ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Comparative phylogenomics of Streptococcus pneumoniae isolated from invasive disease and nasopharyngeal carriage from West Africans

Background: We applied comparative phylogenomics (whole genome comparisons of microbes using DNA microarrays combined with Bayesian-based phylogenies) to investigate S. pneumoniae isolates from West Africa, with the aim of providing insights into the pathogenicity and other features related to the biology of the organism. The strains investigated comprised a well defined collection of 58 invasive and carriage isolates that were sequenced typed and included eight different S. pneumoniae serotypes (1, 3, 5, 6A, 11, 14, 19 F and 23 F) of varying invasive disease potential.Results: The core genome of the isolates was estimated to be 38% and was mainly represented by gene functional categories associated with housekeeping functions. Comparison of the gene content of invasive and carriage isolates identified at least eleven potential genes that may be important in virulence including surface proteins, transport proteins, transcription factors and hypothetical proteins. Thirteen accessory regions (ARs) were also identified and did not show any loci association with the eleven virulence genes. Intraclonal diversity (isolates of the same serotype and MLST but expressing different patterns of ARs) was observed among some clones including ST 1233 (serotype 5), ST 3404 (serotype 5) and ST 3321 (serotype 14). A constructed phylogenetic tree of the isolates showed a high level of heterogeneity consistent with the frequent S. pneumoniae recombination. Despite this, a homogeneous clustering of all the serotype 1 strains was observed.Conclusions: Comparative phylogenomics of invasive and carriage S. pneumoniae isolates identified a number of putative virulence determinants that may be important in the progression of S. pneumoniae from the carriage phase to invasive disease. Virulence determinants that contribute to S. pneumoniae pathogenicity are likely to be distributed randomly throughout its genome rather than being clustered in dedicated loci or islands. Compared to other S. pneumoniae serotypes, serotype 1 appears most genetically uniform. © 2012 Donkor et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Source: UG
Comparative productivity and biomass yields of the Guinea Current LME

Plankton production patterns in the Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem (GCLME) were investigated using data obtained from Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) tows carried out in the GLCME, from December 1995 to November 1999. Four CPR routes were established between Cote d'Ivoire and Cameroon as part of the pilot phase of the GCLME project, funded by the Global Environment Facility. Phytoplankton and zooplankton yields were greatest during the major upwelling compared to the other identifiable hydrographic seasons. The phytoplankton was dominated by diatoms whereas smaller zooplankton (<2 mm) occurred in greatest abundance. Analyses of ten years sea surface temperature (SST) data from 1990 to 2000 revealed two thermal regimes; a warmer phase followed by a colder phase that commenced in 1997. Annual phytoplankton and zooplankton yields in 1997 were relatively higher than the other years of the CPR sampling. Analyses of zooplankton community structure, in terms of species occurrence and relative abundances, was found to be similar during the minor and major upwelling. The zooplankton taxa contributing to dissimilarity in community structure were Chaetognath (<2 mm), Oithona spp., Oncaea spp, copepod nauplii, echinoderm larvae, Para-Pseudocalanus, Temora spp., Eucalanus spp., and Clausocalanus spp. Spatial and seasonal variation in phytoplankton communities did not follow any pattern. It was observed from a multiple regression analysis that phytoplankton distribution alone accounted for a significant proportion of the variation in zooplankton distribution in all hydrographic seasons except the major upwelling, during which period sea surface temperature contributed over 60% of the observed variation. This investigation using CPR is the first of its kind in the GCLME and thus provides a baseline information to guide future studies. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

Source: UG
A comparative qualitative study of misconceptions associated with contraceptive use in southern and northern Ghana

Evidence from Ghana consistently shows that unmet need for contraception is pervasive with many possible causes, yet howthese may differ by cultural zone remains poorly understood. This qualitative study was designed to elicit information on the nature and form of misconceptions associated with contraceptive use among northern and southern Ghanaians. Twenty-two focus group discussions (FGDs) with married community members were carried out. Community health officers, community health volunteers, and health care managers were also interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. FGDs and in-depth interviews were recorded digitally, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed using QSR Nvivo 10 to compare contraceptive misconceptions in northern and southern Ghana. Results indicate that misconceptions associated with the use of contraceptives were widespread but similar in both settings. Contraceptives were perceived to predispose women to both primary and secondary infertility, uterine fibroids, and cancers. As regular menstrual flow was believed to prevent uterine fibroids, contraceptive use-related amenorrhea was thought to render acceptors vulnerable to uterine fibroids as well as cervical and breast cancers. Contraceptive acceptors were stigmatized and ridiculed as promiscuous. Among northern respondents, condom usewas generally perceived to inhibit erection and therefore capable of inducing male impotence, while in southern Ghana, condom use was believed to reduce sensation and sexual gratification.The study indicates that misconceptions associated with contraceptive use are widespread in both regions. Moreover, despite profound social and contextual differences that distinguish northern and southern Ghanaians, prevailing fears and misconceptions are shared by respondents from both settings. Findings attest to the need for improved communication to provide accurate information for dispelling these misconceptions. © 2014 Adongo, Tabong , Azongo, Phillips, Sheff, Stone and Tapsoba.

