ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Design and quality of finished surfaces of furniture

Furniture production, although a major aspect of tertiary wood processing in Ghana, does not contribute significantly to the export earnings of the Ghanaian Timber Industry. Hence, its potential must be fully developed to significantly increase its contribution to national economic growth. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the extent to which improved furniture design could promote growth in the furniture industry. This requires, among others, an examination of the quality of furniture produced in the country in terms of style, construction and finish and how this affects the profitability of manufacturers and the satisfaction of end-users. Studies and surveys were conducted to identify factors that influence the design and quality of finished surfaces of furniture. Tests were carried out to determine the effect of the process of manufacture on finished wood surface quality. A furniture prototype was also designed and manufactured for a furniture exporting company in an attempt to practically apply principles of design within a manufacturing system. It was observed that traditionally, “design” has been largely relegated to a secondary place in the furniture industry because of its loose usage which connotes “style”. Artistic talent has, therefore, been one major criterion for the employment of furniture designers. However, design must be viewed as a multi-faceted discipline when applied to the furniture industry, if a strong competitive ability in terms of style, construction, finish, and pricing on international markets is desired. Major factors affecting the quality of finished surfaces of furniture included the preparation of the surface, the accuracy of machining and the mode of application of the finishing chemical. Investment is required in efficient and effective sanding equipment and techniques. The furniture prototype was exhibited at the GIFEX ‘95 and the interest expressed by prospective buyers was viewed as an indicator of the success of the design. The stage was set, through product development techniques, to establish the best conditions for ease of manufacture of the table and for enhancing its aesthetic appeal. It is found that to significantly improve the design and quality of finished surfaces of furniture, the following areas must be given closer attention and the inherent problems dealt with: Product Development, Market Research, Manufacturing Processes, Quality Control and Personnel Training.

Source: KNUST
Design of a fully integrated VHF CP-PLL frequency synthesizer with an all-digital defect-oriented built-in self-test

This paper presents the design of an on-chip charge pump phase-locked loop (CP-PLL) with a fully digital defect-oriented built-in self-test (BIST) for very-high frequency (VHF) applications. The frequency synthesizer has a 40–100 MHz tuning range and uses a ring voltage-controlled oscillator for frequency synthesis. The PLL exhibits a phase noise of −132 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz and consumes 1.8mWon a 3 V supply. The BIST implementation uses fewer external input or output, is capable of efficient fault diagnosis, and is compact, posing a low area overhead. The integrated circuit design was realized in the AMI 0.6μ complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process.

Source: KNUST
Design and Production of Surface Textile Designs for Interior Furnishing: Focus on the Philosophies of Technical, Vocational And Agricultural Education in Ghana

The purpose of this study is to use theme based motifs from the philosophy of Ghanaian education with special reference to Technical/Vocational and Agricultural education in creating surface textile designs. This is to sensitize Ghanaians on the importance of Technical/Vocational and Agricultural education. The study revealed that public edifices and offices of academic institutions use interior furnishing textiles mainly from floral and geometrical motifs. These motifs have no significant design ideologies engineered towards the institutions or Ghanaian educational philosophies, which remind both the learners and instructors on what is expected of them in order to enhance the teaching and learning process. The study established that most Ghanaians do not understand the philosophies of Technical/Vocational and Agricultural Education (TVA); hence the development of textile designs for interior furnishing from the philosophies of Technical/Vocational and Agricultural Education (TVA).This promotes understanding and appreciation of their significance in National development. As an art-studio base practice, the study employs manual sketches using pencils and Adobe Photoshop 7.0,computer graphics software that aids in easy manipulation of images for textile xviii designs as a main design tools for generation of the designs. Motifs were developed from various themes under Technical/Vocational and Agricultural Education (TVA) and used to produce a number of textile designs as interior furnishing materials which graphically brings out their philosophical and social significance to the understanding of ordinary person. The study is based on the qualitative research approach and makes use of the art-studio practice and descriptive observational method of research. Purposive sampling technique was used to gather data from student, workers, teachers and lecturers to establish the conceptual background for the study. Observation and unstructured interview guides were the main instruments used for data collection. The study concludes that converting of philosophies of Technical/Vocational and Agricultural Education (TVA) into motifs for surface pattern design is paramount to understanding the importance of such education. The Ghanaian Philosophies of Technical/Vocational and Agricultural Education captured in the form of surface pattern design easily communicate to the public. The study encourages concept generation designs aimed at problem solving in our society by Textile designers, Artist and Students to address societal problems. It recommends Textile designers to explore theme-based motifs for textile designs to bring about innovation and easy identification which provides better understanding for all classes of people to appreciate.

