Subjugating Cultural Underpinnings of the Perceptions and Effects of Victims of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Kandiga Community of Northern Ghana

The study explored the subjugating cultural underpinnings of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in the Kandiga Community of Northern Ghana. It also looked at the perceptions of victims of FGM and how the practice affects them in their daily lives. Qualitatively, a case study design was adopted. A sample size of 20 was purposively sampled. Interview sessions were employed in the data collection. Thematic procedures were adopted in analysing the data collected. The major findings of the study indicated that female genital mutilation is a cultural issue and it is still practiced among rural communities as a way of preserving custom and cultural heritage. It was also revealed that female genital mutilation has negative effects such as health associated problems, sexual, physical, psychological and social challenges. It emerged from the findings that victims sometimes experience complications and bleed excessively during child birth. The study recommended among other issues that, government should enforce laws that ban cultural practices that are injurious and degrading to human beings especially women and their sexuality.  Government should make frantic efforts to enforce laws that make FGM criminal so that perpetrators can face prosecutions and sentences. Ministry of Health through the community health workers including nurses should implement programmes and organise durbars to sensitize various people in communities identified to be practicing FGM. Keywords: Female, Cultural Practices, Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Perceptions, FGM Victims

Exploring Women’s Level of Participation in Grassroots Politics in the Akan Constituency of Ghana

The study was aimed at exploring women’s level of participation in grassroots politics in the Akan constituency of the Volta Region of Ghana. A concurrent triangulation mixed method research design was undertaken using the Liberal Feminist theory as the theoretical focus of the study. A selected sample size of two hundred (200) respondents was employed for the study. This included women who were 18 years and above. They were purposively and conveniently selected. The study employed interviews and questionnaires to gather data to assess the extent of women’s participation in the grassroots level politics. Quantitative data were analysed using frequency, percentages, mean, standard deviation, whilst qualitative data were analysed systematically and logically into themes. The responses of the open-ended questions were grouped according to themes in relation to common ideas expressed and general pattern were sorted out of them. The findings revealed that poor participation of women existed at the grassroots politics in the Akan constituency. It was further revealed that the respondents were mostly motivated by intrinsic factors when they were willing to participate in grassroots politics. Findings based on the hypothesis also revealed that age and educational level were not differentiators when it came to level of participation in grassroots politics. The following recommendations were made based on these findings: Women’s participation in grassroots politics should be encouraged to make governance more democratic and adult education should be encouraged for the womenfolk. Keywords: Akan Constituency, Ghana, Grassroots Politics, Level of Participation, Women Politic

Decision-Making Difficulties of Senior High School Referred Graduates of Cape Coast Metropolis

This research examined the career decision difficulties of Senior High School Referred Graduates (SHSRGs) in the Cape Coast Metropolis. Mixed methods with exploratory design was employed and the data were collected using questionnaire and interview guide. Stratified and random sampling techniques were adopted to select a total of three hundred and sixty (360) SHSRGs. Purposive, convenience and snowball sampling techniques were also used to select six (6) parents, three (3) remedial school teachers and one (1) director of Ghana Education Service (GES) for the study. The result indicated (189, 53.8%) of the referred graduates usually felt they needed confirmation and support for their decisions about their career choice from a professional or somebody they trust. It was also revealed that (263, 74.3%) had considered the field they would like to major or the field they would like to choose. Again, (59, 16.7%) of the referred graduates encountered difficulties in making career decisions because they did not know which occupations interest them whereas (89, 25.0%) indicated they found it difficult to make career decision because they were focusing on their referred papers. It was recommended that the SHSRGs should make career choices based on guidance and counselling received from experts in various institutions in the metropolis. They should resist imposition of careers by people and accept non-collegiate education through excursions and embrace work surveillance. This will sharpen their understanding about what industry expect from them and connect them to the realities of the world of work. Keyword: Decision-making, Career selection, Decision dynamics, Career failure, Referred graduates, Cape Coast Metropolis, Ghana DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-22-13 Publication date: November 30th 202

