サブサハラアフリカの天水田地帯へのアジア型緑の革命の移転可能性について: ガーナ北部での技術普及プログラムの評価

政策分析プログラム / Policy Analysis Program政策研究大学院大学 / National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies論文審査委員: 大塚 啓二郎（主査）, 鈴木 綾（東京大学）, 櫻井 武司（一橋大学）, 大山 達雄, 加治 佐敬（IRRI

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES IN LIBRARIES: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW

Knowledge has been used by several organizations to plan smart and effective actions. Knowledge Management (KM) research has been undertaken in a variety of fields or disciplines. The goal of this review was to examine knowledge management strategies in libraries and information centres and barriers that prevent these strategies from being implemented. A systematic review of 42 articles from 2001- 2021 was conducted. The review covered studies on both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Findings of the study revealed that much has not been written on the concept of knowledge management strategies. Lack of knowledge on the concept coupled with lack of knowledge sharing and lack of technological infrastructure were identified as some of the barriers to knowledge management practices in libraries and information centres

Assessment of the Water Quality of the Oti River in Ghana

Oti river, an important tributary of the Volta lake in Ghana, was chosen as a case study to investigate the variations in the quality of itswater at different locations. This was necessitated by the people’s reliance on the river for their domestic and agricultural water use.Composite water samples drawn from some sections of the Oti river were analysed in the laboratory for certain parameters to enableassessment of water quality. The observed results of the laboratory analyses are compared with the 2003 Ghana Raw Water Criteriaand Guidelines for domestic use. The results indicated that turbidity, total iron, faecal coliforms and total coliforms were above thelimits set out by the 2003 Ghana Raw Water Criteria and Guidelines for domestic use. Thus, the water from Oti river was consideredunsuitable for direct human consumption at the sampled locations. Using the Water Quality Index (WQI) Calculator 1.0, the WQI forOti river was calculated to be 39.3. The WQI indicates that water quality in the Oti river was poor. This implies that the water qualityis almost always threatened or impaired; conditions usually depart from natural or desirable levels. Public awareness with respect tothe need to boil and/or filter the water before drinking is called for. Sanitary facilities to control river pollution and appropriate watertreatments techniques are required in the area to improve the welfare of the riparian dwellers

Instructional Strategies, Institutional Support and Student Achievement in General Knowledge in Art: Implications for Visual Arts Education in Ghana

General Knowledge in Art (GKA) is a core subject for Visual Arts students in Ghana’s Senior High Schools but an elective for Home Economics students. Unlike Textiles, Ceramics and allied Visual Arts subjects which are taught by specialist teachers, GKA has no specialist teachers: all Visual Arts teacher are deemed competent to effectively deliver the GKA curriculum; hence teaching and student achievement in GKA varies according to the strengths of GKA teachers. This paper describes an investigation of how the teaching methods, instructional strategies and resources employed by GKA teachers in Ghana’s Senior High Schools affect student achievement in the subject. Using findings analyzed from qualitative and quantitative data gathered via questionnaire administration to 420 GKA students (Visual Arts = 227 or 54.0%; Home Economics = 193 or 46.0%) in four schools in Ashanti Region; interview with nine GKA teachers, school librarians and storekeepers, as well as observation of 14 lessons, the study revealed a high student-teacher ratio which encourages ‘whole class’ teaching via the lecture method, and teacher use of verbal examples, textbook illustrations, chalkboard diagrams, and photographs as instructional media. It emerged that lack of art studios, tools and materials, inadequate funding, and weak institutional support discourage the teaching of practical lessons, including fieldtrips to derive aesthetic experiences from community resources. Lack of ICT and internet facilities also discourage research that could supplement teaching notes GKA students learn for assessment. Invariably, many Visual Arts and Home Economics students who offer GKA make poor grades in internal and external examinations and miss out on higher education. Keywords: Teaching; Student achievement; General Knowledge in Art; Visual Arts; Home Economics; Senior High School; Ghana

Cyanobacteria and microcystin contamination in untreated and treated drinking water in Ghana

