ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
On the behaviour of the underrelaxed Hildreth’s row-action method for computing projections onto polyhedra

Abstract A strongly underrelaxed sequential version of the Hildreth’s iterative algorithm for norm minimization over linear inequalities is presented. Proofs are given showing that the algorithm converges from any starting point to its projection onto the linear constraint set in the feasible case and to the nearest least squares solution in the general case.

Source: UG
On the brain drain of Africans to America: Some methodological observations

Recurring debates about the impact of the brain drain - The developing world's loss of human capital to more developed countries - Has motivated estimation of the magnitude of the phenomenon, most recently by the World Bank. Although frequently cited as a key contributor to Africa's wanting development record, what constitutes the "brain-drain" is not always clearly defined. Today, in the absence of an accounting system, resolution of the definitional and measurement question depends on relative comparisons of measurement variants, which will identify definitional shortcomings by clarifying the merits and demerits of these variants, and thereby suggest corrective imputations. This paper compares the World Bank's approach to a chronological precedent (Dodoo 1997) to clarify the value of variant comparisons. The resultant implications for corrections are also discussed. © Koninklijke Brill NV 2006.

Source: UG
On the design of paired comparison experiments with application

In practice, paired comparison experiments involving pairs of either full or partial profiles are frequently used. When all attributes have a general common number of levels, the problem of finding optimal designs is considered in the presence of a second-order interaction model. In this setting, the D-optimal designs for the second-order interaction model have both types of pairs in which either all attributes have different levels or approximately half of the attributes are different. The proposed optimal designs can be used as a benchmark to compare any design for estimating main effects and two- and three-attribute interactions. A practical situation that incorporates the corresponding second-order interactions is covered.

Source: UG
On the Determinants of Board Structure of Hospitals in Ghana: Stakeholder and Resource Dependency Perspectives

Hospital boards are expected to play a crucial role on the healthcare delivery system and the effectiveness of the hospital board may depend on its structure. Therefore, an appreciation of the structure of hospital boards is an area worth investigating. This study examined the determinants of hospital board structure in Ghana. The study adopted a multiple regression method. The findings of the study indicate that hospital size, hospital age, ownership structure and location of the hospitals are important in explaining the board structure of hospitals in Ghana. The findings of this study are generally relevant for policy on how to structure an effective hospital board.

Source: UG
On the distribution of eigenvalues of increasing trees

We prove that the multiplicity of a fixed eigenvalue α in a random recursive tree on n vertices satisfies a central limit theorem with mean and variance asymptotically equal to μαn and σ 2 αn respectively. It is also shown that μα and σ 2 α are positive for every totally real algebraic integer. The proofs are based on a general result on additive tree functionals due to Holmgren and Janson. In the case of the eigenvalue 0, the constants μ0 and σ 2 0 can be determined explicitly by means of generating functions. Analogous results are also obtained for Laplacian eigenvalues and binary increasing trees.

Source: UG
On the Estimation of Conditional Tail Index and Extreme Quantiles under Random Censoring

In the area of Statistics of Extremes, the main assumption on any set of univariate data is to regard them as a complete sample of independent and identically distributed observations from an unknown distribution function, F. However, in many real life applications such as survival analysis, observations are usually subject to random censoring and may be influenced by an underlying covariate information. In such case, the classical extreme value theory needs some adjustment to take into account the presence of censoring and covariates. In this presentation, we propose estimators of the conditional tail index and conditional extreme quantiles for heavy-tailed distributions in the presence of random censoring and covariate information. We compare the proposed estimators with the existing estimators in the literature in a large scale simulation study. The results show improvement in bias and median absolute deviation over the existing estimators of the conditional tail index and conditional extreme quantiles.

Source: UG
On the Ethnography of Akkrah and Adampe, Gold Coast, Western Africa

Among the aboriginal tribes that people the shores of Western Africa are several, which, from their geographical position, customs, diversity of language, and other national peculiarities, merit a more extensive research and consideration into their primitive origin than others. The veil of obscurity which, however, impends over the remote migrations and the distribution of the African races in general, rendered more impenetrable by the absence of any historic evidence or traditional data, constitutes a barrier that effectually precludes any minute inquiry into their progressive development and descent.

Source: UG
On the modelling of diffraction line profiles from nanocrystalline materials

Recent advances in Line Profile Analysis of powder diffraction patterns must be paralleled by increasing attention to the quality and quantity of experimental data. The analysis of simulated data with different noise levels demonstrates the importance of statistical quality to reveal fine details of interest in the analysis of nanocrystalline materials, like the crystallite shape. It is also shown how synchrotron radiation diffraction can improve data quality with respect to laboratory measurements, both in terms of statistical quality and in terms of accessible information.

