ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Extreme Value Theory Of Flood Losses

levels for the next 50,60 and 60 observations return levels were estimated and for the next 2 Extreme value theory is used in recent times in most risk management fields for large risks and predictions so as to prepare sufficiently for these losses. This thesis provides an overview of the theory as a method for modelling and measuring extreme risks. There are two main models of extreme value theory. The older Block Maxima method and the more recent Peaks Over Threshold. The Peaks Over Threshold method is favoured over the older Block Maxima method because it provides a simpler tool for estimating tail risks and uses data more efficiently considering the rarity of extreme data. Two types of data sets were used. One is a simulated flood insurance claim data and the other being losses due to flooding in the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly. The method of maximum likelihood is used to estimate the shape and scale parameters of the generalized pareto distribution, which is a natural model for the excess distribution over a high threshold. The mean residual life plot is employed and used along with the quantile-quantile plots to aid in the selection of threshold. Two risk measures required from the objectives of the study were estimated as well as the return levels and return periods of the extremes. For the simulated insurance claim data, the value at risk results obtained at the 95th and 99th quatiles were GHC58,33.40 and GHC88,270.7 respectively, while results were also obtained for the flood losses data. The expected shortfalls for the corresponding value at risks were also obtained. The return levels obtained from the data included m-observation return levels and n-year return levels. Only m-observation was obtained for the simulated data because it was not simulated in yearly sets. For the next 500, 600 and 700, the return levels were GHC159,477.02, GHC172,149.37 and GHC183,878.28 respectively. Similarly for the flood losses data which were recorded on yearly basis, return,3 and 4 years, expected return levels were GHC1,438,058.75 GHC1,891,37065 and GHC2,285,39.43 respectively. The theory proved to be a good model for the measurement of extremes in insurance and other areas.

Source: KNUST
Fabric as Spatial Metaphor

How is space conceived of? Where does spatiality reside? While some think space as a void, others think it as a product, still, others think it as a process of inhabiting location. Fabric as Spatial Metaphor is a studio-based research which investigates spatiality. It explored process and entity involving spatial subjectivization. The enquiry is made with the assumption that spatiality is embedded in the social fabric of life. Referencing thinkers such as Lacan, Kristeva, Lefebvre, Yi Fu Tuan and Rogoff, spatialization is understood here neither as static nor passive but as active where the human subject is interfaced with, penetrates or radicalizes an already named or emplaced location. In this research, the relationship between fabric and space is contextualized through an analysis of fabric and fibre works which are posited as analogues of space, spatiality and subjectivization. Works of Yinka Shonibare, El Anatsui, Shawn Major, Lucy Orta, Kosuke Tsumura and Lei Yan among others are examined and discussed in the context of spatial subjectivity and how it has been investigated artistically. A look is re-taken at everyday occurrences and situations; my Ghanaian and feminine social space and its content and what meaning could be made of the ordinary become my interrogated terrain. This should inform the way spatiality becomes encoded subjectively. Drawing an analogy between fabric and space, a body of works is raised to articulate this concept of spatial subjectivity. Using both conventional and non-conventional sculptural processes, the following conceptual works were created, installed and exhibited; Weaving the Woven, Warrior, Palace, In the nest1and 2, Security1and 2, Transparency, Dreaming Is A map, Inside Out and Seat of Life or Sweet Pain Space. These works express various aspects of the self that come to give form to particular spaces thereby complementing the argument that spatiality reside within subjectivity.

Source: KNUST
Fabrication of knock- down sheetmetal stool (Dadesen)

Basically, there exists several sculpture works that have been executed in sheet metal by both the sculptors of the past and there is none readily available in the form of knockdown, sheet metal stool, which can be dismantled and re-assembled for use. The researcher sought to design and construct stools made in galvanized sheet metal known in the Ga language as “Dadesen” through welding to achieve knockdown forms. The researcher’s interest in sheet metal arose as a result of his search for an alternative material, apart from wood in fabricating the stool that would reflect traditional and indigenous African design by adapting ethnographical totemic themes and using contemporary technique and industrial technology in the execution of the work.

