ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Stress and coping mechanisms among workers of the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) Headquarters, in Ghana

Occupational stress is an ever increasing public health hazard and an occupational risk factor. There is a growing concern around the world that, people work harder and longer while injury and illness rates associated with occupational stress continue to grow. The study examined levels of stress and coping mechanisms adopted by workers of the Public Records and Archives Administration Department (PRAAD) at the headquarters in Accra. A sample of 56 out of 59 staff at the PRAAD headquarters in Accra was considered for the study. The standard questionnaire used, was adapted from the works of Barone, Caddy, Katell, Roselione and Hamilton (1988) on stress inventory as well as coping inventory from Folkman and Lazarus (1980). From the study, the older and the young, the married and unmarried and both male and female staff of PRAAD were found to experience almost the same level of stress, but females were better copers of stress than their male counterparts. The study also revealed that the highly educated records staff of PRAAD experienced lower stress levels compared to their counterparts who were not highly educated. Generally, all workers of PRAAD faced some level stress. The study recommended that institutions like PRAAD should endeavor to provide and pursue policies and programmes that eliminate work-induced stress and create conducive environment for employees whilst employees also compliments these by making effort to reduce personal stressors by adopting scientific coping strategies in order to enhance their well being and productivity in the workplace

Source: UG
The Stress Coping Strategies of Lecturers at the University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana

This study examined the types of coping strategies used by the Lecturers at the University of Ghana to reduce the effects of stress they encounter in their work. Four hundred and thirty two lecturers were drawn from Legon and Korle-Bu Campuses of the University of Ghana. The Lecturer Coping Strategies instrument was administered. ANOVA, Independent Sample t tests and Regression Analyses were used to analyze the data. Analyses of the data revealed that the commonly coping strategy among the Lecturers was the cognitive method. It was found that the Senior Lecturers and Professors utilized more coping strategies than the Junior Lecturers. The coping strategies used by all the Lecturers reduced stress by only 8%. The recommendations centred mainly on organizing stress management workshops for the Lecturers.

Source: UG
Stress Testing Exposure of Banks to Sectors of the Ghanaian Economy,

The capacity of Ghanaian banks to absorb large but plausible losses resulting from concentration of individual bank loan portfolios in sectors of the Ghanaian economy is investigated. Stress scenarios consist of worsening of banks’ impaired loan charges by one, two and three standard deviations of the industry’s recent distribution of non-performing loans. Findings reveal that the capital adequacy ratios of many banks would have been negatively impacted, some to the point of becoming insolvent. It is argued that, though these would be micro-prudential breaches, they are of such magnitude as to have economy-wide repercussions. Thus, bank loan portfolios are too concentrated.

Source: UG
Stressors and Coping Strategies: The case of Teacher Education Students at University of Ghana

This research examined the stressors that teacher education students of the University of Ghana usually encounter and the coping stratagems that they frequently embrace. Random sampling technique was employed to select 270 second- and third-year undergraduate students in 2018/2019 academic year to answer a survey questionnaire with closed-ended and open-ended questions. Dental Environmental Stress (DES) questionnaire on stressors was adapted whereas coping stratagems that might be utilised by students to minimise stress was measured using an adapted form of the Brief COPE. The outcomes of the research revealed that ‘working to meet scholastic requirements’, ‘inadequate supply of power and water in halls’, and ‘changes in eating and sleeping habits’, were three major stressors experienced by teacher education students. Furthermore, learners utilised numerous approaches, such as praying or meditating, and self-diverting actions as coping strategies. Learners also used more adaptive coping strategies, than maladaptive and avoidance coping strategies. Overall, resident students were found to be more stressed than non-resident students. Again, this study revealed that resident students are more prayerful and easily get help and advice from lecturers or teaching assistants but deeply averse with substance abuse such as using tobacco/ alcohol/ drug to feel better compared with their non-resident counterparts. It was recommended that the Department of Teacher Education should establish a counselling centre to assign academic counsellors to learners and organise frequent stress management programmes for them.

Source: UG
Stroke genomics in people of African ancestry: Charting new paths

One in six people worldwide will experience a stroke in his/ her lifetime. While people in Africa carry a disproportionately higher burden of poor stroke outcomes, compared to the rest of the world, the exact contribution of genomic factors to this disparity is unknown. Despite noteworthy research into stroke genomics, studies exploring the genetic contribution to stroke among populations of African ancestry in the United States are few. Furthermore, genomics data in populations living in Africa are lacking. The wide genomic variation of African populations offers a unique opportunity to identify genomic variants with causal relationships to stroke across different ethnic groups. The Stroke Investigative Research and Educational Network (SIREN), a component of the Human Health and Heredity in Africa (H3Africa) Consortium, aims to explore genomic and environmental risk factors for stroke in populations of African ancestry in West Africa and the United States. In this article, we review the literature on the genomics of stroke with particular emphasis on populations of African origin.

