Conservation of Insect Pollinators through Indigenous Traditional and Western Scientific Knowledge

Though useful indigenous knowledge systems are abound they are often overlooked by Western scientific research and development because of the oral tradition and certain inherent limitations in indigenous knowledge systems. This paper explores the usefulness of insect pollinators, harmful practices to the insect pollinators and their conservation, traditional indigenous knowledge that exists about insect pollinators, as well as the need for infusion of traditional indigenous knowledge and western scientific knowledge in the conservation and preservation of insect pollinators. The paper espouses the numerous benefits of insect pollinators right down from ecological to religious, financial and aesthetic. It also delved into some deliberate and inadvertent human practices that threaten the very existence of insect pollinators and the consequences. It is clear from the literature that though indigenous traditional knowledge about insect pollinators is in somewhat confused state its role and importance as a basis for participatory development is well recognized. Basically, several tacit indigenous traditional processes from diverse communities are in place to conserve insect pollinators. Some of such processes are facilitated by research scientists in the form of projects. Hence, more collaboration between indigenous traditionalists and research scientists in pollinator conservation is a step in the right direction and should be encouraged. Keywords: Indigenous, traditional, insect pollinator, conservation, pesticidal, scientific knowledg

Sex, HIV/AIDS and Students: a Baseline Study in Agona District in the Central Region of Ghana

A ZJER study on HIV/AIDS awareness programmes designed for Ghanaian students.The dreaded disease AIDS is on the increase in Ghana. To eradicate it, a number of organizations are stepping up the campaign against the disease. However, it has become necessary to know the attitudes of the youth especially junior and senior secondary school students to sex as well as their awareness levels about the facts concerning HIV/AIDS. As a result, the views of222 students were sampled in the Agona District in the Central Region of Ghana. From the results it was realized that the students were actively involved in sex and some of them started at the early age of eight years. Regrettably, a size- able number of those of them engaged in sex did not use the condom. Some of them avoided the condom to avoid negative remarks from others and as a result of shyness. Some of the students did not know the cause of HIV/AIDS whilst others thought that HIV/AIDS is due to a curse from God or gods and only offenders contract the disease. Some respondents did not even believe in the existence of HIV/AIDS. Despite the fact that some of the respondents had good knowledge of the modes of spread, symptoms, preventive measures and ways of living with people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), a large number of them also had all kinds of misconceptions. Respondents also seemed to have very little idea about why one should have sexual intercourse

Gold mining pollution and the cost of private healthcare: The case of Ghana

To attract greater levels of foreign direct investment into their gold mining sectors, many mineral-rich countries in sub-Saharan Africa have been willing to overlook serious instances of mining company non-compliance with environmental standards. These lapses in regulatory oversight and enforcement have led to high levels of pollution in many mining communities. The likelihood is high that the risk of pollution-related sicknesses, such as skin infections, upper and lower respiratory disorders, and cardiovascular diseases, will necessitate increasingly high healthcare expenditures in affected communities. In this study, we propose and estimate a hedonic-type model that relates healthcare expenditure to the degree of residents' exposure to mining pollution using data obtained on gold mining in Ghana. The empirical results confirm that, after controlling for factors such as current and long-term health status, increased mining pollution leads to higher healthcare expenditure

Optimum fisheries management under climate variability: Evidence from artisanal marine fishing in Ghana

In most coastal developing countries, the artisanal fisheries sector is managed as a common pool resource. As a result, such fisheries are overcapitalized and overfished. In Ghana, in addition to anthropogenic factors, there is evidence of rising coastal temperature and its variance, which could impact the environmental carrying capacity of the fish stock. This study investigates the effect of climate variation on biophysical parameters and yields. Our results indicate that the rising temperature is decreasing the carrying capacity. As a result, an optimum tax on harvest must reflect climate variability, as well as the congestion externality

Pseudo-High-Order Symplectic Integrators

Symplectic N-body integrators are widely used to study problems in celestial mechanics. The most popular algorithms are of 2nd and 4th order, requiring 2 and 6 substeps per timestep, respectively. The number of substeps increases rapidly with order in timestep, rendering higher-order methods impractical. However, symplectic integrators are often applied to systems in which perturbations between bodies are a small factor of the force due to a dominant central mass. In this case, it is possible to create optimized symplectic algorithms that require fewer substeps per timestep. This is achieved by only considering error terms of order epsilon, and neglecting those of order epsilon^2, epsilon^3 etc. Here we devise symplectic algorithms with 4 and 6 substeps per step which effectively behave as 4th and 6th-order integrators when epsilon is small. These algorithms are more efficient than the usual 2nd and 4th-order methods when applied to planetary systems.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa

Does food insecurity impact subjective evaluation of well-being? Evidence from a developing country

Understanding the relationship between food insecurity and subjective evaluation of well-being is critical in designing social welfare policies, especially in developing countries. Surprisingly, literature on the topic is scarce. This study adopted Van Praag's theoretical framework and used household survey data from Ghana to investigate the monetary income which households facing severe food insecurity require to reach a given level of verbal qualification of well-being. We found that households that are food insecure require a higher monetary income to reach the same level of verbal qualification of well-being than their counterparts who are food secure. Furthermore, per capita household income levels positively correlate with monetary income requirements, indicating a weak correlation between food security and per capita household income. Households that receive support from others require a lower level of income than either those who give support or those who neither give nor receive support

The role of chaotic resonances in the solar system

Our understanding of the Solar System has been revolutionized over the past decade by the finding that the orbits of the planets are inherently chaotic. In extreme cases, chaotic motions can change the relative positions of the planets around stars, and even eject a planet from a system. Moreover, the spin axis of a planet-Earth's spin axis regulates our seasons-may evolve chaotically, with adverse effects on the climates of otherwise biologically interesting planets. Some of the recently discovered extrasolar planetary systems contain multiple planets, and it is likely that some of these are chaotic as well.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure