Background:Simultaneous measurements of air temperature were carried out using automatic weather stations at 14 tropical locations in Nigeria. Diurnal variations were derived from the 5-minute update cycle initial data for the years ranging between 2007 and 2013. The temperature trends in Nigeria revealed a continuous variability that is seasonally dependent within any particular year considered. Method:The analysis was carried out using available data from the network and the results are presented with a focus to characterize the temperature variations at different locations in the country using the mean, maximum and minimum temperatures from the north which is arid in nature to the south, which is a tropical monsoon climate type and a coastal region. Result:In overall, temperature variations in Nigeria were observed to have higher values in the far north, attributed to the influence of Sahara Desert, which has less cloud cover and therefore is more transparent to solar irradiance and lowers values in the south, where there are more cloud cover and abundant vegetation. Conclusion:Measured maximum and minimum temperatures in Nigeria are respectively 43.1°C at Yola (north-east part of Nigeria) and 10.2°C for Jos (north-central part of Nigeria). The least temperature variations were recorded for stations in the southern part of the country, while the largest variations were recorded in the north-central region of the country.

Radio refractivity estimation is paramount in the planning and design of radio link/systems for the purpose of achieving optimal performances. In this study, the monthly average daily atmospheric pressure, relative humidity and temperature data obtained from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) during the period of twenty two years (July 1983 -June 2005 for Osogbo (Latitude 7.47 0 N, Longitude 4.29 0 E, and 302.0 m above sea level) were used to estimate the monthly tropospheric radio refractivity and to investigate its variation with other meteorological parameters of monthly average daily atmospheric pressure, relative humidity, absolute temperature, saturation vapour pressure and radio refractive index. The field strength variability (FSV) and the radio horizon distance were also computed. The monthly variation of FSV using two years data (2003 -2004) was also investigated. The results of this study revealed that the values of radio refractivity are more during the rainy season than in the dry season. It was found that the maximum average value of tropospheric radio refractivity of 370.98 N-units and minimum average value of 332.36 N-units occurred in the months of May and January during the rainy and dry seasons respectively. 71.45 % of the total value of the radio refractivity was contributed by the dry term while the major variation is by the wet term radio refractivity. The average refractivity gradient computed for the study area under investigation was −42.69 Nunits/km and the average effective earth radius (kfactor) was 1.37 which corresponds to the conditions of super refraction. The annual maximum mean value of FSV is 7.72 dB and minimum monthly mean value of 0.07 dB was obtained for the study area. The implication of this FSV values is that the output of a receiving antenna in Osogbo may generally be subjected to changes not less than 0.07 dB in a year and not greater than 7.72 dB. The descriptive statistical analysis shows that the radio refractivity, relative humidity, absolute temperature and radio refractive index data spread out more to the left of their mean value (negatively skewed), while the atmospheric pressure data spread out more to the right of their mean value (positively skewed). The radio refractivity, relative humidity and radio refractive index data have positive kurtosis which indicates a relatively peaked distribution and possibility of a leptokurtic distribution. The atmospheric pressure and absolute temperature data have negative kurtosis which indicates a relatively flat distribution and possibility of platykurtic distribution.

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Abstract. Although the number of women in physics in Nigeria is increasing, there is still poor enrollment in physics compared with all other science and engineering fields. At the last annual meeting of the Nigerian Institute of Physics, the Association of Women Physicists was formed. It is hoped that the activities of this new group will encourage more women at all levels of educational development to study physics. This paper presents the trends in female participation in physics from 2008 to 2010 and reports on the first national conference of Nigerian women in physics, held in February 2011.

In December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) received a report on the clusters of pneumonia cases of an unidentified cause in the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province of China (Cao et al., 2020). This was subsequently identified as a novel strain of Coronavirus (sars-cov-2) as the causative agent, by the Chinese authorities (WHO, 2020). However, on 30 January 2020, Coronavirus otherwise referred to as COVID-19 was declared a Public Health Emergency of international concern by the Director General of the WHO. This declaration was done in consultation with the International Health Regulation Committee. COVID-19 was later characterized as a pandemic on the 11 March 2020 (WHO, 2020). COVID-19 was reported to have gradually spread from one continent to another and from one country to the other. COVID-19 has since become a global health concern