Source: KNUST
Design of a charcoal/methanol solar refrigerator

The research deals with the application of solar energy in refrigeration, specifically the design of a charcoal/methanol adsorption solar refrigerator. Equations for the design of the collector, the condenser and the evaporator box of the charcoal/methanol solar refrigerator are developed. A collector simulation computer programme is written to simulate the performance of the solar collector and to determine the performance of the condenser and the COP of the refrigerator. A computer programme is also written to determine the performance of the evaporator box. The collector simulation programme is used to simulate the performance of the solar collector of a charcoal/methanol solar refrigerator, which has been built and tested at the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok. The simulation is carried out for two typical days, i.e. 17th and 29th October 1987. A comparison of the simulation and experimental results indicates a very good agreement, validating the simulation programme. Numerical results are produced with the simulation and the evaporator box design computer programmes using Kumasi meteorological data and 1 m collector surface area. The numerical results indicate that charcoal/methanol solar refrigeration is feasible in Ghana, specifically Kumasi. A charcoal/methanol solar refrigerator is designed, and economic analysis is done. The analysis shows that the refrigerator will be economically viable when it is produced and used for commercial purposes. It is recommended that the designed charcoal/methanol solar refrigerator be constructed, tested and developed. The collector simulation computer programme is also recommended for development.

Source: KNUST
Design of a dynamic reconfigurable virtual instrumentationplatform based on a field programmable gate array (FPGA)

The desire to conduct research and development using experimental tools and/or instruments in data gathering and analysis, data representation, amongst others cannot be over emphasized. However, scientists and engineers, particularly those in developing countries, cannot take full advantage of the availability of research equipment offered by the market due to the high cost of commercial instruments and in some cases un-repairable equipment. By using programmable logic devices, it is possible to emulate standard general purpose instruments. By using a hierarchical block-based methodology in the design and implementation of the dynamic reconfigurable instrument platform it has been shown that FPGAs can be used to emulate electronic and scientific instrumentation. Compared to software based VIs, it does not depend on the processing power of a PC and the design files (in VHDL) can be deployed using various vendor software and hardware with ease and is backward compatible. This work adopts a compile time reconfiguration to achieve a reconfigurable system whiles the fixed or permanent system, though re-programmable, remains permanent throughout the lifetime of the system. The key limitations to this design are in the operational range (example in the digital frequency meter), limited accuracy, and operating frequency. Stemming from the fact that a lot of team effort is required in EDA environment, much testing and comparative evaluation of the presented instruments against existing/standard instruments and software based VIs was not conducted. A computer software was also not developed. The DRI platform can be a low cost solution/alternative approximately $187.57 in cost estimate. Admittedly, we have not factored the man hours, development tools, or open source intellectual property costs into the estimate because this work was done in an academic environment.

Source: KNUST
Design criteria for the production of upholstered living room furniture founded on Asante traditional stool

Asante traditional stool is nothing but a wooden seat of artistic design for practical use. The introduction of chairs by the Europeans have taken over the popularity of the Akan traditional stool which every Asante (Akan) had many of these seats (stools) for use in his house, have lost its dominance to the European chair because of its modification according to the current living conditions, customs, needs, tastes and even the simple functional beauty of contemporary furniture and interior design which is in harmony with our scientific age in which emphasis is placed on precision and the accuracy of shapes, contours and proportions. This existing situation brings about a way of broadening the scope of developing the skills of designing new forms of living room upholstered furniture from the Asante traditional stool and further more enlighten users on the meaning and significance of Adinkra symbols incorporated in the upholstered living room furniture. The researcher employed qualitative research using the descriptive and exploratory (studio/ practice based) methods; the descriptive method was used to describe the procedures and processes of constructing the upholstered living room furniture founded on the Asante traditional stool. The purposive sampling was used to select the sample size. The researcher used interview guide and observation as data collection instruments for the study. In light of this, the researcher observed that Akan traditional stools are exhibited flashily; others, though superficially similar, were so sacred that they are concealed from all but selected few. It was also observed that ordinary stools (nkondwa) were used by common people and the king. Chief’s stools tend to be large; women’s stools are smaller than men’s; and a spirit-medium stool were covered with white Kaolin. Finally, educative programmes, seminars and workshops are recommended to be organized frequently to educate designers and furniture practitioners on the need and the standards of quality design and the materials to be considered before transforming the Akan traditional stool into living room upholstered furniture.

