ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Motivational strategies to improve performance and productivity in the Pharmaceutical industry in Ghana

Locally manufactured pharmaceutical products are facing stiffer competition now than ever before because of trade liberalisation. Hence prices of locally manufactured drugs are rather more expensive than imported finished products. This is making the pharmaceutical industry in Ghana not competitive. The result is that since 1989, some pharmaceutical companies have gone bankrupt and collapsed. The main objective of this study, therefore, was to find out what strategies should managers adopt to sharpen the labour force to increase efficiency (that is improve performance) and reduce wastage (that is increase productivity) to be able to survive the competition from foreign products. The main methodology involved a survey and desk study. The labour force, which included management from ten pharmaceutical industries with more than fifty employees, was surveyed. The survey included questionnaires and interviews. Representatives of other foreign companies (principals) were also interviewed for the purpose of comparison. The main data obtained from the survey was statistically analysed which revealed that motivation of people affected their job performance and productivity. Such motivational methods included remuneration, recognition, special awards, career advancement and delegation among others. On the basis of the results obtained, it could be concluded that workers need to be motivated by the above listed findings for them to give out their best to help companies make profit to survive and grow.

Source: KNUST
Motivational strategies to improve productivity in the construction industry in Ghana

The concept of construction productivity began in the early 20th century with a series of time and motion studies to improve bricklaying operations. However, it still remains an interesting and a dominant issue in the construction industry, promising cost-savings, timely delivery and efficient usage of resources. Productivity is directly linked to motivation, and motivation is, in turn dependent on productivity. Suitable motivation is, therefore, a contributor to maximising workers’ productivity. The low motivation of construction workers has contributed significantly to the declining productivity that cannot be determined in the construction industry. The study seeks to unravel the factors that affect construction workers’ motivation and the corresponding effect of the identified motivational factors on workers’ performance and overall productivity. Forty factors which usually affect motivation and productivity were obtained from preliminary survey and review of literature. Purposive sampling was employed to select the class of contractors due to the engagement of large number of workers as well as the volume of works undertaken. A survey was, therefore carried out on 32 D1 construction companies obtained from the implementation of Snowball sampling. This was, as a result of the difficulties encountered in accessing the population sample. A total of 183 questionnaires were administered to managers and workers by the adoption of accidental sampling and a response rate 73.22% was obtained. The survey revealed that, among the top ten critical factors (i.e. teamwork, late payment of interim certificate, work based on contract, supervision based on leadership by example and provision of equipment) had great effect on motivation as well as impact on productivity. More so communication, love and belongingness, opportunity to undertake challenging task, identification with goal and overtime were among the critical factors. The following motivational recommendations were made to enhance productivity of workers: i. Double targets should always be set on projects of which the higher target made known to workers and monitor progress with the threshold target. Subordinates should be given praise by supervisors whenever efforts are made to attain the set. ii. Management and immediate supervisors should ensure that good teamwork is established through collaborations, both on and off site by assigning task to groups of workforces with qualified and competent supervisors. iii. There should be timely payment of interim certificates to improve cash flow to facilitate smooth running of projects. iv. There should be a clear line of communication between management and workers. Also regular interactions should be organised to recognised workers to motivate others to work harder to be recognised one day. v. Workers should be given the opportunity to undertake challenging task under close supervision, not compromising quality, precision and timely delivery and be made to the consequence when these requirements are not met.

Source: KNUST
Motivational Strategies and their impact on productivity: A case study of Ghana Airports Company Limited

The study sought to find out the motivational strategies and its impact on productivity The purpose of the study is to provide effective motivational strategies for organizations to use to motivate employees, to improve and increase productivity in organizations.The Literature review enables us to understand the various theories on motivation and the effect have on productivity The researcher developed a questionnaire to collect primary data regarding what will make employees perform and increase productivity. The study was conducted by collecting data from sample of 80 respondents selected from the target population using questionnaire The data was analyzed using frequencies and percentage distribution. It was established that staff of Ghana Airports Company are being motivated but management need to deploy the various incentives in order to satisfy all employees. The responses from the survey revealed that motivation has a positive effect on productivity in the company. The study revealed that intrinsic and extrinsic motivators do lead to job satisfaction irrespective of the status of employees in the organizations. The following recommendations were made to enhance performance and increase productivity of Employees. Employees of the company should be given equal opportunities and recognition. Also the whole motivational system should be made more transparent to all employees and the appraisal system should call for the unique strengths to show as well as the expected rewards. There should be training and development programs open to workers. This should include both on-the-job and off-the-job training which will help workers to upgrade their knowledge and be able to meet their target.