© 2017, Page Press Publications. All rights reserved. Although cyanobacterial blooms and cyanotoxins represent a worldwide-occurring phenomenon, there are large differences among different countries in cyanotoxin-related human health risk assessment, management practices and policies. While national standards, guideline values and detailed regulatory frameworks for effective management of cyanotoxin risks have been implemented in many in­dustrialized countries, the extent of cyanobacteria occurrence and cyanotoxin contamination in certain geographical regions is underreported and not very well understood. Such regions include major parts of tropical West and Central Africa, a region constisting of more than 25 countries occupying an area of 12 million km2, with a total population of 500 milion people. Only few studies focusing on cyanotoxin occurrence in this region have been published so far, and reports dealing specifically with cyanotoxin contamination in drinking water are extremely scarce. In this study, we report seasonal data on cyanobactcria and microcystin (MC) contamination in drinking water reservoirs and adjacent treatment plants located in Ghana, West Africa. During January-June 2005, concentrations of MCs were monitored in four treatment plants supplying drinking water to major metropolitan areas in Ghana: the treatment plants Barekese and Owabi, which serve Kumasi Metropolitan Area, and the plants Kpong and Weija, providing water for Accra-Tema Metropolitan Area. HPLC analyses showed that 65% samples of raw water at the intake of the treatment plants contained intracellular MCs (maximal detected concentration was 8.73 fig L-1), whereas dissolved toxins were detected in 33% of the samples. Significant reduction of cyanobacterial cell counts and MC concentrations was achieved during the entire monitoring period by the applied conventional water treatment methods (alum flocculation, sedimentation, rapid sand filtration and chlorination), and MC concentration in the final treated water never exceeded 1 fig L-1 (WHO guideline limit for MC-LR in drinking water). However, cyanobacterial cells (93-3,055 cell mL-1) were frequently found in the final treated water and intracellular MCs were detected in 17% of the samples (maximal concentration 0.61 (μg L-1), while dissolved MCs were present in 14% of the final treated water samples (maximal concentration 0.81 μg L-1). It indicates a borderline efficiency of the water treatment, thus MC concentrations in drinking water might exceed the WHO guideline limit if the treatment efficiency gets compromised. In addition, MC concentrations found in the raw water might represent significant human health risks for people living in areas with only a limited access to the treated or underground drinking water

DNA-Based Identification and Chemical Characteristics of <i>Hypnea musciformis </i>from Coastal Sites in Ghana

This work reveals new, important insights about the influence of broad spatial variations on the phylogenetic relationship and chemical characteristics of Ghanaian Hypnea musciformis—a carrageenan-containing red seaweed. DNA barcoding techniques alleviate the difficulty for accurate morphological identification. COI barcode sequences of the Ghanaian H. musciformis showed &lt;0.7% intraspecies divergence, indicating no distinct phylogenetic variation, suggesting that they actually belong to the same species. Thus, the spatial distribution of the sampling sites along the coast of Ghana did not influence the phylogenetic characteristics of H. musciformis in the region. The data also showed that the Ghanaian Hypnea sp. examined in this work should be regarded as the same species as the H. musciformis collected in Brazilian Sao Paulo (KP725276) with only 0.8%–1.3% intraspecies divergence. However, the comparison of COI sequences of Ghanaian H. musciformis with the available COI sequence of H. musciformis from other countries showed intraspecies divergences of 0%–6.9% indicating that the COI sequences for H. musciformis in the GenBank may include different subspecies. Although samples did not differ phylogenetically, the chemical characteristics of the H. musciformis differed significantly between different sampling locations in Ghana. The levels of the monosaccharides, notably galactose (20%–30% dw) and glucose (10%–18% dw), as well as the seawater inorganic salt concentration (21–32 mg/L) and ash content (19%–33% dw), varied between H. musciformis collected at different coastal locations in Ghana. The current work demonstrated that DNA-based identification allowed a detailed understanding of H. musciformis phylogenetic characteristics and revealed that chemical compositional differences of H. musciformis occur along the Ghanaian coast which are not coupled with genetic variations among those samples

Relationship between serum total magnesium and serum potassium in emergency surgical patients in a tertiary hospital in Ghana

Introduction: Potassium and magnesium are the two most abundant intra cellular cations. They play pivotal roles in many essential biological processes. Deficiencies of these electrolytes are of clinical importance in hospitalised patients.Aim: To determine the relationship between serum total magnesium and potassium levels in adult patients requiring an emergency intra-abdominal surgery and the clinical utility of this relationship in the care of patients.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted over a five month period at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital. All 101 adult patients admitted for emergency intra abdominal surgery, who met the inclusion criteria and gave informed consent, were consecutively recruited and enrolled into the study. Patients’ characteristics preoperative total serum magnesium, serum potassium and albumin levels were determined. Regression analysis and correlation coefficients were used to determine the relation between serum magnesium and potassium. Analysis was done using SPSS version 20.Results: Mean serum total magnesium and serum potassium were 0.66±0.20mmol/L and 3.79±0.65mmol/L respectively. There was a significant but weak positive correlation between serum hypokalaemia and serum magnesium levels. Pearson’s correlation coefficient (2 tailed) was 0.21, R2= 0.04, p = value 0.038. Analysis generated a regression model: [Mg] = 0.06[K] + 0.42mmol/L, with a p-value = 0.038.Conclusion: A mathematical relationship was found between serum total magnesium and serum potassium among adult patients who require emergency intra-abdominal surgery. However, it had limited clinical utility.Funding: None declaredKeywords: Potassium, magnesium, electrolyte, preoperative perio

