Radon Measurements in Ghana: Health Risk Assessment at the Lake Bosomtwi Basin

The need to assess the risk of exposure to radon and its daughters stems from the reality that radon is a potential carcinogenic. We report Radon-222 risk assessment, from measurements on soil and sediments taken from six towns along the Lake Bosomtwi basin at two levels of 10cm and 20 cm. The current and future prospects of Lake Bosomtwi, the largest natural lake in Ghana, make this assessment imperative, since radon forms half of natural background radiation. Spatial Analyser Decision Assistant (SADA) algorithms were used to model the measured radon concentrations under two land-use scenarios, namely residential and recreational. Setting the data under a targeted risk of 1E-6,we found that the external exposure was below that of the maximum concentrations to the measurements. This indicates that the radon levels around those towns as of the time of the measurements is low and below limits which can cause carcinogenic threats. The mean risk associated with the sampled locations was found to be 9E-11 at the recreational areas and 2E-8 at the residential centres. To confirm the authenticity of the point risk analysis, geospatial modelling based on inverse distance interpolation schemes were performed. The results tally closely with that of the measured point risk analysis with and error margin o f 2% and 1.3 % for both land use scenarios at 10 cm and 20 cm depth respectively. Journal of the Ghana Science Association Vol. 9 (2) 2007: pp. 85-9

Effect of acetylation and varietal differences on the pasting properties of some corn starches

The pasting properties of starch from eight varieties of corn; Okomasa, Obatanpa, Dodzi, Mamaba, Dadaba, Dorke, Golden crystal, and CIDA-ba were studied to establish the effects of acetylation and varietal differences on the pasting properties. Native starches extracted from thecorn varieties were modified with 10% v/v acetic anhydride solution. The pasting properties studied included pasting temperature, peak viscosity, breakdown, and retrogradation. The pasting temperature, peak viscosity, viscosity at 95°C and 50°C, breakdown and retrogradation of thenative starches were generally higher than those of the acetylated starches. The pasting temperature of the native starches was between 67.6-78.2°C and acetylated starches between 65.5-77.2° C. The Native Okomasa and acetylated Golden crystal had the highest pasting temperature of 78.2°C and peak temperature of 94.6°C respectively. The acetylation had significant effects (

Nutritional and anthropometric studies on Wister rats by feeding them with corn dough enriched with fish and shrimps - a locally formulated weaning diet

Previous work done on the formulation of weaning diet by enriching corn-dough with fish and shrimps proved suitable for consumption by babies. This study seeks to determine the bioavailability of the nutrients using Wistar rats. Four composite samples were prepared in the ratios,Maize, 80: Fish, 15: Cowpea, 5 (A); Maize 80: Fish, 10: Cowpea, 10 (B); Maize, 80: Shrimp, 15: Cowpea, 5 (C) and Maize, 80: Shrimp, 10: Cowpea, 10 (D). The cowpea added was mainly to mask any unpleasant fish or shrimp flavours. The nutrients in the blends and Cerelac® werecompared. The anthropometric results revealed that the effect of nutrients from the blends on weight and length increases of the Wistar rats, on the 28th day, were significantly higher in the blends than that of Cerelac® (control) (