Source: UG
On the Non-worshipping Character of the Akan of Africa

According to Wiredu, the Akan profess secular esteem rather than religious worship to supra-natural beings (including the Supreme Being), who they perceive in an empirical sense. He backs this up by re-reading what he sees as the Akan general ontology in a way that denies them of the concepts of the supernatural, the transcendental, the mental, the spiritual, and an ontologically distinct mind. At the end of denying the three criteria of worship as well as all of these other concepts which might otherwise be available to the Akan, one might struggle to find any evidence that the Akan even had a religion. I dispute this secular reading, and I more generally demonstrate that the characterizations of the Akan attitude to divinity as non-worshipping, non-supernatural, non-transcendent, and non-spiritual, are either conceptually flawed, factually incorrect, or both.

Source: UG
On The Odyssey Of The Irregular Ghanaian Migrant: Risk Framing, Mitigation And Resilience Strategies In An Uncertain Venture.

This paper qualitatively probed the risk framing, mitigation and resilience strategies of irregular migrants in a bid to unravel the paradox of how such actors, perceived to be poor and as such may lack ideational and financial agency, with no guarantees of success, can (persistently) operationalize and undertake costly, illegal and dangerous international journeys. Drawing on responses from Europe-based, deported and prospective first-time irregular migrants either hailing from or domiciled in the Bono East, Bono and Ahafo Regions of Ghana, the findings of this study demonstrate that all three categories of respondents were risk-neutral, had risk mitigation and resilient strategies enabled by, among others, involvement in informal/illegal solidaristic economic ventures, the utilization of extended family associational norms, trust in the efficacy of irregular migration service providers as against that of foreign missions and faith in providence.

Source: UG
On the origin of Mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of Buruli ulcer

The Epidemiology Department contributes to the mission of the institute through basic and applied epidemiological research on, but not limited to, malaria and other diseases of public health importance. It is also home to the Social Science Unit of the Institute, including the Health Support Centre for HIV/AIDS and other communicable and noncommunicable health problems.

Source: UG
On the origin of mycobacterium ulcerans, the causative agent of buruli ulcer

The Bacteriology Department aims to improve the quality of life first for Ghanaians and the world at large by conducting research into bacterial diseases of public health importance to Ghana and globally. In addition to working on enteric pathogens and sexually transmitted diseases, the department’s current main focus is on the two most important mycobacterial diseases of public health importance to Ghana, namely Buruli ulcer (BU) and tuberculosis (TB).

Source: UG
On the Pleasure in Madness and the Grammar of Insanity

Is madness, known in Arab-Islamic culture as al-Junun, a condition, a phenomenon or both? Is it a utopia, a dystopia and a heterotopia where the real and the unreal interpellate? To Aristotle, madness is a virtue, a quality that scholars must not only cherish but possess He says: "No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.” In Hamlet of Shakespeare' counsels- ‘if you must go mad, let there be a method to it”. Deeper contemplation of the problematic returns extremely rich cross-cultural tradition and cues in which contests and contestations around madness circumscribes religious, cultural, political and indeed intellectual vocations … What better example could be cited other than Gunter Grass, the German Nobel laureate in Literature who, while on his death bed, remonstrated with the medics that the only physician who could cure him of his ailment is a character he himself created in one of his works! The pursuit of the ‘pleasure’ in madness/insanity is thus conceived in the womb of time as a cultural site of meanings which only ‘mad intellectuals’, qua, al-Nasayburi and Mitchel Foucault after him, could explore particularly in an extremely ‘maddening’ world of today!

Source: UG
On the potential of Google Street View for environmental waste quantification in urban Africa: An assessment of bias in spatial coverage

Mismanaged domestic waste threatens ecosystem health, with substantial increases predicted from developing country cities if current consumption and waste service collection trends con tinue. Google Street View (GSV) imagery has been used to quantify urban environmental waste in high-income countries. GSV availability is increasing elsewhere, but its coverage is variable. This study aims to evaluate bias in spatiotemporal GSV coverage relative to environmental waste in two case study cities. An environmental survey measured environmental waste in Greater Accra, Ghana and Kisumu, Kenya via 95 and 81 transects, respectively. Six summary metrics of environmental waste were calculated and compared for transects with full, partial, and no GSV coverage via multi level regression. Multi-level regression indicated no significant differences in scattered waste density for transects with versus without GSV coverage. However, both cities had significantly lower waste burning densities along transects with GSV coverage (4.3 versus 24.2 burning sites/Ha in Kisumu; 1.7 versus 13.6 sites/Ha for Greater Accra) compared to those without Street View density of large waste piles was significantly lower in Kisumu transects with Street View coverage (1.4 versus 11.5 sites/Ha). Because of partial imagery coverage, GSV imagery analysis is likely to under-estimate waste indicators such as waste burning density. Future studies using GSV to quantify waste indicators in African cities should therefore correct for coverage bias.

