ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Acquired immune responses to three malaria vaccine candidates and their relationship to invasion inhibition in two populations naturally exposed to malaria

Background: Malaria still represents a major cause of morbidity and mortality predominantly in several developing countries, and remains a priority in many public health programmes. Despite the enormous gains made in control and prevention the development of an effective vaccine represents a persisting challenge. Although several para‑ site antigens including pre-erythrocytic antigens and blood stage antigens have been thoroughly investigated, the identification of solid immune correlates of protection against infection by Plasmodium falciparum or clinical malaria remains a major hurdle. In this study, an immuno-epidemiological survey was carried out between two populations naturally exposed to P. falciparum malaria to determine the immune correlates of protection. Methods: Plasma samples of immune adults from two countries (Ghana and Madagascar) were tested for their reactivity against the merozoite surface proteins MSP1-19, MSP3 and AMA1 by ELISA. The antigens had been selected on the basis of cumulative evidence of their role in anti-malarial immunity. Additionally, reactivity against crude P. falciparum lysate was investigated. Purified IgG from these samples were furthermore tested in an invasion inhibition assay for their antiparasitic activity. Results: Significant intra- and inter- population variation of the reactivity of the samples to the tested antigens were found, as well as a significant positive correlation between MSP1-19 reactivity and invasion inhibition (p < 0.05). Interestingly, male donors showed a significantly higher antibody response to all tested antigens than their female counterparts. In vitro invasion inhibition assays comparing the purified antibodies from the donors from Ghana and Madagascar did not show any statistically significant difference. Although in vitro invasion inhibition increased with breadth of antibody response, the increase was not statistically significant. Conclusions: The findings support the fact that the development of semi-immunity to malaria is probably con‑ tingent on the development of antibodies to not only one, but a range of antigens and that invasion inhibition in immune adults may be a function of antibodies to various antigens. This supports strategies of vaccination including multicomponent vaccines as well as passive vaccination strategies with antibody cocktails.

Source: KNUST
Acquisition as a competitive strategy of financial institutions in Ghana-a case study of UT Bank Limited.

This study focused on investigating acquisition as a competitive strategy of financial instruments in Ghana. The UT bank Limited and BPI case was used as the focal point of this study. This had specifically identified UT Bank limited expectations, in terms of culture, organizational behavior, structure and system, processes and procedure, ascertain the extent of the expectations, identified challenges after acquisition and lessons learnt. The descriptive survey research design had been adopted as facts gathered can be used to test the stated theories, application of statistical procedures and administration of standardized questionnaires as a means of data collection and analysis of respondents’ actions. Individuals with similar characteristics which consist of all employee of UT Bank of the Ashanti Region of Ghana made the research population. The sample size of 76 was obtained by employing the two stage sample size calculation method, i.e. stratification sampling and simple random sampling. Both primary and secondary sources data were used to access respondents. The socio-demographic settings, expectations of the institutions during and after the acquisition and level to meet expectation are presented in the report. Variables such as culture of the organization, structure and system and processes and procedures gave varying correlation coefficients for the expectations of the firms and achievements during the acquisition process. While the highest ranked challenge encountered during and after the acquisition process was found to be the conflict at the level of structures and working systems, values of the acquired bank and the possibility of languages barrier gave the least ranking for challenges, Recommendations such as effective integration of culture, reorientation of and retraining of staff, clear definition of roles and responsibilities and review of benefits and compensation of employees of the acquired firm have been given from the study and presented.

Source: KNUST
Acquisition, prospecting and development of mineral properties in Ghana

As a result of the favourable investment climate created by the Government of Ghana, investors have recently been attracted to the mineral industry. However, the pace at which mining concessions are successfully developed is very slow. The main cause has been identified as the difficulty of knowing all the rules governing the acquisition, prospecting and development of mineral properties in the country. The purpose of this thesis is to study and analyze the procedures and problems associated with acquisition, prospecting and development of mineral properties in Ghana and provide possible solutions. A collation of documents and information on mineral property acquisition, prospecting and development in the country has been made and a step-by-step guide for investors provided. Some recommendations have also been made to assist would-be investors in the mineral industry of Ghana.

