Agro-climatic and hydrological characterization of selected watersheds in northern Ghana

United States Agency for International Developmen

“We now have a patient and not a criminal” : An exploratory study of judges and lawyers’ views on suicide attempters and the law in Ghana

This study explored the views of judges and lawyers of the superior courts of Ghana on the law criminalizing attempted suicide. Qualitative data were collected from 12 experienced legal practitioners of the superior courts (five judges and seven lawyers) using a semi-structured interview schedule. Thematic analysis of the data yielded three main perspectives: In defence of the Law, Advocating a Repeal, and Pro-Health Orientation. Although exploratory, the findings of this study offer cues for stepping up suicide literacy and advocacy programmes toward either a repeal of the law or a reform

Potential effects of warmer worms and vectors on onchocerciasis transmission in West Africa

Development times of eggs, larvae and pupae of vectors of onchocerciasis (Simulium spp.) and of Onchocerca volvulus larvae within the adult females of the vectors decrease with increasing temperature. At and above 25C,the parasite could reach its infective stage in less than 7 days when vectors could transmit after only two gonotrophic cycles. After incorporating exponential functions for vector development into a novel blackfly population model, it was predicted that fly numbers in Liberia and Ghana would peak at air temperatures of 29C and 34C, about 3C and 7C above current monthly averages, respectively; parous rates of forest flies (Liberia) would peak at 298C and of savannah flies (Ghana) at 308C. Small temperature increases (less than 28C) might lead to changes in geographical distributions of different vector taxa. When the new model was linked to an existing framework for the population dynamics of onchocerciasis in humans and vectors, transmission rates and worm loads were projected to increase with temperature to at least 338C. By contrast, analyses of field data on forest flies in Liberia and savannah flies in Ghana, in relation to regional climate change predictions, suggested, on the basis of simple regressions, that 13–41% decreases in fly numbers would be expected between the present and before 2040. Further research is needed to reconcile these conflicting conclusions

Stakeholders' role in improving Ghana's construction safety

Health and safety (H&S) management has traditionally been the responsibility of the contractor. Most often, contractors are blamed for the accidents and other ill health that occur on their construction sites. H&S performance is, however, enhanced when there is effective collaboration between those involved in the construction process. This paper therefore explores the role of stakeholders in promoting construction H&S in Ghana through public works procurement. The four main stakeholders identified and evaluated in this study are the government, the client (employer), the contractor and the employee(s). Seven interviewees (comprising procurement managers, consultants and quantity surveyors) from public institutions in Ghana participated in the research. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and were thematically analysed. Results indicate a conflict in the perceived functions and relation of these stakeholders in the construction process. To address the constraint to improving construction H&S, certain recommendations are offered. These include the identification of specific individuals responsible for supervision and employee training, the development of H&S policies by the government and contracts that clearly outline the contractual obligations of all parties involved. Additionally, the specific roles and involvements of other stakeholders in the procurement process in improving construction H&S are also outlined

Ten new insights in climate science 2022

Non-technical summary We summarize what we assess as the past year's most important findings within climate change research: limits to adaptation, vulnerability hotspots, new threats coming from the climate–health nexus, climate (im)mobility and security, sustainable practices for land use and finance, losses and damages, inclusive societal climate decisions and ways to overcome structural barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Technical summary We synthesize 10 topics within climate research where there have been significant advances or emerging scientific consensus since January 2021. The selection of these insights was based on input from an international open call with broad disciplinary scope. Findings concern: (1) new aspects of soft and hard limits to adaptation; (2) the emergence of regional vulnerability hotspots from climate impacts and human vulnerability; (3) new threats on the climate–health horizon – some involving plants and animals; (4) climate (im)mobility and the need for anticipatory action; (5) security and climate; (6) sustainable land management as a prerequisite to land-based solutions; (7) sustainable finance practices in the private sector and the need for political guidance; (8) the urgent planetary imperative for addressing losses and damages; (9) inclusive societal choices for climate-resilient development and (10) how to overcome barriers to accelerate mitigation and limit global warming to below 2°C. Social media summary Science has evidence on barriers to mitigation and how to overcome them to avoid limits to adaptation across multiple fields