Source: KNUST
Motivations to tax compliance by smes in ghana: a case study of some selected smes in techiman municipality

The main source of revenue for every economy is taxation. Revenue realized from taxes levied on individuals, goods and service is used to fund governments’ budgets. Taxation and tax rates have evolved and developed over the years in Ghana. Therefore, tax compliance as much as tax evasion is of much concern to every economy including Ghana. Smes form about 90% of registered businesses in Ghana and contribute about 70% to the country’s GDP. Therefore, smes compliance to taxation has great impact on revenue mobilization in the economy. Hence, the objective of this study was to examine the factors that motivate smes to comply with taxation using some selected smes in the Techiman Municipality as a case study. The study is an explanatory or causal study which established a relationship between tax compliance and motivating factors to tax compliance by smes targeting designated smes in the municipality. The study sampled one hundred and seventy (170) smes using stratified sampling. Primary and secondary data was used for this study with a qualitative research methodology being adopted by the use of questionnaires and oral interviews. Five motivating factors were analyzed to establish their impact on tax compliance. These are; fair tax policies, strict enforcement by collectors, fear of detection of non-payment of taxes, tax reliefs as reward for tax compliance and high returns. The study further analyzed factors that might not motivate smes to pay their taxes. The factors analyzed are unfair tax policies, perceived corruption by government, liberal enforcement by tax collectors and low returns. The study showed that, smes are motivated to pay their taxes because of strict enforcement by collectors, high turnover, fear of detection of non-payment and the belief that tax policies are fair. However, the study showed that, tax reliefs as rewards for tax compliance does not motivate smes to pay their taxes. In addition, all four factors analyzed to not motivate smes to pay taxes do not motivate tax compliance according to this study.

Source: KNUST
Motorcycle Taxis in the Provision of Rural Public Transport Services; A Case Study of Selected Towns in the Volta Region of Ghana

Rural transportation problems and mobility challenges have led to increasing patronage of motorcycle taxi services by rural residents. This research investigated the increasing use of motorcycletaxis in some rural communities in the Volta Region and made appropriate recommendations to impact policy formulation. Questionnaires administered to three groups, namely; motorcycle taxi riders, motorcycle taxi users/non-users and taxi/trotro drivers in the towns of Sogakope, Dzodze, Akatsi, Adidome, Abor, and Mafi-Kumase, all in the Volta Region regarding motorcycle taxi transport.It was established that services provided by motorcycle taxis in these areas were for the conveyance of both passengers and goods. The latter, involved movement of goods to and from the markets and farms.Other services offered by the motorcycle taxis include the transportation of construction materials (e.g. cement, roofing sheets, and steel reinforcements rods), farming tools, coffin,and water. It was found that 85% of motorcycle taxi riders were below the age of 30 years,which is indicative of the fact that the services offered employment for the youth. Fifty-eight percent of motorcycle taxi riders own their motorcycles while the rest either acquired them through some form of hiring/rental agreement. Of the riders, 94% possessed no formal riding license. Daily users constitute 43.7% of all users and mostly use the services for short tripsthat last under 30minutes. Sixty-one percent of motorcycle taxi users found the services provided to be satisfactory whiles 23% found it to be unsatisfactory. Generally, patrons indicated the need to address the problem of reckless riding.An overwhelming majority of respondents were aware of the illegality of the motorcycle taxi services. However, there were mixed reactions as to whether the operations should be legalized or not. Motorcycles taxi riders expressed full support for the legalization and training to enhance safety of operations. Most trotro drivers (over 80%) also supported the regularization of the services with appropriate enforcement and regulations, as in their view, the motorcycle taxis have come to stayand offer useful transportation services to rural communities that are difficult to serve by trotros and taxis because of the poor nature of the roads and low demand.

Source: KNUST
Multi Criteria Ranking of Telecommunication Carriers using Promethee Method

The selection of a carrier for a Mobile Operator is done based on a myriad of criteria for a given number of telecommunication carriers. There is an urgent need for the switch engineer to have an easy approach in ranking carrier to specific destination with high level of accuracy. Promethee methods have taken an important place among the existing outranking multiple criteria methods. In this thesis the promethee method was used to rank multiple carriers in telecommunication based on given criteria data. Conclusions and recommendations were given based on results from outranking of carriers.