Source: KNUST
Acrylamide Exposure And Risks In Most Frequently Consumed Foods In A Total Diet Study

The neurotoxic and carcinogenic nature of acrylamide, coupled with the recent emphasis of the ―probable carcinogenic‖ status of acrylamide is a cause for concern requiring further studies. The objective of this study was to determine the carcinogenic and neurotoxic risks associated with the consumption of frequently consumed foods in a Total Diet Study (TDS). From a selection of 80 frequently consumed foods, the a Total Diet Study (TDS). From a selection of 80 frequently consumed foods, the acrylamide concentrations in the foods were purified by the QuEChERS method of extraction and purification, and the concentrations of acrylamide were determined using the HPLC. Acrylamide was detected in 82% of all the foods analyzed, and the levels ranged from 1.33×10-3 ± 1.89 to 14.39×10-3 ± 6.33 mg/g. The probabilistic approach was used to model the chronic exposures using the Monte Carlo simulation of the Palisade @Risk software. The mean, 50th and 95th percentile values for acrylamide exposures were in the range of 1.56×10-3 to 1.88×10-2, 3.21×10-4 to 5.85×10-3 and 6.16×10-3 to 8.32×10-2 mg/kg bw/day respectively. The mean and 95th percentile values for the margins of exposure (MOE) for the risk of tumorigenesis and neurotoxicity were below the thresholds, hence posing significant public health concern. Generally, the lifetime cancer risks of male consumers were higher compared to that of the female consumers. The median and 95th percentile consumers presented unacceptable risk, since their lifetime cancer risks were greater than the de minimus (10-6). The elements that imparted the most on the overall lifetime cancer risk of the consumers were the exposure duration and the concentration of acrylamide in the foods. To lower these lifetime cancer risks, mitigation studies can thus, be mounted in order to help lower the concentrations of acrylamide in the foods.

Source: KNUST
Acrylamide resulting from heat-time treatment in pigeon pea, a neglected and underutilized legume

The influence that heat-time treatment has on the concentration of acrylamide in roasted pigeon pea was analysed. The study focussed on optimising the roasting conditions using Response Surface Methodology (RMS) to minimise concentration of acrylamide in roasted Pigeon pea. The treatment conditions used were temperatures in the range of 80 – 120 oC and time of 10 - 60 min, additive of 0.1-1.0 g and soaking solvent prepared with citric acid or phosphoric acid. Analysis of the data showed that the concentration of acrylamide content significantly increased as the temperature and time of processing increased (p<0.005). Citric acid and phosphoric acid used as additives in soaking the Pigeon pea had no significant effect on acrylamide formation. The optimization of process parameters to give low level of acrylamide resulted in roasting temperature of 80ºC for 10 min and 0.1g mass of additive with citric acid as the soaking solvent having a desirability of 0.972. The roasted Pigeon pea produced using the optimized conditions resulted in a concentration of acrylamide (1.76g/kg).

Source: KNUST
Acrylamide Exposure and Risks in Most Frequently Consumed Foods in a Total Diet Study

