ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Signatures of competition and strain structure within the major blood-stage antigen of Plasmodium falciparum in a local community in Ghana

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
Significance of beliefs and values in predicting fertility and contraceptive behaviour in Pakistan

A comparative study of 1100 women aged 25-45 years, users and non-users of modern methods of contraception, in the urban centres of Lahore and Faisalabad was conducted in 1991. The objective of the study was to investigate reproductive behaviour and the extent to which social, cultural and attitudinal variables, such as beliefs and values about family life, religiosity and fatalism, influence the fertility decision-making process. Preferences for smaller families were found to be consistently associated with modern attitudes and behaviour towards family and religious values and obligations. Family income, husband's occupation and religiosity offered no explanation of reproductive behaviour. It is concluded that cultural setting and tradition exert an important influence on reproductive behaviour, independent of economic development. PIP: A comparative study was carried out to assess the effects of variables on fertility preferences. The variables were: (a) socioeconomic and demographic, (b) intermediate (beliefs and values), and (c) contraceptive use and fertility preferences (dependent variables). Two groups of women, users and nonusers of modern contraception (n = 1100), were selected from the cities of Lahore and Faisalabad, Pakistan. The user group consisted of fecund women aged 25 years with at least two living children, using any method of contraception (excluding sterilization) and living with their husbands. The nonuser group was matched for age, parity, and residence, but they were not using any method of contraception. A multistage cluster sampling design was used. Factor analysis of the indicators of value of son, family orientation, religiosity, conservatism, and fatalism showed that they explained 54.8% of the total variance. The beliefs and values indicator represented mainly the factor value of a son, which accounted for 22.9% of the total variance. For the bivariate analysis, the predictor variable categories of low, medium, and high indicated movement from traditional to modern attitudes regarding family values. Among women who preferred a very large family, 79% scored low on the family orientation variable whereas only 19% scored high. Women who were modern in outlook were more likely to accept small families and practice contraception than women who were conservative. There were more women who scored low on the conservatism index and preferred a very large family (72%) than women who had the same fertility preference and achieved a high score (46%). Focus group discussions showed that son preference plays a crucial role in determining family size. 44% of users as compared to 67% of nonusers had low scores on the fatalism index. The persistence of values, norms, and traditions unfavorable to family limitation and small family norms is the explanation for high fertility and low contraceptive use in Pakistan.

Source: UG
Significance of borderline nuclear abnormality in cervical smears.

Women with cervical smears showing borderline nuclear abnormality (BNA), or reactive changes in the form of squamous metaplasia (SM) or endocervical cell hyperplasia (ECH), were age-matched with healthy controls to determine the outcome of these conditions. No significant difference in the risk of dyskaryosis was observed in cases showing reactive changes and the controls. In contrast, there was a 23% excess of cases showing dyskaryosis in the repeat smears of cases of BNA over the controls. An odds ratio of 8.3 was obtained, showing dyskaryosis insubsequent smears after a diagnosis of BNA.

Source: UG
Significance of determining the point of reperfusion failure in experimental torsion of testis

Background: Experimental studies of the use of free radical scavengers in ischemic/reperfusion (I/R) injury following detorsion of the torted testis have yielded conflicting results due to differences in the period of ischemia used. The authors studied I/R injury in the rabbit model, to define the point beyond which there is reperfusion failure. Methods: Ischemia/reperfusion injury of the testis was created in 3-6-month-old male New Zealand white rabbits by cross-clamping the left spermatic cord for periods of ischemia lasting 0, 15, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 min. There were eight animals per experimental group. The right testis served as internal control. Both testes were harvested after 24 h of reperfusion in four animals and after 3 months in the remaining four animals for each group. Testicular malondialdehyde (MDA), a measure of free radical damage, was determined by using the thiobarbituric acid reaction on testicular homogenates. Johnsen score was used to assess morphological damage caused by the ischemia. Results: After 24 h of reperfusion, the mean testicular MDA in the control right testes at 0, 15, 30, 60, 90, 120 and 180 min was 2.1, 2.5, 2.9, 2.4, 2.1 and 1.9 nmol/mg protein, respectively. The mean left testicular MDA at corresponding ischemic periods was 1.6,2.0,3.9, 10.0,4.4,6.1 and 1.0 nmol/ mg protein, respectively. The maximum left testicular MDA was at 60 min (10.0 nmol/mg protein), following which the level dropped significantly to 1.0 nmol/mg protein at 180 min. At 3 months, the mean Johnsen scores for left testes subjected to 0, 60, 120 and 180 min ischemia were 9.4, 8.8, 2.3, 3.5, respectively. Conclusion: The results suggest that following ischemia of up to 60 min in the rabbit testis, adequate reperfusion is possible, but ischemia lasting beyond 60 min results in inadequate reperfusion leading to irreversible damage. Thus, in experiments for assessing the effect of antioxidants on I/R injury of the testis in rabbits, periods up to 60 min of ischemia should be regarded as optimum to observe an effect.