Source: KNUST
Design of a grid connected photovoltaic system for KNUST and economic and environmental analysis of the designed system

This research was undertaken to investigate the economic and environmental suitability of the implementation of Grid Connected Photovoltaic Systems in comparison to the use of fuel generators/plant as an alternative source of energy to solve the regular grid failure problem in residential and commercial institutions in Ghana with KNUST as the case study. In this work a 300 kVA grid connected photovoltaic system with 100% battery back up is designed for KNUST. System wiring, installation, maintenance and trouble shooting procedures for the system designed were outlined to show that it is theoretically possible to design a PV grid connected system for KNUST. To simplify the work, the design is undertaken for the 300kVA substation (Ridge substation) and the results are replicated for the remaining substations. The results of this work show that the KNUST Ridge substation requires a 360VDC battery bank with a capacity of 2785Ah (C10 rating). The system requires a 300kVA Trace sun-tied 3-phase Inverter and 1575 of the BP 7180 modules. The total yearly output of the system to the grid is calculated to be 0.296GWh. The 300kVA grid connected photovoltaic system is estimated to cost 2.88 Million dollars. The cost of installing a 300kVA fuel generator is 103,477 dollars. Assuming a loan interest rate of 8% and inflation rate of 12% over a 25 year product life, the calculation of the Average Incremental Economic Cost (AIEC) of the two systems shows that the grid connected PV system has a lower AIEC of 0.67 compared to 12.14 of the fuel generator/plant. This results show clearly that the grid-connected system is economically preferable to a fuel generator of the same capacity as an alternative source of electricity for KNUST. Sensitivity analysis carried out futher shows that the grid connected PV system is more economical at high inflations rates and longer project life times. Also, the net savings in CO2 by choosing the grid connected PV system over the Fuel generator is 180g/KWh and that makes the grid connected PV system more environmentally suitable. It is concluded in this work that in the long term the implementation of a grid connected PV system is both economically and environmentally preferable to a fuel generator/plant.

Source: KNUST
Design of a GSM-Based Smart Metering System

The essence of using prepayment meters, in the management of power is to help improve on cash flow, reduce credit and arrears collection costs, avoid deposits and monthly bills as well as reconnect charges, and many more. These benefits have not been fully explored due to the nature of many prepayment meter implementations where each customer has to disconnect his prepayment card and send to the vender before billing and other services can be implemented. With the spread of internet use and web based application, there is the need to focus on how prepayment meters and utility meters can be aided to stay online. This thesis presents the design and implementation of a Global System for Mobile communication (GSM)-Based Smart Metering System. Embedded functionalities of PICs and GSM module are used to design a meter which is capable of reading and storing electrical power consumptions and sends the readings and various statuses to a server periodically or in real time for billing and report generation purposes. Various requests and updates are also sent to the meter from the server through Short Messaging Service (SMS), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) or both. Web based applications such as Client Web and SMS Access as well as Management Web Access are developed using C#, PHP and MySQL database to present both the consumers and the power companies with the ability to interact with the meter remotely. The GSM-Based Smart Metering System is capable of providing the power companies and the consumers the full benefit of the Prepayment Metering Systems as well as an enhancement of the Post-payment Metering Systems in Ghana. Remote control and other capabilities of the system are tested with the prototype GSM-Based Smart Meter connected to a normal household load. Full control of the meter is achieved and a granular consumption details are obtained and log of all metering activities registered on the Database Server.

Source: KNUST
Design of a network traffic prediction model using the Kalman filter

Network traffic prediction is of immense interest to industry since it supports decision making in management and control, and eventually user satisfaction. In this project, a Kalman filter-based model was developed for predicting network traffic. The focus was on telecommunication, transportation and computer networks. Traffic volume per unit time, or traffic flow rate, observed in a particular time interval, was utilized to predict the traffic flow rate for the next time interval by recursively computing relevant parameters of incoming traffic data. Relevant parameters include the process and measurement noise covariances, the Kalman filter gain and the a-priori and a-posteriori state and covariance estimates. The model makes use of the Kalman filter to carry out the prediction, and was tested using traffic sets with low, average and high autocorrelation. By means of a LabVIEW VI (simulation tool) different parameters were varied and their effects on the prediction model observed. LabVIEW was employed for its superior simulation features, with an integrated MATLAB block for optimization. Working with a 20% error tolerance, prediction accuracies approached 90%, and this process yielded an improved short-term traffic flow rate prediction model. The model carried out prediction for a single time-step ahead but, with refinements or modifications, it may be employed for multi-step prediction, converting it to a long-term predictor.