The neurotoxic and carcinogenic nature of acrylamide, coupled with the recent emphasis of the “probable carcinogenic” status of acrylamide is a cause for concern requiring further studies. The objective of this study was to determine the carcinogenic and neurotoxic risks associated with the consumption of frequently consumed foods in a Total Diet Study (TDS). From a selection of 80 frequently consumed foods, the acrylamide concentrations in the foods were purified by the QuEChERS method of extraction and purification, and the concentrations of acrylamide were determined using the HPLC. Acrylamide was detected in 82% of all the foods analyzed, and the levels ranged from 1.33×10-3 ± 1.89 to 14.39×10-3 ± 6.33 mg/g. The probabilistic approach was used to model the chronic exposures using the Monte Carlo simulation of the Palisade @Risk software. The mean, 50th and 95th percentile values for acrylamide exposures were in the range of 1.56×10-3 to 1.88×10-2, 3.21×10-4 to 5.85×10-3 and 6.16×10-3 to 8.32×10-2 mg/kg bw/day respectively. The mean and 95th percentile values for the margins of exposure (MOE) for the risk of tumorigenesis and neurotoxicity were below the thresholds, hence posing significant public health concern. Generally, the lifetime cancer risks of male consumers were higher compared to that of the female consumers. The median and 95th percentile consumers presented unacceptable risk, since their lifetime cancer risks were greater than the de minimus (10-6). The elements that imparted the most on the overall lifetime cancer risk of the consumers were the exposure duration and the concentration of acrylamide in the foods. To lower these lifetime cancer risks, mitigation studies can thus, be mounted in order to help lower the concentrations of acrylamide in the foods.

Source: KNUST
Action nominalization: a view from Esahie (Kwa)

The paper provides a comprehensive account of the derivation of action nominals in Esahie, a Ghanaian language of the Tano subgroup (Kwa, Niger-Congo) which has been undocumented thus far, especially as far as morphosyntactic phenomena are concerned. The aim of the research is threefold: to contribute to language documentation, to provide a systematic description and analysis of the morphosyntactic properties of Esahie action nominals, and to offer a typological assessment of these constructions. We argue that action nominalization in Esahie primarily involves a composite strategy: a morpho-syntactic operation, invariably involving affixation, and a concomitant prosodic operation in the form of a change in tonal melody. As far as the derivation of action nominals is concerned, it appears that in Esahie, tone raising is not simply a phonologically-conditioned prosodic effect, but plays a morphemic role. Further, depending on the arity of the base verb, nominalization may or may not be coupled with incorporation of the internal argument, which derives a form of synthetic compounding, as in the English truck-driving type. Based on the seminal works by Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 1993. Nominalizations. London: Routledge; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2006. Nominalizations. In Encyclopedia of language and linguistics, vol. 8, 652–659. Boston: Elsevier, the current work argues that Esahie belongs to the possessive-incorporating subtype of the incorporating languages.

Source: KNUST
An action programme for food crop marketing in Mpohor Wassa East District of Ghana

The importance of agriculture in the development of Ghana as a source of food, employment and incomes for the people is well known. Food production in Ghana is dominated by small or peasant farmers who produce about 80 per cent of the agricultural output. V Small farmers in Mpohor Wassa East District produce food crops both for subsistence and for the market. But these farmers do not have access to markets such that large quantities of the marketable surpluses do not reach the market but are rotten in the rural villages and farms. They live in poverty in the midst of surpluses which could not be sold for income. The study alms at proposing an action programme for improving food crop marketing in the district as an interventionist policy to alleviate poverty. Baseline surveys were carried out in the major food producing areas of the district to ascertain their output levels and marketing functions, using such commodities as cassava, maize, plantain, cocoyam and rice as samples which are the main food crops grown in the area. Five periodic market centres in the district were also surveyed to find out commodity flows, area of influence of the markets, prices, volume of transactions, physical facilities and how buyers and sellers interact in the exchange process. The study revealed that poor transportation system, inadequate storage facilities, limited market outlets, inadequate V finance and poor facilities in the market centres are the major problems of food crop marketing in the district. As a result of these problems, a few buyers visit the rural markets; demand for food crops is low in the district and so are the prices, while post-harvest losses are high. The few urban middlemen that venture into the rural markets make more profits out of the consumer price of food than do the farmers. Farm incomes’ are very low and most farmers could not afford the improved farm inputs to increase agricultural- productivity, hence, crop yields are low. The incentive to produce for the market is therefore being depressed. In this situation, many farmers are poor and their standard of living is low. The study recommends some measures to improve the marketing infrastructure such as road network and vehicular movement, storage and processing facilities and market centres, and the organisation of farmers into co-operatives in order to strengthen their bargaining power with middlemen and enhance the flow of credit to farmers and local food traders. The proposed projects are to be financed by the communities and the District Assembly. A Task Force on Market Development is proposed to oversee the management of programme implementation. The study concludes that measures to reduce rural poverty and ensure food security should focus on small farmer development.