NFC as an Alternative for Improving Videogame Development in Mobile Devices

La aparición de nuevas alternativas de interacción puede llevar a generar videojuegos cada vez más interesantes, este es el caso de la interacción con el teléfono móvil, especialmente la tecnología NFC. Sin embargo no existe un referente para conocer qué tipos de videojuegos serían los más apropiados para desarrollar con NFC. Por tanto, este artículo aporta una revisión de varias fuentes para determinar el estado actual de videojuegos con NFC para futuras referencias de generadores de contenido y emprendedores en el campo de los videojuegos; como contribuciones se tiene una revisión en varias fuentes a nivel comercial, bibliográfico y de tiendas de aplicaciones para generar el estado actual y el esquema de posibles videojuegos con los cuales NFC podría interactuar, determinando las categorías de videojuegos más apropiadas para desarrollar con dicha tecnología y proponiendo algunas características que NFC permite implementar.The emergence of new interaction alternatives can result in increasingly interesting videogames; this is the case of the interaction with the mobile phone, especially NFC technology. However, there is not a model to get to know the types of videogames that would be more appropriate to be developed with NFC. Therefore, this article provides a review of several sources to determine current state of videogames with NFC for future reference of content generators and entrepreneurs in the field of videogames; as a contribution, there is a review of several commercial, bibliographic sources and applications shops to generate current state and a scheme of potential videogames with which NFC could interact by determining categories of the most appropriate videogames to be developed with such a technology and proposing some features that can be implemented with the NFC

Availability of supplies and motivations for accessing voluntary HIV counseling and testing services in Blantyre, Malawi

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>HIV counseling and testing is an important intervention in the prevention, control and management of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Counseling and testing can be an entry point for prevention, care and support. Knowledge of the quality of services and motivations for testing by individuals is important for effective understanding of the testing environment.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A cross sectional explorative study of clients accessing HIV voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) and counselors was conducted in 6 government health centers in Blantyre City, Malawi. We aimed to assess the availability of critical clinic supplies and identify the motivations of clients seeking counseling and testing services. We also aimed to identify the health professional cadres that were providing VCT in Blantyre city.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>102 VCT clients and 26 VCT counselors were interviewed. Among the VCT clients, 74% were <=29 years, 58.8% were females and only 7% reported no formal education. 42.2% were single, 45.1% married, 8.8% widowed and 3.9% divorced or separated. The primary reasons for seeking HIV counseling and testing were: recent knowledge about HIV (31.4%), current illness (22.5%), self-assessment of own behavior as risky (15.5%), suspecting sexual partner's infidelity (13.7%) and seeking HIV confirmatory test (9.8%) and other reasons (6.9%). Of the 26 VCT counselors, 14 were lay volunteers, 7 health surveillance assistants and 5 nurses. All except one had been trained specifically for HIV counseling and testing. All 6 facilities were conducting rapid HIV testing with same day test results provided to clients. Most of the supplies were considered adequate for testing.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>HIV counseling and testing facilities were available in Blantyre city in all the six public health facilities assessed. The majority of counseling and testing clients were motivated by perceptions of being at risk of HIV infection. In a country with 12% of individuals 15 to 49 years infected, there is need to encourage testing among population groups that may not perceive themselves to be at risk of infection.</p

ARMA and/or SETAR Estimation and Out-of-Sample Forecast of the Mean-Reversion Between Brent Crude Oil and Gasoline Prices on the Ghanaian Market

The study investigates the existence of long-run equilibrium or mean-reversion using bivariate analysis of paired prices, as well as to test for linear and nonlinear threshold-type mean-reversion of bivariate relationships. The coefficient parameters of (non)linear VECM and threshold parameter value are estimated, and the forecast performance accuracies of the SETAR are compared to linear models of the mean-reversion process. The two-regime SETAR model gives a much better prediction of cointegration relation than linear AR model. In the test for the two-regime SETAR model for the cointegration relation against a three-regime model, the two-regime model cannot be rejected at any reasonable significance level. The 2-SETAR exhibits significant constant and trending intervention features of the price build-up process. The asymmetric behavior remained the dominant feature of our mean reversion, which was also apparent. Although the MAPE is somewhat higher than the AR and ARMA processes, the threshold models outperformed the AR and ARMA processes. In summary, the mean reversion property is heavily reliant on the events that occurred in the preceding four bi-weekly pricing-periods in the swift unusual directions. In contrast, in the slow usual direction, it relies on the occurrence of the same in the only bi-weekly pricing-periods immediately preceding it