ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Transformations in the chieftaincy institution in Northern Ghana from 1900-1969: A case study of Navrongo and Sakot.

This study focuses on the transformations that have characterized indigenous political administration in Navrongo and Sakot. These areas both belong to the Gur speaking group and lie north of the Black Volta, specifically in the Upper East Region of modern Ghana. The study highlights the changes that has occurred in the traditional political administration of Navrongo and Sakot since 1900. It reflects change and continuity before British rule, under colonialism and after independence up until 1969. Before colonial rule in the twentieth century, immigrants had introduced chieftaincy into Navrongo from Zikku in the North-East Territory of the Upper Volta. This was probably during the second half of the seventeenth century. The chief therefore replaced the Tendana as the overall head of the community. He like the Tendana was the link between the community and its ancestors. Though on the other hand, chieftaincy had not been introduced into Sakot during the period; the Sakot Da’an as the principal mediator between the people and the earth god and the ancestral spirits, by virtue of his religious power, wielded considerable political authority. This form of indigenous political administration was however short-lived after the British occupied the area in 1902, when the Northern Territories of the Gold Coast was constituted by an Order in Council. Due to the devastating effects of the slave raiding activities of Babatu in Navrongo and Sakot, the people reluctantly accepted British colonial rule as a means to restore peace in the area. The outcome, was the erosion of the erstwhile sacred personality of the Navorope and on the other hand, the transfer of power and authority from the Sakot Da’an to a “created political leadership” established by the British. It also created an unhealthy relationship between the people and their leaders, as the latter were tasked under the British system of administration to recruit labour for various undertakings. The state of the chieftaincy institution has been checkered, from colonial times when the British introduced the system of Indirect Rule in the area, up to the post independence era when some of the new political elite subverted the institution for political capital. However, traditional political institutions seem to be the necessary tool for the sustenance of the various ethnic and cultural groups in Northern Ghana and the country as a whole. The institution has over the years served to maintain a cohesive social structure of the various communities. Indeed, an important source of unity and stability that has underscored the peace and socio - economic development in the area in the past, when there was no central political administration in Ghana.

Source: KNUST
Transmission of onchocerciasis by Simulium Sanctipauli ‘Pra’ form in the Upper Denkyira District, Ghana after Mass Ivermectin Treatment

The WHO has begun several control programmes to eliminate onchocerciasis. One of the programmes is the African Programme for Onchocerciasis Control (APOC). The aim of this project was to measure the impact of the mass treatment scheme in the Upper Denkyira District of Central Ghana. Three vector sampling sessions (1909, 2132 and 1165 flies respectively) using human-biting method were conducted. Molecular biological analysis was also undertaken to identify the species of filarial larvae found in the vectors. Questionnaires were administered to determine the proportion of the population that was covered by the treatment. Larvae were reared to adult and their morphological characters compared with wild caught blackflies. There was no significant reduction in the infection rates of the blackflies before and after the mass treatment. Infection rates per parous female blackflies were found to be consistently above 40% during all three sampling sessions. All larvae found in the vectors were Onchocerca volvulus. The vector was found to be an excellent host for Onchocerca volvulus with very low parasite mortality as they metamorphose from L1/L2 to the infective L3 stage. Vector infectiousness was two times higher in areas within 5km radius of the rivers than in areas more than 5km away (0.18 and 0.09 respectively). Less than 30% of the population participated in the treatment. Respondents who refused the drug administration gave the following reasons: travelled (3.9%), not important (5.8%), Not aware (10.6) unpleasant side effect (76.6%) and others (3.0%). The mass treatment was not effective due to the aversion of majority of the population to ivermectin. Management of adverse reaction after ivermectin therapy is recommended. The ‘Pra” form of Simuilium sanctipauli is highly antropophlic and efficient vector and this argues more for a semi-annual rather than an annual distribution of ivermectin.