Source: UG
Stroke in the 2 1 s t Century: A Snapshot of the Burden, Epidemiology, and Quality of Life

Stroke is ranked as the second leading cause of death worldwide with an annual mortality rate of about 5.5 million. Not only does the burden of stroke lie in the high mortality but the high morbidity also results in up to 50% of survivors being chronically disabled. Thus stroke is a disease of immense public health importance with serious economic and social consequences. The public health burden of stroke is set to rise over future decades because of demographic transitions of populations, particularly in developing countries. This paper provides an overview of stroke in the 21st century from a public health perspective. © 2018 Eric S. Donkor.

Source: UG
Stroke Outcome and Determinants among Patients with and without Diabetes in a Tertiary Hospital in Ghana

Background Diabetes mellitus, a well-established independent risk factor for stroke, has varied association with stroke outcome from previous studies. This study investigated stroke outcome and determinants among patients with and without diabetes in a tertiary hospital in Ghana. Methods A prospective study conducted among stroke patients with and without diabetes admitted in a Ghanaian tertiary hospital. Baseline clinical and biochemical data were documented. Functional stroke outcome was evaluated at 1, 3, and 6 months after stroke using the modified Rankin Scale. Results Number of participants enrolled were 326 and 105 (32.20%) had diabetes. Higher proportions of diabetes patients had poor functional stroke outcome at 1, 3, and 6 months (79%, 75.23%, 73.33%) compared with those without diabetes (70.13%, 65.16, 61.99) (p>0.05). Stroke patients with diabetes had lower survival compared with those without diabetes (p=0.0745). Mortality at 6 months was more likely among ischaemic stroke patients with diabetes compared with those without diabetes (Odds Ratio 2.037; CI: 1.058-3.923). Determinants of poor functional stroke outcome for diabetes patients were older age (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR)-1.07; CI-1.03-1.12), female gender (AOR-3.74; CI-1.26-12.65), and pneumonia (AOR-11.32; CI-1.93-220.05) whereas the determinants for those without diabetes were unemployment (AOR-4.19; CI-1.24-19.50), speech abnormalities (AOR-1.99; CI1.08-3.73), and pneumonia (AOR-4.05; CI-1.83-9.77). High fasting plasma glucose (HR-1.15; CI-1.07-1.23), elevated temperature (HR-1.41; CI-1.11-1.79), and pneumonia (HR-2.25; CI-1.44-3.50) were determinants of low survival among all stroke patients. Conclusion Trends towards poorer functional outcome and reduced survival were found among Ghanaian stroke patients with diabetes compared with those without diabetes. Older age, female gender, pneumonia, elevated temperature, and fasting plasma glucose were determinants of adverse outcome in stroke patients with diabetes.

Source: UG
A structural analysis of personal names in Kusaal

New names are created on daily bases but old names never change in form. Thus, names offer a window where the archaic linguistics structure of a language can be traced. This study explores the grammatical structure of personal names in Kusaal by focusing on their phonology, morphonology and syntax. Phonologically, the paper explores the phonotactics of personal names; morphologically, it discusses the various morphemes that constitute this category of names, and syntactically, it analyses the rules that underlie the con struction of personal names that are phrases, clauses and sentences. The meaning of personal names in Kusaal have been discussed extensively in previous studies for which reason minimal attention is dedicated to it in the current work. The findings show that personal names in Kusaal conform to almost all the structural rules of the language. They occupy specific positions in the noun phrase and in the sentence; they are neutral to syntactic features such as definiteness and plurality. Personal names also take prefixes and affixes and can be compound words. There are instances where insertions and deletions are observed in the compound formation of personal names in the language. The study uses the Basic Linguistics Theory for its descriptive analysis of personal names. Both pri mary and secondary data are used in this study

Source: UG
Structural and Electronic properties of PVK/C60 Nanoheterostructure interfaces- A DFT Approach

This work seeks to investigate total-energy electronic structure calculation based on density functional theory in the framework of both local density approximations (LDA) and generalized gradient approximation using Perdew, Burke and Ernzerhof (GGA-PBE) form of exchange-correlation with Grimme van der Waals (vdW) correction. Structural and electronic properties as well as density of states of the new class of poly(9-vinylcarbazole)/ C60 (PVK/C60) nanoheterostructures were explored. Three different structural PVK/C60 models were examined and were found to exhibit direct semiconducting behavior base on the two exchange-correlation functionals used, (GGA-PBE & LDA-PZ). The band-gaps calculated with the GGA pseudopotential are 1.276, 1.117 and 0.893 eV, whereas that of the LDA pseudopotentials are, 1.198, 1.010 and 0.749 eV respectively on the three different structural PVK/C60 models. We noted that these bandgaps of the nanoheterostructures can be deliberately tuned leading to promising potential applications in optoelectronics, biomechanics, nanoelectronics, nanoelectro mechanical systems (NEMS), spintronics, opto-electronics and photonic devices manufacturing industry. The calculated structural lattice parameters are in excellent agreement with available experimental data