Source: UG
On the question of entrepreneurial breakthrough or failure in Africa: a framework for analysis

Purpose – Having the right intent, aspiration, ability and attitude to become an entrepreneur has become the mantra in the extant literature to be driver of entrepreneurship and small and medium enterprise (SME) growth. Why would zealous and ambitious individuals with all rightful attributes so required of entrepreneurs have to fizzle out few years after venturing into business or SMEs? Perhaps these same individuals may relocate to other jurisdictions and would establish successful firms even beyond their imaginations. Beyond the individual’s entrepreneurial attributes, there are other external countervailing forces which either “enable” or “impede” entrepreneurial drive and SME growth processes. Adopting the theory of planned behavior, this study conceptualizes a systems framework to analyze how SMEs either flourish or fail in developing countries. Design/methodology/approach – The study relies on secondary sources of data. It adopts a critical stage review of secondary data. Findings – The study argues that the interplay of “internal factors” and “external factors” of prospective entrepreneurs provides a useful framework to explain the general SME outlook of an economy. The study postulates that many internally driven prospective SME entrants (with entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations) mostly in the developing economies may have their dreams shattered because of obstructive external ecological elements which tend to frustrate new business entrants as well as existing ones.

Source: UG
On the Relation Between Social Dominance Orientation and Environmentalism: A 25-Nation Study

Approval of hierarchy and inequality in society indexed by social dominance orientation (SDO) extends to support for human dominance over the natural world. We tested this negative association between SDO and environmentalism and the validity of the new Short Social Dominance Orientation Scale in two cross-cultural samples of students (N = 4,163, k = 25) and the general population (N = 1,237, k = 10). As expected, the higher people were on SDO, the less likely they were to engage in environmental citizenship actions, pro-environmental behaviors and to donate to an environmental organization. Multilevel moderation results showed that the SDO–environmentalism relation was stronger in societies with marked societal inequality, lack of societal development, and environmental standards. The results highlight the interplay between individual psychological orientations and social context, as well as the view of nature subscribed to by those high in SDO.

Source: UG
On the simulation of root water extraction: Examination of a minimum energy hypothesis

An alternative procedure for calculating root water extraction from different depths of a soil profile is proposed. The procedure is based on the concept that the root water extraction entails energy expenditure by the plant and that the plant seeks to minimize the total rate of energy expenditure during water uptake. The model, therefore, considers root water extraction to be a minimization problem whose solution can be sought using a dynamic programming framework. We tested the model by simulating the variations of the soil water content using the time and depth of a maize-sorghum intercrop experiment reported for an 8-day drying cycle by Ozier-Lafontaine et al. (Plant and Soil 204:183-201, 1998). Simulated patterns follow the observed water content distribution quite well. Furthermore, results from numerical experiments show that the model is capable of simulating a range of water extraction patterns in a realistic manner. Patterns of water extraction from uniformly wet soil profiles follow those of the root distribution with depth. The extraction rate is highest in the section where the root length density is also highest. Once the soil profile dries out, water extraction patterns cease to bear any similarity to root distribution. Model simulations also show increased root activity at greater depths when the top sections of the soil dry out. Generally, the model avoids the need to make any prior assumptions about the pattern of the root water extraction.

Source: UG
On the syntactic category of Akan compounds: A product-oriented perspective

In accounting for the properties of morphological constructions, one may adopt a sourceoriented view where every property of the whole emanates from the parts or a product-oriented view where the whole may have properties that do not come from the parts. Such properties are called holistic constructional properties. Studies on Akan compounds have been invariably source-oriented, assuming that every property in a compound, including the syntactic category, has to come from its constituents. I show that compounding in Akan is blind to the syntactic category of the constituents. Thus, notwithstanding the syntactic category of the constituents the Akan compound is invariably nominal. This paper, therefore, provides evidence of holistic properties of morphological constructions in the form of the syntactic category of Akan compounds. I also present a Construction Morphology modelling of the syntactic category of the Akan compound as a holistic constructional property which is inherited from a constructional meta-schema that is pre-specified to be nominal. Finally, I posit and exemplify four schemas which inherit the category N from the meta-schema but differ in terms of the presence and position of a head constituent. © 2015 Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.