Source: UG
Comparative State-of-the-Art Survey of Classical Fuzzy Set and Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets in Multi-Criteria Decision Making

Fuzzy sets extend deterministic multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to deal with uncertainty and imprecision in decision making. Over the years, many generalizations have been proposed to the classical Fuzzy sets to deal with different kinds of imprecise and subjective data. One such generalization is Atanassov’s Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS) which is becoming increasingly popular in MCDM research. Together, the two notions of uncertainty modeling: ‘classical fuzzy set’ (Zadeh) and intuitionistic fuzzy set (Atanassov) have been utilized in many real-world MCDM applications spanning diverse disciplines. As IFS grows in popularity by the day, this paper conducts a literature survey to (1) compare the trend of publications of ‘classical fuzzy’ set theory and its generalized form, the intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) as used in MCDM methods from 2000 to 2015; (2) classify their contributions into three novel tracks of applications, hybrid, and extended approaches; (3) determine which MCDM method is the most used together with the two forms of fuzzy modeling; and (4) report on other measures such as leading authors and their country affiliations, yearly scholarly contributions, and the subject areas where most of the two fuzzy notions in MCDM approaches are applied. Finally, the study presents trends and directions as far as the applications of classical fuzzy set and intuitionistic fuzzy sets in MCDM are concerned.

Source: UG
Comparative State-of-the-Art Survey of Classical Fuzzy Set and Intuitionistic Fuzzy Sets in Multi-Criteria Decision Making.

Fuzzy sets extend deterministic multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods to deal with uncertainty and imprecision in decision making. Over the years, many generalizations have been proposed to the classical Fuzzy sets to deal with different kinds of imprecise and subjective data. One such generalization is Atanassov’s Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS) which is becoming increasingly popular in MCDM research. Together, the two notions of uncertainty modeling: ‘classical fuzzy set’ (Zadeh) and intuitionistic fuzzy set (Atanassov) have been utilized in many real-world MCDM applications spanning diverse disciplines. As IFS grows in popularity by the day, this paper conducts a literature survey to (1) compare the trend of publications of ‘classical fuzzy’ set theory and its generalized form, the intuitionistic fuzzy set (IFS) as used in MCDM methods from 2000 to 2015; (2) classify their contributions into three novel tracks of applications, hybrid, and extended approaches; (3) determine which MCDM method is the most used together with the two forms of fuzzy modeling; and (4) report on other measures such as leading authors and their country affiliations, yearly scholarly contributions, and the subject areas where most of the two fuzzy notions in MCDM approaches are applied. Finally, the study presents trends and directions as far as the applications of classical fuzzy set and intuitionistic fuzzy sets in MCDM are concerned.

Source: UG
Comparative studies of Epstein Barr virus strains from Ghana and the United States.

Most research activities involve the use of molecular methods such as regular PCR (PCR), quantitative PCR (Q-PCR), genomic sequence and analysis using different software, genetic engineering, probe hybridization techniques, biological and molecular cloning, evaluation of immune markers for laboratory diagnosis of infections, serological assays involving the use of rapid tests, ELISA-based evaluations and immunofluorescent assay techniques.

Source: UG
A comparative study of bilingual verb phrases in Ewe-English and Gengbe-French codeswitching

This article describes contact phenomena between two closely related varieties of the Gbe language cluster Ewe and Gengbe each with a Germanic and a Romance language. The focus is on a comparison of verb phrases in Ewe-English codeswitching, spoken in Ghana, and Gengbe-French codeswitching, spoken in Togo. It is the first qualitative comparative study of this kind although quite a number of local (West African) languages are in contact with English and French. It finds that because the two varieties of Gbe are morphosyntactically similar, there are remarkable morphosyntactic similarities between bilingual clauses containing English verbs and those containing French verbs. English/French verbs with the same transitivity value which assign the same set of thematic roles to their arguments occur in slots in Ewe/Gengbe-based clauses where Ewe/Gengbe verbs with those subcategorization features also occur. The explanation for this pattern, from the perspective of the Matrix Language Frame model, is that during codeswitching English and French verbs are treated as if they belong to the class of Ewe and Gengbe verbs which share their subcategorization features. Assuming language production to be modular (in the sense of Myers-Scotton 1993, 2002), it is argued that the pattern is illustrative of a kind of composite codeswitching (Amuzu 2005a, 2010, and in print) by which abstract grammatical information from one language about verbs from that language—here English or French—is consistently mapped onto surface structure through the grammatical resources of another language, here Ewe or Gengbe.