Source: KNUST
Active Role of Stakeholders in the Implementation of Comprehensive Rural Development Programme in South Africa

The Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP) is a national collective action to fight poverty, hunger, unemployment and lack of development in rural areas.This paper seeks to interrogate the programme by using literature on rural development. This is aimed at unpacking the conceptual framework as it is being implemented by the government. Our trajectory is to assess the extent to which stakeholder analysis has informed the conception of the programme. This will help to discover gaps if any, and to proffer possible solutions to the effective participation of all key stakeholders in the implementation of the programme.The programme is a targeted effort by the national government to transform the village into an urban town with major infrastructure and development programmes. It seeks to achieve this through a co-ordinated and integrated broad-based agrarian transformation as well as strategic investment in economic and social infrastructure that will benefit the entire rural communities.

Source: KNUST
Actuarial Applications of Hierarchical Modeling to Health Insurance Claims

This study demonstrates actuarial applications that can be performed on the Health insurance claims in the country. To achieve this, data from the CPC scheme in Accra of the NHIA in the year 2013 was employed for the study. this consisted of facility type, number of claims submitted(in-patient and out-patient) and amount submitted (in-patient,out-patient,drugs and services charges). A hierarchical model allowing for frequency, claim type and severity amount to be jointly modeled was used. Based on this hierarchical model, we proceeded to estimate premium values under various conditions, however due to lack of information from the insurer most of these estimates could not be stated categorically. Applications of the study was also made to the Value-at-Risk theory. This fact not withstanding, a case has been made for the consideration of the hierarchical modeling approach to be considered as the means of analyzing health insurance claims since this model takes into consideration not only the loss (severity) amount submitted but also considers most especially factors integral to the planning and budgeting of the insurer, and these are, the frequency and type of claim. The hierarchical modeling approach thus provided further insight which previously was overlooked.

Source: KNUST
Activities of untrained artists and their effects on advertising in the Kumasi Metropolis.

Art is a necessity in advertising but most Ghanaians do not really appreciate the significance of art in an advertisement. For this reason they use untrained artists for their advertisements, who end up producing poor advertisements. The people within the Kumasi metropolis patronize the services of untrained artists because of low fees. As a result, untrained artists are gradually taking over the advertising industry in Kumasi. In this study, the descriptive method of qualitative study was used to undertake the research. After the research, the researcher found out that the works of untrained artists affect advertising because their works reduce the high standards of advertising. This, however, denies clients from getting the full benefit of advertising. Also, after criticising, appreciating and documenting the works of untrained artists, it was realized that most of their works had poor creative concepts poor layout and illustration. This thesis finally recommends that perodic and less expensive courses and Awards Night should be organised for the untrained artists in Kumasi so that they can learn and be motivatied to produce good advertisement for their clients.

Source: KNUST
Actuarial modeling of health insurance claim reserves using the chainladder

The preparation for outstanding claims is one of the main factors of technical provisions of Insurance company’s liabilities. Minimising the digression of the true amount of reserves from its estimation is one of the major actuarial challenges. Though the NHIA request the use of Chain Ladder method amidst the various actuarial models for reserve, most health insurance companies default in settling their claims on time leading to the pullout of some healthcare service providers in providing services to customers under the defaulters’ schemes. This thesis summarizes the salient techniques typically used for the estimation of outstanding claims reserves in non-life insurance specifically health insurance, including those to estimate the claims development. This research goes for estimation of health claim reserves in Ghana utilizing Inflation-adjusted chain ladder, Mack chain ladder and Bootstrap chain ladder technique. Claim data on Nationwide Medical Insurance Co. Ltd for my examination ranges from January 2008 to December 2017. Results indicate the Inflation-adjusted Chain Ladder had a superior reserve estimate than that of Mack Chain ladder and Bootstrap Chain Ladder methods.