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Contrasting Growth Response of Jack Pine and Trembling Aspen to Climate Warming in Quebec Mixedwoods Forests of Eastern Canada Since the Early Twentieth Century

Forest monitoring studies show contrasting trends in tree growth rates since the mid-twentieth century. However, due to their focus on annual and decadal dynamics, they provide limited insight into the effects of long-term climatic variability on tree growth. Here, we relied on a large tree-ring dataset (∼2,700 trees) of two common North American shade-intolerant tree species, trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) and jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lambert), to assess their lifespan-long growth dynamics in the mixedwood forests of Québec. We also determined how the environmental conditions of the stands influenced tree growth. We observed a significant increase in the radial growth rate of trembling aspen during the study period, while the jack pine decline was not significant. Over the whole study region, the trees growing in sites with lower competition, and those at the lower sections of the terrain slope experienced more of the positive effects of temperature on growth rates. Our study suggests that the tree growth response to climate warming may be species-specific and will vary across the boreal mixedwoods

Increased seasonal rainfall in the twenty-first century over Ghana and its potential implications for agriculture productivity

The slightest change in rainfall could have a significant impact on rain-fed agriculture in countries like Ghana. This study evaluated for the first time the performance of the statistical downscaling model (SDSM-DC) at 2m spatial resolution in simulating rainfall in Ghana for the base period 1981–2010. It further analysed the projected changes in seasonal rainfall pattern across different agro-ecological zones for the twenty-first century under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 emission scenarios over Ghana. Ensemble mean of simulated rainfall data (2011–2099) generated by 43 GCMs in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) were used as base factors for local future climate scenarios generation. Performance analysis of SDSM-DC shows a Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency, percent bias and RMSE observations standard deviation ratio of 0.88, −19 and 0.34, respectively. Generally, seasonal rainfall amount is expected to increase between 10 and 40% in all the agro-ecological zones in Ghana by the end of the twenty-first century. Off-season rainfall in December–February shows more than 100% increase in the Guinea Savannah zone. Rainfall projected under RCP 4.5 was on average 2% higher than RCP 8.5 in all the seasons throughout the century. Based on these results, it is appropriate to suggest a high incidence of flooding across Ghana in the twenty-first century. This could have dire consequences on agriculture which contribute to a large proportion of Ghana’s GDP. Therefore, for sustainable food production and security in the twenty-first century, Ghana needs climate adaptation policies and programmes that encourage the design and implementation of early warning systems of meteorological hazards and the introduction of new crop varieties that are flood tolerant.</p

Developing Cassava Mosaic Disease resistant cassava varieties in Ghana using a marker assisted selection approach