Source: KNUST
Transmission of SARS‑CoV‑2 in northern Ghana: insights from whole‑genome sequencing

Following the detection of the frst imported case of COVID-19 in the northern sector of Ghana, we molecularly charac terized and phylogenetically analysed sequences, including three complete genome sequences, of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 obtained from nine patients in Ghana. We performed high-throughput sequencing on nine samples that were found to have a high concentration of viral RNA. We also assessed the potential impact that long-distance transport of samples to testing centres may have on sequencing results. Here, two samples that were similar in terms of viral RNA concentration but were transported from sites that are over 400 km apart were analyzed. All sequences were compared to previous sequences from Ghana and representative sequences from regions where our patients had previously travelled. Three complete genome sequences and another nearly complete genome sequence with 95.6% coverage were obtained. Sequences with coverage in excess of 80% were found to belong to three lineages, namely A, B.1 and B.2. Our sequences clustered in two diferent clades, with the majority falling within a clade composed of sequences from sub-Saharan Africa. Less RNA fragmentation was seen in sample KATH23, which was collected 9 km from the testing site, than in sample TTH6, which was collected and transported over a distance of 400 km to the testing site. The clustering of several sequences from sub-Saharan Africa suggests regional circulation of the viruses in the subregion. Importantly, there may be a need to decentralize testing sites and build more capacity across Africa to boost the sequencing output of the subregion.

Source: KNUST
Transforming Classical African Textile Print Designs To Meet Contemporary Trends

Wax prints and the non-wax prints were the earliest textile prints exported to Ghana by the Europeans. These prints, which are commonly referred to as classical prints were largely used by Ghanaians during the 19th and the 20th century. As time went on, design preference changed and textile producers adapted more creative ways in designing that satisfied the taste and demands of textile consumers. This in turn gave rise to contemporary designs that were quickly embraced by the public especially the youth. The purpose of the study was to widen the scope of African print designs by creating new designs that incorporate classical and contemporary design concepts. Samples of African prints were observed and interviews conducted to determine the reason why people prefered either classical or contemporary prints. The findings led to the development of new designs named “classicon”. The “classicon” prints combine the elements, principles and philosophy of both the classical and the contemporary designs. The study recommends that textile designers should consider the integration of symbolism and aesthetics in textile designing.

Source: KNUST
Transportation model for refuse collection in the Accra Metropolis

The objective of this project was to formulate a Transportation model for the Waste Management Department of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly for domestic – type refuse collection in the Accra Metropolis. The aim was to minimize Cost of operation and also come out with a more efficient and effective collection strategy in order to reduce the environmental problems associated with improper disposal of refuse A transportation model based on linear programming was formulated using data obtained from five sub metros in the metropolis. The model was then solved for a number of scenarios using a FORTRAN Programme of the simplex algorithm The model yielded a least cost per month on the average of ¢354,956,798.30 instead of the current cost of ¢654,032,467 per month, indicating a 46% reduction in cost incurred by the City and Country Waste Limited of the Waste Management Department of the Accra Metropolitan assembly. It was also found that a collection strategy involving 5 trips per day per truck would prevent refuse accumulation at sanitary sites.

Source: KNUST
Transportation of hazardous materials on Ghana’s trunk roads: the case of Tema – Accra – Kumasi Highway

Several hazardous material shipments are made on a daily basis on Ghana’s highways; exposing humans, property and environment to risks. Though accidents involving hazardous materials are rare, when they occur their consequences can be rather severe. This notwithstanding, research on hazardous materials transportation in Ghana is virtually non-existent. This study is aimed at exploring and understanding the operations of hazardous material truckers and other stakeholders, using the Tema – Accra – Kumasi (N6) highway as a case study. Specifically, the study’s objectives were: (i) to explore the characteristics of hazardous materials transportation along the Tema – Accra – Kumasi corridor; (ii) to examine risks associated with transportation of hazardous materials; and (iii) to explore risk prevention and management practices of truck operators. Using a mixed methods research design, a sample of 170 hazardous material truck operators were randomly selected from clusters used as temporary parking places along the corridor in addition to some stakeholder institutions, which were purposively selected. The study revealed that about 2.5 million litres of petroleum products are transported on a daily basis along the corridor using Large Capacity Vehicles (LCVs). The use of LCVs reduces the potential risks that populations are exposed to while also allaying fears of terrorist attacks. It also came to light that 19.4% of truck operators did not comply with the four hour-mandatory Hours of Service (HoS), a worldwide best practice, making such operators vulnerable to accidents. Generally, accident rates involving hazardous materials on the corridor are low (0.0000770 or 7.7 x 10-5) compared to some international road corridors. This could be as a result of the relatively smaller volumes shipped daily. Non-compliance to HoS regulations is attributed to the lack of intermediate rest facilities and inspection stations. As a means of preventing accidents, Transport Service Providers [TSPs] provide regular professional training for truck operators; regularly maintained their trucks; and insured products together with vehicles and their truck operators. The current operations implies that there is safety consciousness. However, some more efforts are required to consolidate the achievements thus far. Accordingly, appropriate recommendations were made including the introduction of intermediate rest facility combined with a mobile inspection station. Areas of further research were also identified.