Source: KNUST
The acute toxicity of karate, dursban and actellic to Heterobranchus Bidorsalis (Geoffrey St. Hilaire) Tiliapia Zillii (Gervais), Oreochromis Niloticus (Linn) and Sarotherodon Galilaeus (Artedi)

The acute toxicity of Karate, Dursban and Actellic to Heterobranchus bidorsalis, Tilapia zillii, Oreochromis niloticus and Sarotherodon galilaeus was investigated by the static method for 96 hours. The 96-hour LC50 values obtained for Karate, Dursban and Actellic to Heterobrancbus bidorsalis and Tilapia zillii showed that Karate is the most toxic to the two species of fish. This is followed by Dursban while Actellic is the least toxic. For Oreochromis niloticus, the 96 hour LC50 values obtained indicated that Dursban is more toxic than Karate. The 96 hour LC50 values obtained with Karate to the various fish species showed Heterobranchus bidorsalis to be the least resistant of the four species. Sarotherodon galilaeus came next, followed by Tilapia zillii with Oreochromis niloticus being the most resistant. Actellic was shown to be more toxic to Tilapia zillii than it is to Heterobranchus bidorsalis. For Dursban, Oreochromis niloticus was the least resistant followed by Heterobranchus bidorsalis while Tilapia zillii was the most resistant. The 96-hour LC50 values obtained for the acute toxicity tests for Karate using Heterobranchus bidorsalis, Tilapia zilhii, Oreochromis niloticus and Sarotherodon galilaeus were 0.006±0.001mg/l, 0.020±0.017mg/l, 0.040±0.032mg/l and 0.016±0.008mg/l respectively. For Actellic, the LC50s obtained using Heterobranchus bidorsalis and Tilapia zillii were 1.250±0.833mg/i and 0.700±0.250mg/l respectively. The values obtained for Dursban using Heterobranchus bidorsalis, Tilapia zillii, and Oreochromis niloticus were 0.270±0.l7Omg/l, 0.280±0.088mg/l and 0.040±0.019mg/l respectively. The percentage mortality of the species of fish used was directly proportional to increasing concentration and time. The plot of median mortality times against concentration on a semi- log paper produced curves which were asymptotic to the LC50s of Karate with Tilapia zillii, Dursban with Oreochromis niloticus and Actellic with Heterobranchus bidorsalis. This is an indication that Karate, Dursban and Actellic are not acutely toxic to Tilapia zillii, Oreochromis niloticus and Heterobranchus bidorsalis respectively at infinite dilution.

Source: KNUST
Ada Beach Resort

The need for resort developments in Ghana to help capitalise on the country’s rich tourist product potential has been reiterated over the years. However never has this need been more pressing than now when the nation needs to tap all possible areas of diversification as a result of the growing unreliability other traditional exports. It is in view of this realisation to contribute to the national development that this design thesis is being undertaken. It involves documentation, analysis and synthesis of requisite background information leading to the design of such a facility, the Ada Beach Resort. This was executed through the presentation of a general background of the development and impact of International tourism with emphasis on leisure tourism. An assessment of the history and development of the industry in Ghana relating to its performance and characteristics and market analysis to give an indication of the prospects and potential of such a developments. A comparative study of successfully executed projects in the West African Sub region was also examine to aid in establishing a criteria for the implementation of such a development in Ghana. All this considered with regards to the Government of Ghana’s policy guideline proposals for tourism culminated in a final comprehensive design brief to supplement the original clients brief and the execution of the design.

Source: KNUST