Source: KNUST
MtDNA diversity of Ghana: a forensic and phylogeographic view

West Africa is characterized by a migration history spanning more than 150,000 years. Climate changes but also political circumstances were responsible for several early but also recent population movements that shaped the West African mitochondrial landscape. The aim of the study was to establish a Ghanaian mtDNA dataset for forensic purposes and to investigate the diversity of the Ghanaian population sample with respect to surrounding populations. We sequenced full mitochondrial control regions of 193 Akan people from Ghana and excluded two apparently close maternally related individuals due to preceding kinship testing. The remaining dataset comprising 191 sequences was applied as etalon for quasi median network analysis and was subsequently combined with 99 additional control region sequences from surrounding West African countries. All sequences were incorporated into the EMPOP database enriching the severely underrepresented African mtDNA pool. For phylogeographic considerations, the Ghanaian haplotypes were compared to those of 19 neighboring populations comprising a total number of 6198 HVS1 haplotypes. We found extensive genetic admixture between the Ghanaian lineages and those from adjacent populations diminishing with geographical distance. The extent of genetic admixture reflects the long but also recent history of migration waves within West Africa mainly caused by changing environmental conditions. Also, evidence for potential socio-economical influences such as trade routes is provided by the occurrence of U6b and U6d sequences found in Dubai but also in Tunisia leading to the African West Coast via Mauritania and Senegal but also via Niger, Nigeria to Cameroon

Source: KNUST
Multi-Agent Simulation Approach on the Impact of Agricultural Land-use Change Adaptation Towards the Effect of Changing Climate in Semi-Arid Ghana

This research adapted the Land-Use Dynamic Simulator (LUDAS) framework to develop a multi-agent simulation model (Vea-LUDAS) that captured the impact of agricultural land-use change adaptation options in Vea catchment, Ghana. Sub-models on the maize credit acceptance and soil loss were developed as adaptations to the LUDAS framework. The Vea-LUDAS model simulated the impact of maize credit scenario - MCS (an agricultural land-use change adaptation strategy) on: (i) Agricultural land-use, (ii) Farm household livelihood and (iii) Soil loss potential, and the impact of MCS was compared with the baseline scenario (BS) i.e. business-as-usual for a 20 year simulation period (2012 - 2032). This research also determined the association between heterogeneous farm households and their climate change perception. Further, the underlying factors for agricultural land-use change (ALUC) options in the study area were identified. Mixed method was used for data collection and this included a household survey, farmer and key informant interviews, field measurements, focus group discussion, scenario exploration exercise and role playing games.. The perception of heterogeneous household shows similarities and differences. The endowments of households have influence on their perception about climate change. Identified factors influencing ALUC options in the study area includes water (rainfall) availability, tradition and land suitability. From the simulation result, the number of maize adopters increased from about 20 % to about 50 % and the area put under maize cultivation increased by about 266 %. MCS influenced the conversion of some agricultural lands into maize cropland. Average annual aggregated crop yield was 6.3 % higher under MCS compared to BS. Soil loss under BS and MCS showed no statistical difference, but the simulation result shows that cultivation on cropland with high erosion risk has implication for soil loss. In conclusion, this study shows that MCS can improve farm household livelihood in the face of changing climate. However, an encompassing policy strategy will boost crop production and household resilience towards the impact of climate change and variability. Some farmer adaptation strategies should include improved fertiliser subsidy scheme, better access to irrigated farming, accessibility to improved land preparation equipment and improved seed varieties.

Source: KNUST
Multi objective node routing problem with time windows: an alternate approach to solid waste collection and disposal in developing countries

This thesis is concerned with the collection and disposal of solid waste in the developing countries where logistics for collection and improper road network is a challenge. This problem is modeled as a Capacitated Node Routing Problem with Time Windows (CNRPTW), the effect of smell from uncollected waste on the environment and the cost of transportation to the disposal sites. The first part of the study investigates the generation of waste per person per day in third class communities; the second part provides a proposed location model to optimally assign customers unto a zone base d on two primary parameters. The third part of the study provides a meta-heuristic method, which takes into account the vehicle capacity and time of collection. This is based on the improved Ant Colony Heuristic, enhanced by three parameters. The introduction of soft windows incorporates vehicle breaking time, crew lunch break and drop-off time. The fourth part of the study modeled the effect of smell from uncollected waste by incorporating factors such time and fraction of biodegradable component, the fifth part considered the implementation of a proposed model on fuel consumption in addition to the existing fuel consumption models. Computational testing is carried out on the test problems used in the literature on our improved models gave competitive results. The final part of the study deals with the implementation of our models on the real life solid waste generation, collection and transportation which exists in one of the nine sub-metropolitan areas in Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly in Kumasi. Competing results were obtained compared with the existing practices on the ground.