Source: UG
On the use of household expenditure surveys to monitor mismanaged plastic waste from food packaging in low- and middle-income countries

Background: substantial increases in plastic production have resulted in plastics proliferating of in the environment, with subsequent seabed plastic deposition and ingestion by marine fauna. There is an urgent need to monitor mismanaged plastic waste from household consumption. Household expenditure survey analysis has quantified mismanaged plastic waste generated from household packaged (bottled or bagged) water consumption, but not from consumption of other products. Methods: to evaluate whether household expenditure surveys can quantify mismanaged waste from other widely consumed commodities, we quantify mismanaged plastic waste from the domestic consumption of cooking oil alongside packaged water in urban Greater Accra, Ghana, and all cities nationally in Kenya using two household expenditure surveys. Results: household survey-derived estimates indicate packaged water consumption generates considerably more plastic waste than oil packaging in Greater Accra, whereas oil packaging generates more plastic waste than packaged water in urban Kenya. Conclusion: by successfully transferring a survey analysis protocol from packaged water to cooking oil, we conclude that there is ample potential for expenditure surveys to be used internationally to quantify mismanaged plastic waste from households. However, uncertainties affecting mismanaged waste estimates need to be accounted for.

Source: UG
On traditional African consensual rationality

Wiredu’s call for democracy by consensus is illustrated by his description of traditional African consensual rationality. This description contains the attribution of immanence to African consensual rationality. This paper objects to this doctrine of immanence. More importantly, the doctrine of immanence has led to the attribution of pure rationality to traditional African consensual practices. With reference to Aristotle’s three components of persuasion, I object to deliberation as purely rational and impervious to extraneous factors. I further argue that it is because deliberation is not always perfectly rational that the process of consensus can suffer three forms of social conformity: conformity to dominant players, to numerical opinion majority, and to group-centrism. These forms of conformity mean that a consensus task order could lead to decisions of more inclusive value, but not necessarily decisions of more epistemic value. The concept of agonistic inquiry is employed to tackle what I see as the dangers of conformity and complacency in the project of inclusivity, and this is to strike a crucial balance between too-consensual and purely adversarial forms of deliberation.

Source: UG
On two-weight norm estimates for multilinear fractional maximal function

We prove some Sawyer-type characterizations for multilinear fractional maximal function for the upper triangle case. We also provide some two-weight norm estimates for this operator. As one of the main tools, we use an extension of the usual Carleson Embedding that is an analogue of the P. L. Duren extension of the Carleson Embedding for measures.

Source: UG
On-farm evaluation of homemade pepper extract in the management of pests of cabbage, Brassica oleraceae L., and French beans, Phaseolus vulgaris L., in two agro-ecological zones in Ghana

Cabbage, Brassica oleraceae L., and French beans, Phaseolus vulgaris L., are important vegetables grown in Ghana. However, attack by insect pests affects their quality and marketable yield. On-farm experiment was undertaken during the major rainy season of 2012 at Afari and Kpong, in the moist Semi Deciduous Forest and Coastal Savanna agro-ecological zones of Ghana, respectively, to explore the use of homemade extracts from fruit of hot pepper, Capsicum frutescens L. in the management of insect pests of cabbage and French beans. The treatments included a crude water extract from pepper fruit (20 g/l w/v), the semi-synthetic insecticide emamectin benzoate, ATTACK® (1 ml/l v/v) and tap water as a control. The dominant pests found on cabbage at both locations were the diamondback moth (DBM), Plutella xylostella (L.), the cabbage aphid, Brevicoryne brassicae (L.) and the whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius). On French beans, the flower thrips, Megalurothrips sjostedti (Trybom), the whitefly, B. tabaci and a range of leafhoppers, Empoasca spp. were found at both locations. The cowpea aphid, Aphis craccivora (Koch) was present only at Kpong. Among the natural enemies found on cabbage at both locations were the larval parasitoid, Cotesia plutellae (Kurdjumov), the ladybird beetles, Cheilomenes spp., hoverflies and a number of spiders. On French beans, ladybirds and spiders were observed only at Kpong. Generally, the application of pepper and emamectin benzoate were effective in controlling some pests of cabbage and French beans and also conserved the natural enemies. Emamectin benzoate and pepper treated-plots had higher yields of French beans than the control plots at Afari. The potential of homemade pepper spray for pest management on smallholder farms, backyard gardens and in organic vegetable production systems is discussed.

Source: UG
On-going transmission of human onchocerciasis in the Massangam health district in the West Region of Cameroon: Better understanding transmission dynamics to inform changes in programmatic interventions

The Department of Parasitology conducts research into parasitic diseases of public health importance with the overall goal of reducing their transmission and the heavy disease burden that they impose on affected populations. The Department maintains focus on parasitic diseases in general. These include major diseases such as malaria, and others listed under the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTD) control initiative such as, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminthiasis, trypanosomiasis and leishmaniasis.

Source: UG