Source: KNUST
Transportation problem for a firm based in the Greater Accra Region

Many firms incur avoidable costs in the transportation of their products from the sources to market destinations because they have not been able to rationalise distribution. In this thesis a transportation algorithm based on Vogel’s Approximation and Modified Distribution methods is implemented to minimise the transportation costs of a firm based in Greater Accra Region of Ghana. We find that the minimum transportation cost on the average is Four Hundred and Thirty Nine Million, Nine Hundred and Twelve Thousand Nine Hundred Cedis (¢439,912,900). Showing that the firm could save money by adopting a transportation policy along the lines suggested by this study.

Source: KNUST
Transportation Model for Waste Collection in the Kumasi Metropolis

This thesis seeks to provide waste management companies, especially Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly-Waste Management Department (KMA-WMD) an alternative way of allocating limited collection trucks over the numerous collection points and to ensure minimum total cost. Data were collected from the KMA-WMD their contracted companies as regards to the waste generation levels of all the collection points in the metropolis, and how much of these refuse are collected to the two dump sites over a period of three months. The data gathered were modelled as linear programming problem with clear objective functions for each month under consideration subject to its associated constraints. These objective functions and constraints were minimized using a computer software solver, EXCEL, to generate an optimal solution. The objective function value represented the minimized cost for the period under consideration if the waste generation levels of all the collection points were constant within the data collection period.

Source: KNUST
The Transportation Problem of a Beverage Industry: A Case Study of Accra Brewery Limited. (ABL)

Road transport is a predominant means of commuting in Ghana and accounts for high passenger travels and carting of goods in the country, making it a vital transportation service that links the country to others in the entire West African sub-region. Road transport is by far the dominant carrier of freight and passengers in Ghana’s land transport system. It carries over 95% of all passenger and freight traffic and reaches most communities, including the rural poor and is classified under three categories of trunk, urban and feeder roads. Every business establishment involves production. The production making aspect of the business involves the use of inputs made up of materials, labour, energy and other resources and the generation of outputs of finished goods/products. These production sites are linked by road transport to supply points; managers and organizations require proper tools for decision making so they can be effective in increasing accuracy and quality of decision. In this study, the transportation problem of Accra Brewery Limited (ABL) was considered. Both primary and secondary data from ABL was obtained and modeled as a transportation problem. The Vogel’s Approximation Method (VAM) was used to find the initial basic feasible solution and improved to optimality by the use of the Modified Distribution Method (MODI) using computer software, Quantitative Manager for Windows (QMW). It was observed that, during the lean season, the optimal cost of transportation was GHc50, 576.83 and that of the festive season was GHc86, 853.10. The results showed that there was much difference between the optimal costs of the lean season and that of the festive reason. Because of that it was recommended that during the festive season, the company could produce more and supply most of the products within the same region where they are being produced to ensure minimum cost and increase profits.

Source: KNUST
The Transportation Problem: Case Study of Coca Cola Bottling Company Ghana

Road transport is predominant means of commuting in Ghana and accounts for high passenger travels and carting of goods in the country, marking it a vital transportation service that links the country to others in the entire west African sub-region. Road transport is by the dominant carrier of freight and passengers in Ghana’s land transport system. It carries over 95% of all passenger and freight traffic and reaches most communities, including the rural poor and is classified under three categories of trunk, urban and feeder roads. Transportation is the physical distribution of resources from one place to the other, to meet specific set of requirements. The objective of this study is to model the distribution of Coca Cola products as a transportation problem and to minimize the transportation cost in order to increase profit on sales. The transportation Problem was formulated as liner programming mathematical model and solved by management scientist software to generate an optimal solution. The observation was that if Coca Cola implement the proposed supply and demand changes it will help in decreases transportation cost to GH¢133670.3 Ghana cedis. This transportation model will be useful for making strategic decisions by the logistics managers Coca Cola Bottling Company LTD in making optimum allocation of the production from the two plants (ACCRA and KUMASI) to the various customers(key distributors) at a minimum transportation cost.

Source: KNUST
Transshipment Problem Of A Non-Alcoholic Beverage Industry: Case Study Of Coca Cola Bottling Company, Ghana

The transportation problem is a special class of the linear programming problem. It deals with the situation in which a commodity is transported from Sources to Destinations. The transshipment problem is an extension of the transportation problem where intermediate nodes which are also referred to as transshipment nodes are added to account for locations such as warehouses. My main objective is to model Coca Cola transportation as a transshipment problem and also minimize the cost in transporting them. We will formulate the Transshipment problem as a Transportation problem and use the Transportation algorithm to solve it. The QM for windows Software will be used to analyze the data. It was concluded that if Coca Cola Bottling Company adapts this method, transportation cost will be minimized.