Source: UG
The significance of human respiratory syncytial virus (HRSV) in children from Ghana with acute lower respiratory tract infection: A molecular epidemiological analysis, 2006 and 2013-2014

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
Significance of regolith mapping and its implication for gold exploration in northern Ghana: A case study at Tinga and Kunche

The complex regolith in the savanna belts of northern Ghana is believed to be a major cause of the failure of gold exploration in the area. The present study highlights the integration of field regolith mapping, pitting and trenching in the classification of regolith and its significance to gold exploration at Tinga and Kunche in northern Ghana. These two areas are underlain by Birimian greenstones but have not seen any gold production apart from the reported gold occurrences known to be associated with the metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks in the area. The importance of understanding the regolith, the landscape, and the sampling medium has not been seriously considered in past exploration programmes. The classification of the regolith regimes into ferruginous, relict, erosional and depositional regimes in the two study areas aided in determining the differences in the soil profiles, the source of the regolith materials and nature of weathering. For relict and erosional regimes, optimum depth of sampling was established to be between 0.2 and 0.4 m. However, for depositional regimes, because of the variable overburden thickness, the base of the transported materials was sampled. The pits and trenches dug also contributed in identifying the in-situ and transported regolith. The study shows that, in savanna areas of northern Ghana, relict regimes generally have preserved laterite profiles whereas the ferruginous, erosional and depositional regimes are associated with landscape modifications. © 2009 AAG/Geological Society of London.

Source: UG
The Significance of Technology for Organizational Culture in Ghana

Technology has become the byword in the era of globalization. It can be attested of in various aspects of life as we know it. In Ghana, however, most especially in the business world, the use of technology has been cited as a phenomenon to be feared as, according to the understanding of most workers in this field, that, the entrance of technology into an organization is most often than not, a way for organizations to purge themselves of mostly the older generations in the working sector. There is also that apprehension for certain levels of technology by organizations in the country who strive to stay authentically Ghanaian. This research examines these modes of technology and the cultures of various organizations to point out the significance of technologies in the promotion of cultures by proving the hypothesis that technology adaptation to the culture of organizations is more effective as compared to indigenous Ghanaian organizations. This research focused primarily on organizations in Ghana with international presence to ascertain how their adaptation of technology to their culture aids in the promotion of their services, using both primary and secondary data to investigate concepts and theories to determine how best certain methods can be adopted by our growing Ghanaian organizations. A major finding of the study was that technology appears to be greatly embraced in the current Ghanaian business sector and thus has increased the level of standard for start-up organizations in the country over the years. Another finding was that the adaptation of technology to the culture of organizations is more useful to international organizations with subsidiaries in Ghana as compared to indigenous Ghanaian organizations. Arising from this is the contribution made that without technology, organizations would have to face collapse or ineffectiveness in the production of their goods and services with no hope of ever entering the international setting with regards to business. The research concludes with recommendations of adaptation of technology by organizations, education of workers in organizations on how to use adapted technologies effectively and finally the implementation of such technologies by the organization in order to allow organizations the opportunity to reach even the outside world.

Source: UG
Significance of Topaze by Marcel Pagnol from structuralist theory perspective

Topaze is an eponymous play written by Marcel Pagnol, at the beginning of the 20th century to portray conditions prevailing in the French society. At the start of the play, Topaze was a school teacher with a moderate salary. He was sacked for being too honest in his profession as a teacher when he refused to change the grade of a wealthy student. He became dishonest and corrupt and was happy to be so, when by the influence of a woman and an unscrupulous municipal official, he became a wealthy businessman. By his style of analytical approach to literature genre, liberal humanist would classify the play as an educative piece which depicts the power of money and denounces the corrupt nature of men, and, as a result, this literary work of Marcel Pagnol is a canonic material for literature study in schools. But would the structuralist, by his literary theory and analytical to literary text hold the same view/opinion as the liberal humanist?