Source: UG
A comparative study of DFT/LDA with higher levels of theory on π-π interactions: A typical case for the benzene dimer

A real challenge to theory. The problem arises from the kind of theoretical approaches employed to describe the nature of the non-covalent interactions. Various workers have described the interactions purely as Van der Walls whilst others consider it as a competition between many other forces. Present approaches describing these interaction effects are computationally expensive. We report a pseudo potential-base density functional theory (DFT) calculations within the local density approximation (LDA) and compared our results with other higher theories describing the - interactions. By using benzene dimer as a prototype species, we find that DFT/LDA compares favorably well with other descriptions as a reliable alternative method.

Source: UG
A Comparative Study of ECOWAS and ECCAS towards Implementation of the Abuja Treaty

The Abuja Treaty is the blueprint and reference point for continental-level economic integration that was first established in 1991 to see to the creation of an African Economic Community (AEC). The Treaty acknowledges that, the African continent, as a unified unit of countries, wields immense power in the international system, in terms of trade and political influence, and thus it seeks to bring to fruition a highly integrated Africa. This study strives to evaluate the progress made on the implementation of the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community (AEC) by comparing two regional blocs, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which serve as 2 of 8 building blocks for the realisation of the AEC. Accordingly, the research method used was qualitative and employed a purposive sampling method that draws on the selection of experts in the field of regional integration to shape the outcome of the study. The research findings include the fact that regional integration, on the continent, has progressed positively although it manifests slowly. Additionally, it found that both the ECOWAS and the ECCAS have progressed in terms of the implementation of the stages of the Abuja Treaty, although the former surpasses the latter in this regard. Yet, in spite of their progress, both RECs have faced challenges unique to their regions. ECOWAS for instance faces the problem of inability to completely enforce protocols on free movement of persons. The lack of national implementation of free movement legislation creates avenues for its ineffectiveness. Border checks are commonplace and there is very little standardization of official forms. ECCAS on the other hand faces a problem of overlapping goals and ideas with CEMAC as well as the failure of member states to carry out agreed decisions within their states due to issues such as conflict and instability in the region. On a whole, the study refutes the common idea that the Abuja Treaty has not been implemented at all but only sees its implementation as slow-paced.

Source: UG
A Comparative Study of Emotion Lexicon in French and Ewe

The grammar of sentiments has been widely studied in the French language and has even been the theme for journal articles for the 1995 edition of Langages. However, there exists very little on sentiment lexicon in Ewe. The only existing literature seem to be an article by Ameka (2002) on cultural scripting of body parts for emotions. Even then, this article only focused on jealousy and related emotions. Ameka's thesis on the Ewe language (1991) also devotes a section to predicates of emotion, linked to experiences and perception. Though ground-breaking and very instructive, they do not provide an in-depth/detailed description of the emotion lexicon in the language. This leaves a field which can be added to. This presentation, which is part of an ongoing project seeks to establish a list of emotion lexicon in Ewe similar to the list that has been established for French within the Lexical-Grammar framework for French. Secondly, it seeks to discover the differences in the local grammars of the two languages as far as expressing emotion is concerned. This project studies emotion lexicon in French and Ewe. It fulfills a double objective of firstly providing a comprehensive list of emotion lexicon in Ewe, and secondly, undertaking a semantic and syntactic comparison of constructions of emotion lexicon in the two languages. Specifically, the study looks at nominal constructions with emotion lexicon and verbal constructions with emotion lexicon to investigate how the world view is expressed through emotion lexicon and how this differs cross-linguistically. This project contributes to understanding the grammar of the ewe language which has been relatively less studied than the French language. This comparison between a western language and an African language also challenges certain assertions that have been made about emotion lexicon based solely on western languages and posits that emotion lexicon are language-specific and that there is not direct equivalence for all instances of emotion lexicon from French to Ewe.