Source: UG
Structural Change and Welfare: A Micro Panel Data Evidence from Ghana

Ghana is an example of a developing economy where both output and employment have shifted from agriculture to services and where structural change has not followed the standard pattern observed for many industrialised countries. However, there appears to be a limited understanding of what this changing structure means for poverty reduction and welfare for Ghana, with previous studies focusing mainly on the growth effect of structural change. This article interrogates the welfare effects of cross-sector labour movements in Ghana using the first two waves of the Ghana Socio-economic Panel Surveys. Our results show that labour movements from agriculture to services improve welfare while a move from services to agriculture decreases welfare. We also find that women and younger people are more likely to undertake the welfare-enhancing move, from agriculture to services, than men and older people respectively. On the other hand, we find that men, older people and individuals with relatively high-risk profile are more likely to move from services to agriculture. These findings support the view that structural change in Ghana have played a significant role in Ghana’s poverty reduction achievements in the last three decades.

Source: UG
Structural Effect of Conductive Carbons on the Adhesion and Electrochemical Behavior of LiNi0.4Mn0.4Co0.2O2 Cathode for Lithium Ion Batteries

The adhesion strength as well as the electrochemical properties of LiNi Mn Co O electrodes containing various conductive carbons (CC) such as fiber-like carbon, vapor-grown carbon fiber, carbon nanotubes, particle-like carbon, Super P, and Ketjen black is compared. The morphological properties is investigated using scanning electron micro- scope to reveal the interaction between the different CC and the active material. The surface and interfacial cutting analysis system is also used to measure the adhesion strength between the aluminum current collector and the com- posite film, and the adhesion strength between the active material and the CC of the electrodes. The results obtained from the measured adhesion strength points to the fact that the structure and the particle size of CC additives have tremendous influence on the binding property of the composite electrodes, and this in turn affects the electrochemical property of the configured electrodes.

Source: UG
Structural equation modeling of pedestrian behavior at footbridges in Ghana

This study was undertaken to fill the information gap by exploring pedestrian behavior at footbridges in the Greater Accra and Kumasi Metropolitan areas of Ghana. Further, the study modelled the behavior of 69,840 pedestrians at the footbridges using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Pedestrians were observed as users and non-users of seven selected footbridges in the morning (7:00 a.m.–9:00 a.m.), afternoon (11:00 a.m.–1:00 am–1:00pm) and evening (3:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.) periods for seven consecutive days (Monday to Sunday). Selected footbridges were characterized by traffic generators such as schools, shopping malls, bus stops, office complexes, and restaurants in different matrices. The results showed that 30.7% of the observed pedestrians did not use the footbridges, males and young pedestrians were more likely not to use the footbridges as opposed to females and the elderly, with more than half of observed pedestrians carrying luggage or loads. Footbridge users were more likely to talk and hold phones than non-users and the elderly were more likely to run and ride compared to young pedestrians. Officials of the National Road Safety Authority should carry out effective public education on pedestrian safety targeting males and young pedestrians to encourage the use of pedestrian footbridges.

Source: UG
The structure of labour market and demand for hired labour for oil palm production in the Western Region of Ghana

The study uses cross sectional data from randomly selected oil palm famers to describe the structure of the labour market and estimate the factors which influence oil palm farmers’ demand for hired labour in the Western Region. Descriptive statistics and the ordinary least square regression techniques have been applied in the analysis. The results suggest that the structure of la-bour for oil palm production typifies a small-scale agricultural production, with some farmers using contract labour (14 percent), salaried labour (11 percent) and fertilizer (30 percent) in production. The estimated regression results show that the value of investment in other inputs (e.g. fertilizer), village wage rate, size of oil palm farm and higher educational attainment have significant and positive influences on oil palm farmers’ demand for hired labour. The distance of the farm from home has a negative and significant influence. The estimated hired labour demand elasticities for farm size, value of other inputs, village wage rate and distance are inelastic. It is noted that issues on labour requirement of farmers should be based on economic considerations such as the structure of labour of the farmers, farm size, village wage rate and cost of other productive inputs. For oil palm production, carrying of fresh fruit bunches and slashing are two main activities that could be mechanized, but may lead to retrenchment of female and male hired labour, respectively.

