Lagos, Nigeria (CNN) -- Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission is urging would-be voters to turn out for the scheduled voter registration session in January, in hopes for a "free fair and credible elections in 2011," a Commission spokesman said Thursday.

"This reassurance is necessary against the backdrop of the theft of some Direct Data Capture machines at the Lagos airport, " said Kayode Robert Idowu, a Commission spokesman in a press statement.

On Tuesday, 20 voting machines were stolen at the Lagos airport, out of a total of 6,000 brought into the country by Zinox Technologies Ltd., Idowu said. Sixteen machines have been recovered so far and security agents are investigating the case, he said.

The equipment, meant for registering voters for the upcoming election in Nigeria, is comprised of laptops and webcams. It was stolen from a clearing point at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, said Idowu.

The equipment was the first consignment ordered to help register voters for the 2011 elections.

The presidential election is expected to take place in April 9.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who became president after the death of Umaru Yar'Adua earlier this year, is running for election to the office. He will be challenged in the primaries by another former vice president of Nigeria.

Atiku Abubakar is the consensus candidate put forward by a bloc of leaders from Nigeria's influential Northern Political Leaders Forum, which announced in September that it would name someone to take on Jonathan in the presidential primaries for the People's Democratic Party. What are the answers to this following set of questions: 1. Who is urging voters?
2. Are they would-be voters?
3. Why they are addressed?
4. When?
5. What was stolen?
6. Where?
7. How many?
8. Out of how many?
9. How many been recovered?
10. Which company imported those machines?
11. Is anyone investigating?
12. Who?
13. Who is the current president?
14. Is he on the ballot?
15. Who will be his contender?
16. What is his name?
17. Who are supporting him?
18. When they announced that?
19. Who was the previous president?
20. What happened to him?
Answer: 1. Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission
2. yes
3. They want a free and credible election
4. 2011
5. voting machines
6. Lagos airport
7. , 20 voting machines
8. 6,000
9. Sixteen machines
10. Zinox Technologies Ltd
11. yes
12. security agents
13. Goodluck Jonathan
14. yes
15. another former vice president of Nigeria.
16. Atiku Abubakar
17. Northern Political Leaders Forum
18. September
19. Umaru Yar'Adua
20. He died

Problem: (CNN) -- Only two Republican presidential candidates will appear on the ballot in Virginia next year, regardless of how many are in the race.

Mitt Romney and Ron Paul will have the Dominion State all to themselves. Supporters of Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum, Jon Huntsman and Michele Bachmann will have to be content with yard signs or donations as ways of cheering on their favorite would-be nominee.

That's because their campaigns failed to gain the requisite 10,000 signatures. It is, to be sure, a self-inflicted wound, a measure of some organizational chaos. But it is also a function of illogically restrictive local laws. They not only impede ballot access but end up denying open representative democracy to operate on the road to the Oval Office.

The United States is the only nation in the world, save Switzerland, that does not have uniform federal ballot access laws, according to Ballot Access News, a website run by Richard Winger that is dedicated to the issue. This may reflect the country's closely held federalism, but it can create chaos in a presidential year. In many cases, the rules are imposed by state party bosses who are less interested in democracy than in rigging the system to benefit their favored candidates.

Take, for example, my home state of New York. It votes reliably Democratic in presidential years, at least since Ronald Reagan thrashed Walter Mondale in 1984. But the state's primary delegates can still be a prize in a protracted Republican nomination fight. In 1999, John McCain had to sue to even have his name appear on the ballot alongside George W. Bush because the Republican state party chair and his committee essentially decided that Bush would be their nominee without the inconvenience of putting it to a vote. Local laws allowed them to restrict ballot access until public pressure and a court injunction overruled their attempted end-run around democracy. Each presidential cycle, the corrupt kabuki continues.
1. How many Republicans candidates are on the ballot?
2. In which state?
Answer: 1. Two
2. Dominion State

question: Econometrics is the application of statistical methods to economic data and is described as the branch of economics that aims to give empirical content to economic relations. More precisely, it is "the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods of inference". An introductory economics textbook describes econometrics as allowing economists "to sift through mountains of data to extract simple relationships". The first known use of the term "econometrics" (in cognate form) was by Polish economist Pawe Ciompa in 1910. Jan Tinbergen is considered by many to be one of the founding fathers of econometrics. Ragnar Frisch is credited with coining the term in the sense in which it is used today.

The basic tool for econometrics is the multiple linear regression model. Econometric theory uses statistical theory and mathematical statistics to evaluate and develop econometric methods. Econometricians try to find estimators that have desirable statistical properties including unbiasedness, efficiency, and consistency. "Applied econometrics" uses theoretical econometrics and real-world data for assessing economic theories, developing econometric models, analyzing economic history, and forecasting.

The basic tool for econometrics is the multiple linear regression model. In modern econometrics, other statistical tools are frequently used, but linear regression is still the most frequently used starting point for an analysis. Estimating a linear regression on two variables can be visualized as fitting a line through data points representing paired values of the independent and dependent variables.
1. what method is being discussed?
2. what is it?
3. what does it try to do?
4. what else is it considered to be?
5. based on what?
6. what does it allow economists to do?
7. when was the word first used?
8. by who?
9. who is he?
10. who made up the term that we now use?
11. who else played an important role in coming up with it?
12. to what extent?
13. what is the most important tool for econometrics?
14. what does this theory use?
15. to accomplish what?
16. which is the most used tool?
17. how is this done?
18. how is it visualized?
19. of what?
20. what is the main goal of an econometrician?
****
answer:
1. Econometrics
2. the application of statistical methods to economic data
3. give empirical content to economic relations
4. the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena
5. the concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods of inference
6. sift through mountains of data to extract simple relationships
7. 1910
8. Pawe Ciompa
9. a Polish economist
10. Ragnar Frisch
11. Jan Tinbergen
12. considered by many to be one of the founding fathers
13. the multiple linear regression model
14. statistical theory and mathematical statistics
15. to evaluate and develop econometric methods
16. linear regression
17. unknown
18. as fitting a line through data points representing paired values
19. the independent and dependent variables
20. to find estimators that have desirable statistical properties