ghanaopendata/ghanaian-research-english huggingface dataset:
Opportunistic Infections among newly diagnosed HIV patients in the largest tertiary facility in Ghana

Background: Opportunistic infections (OIs) among newly diagnosed HIV patients are a marker for inadequateness of HIV awareness and testing. Despite global efforts at creating awareness for early detection, late HIV diagnosis and its associated OIs still exist. This study sought to determine the prevalence and patterns of OIs and associated factors among newly diagnosed HIV patients in Ghana. Methods: A retrospective study using data extraction was conducted among 423 newly diagnosed HIV patients aged ≥18 years at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital from July 1st 2018 to December 2019. Multivariate logistic regression was adopted to assess factors associated to OIs. Analysis was performed using SPSS version 16, and p-value < 0.05 was deemed significant. Results: The mean age of patients with a new HIV diagnosis was 40.15 ± 11.47 years. Male versus female sex differential was 30.3% and 69.7%, respectively. The prevalence of OIs among newly diagnosed HIV patients was 33.1% (95% CI = 34.6–44.1). About 70% (120/166) of patients with OIs were classified into WHO clinical stage III and IV. The most common OIs were candidiasis (oro-pharyhngeal-esophageal) (36.9%), and cerebral toxoplasmosis (19.9%). The odds of an OI at the time of HIV diagnosis among females was 51% lower than in males (aOR = 0.49, 95% CI = 0.28–0.86). Being employed increased the odds of OIs by 2.5 compared to the unemployed (aOR = 2.5; 95% CI = 1.11–5.61). Participants classified as World Health Organization (WHO) HIV clinical stage III and IV were 15.88 (95% CI = 9.41–26.79) times more likely to experience OIs. Conclusion: One in three patients newly diagnosed with HIV presented with an opportunistic infection, with men more likely to experience such infections. Significant attention should be given to improving case-finding strategies, especially among men.

Source: UG
The Opportunities and Constraints to Collaboration in Public Sector Management

This article synthesizes current insights about the opportunities and constraints to collaborative public management. Despite the swath of research on collaboration there has been little attempt to present the opportunities and constraints in a single article that articulates both perspectives coherently. Drawing on an extensive literature review, the main arguments are that collaboration presents opportunities to maximize scarce resources and improve public services delivery. Yet, the difficulty in evaluating the outcomes of collaboration as well as accountability and power-sharing issues remain key constraints. The article concludes that public managers need to critically ponder both perspectives in making decisions.

Source: UG
Opportunities for Adult Learners in Ghana’s Higher Education Institutions: Limiting Factors and Strategies

This article focuses on a case study of adult learners in Accra Learning Center (ALC) to explore limiting factors to learning in higher education institutions (HEIs) using distance education (DE) mode in Ghana. Educated adults possess experiences that help them take up leadership roles and transform communities. However, limiting factors including lack of media support and employment opportunities to adult learners in HEIs were highlighted by this study. Mixed method research (MMR) that tilted toward qualitative study was employed, and a dialogical approach to MMR was adopted. Semi-structured interview schedules were developed and administered to 45 adult learners. Random sampling procedure was used, and descriptive and interpretivist approaches were adopted in presenting the results. Simple descriptive statistics were adopted to help build a case for using the qualitative data which sought participants’ voices, meanings, experiences, and understanding of limiting factors to learning in HEIs by DE mode. Poverty, the high cost of education, and poor time management constituted some of the limiting factors to adult learners in HEIs. The article recommends that HEIs adopt flexible terms of fee payment for adult learners and that young adult learners seek jobs and learn to save while learning in HEIs.

Source: UG
Opportunities for oil palm development in Benin and Ghana: Institutional conditions for technological change

The paper reports on 9 months of exploratory research of the oil palm domain in Benin and Ghana, with a view to identifying opportunities for development. Both countries are in the zone from which the palm, that now gives the world a third of its vegetable oil, originates. Though palm oil and wine production expanded with very rapid population growth, both countries now depend for a considerable proportion of their palm oil requirements on imports especially from S-E Asia. An analysis of opportunities shows that, for oil palm to become ‘an engine for growth’, both technological and institutional issues must be addressed. The paper outlines these issues and concludes that institutional change is a necessary pre-requisite for both countries to benefit from the potential of this ‘miracle’ tree. In addition, variability in weather conditions due to climate change could affect production, which is very sensitive to drought conditions for setting of female flowers.