Source: KNUST
Fabrication of Terracotta Floor-Tiles Using Local Raw Materials

The production of floor tiles has been a very lucrative venture and a major foreign exchange earner to countries like China, Spain, Italy, Mexico etc. The cost of floor tiles as at 2005 was between $150 and $200 per square metre. It therefore baffles the researcher why the production of the ware in the region and for that matter Ghana seems a hidden venture. The West African examination council has not for a long time set questions on tiles although the curriculum and syllabus makes provision for tile production. Organisations and researchers throughout the region have turned their attention to the production of bricks and sparsely roofing tiles ignoring the most lucrative venture of the Brick and tile industry which are floor and wall tiles. The teaching of the topic in question has also been ignored by teacher in the second cycle and tertiary institutions. Since it is a lucrative venture the promotion of the industry is very eminent for the economic and the social development of a country like Ghana especially the Apinkra community where there is no means of income except farming but have the request raw material base (clay deposite) for the production of floor tiles. The industry when given the needed attention will afford school dropouts a meaningful source of income and expand the scoop of studio production. The survey carried out experiments on Apinkra and Mfensi together others like Fomena, Afari Dekyemso clay etc, with the objective of exploring the factors will enhance the production floor tiles. The researcher finally settled at Apinkra and Mfensi clays. The project was completed with the construction of a tile pressing mechanism all aiming at enhancing and promoting the production of terracotta tile manufacturing in Ghana the study recommends the government as well as other allied institutions should help in the promotion of floor tiles in the region with reference to Apinkra community The Ministry of Education should help facilitate the teaching and learning tile production in the country. This can be done by given in-service training to teachers, regularly setting question on the topic, making strong emphasis in the syllabi and providing facilities for the production of the ware, By the end of the project it is hope that the study will rouse the interest of tile producers in Ghana and thereby seek to the local industry. Finally, it must be re-emphasis that the production of floor tiles has a great economic significance. This will resuscitate employment which should not be down played by developing countries like Ghana.

Source: KNUST
Face Recognition using Principal Component Analysis

Face Recognition is the process of identification of a person by their facial image. This technique makes it possible to use the facial images of a person to authenticate him into a secure system, for criminal identification, for passport verification, surveillance, etc... Face recognition is a popular research area where there are different approaches studied in literature. In this thesis, a holistic Principal Component Analysis (PCA) based method, namely Eigenface method is studied and implemented on the Faces 94 database. This approach treats face recognition as a two-dimensional recognition problem. Face images are projected onto a face space that encodes best variation among known face images. The face space is defined by eigenface which are eigenvectors of the set of faces, which may not correspond to general facial features such as eyes, nose, and lips. Face will be categorized as known or unknown face after matching with the present database. Experimental results in this thesis showed that an accuracy of 98.8158% was achieved. The variable reducing theory of PCA accounts for the smaller face space than the training set of face.

Source: KNUST
Facility Location Selection Using AHP/PROMETHEE II Ranking Method

Facility location selection is the determination of a strategic site for institution operations. The facility location decision involves institutions seeking to locate, relocate or expand their operations. The facility location decision process encompasses the identification, analysis, evaluation and selection among alternatives with respect to criteria Selecting the best location among many alternatives is a Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) problem. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate the implementation of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)/Preference Ranking Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) II ranking method for selecting the most suitable location for the financial institution in Obuasi Municipality. The related problem includes five possible alternatives and five criteria to evaluate them. The AHP is used to analyze the structure of the facility location selection problem and to determine weights of the criteria and the alternatives, and PROMETHEE II ranking method was finally used to obtain the complete ranking. The location with the highest score is suggested as the best strategic site for the facility to be located. In accordance with the results generated by the proposed method, A5 has the highest net outranking flow, followed by A3, A4, A2 and the last rank is A1. Therefore, A5 is the best alternative for the facility to be located.

