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As the world is adjusting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the virus continue to linger through all segments, construction industry not excluded, both operationally and financially. The substantial growth in the construction industry is subject to the price stability in building materials. Thus, this paper tends to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building construction materials. Secondary data on the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the cost of building materials that covered the duration of the commencement of the outbreak in Nigeria till the end of 2021 were collected. It discovered that there was general increase in the prices of building materials. Spearman Correlation Test was adopted to measure the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and cost of the various building materials. The correlation was investigated by the individual materials of cement, sandcrete blocks, high tensile reinforcement bars, earthwork and fine and coarse aggregates. It was revealed that a non-significant positive and negative relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the building materials prices exists, indicating that the change in the cases of COVID- 19 pandemic will not affect the prices. It therefore showed that other factors are responsible for the continuous increase in price of building materials in Nigeria.  Some of those factors as established include inflation, exchange rate, import, interest rate, money supply and demand for money. Therefore, it is expedient for government to take extreme measures to reduce the cost of production and transportation of construction materials by ensuring an adequate supply of power from the power sector as against the epileptic power supply and repairs of the local refineries for the production of petroleum products as against dependency on importation.

As the world is adjusting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the virus continue to linger through all segments, construction industry not excluded, both operationally and financially. The substantial growth in the construction industry is subject to the price stability in building materials. Thus, this paper tends to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building construction materials. Secondary data on the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the cost of building materials that covered the duration of the commencement of the outbreak in Nigeria till the end of 2021 were collected. It discovered that there was general increase in the prices of building materials. Spearman Correlation Test was adopted to measure the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and cost of the various building materials. The correlation was investigated by the individual materials of cement, sandcrete blocks, high tensile reinforcement bars, earthwork and fine and coarse aggregates. It was revealed that a non-significant positive and negative relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the building materials prices exists, indicating that the change in the cases of COVID- 19 pandemic will not affect the prices. It therefore showed that other factors are responsible for the continuous increase in price of building materials in Nigeria.  Some of those factors as established include inflation, exchange rate, import, interest rate, money supply and demand for money. Therefore, it is expedient for government to take extreme measures to reduce the cost of production and transportation of construction materials by ensuring an adequate supply of power from the power sector as against the epileptic power supply and repairs of the local refineries for the production of petroleum products as against dependency on importation.

As the world is adjusting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the virus continue to linger through all segments, construction industry not excluded, both operationally and financially. The substantial growth in the construction industry is subject to the price stability in building materials. Thus, this paper tends to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building construction materials. Secondary data on the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the cost of building materials that covered the duration of the commencement of the outbreak in Nigeria till the end of 2021 were collected. It discovered that there was general increase in the prices of building materials. Spearman Correlation Test was adopted to measure the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and cost of the various building materials. The correlation was investigated by the individual materials of cement, sandcrete blocks, high tensile reinforcement bars, earthwork and fine and coarse aggregates. It was revealed that a non-significant positive and negative relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the building materials prices exists, indicating that the change in the cases of COVID- 19 pandemic will not affect the prices. It therefore showed that other factors are responsible for the continuous increase in price of building materials in Nigeria.  Some of those factors as established include inflation, exchange rate, import, interest rate, money supply and demand for money. Therefore, it is expedient for government to take extreme measures to reduce the cost of production and transportation of construction materials by ensuring an adequate supply of power from the power sector as against the epileptic power supply and repairs of the local refineries for the production of petroleum products as against dependency on importation.

As the world is adjusting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the virus continue to linger through all segments, construction industry not excluded, both operationally and financially. The substantial growth in the construction industry is subject to the price stability in building materials. Thus, this paper tends to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building construction materials. Secondary data on the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the cost of building materials that covered the duration of the commencement of the outbreak in Nigeria till the end of 2021 were collected. It discovered that there was general increase in the prices of building materials. Spearman Correlation Test was adopted to measure the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and cost of the various building materials. The correlation was investigated by the individual materials of cement, sandcrete blocks, high tensile reinforcement bars, earthwork and fine and coarse aggregates. It was revealed that a non-significant positive and negative relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the building materials prices exists, indicating that the change in the cases of COVID- 19 pandemic will not affect the prices. It therefore showed that other factors are responsible for the continuous increase in price of building materials in Nigeria.  Some of those factors as established include inflation, exchange rate, import, interest rate, money supply and demand for money. Therefore, it is expedient for government to take extreme measures to reduce the cost of production and transportation of construction materials by ensuring an adequate supply of power from the power sector as against the epileptic power supply and repairs of the local refineries for the production of petroleum products as against dependency on importation.