Source: KNUST
Transportation with volume discount: a case study of Multi-Plan Limited

Network models and integer programming are well known variety of decision making problems. A very useful and widespread area of application is the management and efficient use of scarce resources to increase productivity. These applications include operational problems such as the distributions of goods, production scheduling and machine sequencing, and planning problems such as capital budgeting facility allocation, portfolio selection, and design problems such as telecommunication and transportation network design. The transportation problem, which is one of network integer programming problems is a problem that deals with distributing any commodity from any group of 'sources' to any group of destinations or 'sinks' in the most cost effective way with a given 'supply' and 'demand' constraints. Depending on the nature of the cost function, the transportation problem can be categorized into linear and nonlinear transportation problem. We applied Karush-Kuhn- Tucker (KKT) optimality algorithm to solve

Source: KNUST
The transportation problem; Case study :( Guiness Ghana Limited)

The proposed transportation model of manufacturing goods to customer (Key Distributors) is considered in this research. The data gathered were modelled as a Linear Programming model of transportation type and represent the transportation problem as tableau and solve it with the computer software solver to generate an optimal solution. This transportation model will be useful for making strategic decisions by the logistics managers Guinness Ghana LTD in making optimum allocation of the production from the two plants (KAASI and ACHIMOTA) to the various customers(key distributors) at a minimum transportation cost.

Source: KNUST
Transshipment Problem in Supply Chainsystem (Case Study: Juaben Oil Mills Ltd)

Transportation is the physical distribution of resources from one place to the other, to meet a specific set of requirements. It is easy to express a transportation problem mathematically in terms of an LP model, which can be solved by the Simplex Method. Since transportation problem involves a large number of variables and constraints, it takes a very long time to solve it by simple Simplex Method. Simplex algorithms can be specialized to solve several linear programming models that arise from Network flow problems. The transshipment problem is an extension of the framework of transportation problem in which intermediate nodes, referred to as transshipment nodes are added to account for locations such as warehouses. We will show that any given transshipment problem can be converted into an equivalent transportation problem. Hence our procedure for solving the latter problems can be applied to the solution of transshipment problems as well. The transshipment problem is concerned with the allocating and routing flow from supply centers to destination centers via intermediate points. In addition to transshipment flow, supply centers generates a surplus that must be distributed and each destination generates a given deficit. Intermediate points (transshipment nodes) neither generate nor absorb flow. The total supply must equal the total demand, so dummy nodes should be added appropriately. No connection may have a capacity, and all costs should be nonnegative. This defines a transshipment problem. The problem of interest is to determine an optimal transportation scheme that minimizes the total cost of shipments, subject to supply and demand constraints. The research presented in this paper applies the Quantitative method to reveal and analyse transshipment problems in manufacturing industries using data collected from Juaben Oil Mills Limited The main objective of this research is to minimize the cost of transporting goods from origins to destinations in a manufacturing industry.

Source: KNUST
Treatment and disposal of spent caustic at Tema Oil Refinery (TOR)

This research was undertaken to address the issues associated with the treatment options ahead of disposal of spent caustic soda from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in Ghana. The specific objectives were to study the usage of caustic soda in the plant of TOR, analyze the nature and form of the residues and designing a treatment method for treating the spent caustic soda. Sampling and laboratory analyses were carried out at TOR. Composite samples of spent caustic were analyzed for a period of two months and compared with EPA Ghana sector specific effluent quality guidelines for discharge into natural water bodies for oil and gas exploration, production and refining. Parameters analyzed for included pH, Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Dissolved Solids (TDS), Total Suspended Solids (TSS), and concentrations of hydrogen sulphide (H2S), mercaptan (RSH) and phenol in both influents and effluents. The study revealed that, the measured effluent parameters exceeded the EPA (Ghana) guideline indicating that the plant‟s current state of treatment for disposal of spent caustic is not adequate. Acid neutralization and Wet Air Oxidation were used to treat the spent caustic. The parameters showed high removal efficiency between 82% and 99%. It is therefore recommended that the spent caustic be neutralized and subjected to wet air oxidation (WAO) to improve on the final effluent wastewater quality. Also desludging of the spent caustic tank must be done as soon as possible in order to improve on the quality of the final effluent that is discharged into the environment.

Source: KNUST