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The paper presents an application of a newly developed implicit procedure for including steel creep strain into structural fire analysis through modelling a series of stationary fire tests. An implicit modelling procedure is incorporated into customized structural fire analysis software. Four stationary fire tests on simply supported, steel members were modelled using strain modified stress-strain curves. Strain modified curve was obtained by adding the creep strain directly into the steel stationary stress-strain material curve. The proposed implicit procedure in this manner attempts to create an equivalent transient stress-strain curve from the provided stationary stress-strain curve. The proposed implicit procedure was able to provide satisfactory prediction of member deflections in the temperature region of 400-700°C.

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has further intensified the vulnerability of older persons in displacement and rendered them more unseen. This study aims at exploring the impact of COVID-19 on older people in displacement.

Data were obtained using semi-structured interviews from 12 older persons at Durumi IDP camp Abuja, while observing strict infection control measures. The data were inductively coded with Nvivo and analysed thematically.

Findings revealed that the economic and psychosocial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic has increased older persons in displacement poverty, psychological stress and placed them at risk of ageism, social isolation and may subsequently lead to secondary displacement, thereby losing all progress, development and resilience built after initial displacement.

This paper concluded by encouraging the need for all stakeholders to pay more attention to this invisible yet vulnerable group to ensure no one is left behind as people fight through this pandemic and its social implications.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the impact of COVID-19 on older people in displacement in Nigeria. This is because they have been relatively invisible to research endeavours.

The purpose of this paper is to explore female teachers and vice principal’s leadership on girls attendance and learning, safety and security issues in rural girls’ schools experiencing Boko Haram insurgencies. The secondary purpose is to recommend innovative educational policy initiatives at the school, community and state levels, so as to ameliorate girls and teachers’ challenges, and to sustain girls in schools.

Qualitative educational research orientation and an ethnographic-narrative research design were used for the study. Purposeful sampling procedure was adopted through the selection of female teachers and a vice principal. Soft qualitative oral data (SQOD) were collected from structured interviews and focus groups and participant observation data. Data analysis engaged hand data analysis (HAD) for transcription, while the coding and theming process involved qualitative computer software data analysis (CSDA) of NVivo 8.0. The measures of validity involved the qualitative process of member checking, while ethical issues of anonymity with participants were addressed in the process of data collection, and reporting.

Major findings revealed a symbiotic relationship between female teacher’s moral leadership and the application of law of tort in the girls’ school; teachers’ adopted spiritual leadership and moral decision making process on girls’ safety, and learning motivation; and improved school community collaboration for security and safety of the girls and effective communication.

Educational policy options are prescribed. They include the training of teachers and girls on fire safety and conflict crisis; recruitment of female school counsellors; housing incentives for female teachers; support grassroot initiatives on school security; and sustaining school-community/parents involvement.

Boko Haram’s impact on teacher and school leadership in girls’ school(s) has not been studied so far. The paper is the first, thereby filling the gap of the literature on girls’ rural education and terrorism.

Northwest Nigeria is mostly populated by the Hausa and Fulani ethnic groups. Social inclusions and gender equality are listed among the fundamental rights. They are essential for human being to put up their best efforts in resolving all difficulties without restraint. Nonetheless, these rights are frequently withheld in many nations within the African continent, owing to ignorance, religion and custom fanaticism. In spite of these constraints, the northern Nigeria is faced with security issues such as persistent cattle rustling which ultimately evolved into armed banditry, which have exacerbated some lingering issues that revolves around children and women. This study attempts to examine the nature of the crisis that may relates to gender-based issues in Zamfara state. The article relied mostly on secondary literature. Evidences proved that security difficulties have worsened the living circumstances of women and girls in the understudied state, thereby espousing women and girls to dangerous attacks and hard living.

Nigeria has been ravaged by terrorist activities which has made the country unsafe for Nigerians and foreign investors. The motivation of this study arises from the dearth of research applying quantitative empirics to the determinants of terrorism in a specific country. To achieve this goal, vector autoregressive (VAR) model was applied using data from Global Terrorism Database (GTD), International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) data, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) data, and Transparency International. Stata 13 software was used for estimation. The results show that ethnic violence, absence of good governance, presence of corruption, and rises in military expenditure are part of the causes of terrorism in Nigeria. It is, therefore, recommended that internal security should be maintained to minimize the occurrence of ethnic violence and ethnoreligious biases (sentiments) in the discussion of issues concerning Nigeria. Also, politicians should stop the proliferation of arms, as this will cease the violent reactions before and after elections. Finding lasting solutions to corruption using constitutional means will improve the quality of governance, which will improve the welfare state of the people and reduce restiveness.

This study aimed at exploring support for older people in protracted displacement in Nigeria, emphasising the available support and the gap in the support provided to them.