Source: UG
Structure and diffuseness model of solid-liquid interface for binary alloys

Using the morphological instability at the solid–liquid interface as a basis by the maximum entropy production rate principle (MEPR), a model is presented on the morphological structure and diffuseness of the interface during directional solidification of binary alloys. It is shown that, the independent diffuseness theory of Cahn and the Jackson roughness criterion can be unified at a limiting condition under this new MEPR solidification model. The model under the principle of MEPR is applied to describe the evolution of atomistically smooth and rough interfaces through the evaluation of the size of the solid–liquid interface and the of number atomic layers. The model is tested with data for binary alloys of aluminium, lead, and tin at varying solute concentrations. The results showed strong agreement with available data from experimental measurements.

Source: UG
Structure-activity relationships for the inhibition of recombinant human cytochromes P450 by curcumin analogues

The Clinical Pathology Department conducts research that contributes to intervention strategies and safeguards of public health in Ghana. In view of this the Department carries out research into plant medicine development, drug interactions and regulation, bio-monitoring and prevention of poisoning from environmental toxicants (e.g. mycotoxins specifically aflatoxins and toxic heavy metals). The Department also provides specialized laboratory services in support of public health programmes.

Source: UG
Structure-activity studies: In vitro antileishmanial and antimalarial activities of anthraquinones from morinda lucida.

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
Structure-Based Design of Potential anti-Dengue Compounds against the Envelope Glycoprotein of Dengue 2 Virus

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
Structure-Based Identification of Natural-Product-Derived Compounds with Potential to Inhibit HIV-1 Entry

Broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) are potent in neutralizing a wide range of HIV strains. VRC01 is a CD4-binding-site (CD4-bs) class of bNAbs that binds to the conserved CD4- binding region of HIV-1 envelope (env) protein. Natural products that mimic VRC01 bNAbs by interacting with the conserved CD4-binding regions may serve as a new generation of HIV-1 en try inhibitors by being broadly reactive and potently neutralizing. This study aimed to identify compounds that mimic VRC01 by interacting with the CD4-bs of HIV-1 gp120 and thereby inhibit ing viral entry into target cells. Libraries of purchasable natural products were virtually screened against clade A/E recombinant 93TH057 (PDB: 3NGB) and clade B (PDB ID: 3J70) HIV-1 env protein. Protein–ligand interaction profiling from molecular docking and dynamics simulations showed that the compounds had intermolecular hydrogen and hydrophobic interactions with conserved amino acid residues on the CD4-binding site of recombinant clade A/E and clade B HIV-1 gp120. Four potential lead compounds, NP-005114, NP-008297, NP-007422, and NP-007382, were used for cell-based antiviral infectivity inhibition assay using clade B (HXB2) env pseudotype virus (PV). The four compounds inhibited the entry of HIV HXB2 pseudotype viruses into target cells at 50% inhibitory concentrations (IC50) of 15.2 µM (9.7 µg/mL), 10.1 µM (7.5 µg/mL), 16.2 µM (12.7 µg/mL), and 21.6 µM (12.9 µg/mL), respectively. The interaction of these compounds with critical residues of the CD4-binding site of more than one clade of HIV gp120 and inhibition of HIV-1 entry into the target cell demonstrate the possibility of a new class of HIV entry inhibitors.

Source: UG
Structure-Guided Identification of a Family of Dual Receptor-Binding PfEMP1 that Is Associated with Cerebral Malaria

The Department of Immunology conducts research in the field of immunology of infectious and non-infectious diseases. The Department has the overall goal of contributing knowledge to better diagnosis, management, control and prevention of infectious and non-infectious diseases in Ghana and worldwide. This is consistent with the overall strategy of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) and in line with the strategy of the College of Health Sciences of the University of Ghana.

Source: UG
Structured diabetes self- management education and glycaemic control in low- and middle- income countries: A systematic review

Aim: To determine the association between structured diabetes self- management education (DSME) and glycaemic control in persons living with diabetes (PLD) in low- and middle- income countries (LMICs).Methods: PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases were searched up to June 2020 for intervention studies on the effect of structured DSME on glycaemic con-trol in PLD in LMICs (PROSPERO registration CRD42020164857). The primary outcome was reduction in glycated haemoglobin. Included studies were assessed for risk of bias (RoB) with the Cochrane RoB tool for randomised trials. Findings were summarized in a narrative synthesis.Results: Out of 154 abstracts retrieved and screened for eligibility, nine stud-ies with a total of 1389 participants were included in the review. The structured DSME interventions were culturally tailored and were delivered in- person. They were associated with reductions in glycated haemoglobin in all studies: mean/median reduction ranged between 0.5% and 2.6% relative to baseline.Conclusions: There is a dearth of literature on the association between struc-tured DSME and glycaemic control among PLD in LMICs. The evidence available suggests that in LMICs; particularly in sub- Saharan Africa, structured DSME is associated with reduction in glycated haemoglobin. We recommend further in-tervention studies on the effects of structured DSME in LMICs.

Source: UG