Source: UG
Opportunities for Orphan Crops: Expected Economic Benefits From Biotechnology

An enabling, evidence-based decision-making framework is critical to support agricultural biotechnology innovation, and to ensure farmers’ access to genetically modified (GM) crops, including orphan crop varieties. A key element, and often a challenge in the decision-making process, involves the balancing of identified potential risks with expected economic benefits from GM crops. The latter is particularly challenging in the case of orphan crops, for which solid economic data is scarce. To address this challenge, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in collaboration with local economists analyzed the expected economic benefits to farmers and consumers from the adoption of GM crops in 5 sub-Saharan African countries. This paper focuses on case studies involving insect-resistant cowpea in Nigeria and Ghana; disease-resistant cassava in Uganda and Tanzania; and disease-resistant banana in Uganda. Estimations from these case studies show substantial economic benefits to farmers and consumers from the timely adoption and planting in farmers’ fields of GM orphan crops. Our analysis also shows how the benefits would significantly be reduced by regulatory or other delays that affect the timely release of these crops. These findings underscore the importance of having an enabling policy environment and regulatory system—covering, among other elements, biosafety and food/feed safety assessment, and varietal release registration—that is efficient, predictable, and transparent to ensure that the projected economic benefits are delivered and realized in a timely manner.

Source: UG
Opportunities for Orphan Crops: Expected Economic Benefits From Biotecnology

Abstract: An enabling, evidence-based decision-making framework is critical to support agricultural biotechnology innovation, and to ensure farmers’ access to genetically modified (GM) crops, including orphan crop varieties. A key element, and often a challenge in the decision-making process, involves the balancing of identified potential risks with expected economic benefits from GM crops. The latter is particularly challenging in the case of orphan crops, for which solid economic data is scarce. To address this challenge, the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in collaboration with local economists analyzed the expected economic benefits to farmers and consumers from the adoption of GM crops in 5 sub-Saharan African countries. This paper focuses on case studies involving insect-resistant cowpea in Nigeria and Ghana; disease-resistant cassava in Uganda and Tanzania; and disease-resistant banana in Uganda. Estimations from these case studies show substantial economic benefits to farmers and consumers from the timely adoption and planting in farmers’ fields of GM orphan crops. Our analysis also shows how the benefits would significantly be reduced by regulatory or other delays that affect the timely release of these crops. These findings underscore the importance of having an enabling policy environment and regulatory system—covering, among other elements, biosafety and food/feed safety assessment, and varietal release registration—that is efficient, predictable, and transparent to ensure that the projected economic benefits are delivered and realized in a timely manner.

Source: UG
Opposition to Women in Congregational Leadership: A Sociocultural Perspective

Although many efforts have been made in time past in demonstrating that women are similar to men, there still appear to be a widespread persistent belief that w omen are indeed inferior to men even until today. What is even worrying is the theological backing that this sociocultural belief of society enjoys. One notices in the literature that God ordains, sanctions, and upholds the spiritual authority of women tod ay as he did in time past as his official spokespersons and leaders of his people. However, the evidence and discussion presented in this paper demonstrate that problems with women being accepted as leaders by congregations, gender differences in pay and p romotions, and the experiences and dissatisfaction of women clergy who feel constrained by these gender discrimination is widespread. The paper discusses this phenomenon and presents an often neglected perspective in the discourse – the sociocultural persp ective. It interrogates the various stands on women and leadership in congregations. In doing this, the paper explores the position of women in the Old Testament through to the New Testament and the centuries following.

Source: UG
Optimal bed thickness and efective size for improving wastewater quality for irrigation

With the increased use of wastewater for irrigation, there is the need to reduce the contaminant levels in wastewater. The slow sand fltration (SSF) is one such method that can be used to improve wastewater quality. However, the treatment quality depends among other factors on the depth of sand bed and the efective size. Acquiring sand of a particular efective size is becoming increasing difculty and, therefore, this study sought to investigate over a specifed area, the optimal depth and efective size that will be able to get rid of contaminants in wastewater. In separate experiments, three depths (30 cm, 40 cm and 50 cm) and two efective sizes (0.27 mm and 0.45 mm) were set up to investigate their efectiveness in removing Faecal coliform, E. coli and heavy metals (Pb, Cu and Fe) for wastewater from a peri-urban drain used for irrigating vegetables. Results showed that a minimum sand bed thickness of 40 cm and an efective size of up to 0.45 mm reduced the contami nants tested signifcantly, wastewater from the drain can be treated. It must be mentioned that the fner sand (0.27 mm) had a slightly better removal efciency. This implies that the extra cost of acquiring sand of relatively smaller efective size and a higher bed depth with the aim of improving wastewater quality can be saved. Further investigations are being carried out on the combined efects of the optimal sand bed depth and efective size.