Source: KNUST
Factor affecting cost of road construction in Ghana

Road construction projects are essential to the social and economic development of Ghana, but one major challenge to road construction projects in Ghana is cost. There are factors that affects the cost of road construction in Ghana. The aim of the study is to find out the factors affecting cost of road construction in Ghana and propose possible solutions to how road construction cost can be reduced. The objectives were to identify, the relative importance of the factors affecting the cost of road construction, the severity of the factors leading to high cost of road construction in Ghana, and the possible measures to minimizing road construction cost in Ghana. Structured questionnaire survey was deployed for this study, whiles purposive sampling technique was used in selecting respondents. Relative importance index and mean score ranking were the tools used in the analysis of this study. The study identified bureaucracy in tendering methods, delay in construction, political interference, price fluctuation, delays in monthly payments, material cost and fraudulent practises and kickbacks as severe causes of road construction cost in Ghana. The study further identified delays in construction, delays in monthly payments, bureaucracy in tendering methods, political interference, poor financial control on site, price fluctuations and variations as the most important factors affecting the cost of road construction in Ghana. The study concluded on the following as the most effective ways of minimizing road construction cost in Ghana as managerial measures in the form of securing adequate source of funds, good project management practices, proper inventory and feasibility studies, efficient time management through proper resource planning, duration estimation and schedule development and control, demonstrate adequate knowledge in road construction, and hire the services of experience and qualified personnel.

Source: KNUST
“Factor affecting cost of road construction in Ghana”

Road construction projects are essential to the social and economic development of Ghana, but one major challenge to road construction projects in Ghana is cost. There are factors that affects the cost of road construction in Ghana. The aim of the study is to find out the factors affecting cost of road construction in Ghana and propose possible solutions to how road construction cost can be reduced. The objectives were to identify, the relative importance of the factors affecting the cost of road construction, the severity of the factors leading to high cost of road construction in Ghana, and the possible measures to minimizing road construction cost in Ghana. Structured questionnaire survey was deployed for this study, whiles purposive sampling technique was used in selecting respondents. Relative importance index and mean score ranking were the tools used in the analysis of this study. The study identified bureaucracy in tendering methods, delay in construction, political interference, price fluctuation, delays in monthly payments, material cost and fraudulent practises and kickbacks as severe causes of road construction cost in Ghana. The study further identified delays in construction, delays in monthly payments, bureaucracy in tendering methods, political interference, poor financial control on site, price fluctuations and variations as the most important factors affecting the cost of road construction in Ghana. The study concluded on the following as the most effective ways of minimizing road construction cost in Ghana as managerial measures in the form of securing adequate source of funds, good project management practices, proper inventory and feasibility studies, efficient time management through proper resource planning, duration estimation and schedule development and control, demonstrate adequate knowledge in road construction, and hire the services of experience and qualified personnel.

Source: KNUST
Factor analysis of tree distribution patterns of six forest reserves in Ashanti Region.

This study demonstrates aspects of three recognized principles, which are important in phytosociological interpretations using multivariate analysis techniques. First, when a restricted geographic area is analyzed (Ashanti region, in this case), species with different total ranges may be correlated. Secondly, when the utilized data are on a relatively course scale, microhabitat preferences are not reflected in the plant association found. Third, species may have different ecological characteristics in different portion of their range. In view of this, factor analysis was used to elucidate general distribution patterns for hundred tree species and some environmental variables for six of the selected forest reserves in the ecological zone of Ashanti Region. The three factors combined various tree species and environmental variables into groups and reflect general patterns that were meaningful in relation to the ecological characteristics of the various plants included. The general factors group together species from six forest reserves in Ashanti Region namely Onyimsu forest reserve, Bobiri forest reserve, Mirasa Hills, Prakaw forest reserve, Pra Anum forest reserve and Onuem Bepo forest reserve. Each of the three factors indicates a group of species and/or environmental variables which is superficially explained first by distribution and then by environmental variability, past history, competitive ability and habitat preference. There are a number of tree species that do not fit into these general patterns, but instead show independent patterns of distribution. The species positively associated with factor I are all characteristics of Onyimsu and Bobiri forest. Factor I loadings were influenced by considering distributions only for a relatively small area in contrast to conducting the analysis on all the reserves in Ghana. Factor III is the most clearly defined of all the factors. The environmental variables with the highest correlations are useful descriptors in differentiating the Onuem Bepo forest from the others. There are other variables with higher loadings than rainfall variables in factor II and factor III and also a temperature variable shows a higher correlation than rainfall variable. This does not mean that precipitation (rainfall) is not important, but suggests that it alone may have less effect than other variables. Moisture directly available to tree species is of course, governed by other environmental variables such as topographic relief and the water retaining characteristics of soils in a particular area.

Source: KNUST
Fabrication of the portrait of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah using aluminium welding, chasing and repoussé techniques

Aluminium welding is not usually practised by artists in the fabrication of photorealistic portraits. The commonest technique that is used by artists in Ghana is the clay and cement model which can further be used to create a cast resin or metal. The researcher investigated the most used material and technique for creating realistic busts. The pros and cons of materials and technique was analysed in comparison to aluminium forming and welding. The penultimate aim of this exercise was the production of a portrait of Ghana’s first president and freedom activist Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. This portrait was made entirely of shaped and formed aluminium, joined by using the aluminium welding technique. The whole metal bust was formed by embossing, chasing and repoussé. The study discovered the usefulness of laser cutting machine and the urgent need for such equipment at the Metals Section for cutting intricate designs and large scale designs which cannot be cut using the jewellers’ saw frame. The successful execution of this project, has established the fact that aluminium welding technique can also be used to produce representation of a figure aside the usual materials such as clay and cement used by local artist.

Source: KNUST
Factorial Design and Model for the effect of National Road Safety Strategy Two (NRSS II): A Case Study in the Northern and Ashanti Regions

The purpose of this study is to use factorial design to investigate the effect of the second National Road Safety Strategy (NRSS II) in the reduction of Road Traffic Accident (RTA), and also find a model for adequate description of the various observations in the data for the number of RTA recorded by Motor Traffic and Transport Unit (M.T.T.U) of the Ghana Police Service. Two-factor factorial design with mixed factors ( with region as the random factor and accident nature as the fixed factor) was used for the presentation and analysis of the data of the yearly number of RTA for the period 2006-2009 recorded by the regional branches of M.T.T.U in the Northern and Ashanti regions of Ghana. It resulted that the campaign on the NRSS II helped in the reduction of the seriousness of RTA. Also, a mixed-effect model was found be adequate in the description of the various observations in the data for the number of RTA as about 92.91% of the variability in the number of RTA is explained by the region, accident nature and the region-accident nature interaction.

Source: KNUST
Factors accounting for the low participation in voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) programme among the youth in the Ablekuma sub- metro in the Accra Metropolis

The need for VCT is increasingly compelling as HIV infection rates continue to rise and countries recognize the need for their youth to know their HIV status as an important preventive tool. The main objective for the study is to determine factors that account for the low participation in VCT programmes among the youth of Ablekuma Sub -Metro. This is a descriptive cross sectional study which sought to assess low utilization of VCT among the youth. The study adopted both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection using a structured questionnaire, interview guide, checklist and focus group discussion (FGD) guide respectively. The study was conducted in one JSS, three SSS, selected auto mechanic and dress makers’ shops as well as selected VCT sites in the Accra Metropolis. S ample size was calculated using a single population sample mean formula to obtain 100 respondents. 16 service providers were selected based on convenience while 10 youths were selected purposely for their inclusion in the exit interview. Survey data was entered using Access and analyzed with STATA. The results indicate that knowledge and awareness of VCT among the survey respondents was very low (34%) even though a majority had heard of VCT. However, more than half of the respondents (59%) were sexually active but a very small percentage (17%) perceived themselves to be at risk of HIV infection. Condom use among sexually active youth was generally low (26%). Meanwhile a majority of exit interview respondents rated counseling as being adequate. On the contrary, most service providers felt there was the need to upgrade their knowledge to ensure friendly services. Besides, most survey respondents prefer strict confidentiality and privacy at VCT sites. Also, both staff and site should be youth friendly. Even though a majority of respondents (74%) wanted to be screened and tested for HIV/AIDS, only a few (6%) have actually been screened and tested for HIV. Even though, few survey respondents have full knowledge of VCT, a majority of youth were aware of some benefits of VCT to the youth. Finally, the major barriers that were identified in the study were mainly stigma; lack of knowledge about availability of VCT service, youth concerns about confidentiality, financial constraints and service providers not being sympathetic towards the youth. In conclusion, there is the need for a comprehensive counseling and education on VCT services in Ablekuma to motivate more youth to seek VCT to help normalize HIV/AIDS, thereby reducing the stigma attached to the infection. It is recommended that school health programmes should incorporate VCT and related issues into basic and secondary school curricula as well as the curricula for all trade and artisan training programmes.

Source: KNUST