Conversion of Invasive Grasses into Hand Made Paper for Artistic Creations

The devastating impact of invasive grasses has created serious challenges for casual workers who consistently deal with this nuisance. The paper explores the possibilities of converting invasive grasses which are prevalent at the Department of Painting and Sculpture, in the Faculty of Art, into hand made paper to enhance artistic creations. Two grasses were identified namely Goose grass (Eleusine indica) and Japanese Lawn grass (Zoysia Japonica). Basic experimental procedures such as boiling and retting were followed before achieving the desired results. Artistic creations made on the paper revealed appealing, interesting and natural results. In sum, the tensile strength, and opacity of the paper produced was standard and an artistic medium for art explorations. It is a new material that engenders new forms of contemporary sculptural and painting works and challenges traditional philosophical ideas of artists to go beyond to create new vistas in art. Keywords: Art, invasive grass; papermaking; artistic creation

School-Based Relationships Among Children with or at Risk for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders

We investigated the influence of a teacher’s perceived emotional state (e.g., feeling emotionally exhausted; feeling accomplished) on the association between parent-teacher relationships and teacher-child conflict among young children. We used pretest data from a pilot study examining the efficacy of a socio-emotional learning intervention for children with or at risk for emotional or behavioral disorders (EBD). Twenty-six teachers and 45 children (Mean age= 7.46 years; SD = 1.21) participated in the intervention. Teachers rated their relationships with children and their parents using the Parent-Teacher Relationship Scale and Student-Teacher Relationship Scale. Multilevel models showed that teachers with a higher sense of personal accomplishment evidenced a negative association between parent-teacher relationships and teacher-child conflict. However, for teachers who felt emotionally exhausted or those who had a lower sense of personal achievement, the association between parent-teacher relationships and teacher-child conflict either remained unchanged or was positive. We conclude by discussing findings in relation to the importance of increasing teacher efficacy, reducing teacher burnout, and strengthening parent-teacher relationships in schools to improve teacher-child relationships and children’s psychosocial outcomes

Clinicopathologic characteristics of early-onset breast cancer: a comparative analysis of cases from across Ghana

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer is the commonest cancer diagnosed globally and the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality among women younger than 40 years. This study comparatively reviewed the demographic, pathologic and molecular features of Early-Onset Breast Cancer (EOBC) reported in Ghana in relation to Late Onset Breast Cancer (LOBC). METHODS: A descriptive, cross-sectional design was used, with purposive sampling of retrospective histopathology data from 2019 to 2021. Reports of core or incision biopsy, Wide Local Excision or Mastectomy with or without axillary lymph node dissection specimen and matched immunohistochemistry reports were merged into a single file and analysed with SPSS v. 20.0. Descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages were used to describe categorical variables. Cross-tabulation and chi-square test was done at a 95% confidence interval with significance established at p \u3c 0.05. RESULTS: A total of 2418 cases were included in the study with 20.2% (488 cases) being EOBCs and 79.8% (1930 cases) being LOBCs. The median age at diagnosis was 34.66 (IQR: 5.55) in the EOBC group (\u3c 40 years) and 54.29 (IQR: 16.86) in the LOBC group (≥ 40 years). Invasive carcinoma-No Special Type was the commonest tumour type with grade III tumours being the commonest in both categories of patients. Perineural invasion was the only statistically significant pathologic parameter with age. EOBC was associated with higher DCIS component (24.8% vs 21.6%), lower hormone-receptor-positive status (52.30% vs 55.70%), higher proliferation index (Ki-67 \u3e 20: 82.40% vs 80.30%) and a higher number of involved lymph nodes (13.80% vs 9.00%). Triple-Negative Breast cancer (26.40% vs 24.30%) was the most predominant molecular subtype of EOBC. CONCLUSION: EOBCs in our setting are generally more aggressive with poorer prognostic histopathological and molecular features when compared with LOBCs. A larger study is recommended to identify the association between relevant pathological features and early onset breast cancer in Ghana. Again, further molecular and genetic studies to understand the molecular genetic drivers of the general poorer pathological features of EOBCs and its relation to patient outcome in our setting is needed

Pseudotext Injection and Advance Filtering of Low-Resource Corpus for Neural Machine Translation

Scaling natural language processing (NLP) to low-resourced languages to improve machine translation (MT) performance remains enigmatic. This research contributes to the domain on a low-resource English-Twi translation based on filtered synthetic-parallel corpora. It is often perplexing to learn and understand what a good-quality corpus looks like in low-resource conditions, mainly where the target corpus is the only sample text of the parallel language. To improve the MT performance in such low-resource language pairs, we propose to expand the training data by injecting synthetic-parallel corpus obtained by translating a monolingual corpus from the target language based on bootstrapping with different parameter settings. Furthermore, we performed unsupervised measurements on each sentence pair engaging squared Mahalanobis distances, a filtering technique that predicts sentence parallelism. Additionally, we extensively use three different sentence-level similarity metrics after round-trip translation. Experimental results on a diverse amount of available parallel corpus demonstrate that injecting pseudoparallel corpus and extensive filtering with sentence-level similarity metrics significantly improves the original out-of-the-box MT systems for low-resource language pairs. Compared with existing improvements on the same original framework under the same structure, our approach exhibits tremendous developments in BLEU and TER scores