Qualitative interviews were used to collect data from ten displaced older people in New-Kuchingoro internally displaced persons (IDP) camp Abuja, Nigeria. The collected data were analysed thematically with NVivo 12.

Results show that older people received material, emotional and psychological supports from their families, neighbours, friends, religious organisations and non-governmental organisations. Several gaps were identified in the support provided to displaced older people. For example, their special nutritional or medical needs were neglected, and their support was primarily material, sporadic and spontaneous, as there is no existing framework guiding the care and support of older people in displacement.

This study provides a foundation for further research on older people in displacement, an area that has received minimal scholarly attention.

The paper recommends that researchers and displaced persons’ care providers should pay more attention to the peculiar support needs of this less visible vulnerable group and adopt the internal displacement policy for the long-term protection of older people in displacement.

Older people in displacement remain less visible as humanitarian aid programmes and research focus more on women and children. This lack of attention may put older people in displacement at more risk as their peculiar needs may not be met. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the gap in support for older people in displacement in Nigeria.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the trends of climate change and their impact on businesses in Kenya’s Public Listed Companies (PLCs).

Out of 66 PLCs, the researchers interviewed 10 companies, and therefore obtained a 15% sample. The methodology was utilization of both primary and secondary data and by use of a combination of the structured and unstructured interviews.

The findings indicated that, although climate change issues are mentioned or implied in strategic plans and core values, they rarely however, translate to normal or day-to-day conversation or operation of the businesses. PESTEL factors are cited as having a very positive impact on businesses that are technological and economic, contrary to environmental/climate change factors which have a more negative than positive effect on the business. Electricity outages/shortages will have serious impact, while agricultural, tourism, insurance, and aviation sectors are likely to be most severely affected by climate change. The hypothesis that climate change is affecting all businesses was accepted while that stating that climate change is significantly impacting businesses negatively rather than positively by increasing operating costs which may result to closure if not mitigated by 2030 was rejected.

Companies should not adopt a “business as usual” attitude but invest in training on effects and strategies for mitigation as well as adaptation and translate climate issues into action as well as create synergy in tackling climate change issues.

The research is valuable to environmentalists, meteorologists, business community, academicians, as well as scientists and scholars alike both nationally and internationally.

Africa is a focus area for international climate change adaptation finance. Subsistence farmers are crucial for Africa's adaption. But it is unclear how those that qualify to receive adaptation finance actually perceive climate change, even though perceptions are reflected in adaptive behaviour. This paper aims to show how perceptions of climate‐related hazards drive adaptation and provide recommendations for the climate change finance community to support subsistence farmer adaptation.

A total of 227 households in rural Ghana and Botswana were surveyed and their answers statistically analysed.

The respondents' perception of climate‐related hazards is analogous to existing environmental degradation. In the complex environment in which farmers operate, high vulnerability and climate dependency do not necessarily result in autonomous adaptation. Experience, means and perceived successfulness are more important factors, but these hardly relate to individual adaptive measures.

Recommendations for adaptation finance institutions: build on existing development plans and policies on climate‐related environmental problems; adaptation is more than a collection of adaptive measures, so financing adaptation is more than financing adaptive measures; extremely vulnerable people do not necessarily adapt autonomously, indicating that ex post adaptation remains important too.

This study shows that highly vulnerable subsistence farmers do not automatically adapt and that adaptation is more than implementing adaptive measures. The outcomes are linked to the adaptation finance institutions.

This paper aims to examine the concept of poverty and malnutrition in Africa, implications and the way out.

Several literatures were reviewed on the causes, modes, implications and solutions to the contemporary challenges of poverty and malnutrition in Africa.

Poverty and malnutrition are two sides of a coin that are ravaging the African continent. These were as a result of underdevelopment, maladministration and lack of focus and vision by the generations of leaders saddled with administration in different African countries. Poverty in Africa embraces lack of basic human needs faced by people in African society. Many African nations are very poor, and their income per capita or gross domestic product per capita fall toward the bottom of list of nations of the world, despite a wealth of natural resources. In 2009, according to United Nations (UN), 22 of 24 nations identified as having “Low Human Development” on the UN’s Human Development Index were in sub-Saharan Africa and 34 of the 50 nations on the UN list of least developed countries are in Africa. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 233 million people in sub-Saharan Africa were hungry/undernourished in 2014-2016 (its most recent estimate). In total, 795 million people were hungry worldwide. According to the World Bank, sub-Saharan Africa was the area with the second largest number of hungry people, as Asia had 512 million, mainly due to the much larger population of Asia when compared to sub-Saharan Africa. World Bank also reported in 2012 that sub-Saharan Africa Poverty and Equity Data was 501 million people, or 47 per cent Poverty has also been reported as the principal cause of hunger in Africa and the principal causes of poverty have been found to be harmful economic systems, conflict, environmental factors such as drought and climate change and population growth.

This study examined the concept of poverty and malnutrition in Africa, the implications and the way out.