Source: UG
A comparative study of English loans in Russian and Swahili In: Cross – Cultural Studies, vol. 24, pp.169 -189., Center for Cross-Cultural Studies, Kyung Hee University. 2011

This paper is a comparative study of English loans in Russian and Swahili. In the twenty first century, due to the advantage of English as a global language, a language of technology and business, it has had contact with many languages of the world and has become a major source of loans to many languages. Though very different from each other, both Russian and Swahili currently have English as their main source of loanwords. This study reports the extensive adaptation of English loans by Russian and Swahili and examines how this loan items are assimilated into the two languages. It concludes that beside the adaption of pure English loans they have both employed other strategies such as loan translation, semantic extensions and loanblends for vocabulary expansion.

Source: UG
A Comparative Study of Ethnic Residential Segregation in Ghana’s Two Largest Cities, Accra and Kumasi

The rate of urbanization is far more rapid in sub-Saharan Africa than in any other major region of the world. However, little is known about patterns of ethnic residential segregation in rapidly urbanizing African cities. This paper is crafted to make an important contribution through its focus on Ghana's two largest cities: Accra and Kumasi. Making use of the most recent population and housing census data of 2000 to generate a Location Quotient index, the analyses explore the cities' degree of ethnic diversity and concentration for comparative purposes. In relative terms, the study reveals that the level of residential ethnic segregation is fairly balanced in Accra compared to Kumasi. However, there are important differences between the findings of this Ghanaian case study and findings from research in the West, where the residential segregation is heavily determined by cultural/racial factors in addition to socio-economic factors. In the absence of institutional and ethnic discrimination, the most fundamental underlying cause of segregation in the Ghanaian case appears to be the socio-economic circumstance of ethnic groups present in the cities. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of the study for urban and national development in Ghana as well as the future patterns of ethnic clustering likely to emerge in Accra and Kumasi.

Source: UG
A Comparative Study of Isradipine and Nifedipine in the Monotherapy of Mild to Moderate Hypertension in the Ghanaian.

Clinical experience with the new dihydropyridine calcium antagonist. isradipine. is reported. Isradipine was compared with nifedipine in a multicentre open. parallel group. clinical therapeutic trial involving 70 patients with mild to moderate hypertension. A four week placebo washout period was followed by a 12 week active treatment period during which patients were randomized to receive cither 2.5 mg isradipine twice daily (n = 40) or 10 mg nifedipine three times daily ( n=30). Isradipine significantly reduced sitting systolic /diastolic blood pressures from 176.7 ± 21.0/l06.7±7.0mmHg to l42.9± 15/93.1±7.7mmHg (p< 0.001) at the end of 12 weeks. Similarly. nifedipine reduced sitting systolic/diastolic blood pressures from 170.2±1 9.5/1 06.2±7.4mmHg to 139. 1±9.7/92. 1±7.8 mmHg (p< 0.001). Normalisation (diastolic<90 mmHg) rates were 67% and 60% for isradipine and nifedipine respectively while good response (diastolic fall > 10mmHg) rate was over 85% on cither drug. Heart rate did not significantly change with either treatment. Three (3) patients taking isradipine experienced headache and 7 patients taking nifedipine had drug related adverse effects (5 had headache. I insomnia and I first dose hypotension). Therapy was Withdrawn in 4 patients taking nifedipine and 1 taking isradipine. It is concluded that isradipine is comparable to nifedipine and is an effective and well-tolerated antihypertensive agent In the Ghanaian.

Source: UG
A Comparative Study of the African and Western Mediation Models: The Case of Ghana

Mediation, a mechanism for the resolution of dispute, has been an ancient practice for several civilizations. Mediation was a form of resolving disputes in Africa, Ghana in particular before the coming of the Europeans. In recent times, the origin of ADR mechanism has been a debate among the conflict resolution fraternity and academicians. Owing to the fact that mediation has been used in diverse civilizations, the conduct and process varies and usually tends to suit the cultural context of the people. Mediation, as part of the ADR spectrum, has been structured in a wholly Western perspective with no room for cultural variations. Given the above-mentioned trends the study aims at finding the relations between African and Western mediation models, what is common between the two models, disparities between them and how the similarities and disparities qualitatively affect the outcome of the effectiveness of mediation in Africa and the Western world. The research utilized the qualitative research method with data from both primary and secondary sources. The study revealed that both Africans and Westerners do have their own approach to mediation, it also revealed that the differences and commonalities qualitatively affect the outcome of the effectiveness of mediation in Africa and the Western world. The study shows that both models of mediation has the same aim thus to resolve conflict amicably. The study recommends that a blend of both mediation models has a high tendency of resolving disputes peacefully especially when parties have different cultural orientations

Source: UG