Source: UG
Optimal control application to an Ebola model

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
Optimal duration of male-female exposure to optimize conception in the grasscutter (Thryonomys swinderianus)

The optimal duration of male-female exposure needed to achieve pregnancy in grasscutters was investigated. Sexually mature male and female grasscutters were paired until mating had occurred. The outcome of the pairing namely: the female’s acceptance to mate (sexual receptivity), conceive and deliver were investigated by separating the female from the male immediately after mating and subsequently monitoring the female until parturition. The females accepted mating after spending between 18 to 192 hours with the male. The first three days of a two-week male-female exposure resulted in 80% (n = 30) sexual receptivity, 76.3% (n = 29) conception and 71.4% (n = 28) parturition compared to the remaining eleven days, which resulted in 16.7% (n = 30) receptivity, 17.2% (n = 29) conception and 17.9% (n = 28) parturition. The difference in duration of exposure for the first three days of pairing and the rest of the exposure period (eleven days) was significant. Duration of pairing and pairing outcome for the two periods were cross-tabulated and noted to be negatively associated for sexual receptivity, conception and parturition, suggesting that the optimal duration of pairing grasscutters to achieve pregnancy is three days. It is concluded that the common practice of permanently pairing the male and female to achieve pregnancy, which sometimes results in cannibalism of the neonates by the male, is avoidable and the overly long duration of exposure is not necessary.

Source: UG
Optimal Location for Loss Reduction on A 7-Bus Bar Power Grid System by Capacitor Placement

Reduction of power loss in transmission and distribution system is key to improve the efficiency of power system. This paper presents a method of minimizing the loss associated with the reactive component of the branch current by optimal placement of shunt capacitor on an IEEE seven Bus-bar system by Power-World Simulator. The project started by drawing the one-line diagram of the 7-bus power grid system with rated values suggested by the simulator tool. Upon completion, all the data regarding the Voltage per unit, mega volt-ampere reactive losses, megawatt and mega volt ampere at each buss were recorded. Analysis was done on the system using the power world simulator. From the simulation results, the original system recorded a low power factor of 0.79 and a mega volt-ampere reactive loss of eighteen percent (18%). After analyzing the system and installing the capacitor bank at the optimal location, the power factor improved to 0.98 and the system’s mega volt ampere reactive reduced to 6.4%. The optimal location for the capacitor bank was identified as the bus that injects more reactive power to the system. The bus also has a low voltage per unit value and high conductance as compared to all other buses.

Source: UG
Optimal Public Investment, Growth, And Consumption: Evidence from African Countries

This paper develops a model positing a nonlinear relationship between public investment and growth. The model is then applied to a panel of African countries, using nonlinear estimating procedures. The growth-maximizing level of public investment is estimated at about 10% of GDP, based on System GMM estimation. The paper further runs simulations, obtaining the constant optimal public investment share that maximizes the sum of discounted consumption as between 8.1% and 9.6% of GDP. Compared with the observed end-of-panel mean value of no more than 7.26%, these estimates suggest that there has been significant public underinvestment in Africa.

Source: UG
Optimal Reinsurance-Investment Strategy Under Risks of Interest Rate, Exchange Rate and Inflation

In this paper, we pursue the optimal reinsurance-investment strategy of an insurer who can invest in both domestic and foreign markets. We assume that both the domestic and the foreign nominal interest rates are described by extended Cox-Ingersoll-Ross (CIR) models. In order to hedge the risk associated to investments, rolling bonds, treasury inflation protected securities and futures are purchased by the insurer. We use the dynamic programming principles to explicitly derive both the value function and the optimal reinsurance-investment strategy. As a conclusion, we analyze the impact of the model parameters on both the optimal strategy and the optimal utility. © 2018, The Author(s).

Source: UG
Optimal sizing and techno-economic analysis of a hybrid solar PV/wind/diesel generator system

Abstract. Hybrid power systems that combine wind and solar PV technology have been widely employed for power generation, particularly for electrification in remote and islanding locations, because they are more cost-effective and reliable than traditional power systems. This article intends to develop an environmentally friendly and cost-effective hybrid power system for selected critical loads in the Avuto community of Ghana. Following the acquisition of site data, a hybrid solar PV, wind, diesel generator, and converter analysis was conducted using HOMER software to establish the appropriate sizing of system components based on technical and economic parameters such as load served, annual electricity production, net present cost (NPC), emission, Operating cost, Fuel consumption and energy cost (COE). Based on the optimization computational results, it can be stated that the combination of system components, including solar photovoltaic, wind turbine, and diesel generator, is a good fit for the application region and might be used for rural and island electrification in the future. The suggested energy system has an LCOE of 0.39 US$/kWh for the 1.08 US$/litre diesel fuel cost and a 3.33-year payback period, with 58.8 kW for PV, 7 units for 3 kW wind turbines, 10 kW for diesel generator, and 6.99 kW for the converter. In terms of emission reduction, the proposed case presented a 55% emission reduction from the base case scenario.