Source: UG
Significance of Topaze by Marcel Pagnol from structuralist theory perspective

There is limited literature about the fertility industry of assisted reproduction in the African context, partly because of the assumption that such markets and technologies are unsuitable for and unavailable in low-resource settings. However, with neo-liberalisation of healthcare and the rise of private-sector corporate hospitals, some countries in this region have become hubs for reproductive travel. Patients may fly to Kenya, Ghana and Uganda for surrogacy, and to South Africa for “egg safaris”, to get matched with South African gamete (egg and sperm) providers. More recently, there is the growing trend of white Afrikaner South African women flying to different parts of the world to provide their eggs and fulfil the need for making (white) babies for cheap in the global fertility market (Pande and Moll 2018). I argue that though the media and medical professionals frame these women as “naïve or greedy girls”, the frame of “biolabour” offers a far more complex lens for understanding their roles and responsibilities. Three key themes emerge: altruism and/or ambivalent maternity, responsible repropreuneurship, and cosmopolitan competency. As bio-labourers, the women find an opportunity to combine an act of responsible altruism with the opportunity for adventure. Bio-labour becomes a passport to see the world and become a global citizen. While a move away from the victim narrative to one of chosen (bio) labour challenges gendered assumptions, it also brings attention to the multiple forms of gendered risks and responsibilities embedded in these bio-markets.

Source: UG
The Significance of Variceal Haemorrhage in Ghana: A Retrospective Review

Background: This study describes the burden of bleeding oesophageal varices at the main tertiary referral centre in Accra. Design: Retrospective design to describe the endoscopic spectrum and review mortality data following acute upper gastro-intestinal bleeding at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. Endoscopic data was reviewed in the Endoscopy Unit between 2007 and 2010. Mortality data was collated from the Department of Medicine between 2010 and 2013. Interventions: The study questionnaire compiled clinical and demographic characteristics, endoscopic diagnoses, length of hospital admission and treatment regimens. Main outcome measures: Aetiology and time-trend analysis of mortality rates following acute upper gastro- intestinal bleeding; variceal bleeding treatment modalities. Results: On review of the endoscopic diagnoses, gastro- oesophageal varices were identified in 21.9% of cases followed by gastritis 21.7%, duodenal ulcer, 17.0%, and gastric ulcer, 13.2%. Gastro-oesophageal varices were the predominant cause of death from acute upper gastro-intestinal haemorrhage from 46% in 2010 to 76% in 2013. Outcomes following acute upper gastro-intestinal bleeding were dismal with some 38% of fatalities occurring within the first 24 hours. Injection sclerotherapy was the dominant endoscopic modality for secondary prevention of variceal bleeding in comparison with band ligation, mainly as a result of cost and availability. Conclusions: At the tertiary centre in Accra, variceal bleeding is an increasingly common cause of acute upper gastro-intestinal haemorrhage in comparison with previous reviews in Ghana. Its significantly high in-hospital mortality reflects inadequate facilities to deal with this medical emergency. A strategic approach to care with endoscopic services equipped with all the necessary therapeutic interventions will be vital in improving the outcomes of variceal bleeding in Ghana.

Source: UG
The Significant Effect of Parameter Tuning on Software Vulnerability Prediction Models

Vulnerability prediction is one of the critical issues for researchers in the software industry. Technically, a vulnerability predictor is a machine learning model trained to identify vulnerable and non-vulnerable modules. Recent studies have shown that the performance of these models can be affected when the default parameter settings are used. Unfortunately, most studies in literature present their results using the default parameter settings. This study investigates the extent to which parameter optimization affect the performance of vulnerability prediction models. To evaluate our procedure, we conducted an empirical study on three open-source vulnerability datasets, namely Drupal, Moodle and PHPMyAdmin using five machine learning algorithms. Surprisingly, we found that in all cases of the 3 datasets studied, our models provided a significant increase in precision and accuracy against the benchmark study. In conclusion, software engineers can use the results obtained from this study when building data miners for identifying vulnerable modules.