We have investigated the average P-wave travel-time residuals for some stations around Southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore at regional distances. Six years (January, 2010–December, 2015) record of events from central and northern Sumatra was obtained from the digital seismic archives of Integrated Research Institute for Seismology (IRIS). The criteria used for the data selection are designed to be above the magnitude of mb 4.5, depth less than 200 km and an epicentral distance shorter than 1000 km. Within this window a total number of 152 earthquakes were obtained. Furthermore, data were filtered based on the clarity of the seismic phases that are manually picked. A total of 1088 P-wave arrivals and 962 S-wave arrivals were hand-picked from 10 seismic stations around the Peninsula. Three stations IPM, KUM, and KOM from Peninsular Malaysia, four stations BTDF, NTU, BESC and KAPK from Singapore and three stations SURA, SRIT and SKLT located in the southern part of Thailand are used. Station NTU was chosen as the Ref. station because it recorded the large number of events. Travel-times were calculated using three 1-D models (Preliminary Ref. Earth Model PREM (Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981, IASP91, and Lienert et al., 1986) and an adopted two-point ray tracing algorithm. For the three models, we corroborate our calculated travel-times with the results from the use of TAUP travel-time calculation software. Relative to station NTU, our results show that the average P wave travel-time residual for PREM model ranges from −0.16 to 0.45 s for BESC and IPM respectively. For IASP91 model, the average residual ranges from −0.25 to 0.24 s for SRIT and SKLT respectively, and ranges from −0.22 to 0.30 s for KAPK and IPM respectively for Lienert et al. (1986) model. Generally, most stations have slightly positive residuals relative to station NTU. These corrections reflect the difference between actual and estimated model velocities along ray paths to stations and c

We have investigated the average P-wave travel-time residuals for some stations around Southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore at regional distances. Six years (January, 2010–December, 2015) record of events from central and northern Sumatra was obtained from the digital seismic archives of Integrated Research Institute for Seismology (IRIS). The criteria used for the data selection are designed to be above the magnitude of mb 4.5, depth less than 200 km and an epicentral distance shorter than 1000 km. Within this window a total number of 152 earthquakes were obtained. Furthermore, data were filtered based on the clarity of the seismic phases that are manually picked. A total of 1088 P-wave arrivals and 962 S-wave arrivals were hand-picked from 10 seismic stations around the Peninsula. Three stations IPM, KUM, and KOM from Peninsular Malaysia, four stations BTDF, NTU, BESC and KAPK from Singapore and three stations SURA, SRIT and SKLT located in the southern part of Thailand are used. Station NTU was chosen as the Ref. station because it recorded the large number of events. Travel-times were calculated using three 1-D models (Preliminary Ref. Earth Model PREM (Dziewonski and Anderson, 1981, IASP91, and Lienert et al., 1986) and an adopted two-point ray tracing algorithm. For the three models, we corroborate our calculated travel-times with the results from the use of TAUP travel-time calculation software. Relative to station NTU, our results show that the average P wave travel-time residual for PREM model ranges from −0.16 to 0.45 s for BESC and IPM respectively. For IASP91 model, the average residual ranges from −0.25 to 0.24 s for SRIT and SKLT respectively, and ranges from −0.22 to 0.30 s for KAPK and IPM respectively for Lienert et al. (1986) model. Generally, most stations have slightly positive residuals relative to station NTU. These corrections reflect the difference between actual and estimated model velocities along ray paths to stations and c

3-Lithio-2-[silylmethyl]propenes, easily prepared from 3-methylseleno-2-[silylmethyl]propenes by the cleavage of the C-Se bond, are useful intermediates for the preparation of a variety of functionalised allylsilanes. These allylsilanes are interesting building blocks, used for example, as annelating agents in the efficient synthesis of spiroketals by the Intramolecular Silyl-Modified Sakurai (ISMS) cyclisation. The methodology described in this article provides also an expedient route to a range of heterosubstituted methylselenopropenes, which are valuable precursors to a range of useful heterosubstituted allyllithium reagents. Finally, a one-step preparation of functionalised allylsilanes from readily available 3-methylseleno-2-[methylselenomethyl]propene is reported.