C‐kit‐negative transmural gastrointestinal stromal tumor in the stomach: A rare case of upper GI bleeding in Ghana

Abstract Upper GI bleeding from GIST is rare in Africa. The C‐kit‐negative variant is uncommon worldwide. We report a case of a 42‐year‐old woman managed for upper GI bleeding secondary to stomach GIST, negative for CD117 but positive for DOG 1 and CD 34. The 1‐year postsurgery review is uneventful

Use of Non-Prescription Remedies by Ghanaian Human Immunodeficiency Virus-Positive Persons on Antiretroviral Therapy

BackgroundInappropriate use of non-prescription remedies by persons living with human immunodeficiency virus (PLHIV) may result in adverse events or potentiate non-adherence to prescribed medications. This study investigated the use of non-prescription remedies among PLHIV receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) from four treatment centers in southern Ghana.MethodsA mixed method design using quantitative and qualitative methods was used. This article focuses on the quantitative survey of 540 respondents. Univariate analysis was used to generate descriptive tabulations of key variables. Bivariate analysis and logistic regression modeling, respectively, produced unadjusted and adjusted associations between background attributes of PLHIV and the use of non-prescription remedies. A p-value of < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Version 20.0.ResultsOne out of three respondents reported the use of non-prescription remedies at least once within 3 months of the survey. Most of these were locally made and included “Angel natural bitters, concoctions from the Christian prayer centers, garlic, and mahogany syrups.” These remedies were used concomitantly with antiretroviral medications (ARVs)—46% or administered with ARVs but at different times during the day (43%). Some of the remedies were reportedly prescribed by health workers, or self-initiated during periods of ARVs shortage. Others took them based on their perception of their efficacy. Bivariate level analysis identified ART clinic site, place of residence, and ARV adherence monitoring to be significantly associated with the use of non-prescription remedies (p < 0.05). Multiple logistic regression analysis controlling for covariates confirmed the location of ART clinic as the only predictor of the use of non-prescription remedies. Compared to clients at the large urban teaching hospital (Korle-Bu Fevers Unit ART center), those at the district level (Atua ART center) were ninefold more likely to use non-prescription remedies [adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 8.84; 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.83–33.72]. Those from a district level mission hospital (St. Martin’s ART center) were threefold as likely to use these remedies (AOR = 2.610; 95% CI 1.074–9.120).ConclusionThe use of non-prescription remedies by PLHIV on ART is common in southern Ghana. Usage is mostly self-initiated because of perceived efficacy of remedy, and was more common among clients attending rural ART clinics

Food elimination, food substitution, and nutrient supplementation among ARV-exposed HIV-positive persons in southern Ghana

Abstract Background Optimal nutrition is a determinant of health in all persons. In persons living with HIV (PLHIV), nutrition is particularly important. Various factors, including dietary practices, play a role in guaranteeing nutritional health. Objectives We investigated multiple non-prescription drugs use among HIV-positive persons receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) from four treatment centers in southern Ghana. This paper, however, focuses on nutrient supplement use, food elimination, and food substitution practices by the PLHIV. Methods Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we collected data from 540 HIV-positive persons at the health facility level. This paper focuses on only the quantitative data. Individual study participants were selected using a systematic random sampling procedure. Participants were interviewed after informed consent. We used univariate analysis to generate descriptive tabulations for key variables. Multivariable logistic regression modeling identified predictors of three practices (nutrient supplementation, food elimination, and food substitution). P value less than 0.05 or 95% confidence intervals facilitated determination of statistical significance. All analyses were performed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 20.0. Results The use of nutrient supplements was a popular practice; 72% of the PLHIV used various kinds. The primary motive for the practice was to boost appetite and to gain weight. A little over 20% of the participants reportedly eliminated certain foods and beverages, while 17% introduced new foods since their initial HIV diagnosis. All the three practices were largely driven by the quest for improved health status. We determined predictors of nutrient supplementation to be ART clinic location and having an ART adherence monitor. Having an ART adherence monitor was significantly associated with reduced odds of nutrient supplementation (AOR = 0.34; 95% CI 0.12–0.95). The only predictor for food elimination was education level (AOR = 0.29; 95% CI 0.30–0.92); predictors of food substitution were ART clinic location (AOR = 0.11; 95% CI 0.02–0.69) and anemia (defined as hemoglobin concentration less than 11.0 g/dl) (AOR = 0.21; 95% CI 0.12–0.85). Conclusions The practice of supplementation is popular among this group of PLHIV. Food elimination and substitution are practiced, albeit in moderation. The predictors identified may prove helpful in provider-client encounters as well as local HIV programming

Additional file 1: of ART access-related barriers faced by HIV-positive persons linked to care in southern Ghana: a mixed method study

The Survey Questionnaire is included as an additional file. (DOCX 123 kb