Source: UG
Significant human health co-benefits of mitigating African emissions

Future African aerosol emissions, and therefore air pollution levels and health outcomes, are unknown and understudied. Understanding the future health impacts of pollutant emissions from this region is crucial. Here, this research gap is addressed by studying the range of future health impacts of aerosol emissions from Africa in the Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios, using the UK Earth System Model Version 1 (UKESM1), along with human health concentration-response functions. The effects of Africa following a high-pollution aerosol pathway are studied relative to a low-pollution control, with experiments varying aerosol emissions from industry and biomass burning. Using present-day demographics, annual deaths within Africa attributable to ambient particulate matter are estimated to be lower by 150 000 (5th–95th confidence interval of 67 000–234 000) under stronger African aerosol mitigation by 2090, while those attributable to O3 are lower by 15 000 (5th–95th confidence interval of 9000–21 000). The particulate matter health benefits are realised predominantly within Africa, with the O3-driven benefits being more widespread, though still concentrated in Africa, due to the longer atmospheric lifetime of O3. These results demonstrate the important health co-benefits from future emission mitigation in Africa

Source: UG
Significant under expression of the DosR regulon in M.&nbsp;tuberculosis complex lineage 6 in sputum

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 silent enzootic of an orthopoxvirus in Ghana, West Africa: Evidence for multi-species involvement in the absence of widespread human disease

The main research focus of the Electron Microscopy and Histopathology Department in the past 20 years has been in the areas of enteric diarrhoeas with special emphasis on rotavirus. Through its diarrhoea surveillance studies, the Department has helped to firmly establish rotaviruses as a major cause of diarrhoea in children, and document the circulation of unusual rotavirus genotypes in Ghana. The Department has also recently expanded its diagnostic repertoire to include the identification and characterization of noroviruses, astroviruses, and other enteric viruses.

Source: UG
Simple formulation of the soil water effect on residue decomposition

Soil water content, θ, is a major factor affecting residue decomposition, but simple formulation of this factor is often lacking. We observed that θ significantly (P &lt; 0.001) affected the residue decomposition constant, kd· When θ varied from 0.09gg-1 to 0.23gg-1, kd ranged from 0.009 to 0.013d-1 and from 0.009 to 0.022d-1 for residues with carbon to nitrogen ratio (C/N) &gt; 30 and C/N &lt; 25, respectively. A θ factor was formulated in terms of the field capacity θFC and the air-dry θ d in the form fw = (θ - θd) / (θFC - θd), and this was used to modify the potential kd as θ varied. Coupling fw with a first-order residue decomposition equation resulted in the prediction of the decomposition of four residue types in the greenhouse (R2 = 0.94; relative root mean square error, RRMSE, = 0.06) and in the field (R2 = 0.93; RRMSE = 0.11). © Taylor &amp; Francis Group, LLC.

Source: UG
A simple procedure for the isolation of laccase secreted by Pleurotus oestreatus

Extracellular laccase was isolated from the residual substrate of Pleurotus oestreatus (oyster mushroom), without the addition of aromatic inducers, in order to investigate its potential as an effective tool for the biochemical transformation of lignified and polyphenol-containing crop residues. The crude enzyme was purified by subjecting samples to ammonium sulphate precipitation, gel filtration chromatography using Sephadex G-75, and anion exchange chromatography on DEAE-cellulose. The laccase was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity and it exhibited chemical characteristics similar to those of laccases in other studies. The purified laccase was estimated to have a molecular mass of 78 kDa. The laccase oxidized dimethoxyphenol optimally at pH 5.0 and significantly over a wide pH range (4.5 to 8) and showed maximum laccase activity at 50oC. These findings provide an important opportunity for the isolation of laccase from the residual substrate of Pleurotus ostreatus on a commercial scale. More importantly, treatment of crop residues with laccase will make available feed ingredients that contain minimal levels of lignin and polyphenols.

Source: UG
A simple sensing of hazardous photo-induced superoxide anion radicals using a molecular probe in ZnO-Nanoparticles aqueous medium

The generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) during the photolysis of sunscreens and sun blockers poses consumer safety concerns while necessitating proper identification and quantitation of ROS species. Here, a colorimetric sensing approach has been developed based on a molecular probe (2,3-bis-(2-methoxy-4-nitro-5- sulfophenyl)-2-H-tetrazolium-5-carboxanilide (XTT) tetrazolium salt) to quantitatively measure the photo-induced superoxide anion radicals (%O2 .) generated from the photocatalysis of zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) in aqueous solutions. Note that superoxide anion radicals are assumed to be the main reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated from such photocatalysis. The characterisation of ZnO-NPs before and after irradiation showed average particle sizes of 616.5 and 295.3 nm and ζ-potential values of 0 and -24.4 mV, respectively. It is hoped that this proposed protocol can be further developed to efficiently detect other ROS present in inorganic sun blockers and to optimize the utility of various sunscreen formulations.

Source: UG
Simple, Rapid Mycobacterium ulcerans Disease Diagnosis from Clinical Samples by Fluorescence of Mycolactone on Thin Layer Chromatography

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

Source: UG