higher operating pressures. The minimum operating pressure by which the system could no longer pump water was 2.8 kg/cm2.
Keywords: Biochar; Carbonization; Jet pump; Rice hull; Sustainable agriculture.