Source: UG
An Optimal Spacing Approach for Sampling Small-sized Datasets for Software Effort Estimation

Context: There has been a growing research focus in conventional machine learning techniques for software effort estimation (SEE). However, there is a limited number of studies that seek to assess the performance of deep learning approaches in SEE. This is because the sizes of SEE datasets are relatively small. Purpose: This study seeks to define a threshold for small-sized datasets in SEE, and investigates the performance of selected conventional machine learning and deep learning models on small-sized datasets. Method: Plausible SEE datasets with their number of project instances and features are extracted from existing literature and ranked. Eubank’s optimal spacing theory is used to discretize the ranking of the project instances into three classes (small, medium and large). Five conventional machine learning models and two deep learning models are trained on each dataset classified as small-sized using the leave-one-out cross-validation. The mean absolute error is used to assess the prediction performance of each model. Result: Findings from the study contradicts existing knowledge by demonstrating that deep learning models provide improved prediction performance as compared to the conventional machine learning models on small-sized datasets. Conclusion: Deep learning can be adopted for SEE with the application of regularisation techniques.

Source: UG
Optimal water management in small-scale tank irrigation systems

The small-scale tank irrigation system is an effective option for sustainable agricultural water development. The management strategy for water release in such a system is considered in the framework of variational calculus. A minimum principle is deduced to characterize an optimal strategy minimizing a performance index that evaluates water content deviation in the command area and the time when the irrigation tank dries up. The optimal strategies are demonstrated in two practical example systems. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Source: UG
Optimisation of Charcoal and Sago (Metroxylon sagu) Bark Ash to Improve Phosphorus Availability in Acidic Soils

Soil acidity is an important soil factor affecting crop growth and development. This ultimately limits crop productivity and the profitability of farmers. Soil acidity increases the toxicity of Al, Fe, H, and Mn. The abundance of Al and Fe ions in weathered soils has been implicated in P fixation. To date, limited research has attempted to unravel the use of charcoal with the incorporation of sago (Metroxylon sagu) bark ash to reduce P fixation. Therefore, an incubation study was conducted in the Soil Science Laboratory of Universiti Putra Malaysia Bintulu Sarawak Campus, Malaysia for 90 days to determine the optimum amounts of charcoal and sago bark ash that could be used to improve the P availability of a mineral acidic soil. Charcoal and sago bark ash rates varied by 25%, whereas Egypt rock phosphate (ERP) rate was fixed at 100% of the recommendation rate. Soil available P was determined using the Mehlich 1 method, soil total P was extracted using the aqua regia method, and inorganic P was fractionated using the sequential extraction method based on its relative solubility. Other selected soil chemical properties were determined using standard procedures. The results reveal that co-application of charcoal, regardless of rate, substantially increased soil total carbon. In addition, application of 75% sago bark ash increased soil pH and at the same time, it reduced exchangeable acidity, Al3+, and Fe2+. Additionally, amending acidic soils with both charcoal and sago bark ash positively enhanced the availability of K, Ca, Mg, and Na. Although there was no significant improvement in soil Mehlich-P with or without charcoal and sago bark ash, the application of these amendments altered inorganic P fractions in the soil. Calcium-bound phosphorus was more pronounced compared with Al-P and Fe-P for the soil with ERP, charcoal, and sago bark ash. The findings of this study suggest that as soil pH decreases, P fixation by Al and Fe can be minimised using charcoal and sago bark ash. This is because of the alkalinity of sago bark ash and the high affinity of charcoal for Al and Fe ions to impede Al and Fe hydrolysis to produce more H+. Thus, the optimum rates of charcoal and sago bark ash to increase P availability are 75% sago bark ash with 75%, 50%, and 25% charcoal because these rates significantly reduced soil exchangeable acidity, Al3+, and Fe2+.

Source: UG
Optimisation of chocolate formulation using dehydrated peanut-cowpea milk to replace dairy milk

BACKGROUND: The rheological properties of chocolate, based upon its acceptability by consumers, are determined largely by the ingredients and their proportions used in the formulations. Milk chocolates are very popular because milk provides flavour and smooth texture to the product. This study aimed to determine the optimal ingredient formulation for vegetable milk chocolate using peanut-cowpea milk as a substitute for dairy milk. The study followed a four-component constrained mixture design, with cocoa liquor, vegetable milk, cocoa butter and sugar as the components. Lecithin and vanillin were added at a constant amount to all formulations. Critical attributes of the chocolates were evaluated using descriptive sensory tests and instrumental techniques. RESULTS: Regression models were fitted to the data, and the optimum ingredient formulation for acceptable vegetable milk chocolate was determined. The vegetable milk had significant (P = 0.05) influence on flavour, mouth feel, hardness and after taste of chocolates. CONCLUSIONS: The optimum ingredient formulation for acceptable vegetable milk chocolates was determined to be cocoa liquor (18.00%), sugar (30.75%), peanut-cowpea milk (28.93%), and cocoa butter (22.32%). The results demonstrate that it is feasible to use vegetable source milk for chocolate. The findings also provide clues for scale-up criteria for large-scale production of vegetable milk chocolate. © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry.

Source: UG