Source: KNUST
Multi-criteria selection of waste transfer stations in the Kumasi Metropolis.

Increase in the quantity of municipal solid waste generated as a result of population growth in most urban areas has resulted in the difficulty of locating suitable land areas to be used as landfills. To curb this, transfer stations, which are facilities located close to residential areas and are used to receive and hold waste temporarily until it is transported to distant landfills, all with the purpose of reducing waste transportation cost and environmental health implication, are used. KMA currently disposes off all its waste at the Oti landfill site which will be full to its capacity in no time and the problems associated with locating a new site for another facility within its catchment is anticipated due to the difficulty in land acquisition and recent public agitations. This research was carried out within the framework of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) incorporated into Geographic Information System (GIS). Geographic data such as coordinates of sanitary sites, geology, fault, water bodies, road, slope and urban areas were analysed using the spatial analyst extension in ArcGIS 10.0 software. Using the pairwise comparison method relative importance of each criterion was computed. A weighted linear combination method was used for spatial multi-criteria layer combination. The results of the research revealed that several communal sites within the study area have been encroached and struggle for space with human settlement. Four potential sites were selected from which two are located in Oforikrom sub-metro, one in the Bantama sub-metro, and the other in Asokwa sub-metro. The optimal sites cover a total land area of 2.044 km 2 which is approximately 1% of the total land area under study. The results suggest the concept of transfer station be incorporated into the land use/ land use planning and waste management system of the Metropolis.

Source: KNUST
Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of cannabis use disorder yields insight into disease biology and public health implications

As recreational use of cannabis is being decriminalized in many places and medical use widely sanctioned, there are growing concerns about increases in cannabis use disorder (CanUD), which is associated with numerous medical comorbidities. Here we performed a genome-wide association study of CanUD in the Million Veteran Program (MVP), followed by meta-analysis in 1,054,365 individuals (ncases = 64,314) from four broad ancestries designated by the reference panel used for assignment (European n = 886,025, African n = 123,208, admixed American n = 38,289 and East Asian n = 6,843). Population-specific methods were applied to calculate single nucleotide polymorphism-based heritability within each ancestry. Statistically significant single nucleotide polymorphism-based heritability for CanUD was observed in all but the smallest population (East Asian). We discovered genome-wide significant loci unique to each ancestry: 22 in European, 2 each in African and East Asian, and 1 in admixed American ancestries. A genetically informed causal relationship analysis indicated a possible effect of genetic liability for CanUD on lung cancer risk, suggesting potential unanticipated future medical and psychiatric public health consequences that require further study to disentangle from other known risk factors such as cigarette smoking.

Source: KNUST
A multi-state reserving model of motor insurance claims of an insurance company in Ghana

General insurance under which motor insurance falls is perhaps the fastest grow-ing area thus claim numbers and amount are huge (Achieng, 2010). Due to the high rate of growth, number of claims are also overwhelming thus creating a huge backlog of unsettled claims. The objective of the study was to explore how the multistate model underlie the development of motor insurance contracts using a three state model, the states being Incurred But Not Reported (IBNR), Reported But Not Settled (RBNS) and PAID. The three state model was used to derive the expressions for transition probabilities using the generator matrix and the Chapman-Kolmogorov forward di erential equations. This was done after the transition rates had been estimated using the method of maximum likelihood. These were then used to compute the number of claims in the development years. It was found that losses arrived at the IBNR state at a rate of 105 losses per month and then waits for 1.88 months before it transitions to the RBNS state with a force of 0.53 claims per month. Claims reported were then seen to be set- tled (PAID) with the force of settlement of 0.17 claims per month. All the claims in the IBNR states were moved to the RBNS in the accident year, 80 percent of claim in the RBNS state are settled in the accident year with the remaining spread over three more years. 44.6 percent and 47.2 percent of the claims are paid in the accident and rst development year respectively. It was concluded that an average of 6 claims are reported per year with 2 claims being settled in the same year. The claims in the IBNR state are run o after a year, claims in the RBNS and PAID states being completely run o after four and ve years respectively. Expressions for the expected number of claims for the accident year and development years were derived.

Source: KNUST
A multi-state model of a Mortgage institution in Ghana.

The abnormal high rate of mortgage lending in the mortgage industry in Ghana which was under rated in the nancial sector led to the foreclosure and sale of mortgaged properties. This thesis develops a transition probability Markov chain analysis to mortgage loans classi cation and performance. The transition matrix obtained shows that classi ed loans switch from one status to another is possible and recommended the means by which foreclosure of properties could be reduced to the barest minimum or avoided altogether.

Source: KNUST