Contemporary Price Trends and their Economic Significance in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

The objective of this study was to examine the current trend in price of staples and the possible effect on income. Price volatility is explained by changes in the trend itself, and to a lesser extent by variation around its mean (historical volatility approach), which is based on observed past prices. This measure was adopted to gauge the variation in commodity price around the mean. The results show that although prices increased steadily over the years, volatility was relatively minimal between 2002 and 2006 as compared to the period after. Unlike the cereals, more than 50% of vegetables traded on the markets are imported from neighbouring countries. The price range for vegetables was thus much wider than cereals. Supply shortfalls and transportation cost were cited as the two most significant factors contributing to rising prices on the markets. The findings confirm theoretical evidence that unexpected increase in prices erode the purchasing power of consumers, especially the poor who spend much of their incomes on food. A consumer receiving the current minimum wage and spending everything on the respective commodities within one month lost substantially in terms of volumes purchased between 2006 and 2013. For instance, the quantity of tomatoes and maize purchased declined by 74% and 65% respectively between 2006 and 2007. The trend suggests that uncontrolled volatility in prices has serious effects on income and for that matter food security. Stakeholders need to target production increase and improved distribution systems as means to reduce price volatility, which will protect poor consumers against the challenge of coping with wide price variations. Keywords: Price trend, volatility, income, coefficient of variation, standard deviatio

Examining graphemic and lexical anglicisms in Twi for academic purposes in textbooks written in Twi

This paper examines graphemic and lexical borrowings in Twi for Academic Purposes (TAP). Textbooks written in Asante Twi by some renowned scholars in the language constituted the dataset for this study. The textbooks were read and all instances of anglicisms or English features borrowed into Twi were collected. The borrowed-features were identified by drawing on our native speaker and scholarly competencies. The dataset was analyzed by drawing on Clyne’s (1977) Borrowing Typology and Haugen’s (1950) Borrowability Scale. Three key findings emerged from the analysis. First, the study yielded that in TAP two letters (<v>,  and <j>) are borrowed towards empowering Asante Twi to enable it to account for words that contain these letters. Second, at the lexical level, it was found that the borrowed words were either integrated or adapted into Asante Twi linguistic environment. The final point was that all the lexical items realized were nominals affirming the primacy of noun on borrowability scales. The findings have implications for developing Ghanaian languages for academic purposes.This paper examines graphemic and lexical borrowings in Twi for Academic Purposes (TAP). Textbooks written in Asante Twi by some renowned scholars in the language constituted the dataset for this study. The textbooks were read and all instances of anglicisms or English features borrowed into Twi were collected. The borrowed-features were identified by drawing on our native speaker and scholarly competencies. The dataset was analyzed by drawing on Clyne’s (1977) Borrowing Typology and Haugen’s (1950) Borrowability Scale. Three key findings emerged from the analysis. First, the study yielded that in TAP two letters (<v>,  and <j>) are borrowed towards empowering Asante Twi to enable it to account for words that contain these letters. Second, at the lexical level, it was found that the borrowed words were either integrated or adapted into Asante Twi linguistic environment. The final point was that all the lexical items realized were nominals affirming the primacy of noun on borrowability scales. The findings have implications for developing Ghanaian languages for academic purposes

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Do Akans eat almost everything? Clarifying the word sense multiplicity of the Akan verb “di”

This paper has explored the multiple meanings of the Akan verb di. It has emphasized the homonyms and their polysemes as well as the extended meanings that have emerged from each basic sense. The morphological structure and syntactic properties of the various senses has also been considered in order to bring out how grammatical structure affects the realization of meaning. Data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Primarily, speeches, conversations and songs were recorded and transcribed to solicit occurrences and usages of the verb. Secondary data was collected from novels, bibles, dictionaries, lexicons and grammars that are written in Akan. Published dates of these books were between 1969 and 2004 so that there could be a diachronic comparison of the usage of the verb over the years. Through descriptive analysis, this paper has established that the verb di in Akan does not always denote “to eat” or “to have sex”. Other denotations such as “to converse”, “to be in a situation”, “to perform and activity”, “to work” and many more are identified and dichotomized by their distinct syntactic structures and morphological orientations. Their synonyms have also been brought to light to support the distinctiveness of each sense of the verb