Cassava is a major staple and food security crop in Africa which can produce a crop under uncertain rainfall and low fertility conditions. How- ever, it suffers from several pests and diseases, with Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) being the main biotic constraint in production in sub-Saharan Africa. It is caused by cassava mosaic geminiviruses. Plants infected with CMD usually produce a few or no storage roots. Markers associated with resistance genes to CMD have been mapped, including a major dominant gene, CMD2 . Eight CMD resistant geno- types from CIAT were used in crosses with three cassava landraces and one IITA breeding genotype. CMD evaluation was done on the parents and 525 F 1 progenies comprising of individuals pre-selected for CMD resistance based on average severity scores of 1 and 2. Multiple marker analysis was used to screen for the CMD2 gene, where four markers associated with this gene were used. Of the tested genotypes 83 % showed at least one marker allele for the CMD2 gene. Two CIAT genotypes (CR52A-31 and AR14-10) had all four marker alleles. TMEII had three alleles associated with CMD2 while Dabodabo had one marker allele. This suggests that Dababo may have alternative genes than CMD2 for CMD resistance. The F 1 families showed segregation for the CMD2 gene. A total of 88 individuals (17 %) had all four marker alleles associated with the CMD2 gene. A total of 179 individuals had between one to three marker alleles each associated with CMD2 . A total of 91 individuals had no marker allele associated with the CMD2 geneCassava is a major staple and food security crop in Africa which can produce a crop under uncertain rainfall and low fertility conditions. How- ever, it suffers from several pests and diseases, with Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) being the main biotic constraint in production in sub-Saharan Africa. It is caused by cassava mosaic geminiviruses. Plants infected with CMD usually produce a few or no storage roots. Markers associated with resistance genes to CMD have been mapped, including a major dominant gene, CMD2 . Eight CMD resistant geno- types from CIAT were used in crosses with three cassava landraces and one IITA breeding genotype. CMD evaluation was done on the parents and 525 F 1 progenies comprising of individuals pre-selected for CMD resistance based on average severity scores of 1 and 2. Multiple marker analysis was used to screen for the CMD2 gene, where four markers associated with this gene were used. Of the tested genotypes 83 % showed at least one marker allele for the CMD2 gene. Two CIAT genotypes (CR52A-31 and AR14-10) had all four marker alleles. TMEII had three alleles associated with CMD2 while Dabodabo had one marker allele. This suggests that Dababo may have alternative genes than CMD2 for CMD resistance. The F 1 families showed segregation for the CMD2 gene. A total of 88 individuals (17 %) had all four marker alleles associated with the CMD2 gene. A total of 179 individuals had between one to three marker alleles each associated with CMD2 . A total of 91 individuals had no marker allele associated with the CMD2 geneCassava is a major staple and food security crop in Africa which can produce a crop under uncertain rainfall and low fertility conditions. How- ever, it suffers from several pests and diseases, with Cassava Mosaic Disease (CMD) being the main biotic constraint in production in sub-Saharan Africa. It is caused by cassava mosaic geminiviruses. Plants infected with CMD usually produce a few or no storage roots. Markers associated with resistance genes to CMD have been mapped, including a major dominant gene, CMD2 . Eight CMD resistant geno- types from CIAT were used in crosses with three cassava landraces and one IITA breeding genotype. CMD evaluation was done on the parents and 525 F 1 progenies comprising of individuals pre-selected for CMD resistance based on average severity scores of 1 and 2. Multiple marker analysis was used to screen for the CMD2 gene, where four markers associated with this gene were used. Of the tested genotypes 83 % showed at least one marker allele for the CMD2 gene. Two CIAT genotypes (CR52A-31 and AR14-10) had all four marker alleles. TMEII had three alleles associated with CMD2 while Dabodabo had one marker allele. This suggests that Dababo may have alternative genes than CMD2 for CMD resistance. The F 1 families showed segregation for the CMD2 gene. A total of 88 individuals (17 %) had all four marker alleles associated with the CMD2 gene. A total of 179 individuals had between one to three marker alleles each associated with CMD2 . A total of 91 individuals had no marker allele associated with the CMD2 gen

Assessment of Wound-Healing Properties of Medicinal Plants: The Case of Phyllanthus muellerianus

Phyllanthus muellerianus (Family Euphorbiaceae) is a shrub, which is widely distributed in West Africa and employed traditionally as a wound-healing agent especially in Ghana. The aim of the study was to determine the in vivo wound-healing activity of aqueous aerial part extract of P. muellerianus (PLE) and its major isolate, geraniin. Excision and incision wound models were used to determine the wound-healing activity. Wounds were treated with PLE (0.25, 0.5, and 1% w/w) and geraniin (0.1, 0.2, and 0.4% w/w) aqueous creams. PLE and geraniin significantly (p &lt; 0.001) increased wound contraction rate and hydroxyproline production compared to untreated wounds. Histological studies of wound tissues showed high levels of fibroblasts and increased collagen content and cross-linking in PLE and geraniin-treated wound tissues. Immuno-histochemical investigations revealed high levels of TGF-β1 in PLE and geraniin-treated wound tissues compared to the untreated wound tissues. Tensile strength of incised wounds was significantly (p &lt; 0.05) high in PLE and geraniin-treated wounds. PLE (0.1–100 μg/mL) significantly (p &lt; 0.001) reduce LDH release from HaCaT-keratinocytes compared to the untreated cells. PLE and geraniin possess wound healing and cytoprotective effect