Improving Buffalo City's sub-transmission reliability

Several experiences of sudden large scale disruptions in electrical service deeply impacted both social stability and economic development in affected communities and caused lower levels of reliability performance. The prevention of such catastrophic incidents poses huge challenges for reliability study and operational practices in Buffalo City's sub-transmission network. Primarily investigations on the field shows, aging infrastructure, relay failures and reactive maintenance practice is eminent. Inspired by these challenges, this dissertation proposes an analysis of the critical transition in sub-transmission network from a lower level of reliability to an economically and acceptable level of reliability. The transition of the operational "stress" and its large scale of power interruptions are studied. The transition of the existing sub-transmission to the alternative sub-transmission models has been presented. The analysis of load flow and fault level calculations identifies the loading trends critical to cause operational "pressure" of unplanned interruptions. The results in this research work had to discover the most appropriate resolutions to aging equipment, reactive maintenance and protection systems. The DIgSILENT Power Factory simulates and quantifies the results of the problems that could occur in the sub-transmission network in the immediate future. Measures to mitigate any occurrence which might cause more prone to a catastrophic blackout are presented. The proposed corrective measures of upkeep aging infrastructure, relay responsiveness and planned preventative maintenance have been recommended. The development of these corrective measures and the proposed network model is the key to reaching higher levels of reliability performance in the energy supply that communities require in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality

Predicting hospital costs for patients receiving renal replacement therapy to inform an economic evaluation.

OBJECTIVE: To develop a model to predict annual hospital costs for patients with established renal failure, taking into account the effect of patient and treatment characteristics of potential relevance for conducting an economic evaluation, such as age, comorbidities and time on treatment. The analysis focuses on factors leading to variations in inpatient and outpatient costs and excludes fixed costs associated with dialysis, transplant surgery and high cost drugs. METHODS: Annual costs of inpatient and outpatient hospital episodes for patients starting renal replacement therapy in England were obtained from a large retrospective dataset. Multiple imputation was performed to estimate missing costs due to administrative censoring. Two-part models were developed using logistic regression to first predict the probability of incurring any hospital costs before fitting generalised linear models to estimate the level of cost in patients with positive costs. Separate models were developed to predict inpatient and outpatient costs for each treatment modality. RESULTS: Data on hospital costs were available for 15,869 incident dialysis patients and 4511 incident transplant patients. The two-part models showed a decreasing trend in costs with increasing number of years on treatment, with the exception of dialysis outpatient costs. Age did not have a consistent effect on hospital costs; however, comorbidities such as diabetes and peripheral vascular disease were strong predictors of higher hospital costs in all four models. CONCLUSION: Analysis of patient-level data can result in a deeper understanding of factors associated with variations in hospital costs and can improve the accuracy with which costs are estimated in the context of economic evaluations.<br/

REFLEXÕES SOBRE O ATIVISMO JUDICIAL E A DEMOCRACIA

A necessidade de efetivação dos direitos fundamentais temcontribuído para o aumento do fenômeno denominadoativismo judicial. O ativismo judicial se caracteriza por umaatuação direta do Estado-Juiz, na figura do Poder Judiciário,no sentido de assegurar a realização de um direitofundamental estabelecido na constituição. O âmbito deabrangência do presente estudo está restrito às situaçõesnas quais o Poder Executivo houver elaborado uma políticapública com pretensão de efetivar determinado direito, masnas quais o Poder Judiciário intervenha com o fundamentode que aquela política seja ineficiente para uma determinadasituação concreta. O objetivo com a pesquisa é refletir seesta atuação do Poder Judiciário subtrai, ou tem o potencialde subtrair, alguma das atribuições do Poder Executivo oudo Legislativo, ofendendo, em última análise, a própriademocracia. Para o presente estudo, utiliza-se a metodologiade pesquisa bibliográfica que consiste, basicamente, naleitura, fichamento e comparação das teorias dos principaisautores do Direito que tratam desse problema. Partindosedo pressuposto de que a atuação do Poder Judiciáriotem o potencial de subtrair competência de outro Poderda República, flertando com a possibilidade de ofender opostulado democrático, “Reflexões sobre o ativismo judiciale a democracia” é um tema que se apresenta como derelevância para todo estudante do direito