Source: KNUST
Design of an HPLC method for the assay of a multicomponent cold preparation (Ascorbic Acid), Paracetamol, and Caffeine)

A rapid reversed-phase High Performance Liquid Chromatographic (HPLC) method was developed for the simultaneous assay of Ascorbic acid, Paracetamol, and Caffeine in a tablet matrix. The powdered sample dissolved in 0.04% w/v Na2S2O3 solution containing Benzoic acid as the internal standard was injected into the chromatograph. Ascorbic acid exhibited stability in the 0.04 %w/v Na2S2O3 solution for five (5) days. The HPLC system used Aquapore RP-300 column, methanol- sodium dihydrogen phosphate (17:83, pH 4.25 ± 0.05) as the mobile phase, The isocratic form of elution was employed at a flow rate of 1.5 ml/min. Chromatography was carried out at ambient temperature with total chromatographic time of approximately 8 minutes. Detection was done at 273nm and 0.3 AUFS. The sensitivity for the analysis was 0.51 μg/ ml for Ascorbic acid, 5 μg/ml for Paracetamol, and 3 μg/ml for Caffeine. Quantification was based on the drug- internal standard peak area ratio. This ratio was linear over a concentration range of l0-100 μg/ml of Ascorbic acid, l00-l000 μg/ml of Paracetamol, and 6-60 μg/m1 of Caffeine. Overall label claim (± SD) from four commercial tablets were Ascorbic acid, 97.03 ± 0.73%; Paracetamol, 99.80 ± 1.40%; Caffeine, 95.03 ± 0.90%. The method was compared to the standard UV spectrophotometric method and also applied to the assay of commercial tablets containing these three active ingredients. The HPLC method is applicable to the assay of individual tablets. The HPLC method was found to be faster, convenient and more precise.

Source: KNUST
Design of a suitable HPLC method of analysis for artesunate /amodiaquine fixed dose combination drug

The anti-malarial drug policy for Ghana has adopted Artesunate/Amodiaquine as a first line drug for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria. At present there is no existing method for the analysis of the active ingredients present in this combination drug in the official compendia. And much as the quality of this combination drug therapy cannot be overlooked, a suitable HPLC method of analysis for the active ingredients present in the combination drug therapy was developed and validated. Two different mobile phase composition systems comprising of, Methanol/Phosphate buffer in the ratio 90: 10 and, Methanol / Water containing 0.lml of acetic acid (90:10) in isocratic mode of elution were all capable of separating the solutes of interest with good resolution and appreciable retention times. Two commercial products, Amotex 1000 (from Kinapharma Ltd. Accra) and Biosunate (from Pam Pharmaceuticals, and manufactured for BRI (GH) Ltd) were used to validate the method. In consequence, statistical evaluations at the 95% confidence limits revealed that the method was reliable, less time consuming, selective and more economical. With an instrument precision of 0.99% RSD, the relative error of the mean was found to be ±0.104. The two tailed (F-test) also revealed an insignificant difference in the range of concentration of Artesunate when analyzed alone and when in combination with Amodiaquine. Also evidence of correlation at the 95% confidence level between the new HPLC method developed and the official International Pharmacopoeia for the assay of Artesunate and Amodiaquine showed no significant difference in the means of the HPLC , UV, and Titrimetric methods. However, at the same 95% confidence level the HPLC method has a better precision than the UV method for the analysis of Amodiaquine (Refer subsection 3.6.6d). Ibuprofen was used as the internal standard.

Source: KNUST
The design of an HPLC method for the estimation of the amount of reserpine tn rauwolfla vomitoria

Reserpine is an alkaloid that is extracted from some species of Rauwolfia. The African specie R. vomitoria has high amounts of the alkaloids which have hypotensive. neuroleptic and sympatholytic actions. Due to the increasing export market for the plant material, and the requirement of analytical report on the product by exporters, there is the urgent need for the development of an analytical method to estimate the amount of alkaloid in a sample of the plant. Extraction of the alkaloid involves percolation of the powdered root bark of the plant in 6°/o acetic acid for two hours and extracting with chloroform. The official UV spectrophotometric and titrimetric methods were found to be inefficient in the estimation of reserpine in the plant material. However, manipulating chromatographic conditions yielded an HPLC method in which the alkaloidal extract could be assayed using a normal phase column, a mobile phase composition of 10% ethanol in chloroform and a flow rate of 1 .0ml/min. The method developed revealed that, the dried root bark sample of the plant from Aprokumase in the Eastern Region of Ghana contained up to 0.434%w/w of reserpine and that from Nsaba in the Central Region contained up to 0.326%w/w of reserpine calculated using reserpine obtained from Dannex Ltd. as reference.

Source: KNUST