Exploring business partnerships between communities and universities: An exploratory study on Ashesi and the Berekuso community

Thesis submitted to the Department of Business Administration, Ashesi University College, in partial fulfillment of Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration, April 2016University-Community relationships is one an avenue of development that is yet to be explored in Ghana although there exist some form of unofficial partnerships. Intentional efforts are required to explore meaningful university-community partnerships. The establishment of institutions of higher learning at particular location affects the physical, social and economic landscape of this sites. In 2011, Ashesi University College opened its doors to students and the general public at its Berekuso campus. This exploratory study involving respondents from the Berekuso community, students, and staff and faculty members from the Ashesi University sought to answer the question: “what can a partnership between Ashesi and Berekuso do to improve the way of doing business in Berekuso?” Data were obtained through questionnaires that were administered to respondents. The study revealed that people doing business in the community have inadequate business knowledge and thus stand a chance of benefiting from business support services like book keeping offered by students as part of their semester’s projects. Also the absence of a financial institution in the community came out as one major bottleneck to doing business in the community. However, to harness a meaningful relationship between the university and the community a more structured partnership is required. Also there is a need to be set up a committee to plan for short and long term partnership objectives. Improving communication and a feedback collection system are also recommended for improving the partnership between Ashesi and the Berekuso community.Ashesi University Colleg

Water Quality Assessment of the Bontanga Reservoir.

The water quality assessment of Bontanga reservoir in Northern Region of Ghana has been carried out and results obtained were based on samples collected from three sampling points monitored over a period of four years. Many of the parameters analysed were within the World Health Organisation’s (2008) permissible levels for drinking water, and the Ghana Water Resources Commission target raw water quality range for domestic water use, with an exception of microbiological quality. The physico-chemical parameters ranged from 6.77 to 8.52 (pH unit), 0.43 to 39.40 NTU (turbidity),  2.50 to 30.00 colour units (colour), 44.50 to 135.00µS/cm (electrical conductivity), 24.20 to 39.10 mg/l (total dissolved solids), 20.00 to 88.00 mg/l (total hardness), and dissolved oxygen levels of 9.32 to 10.36mg/l. The mean concentration of sulphate in the dry season was 4.33mg/l and 8.07mg/l in the wet season. Nitrate-N and phosphate ranged from 0.01 to 4.00mg/l and 0.015 to 0.024mg/l respectively. The heavy metals concentration ranged from 0.017 to 0.025mg/l (Cu); 0.15mg/l to 0.20mg/l (Fe), 0.01 to 0.03mg/l(Cr),  0.12 to 0.21mg/l(Mn), 0.010 to 0.014mg/l(Pb), 0.001 to 0.227mg/l (As) and 0.002 to 0.003 mg/l for Cd. The silica ranged 4.70mg/l to 23.90mg/l (SiO2). Total coliform counts ranged from 3,500 to 15,000 cfc/100ml with an overall mean of 9,250 cfc/100ml. The reservoir exhibited an overall ionic dominance pattern of Na > K > Ca > Mg and SO4 > HCO3 > Cl. Keywords: Bontanga Reservoir, Water quality, Physico-chemical analysis, Microbial analysis

Dynamics of community perceptions, common resources and compensation practices in mining: The case of Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd at Ahafo

A critical issue confronting the mining industry and communities in Ghana is compensation for loss of land rights in mining activities. The 1992 Constitution and the Minerals and Mining Act, 2006 (Act 703) both require compensation for the expropriated to be fair, adequate and promptly paid. However, fairness, adequacy and promptness are normative value judgments predicated on stakeholders’ perceptions. This makes controversies over compensation issues inevitable and in mining communities these are rife because of increased competition between mines and communities for land and the legal provision that the payment of compensation rests with mining companies negotiating with the expropriated. Using Newmont Ghana Gold Ltd at Ahafo, we analyzed data from a sample of 120 stakeholders in four mining communities which revealed a wide divergence between communities’ perceptions and mining company compensation practices, and weak enforcement of mining legislation. Communities were also not well resourced to negotiate for compensation with the transnational corporation. Also, we argue that the principles applied in compensation assessment as provided by law, especially in the case of common resources, contribute to unfairness and inadequacy in compensation for the expropriated. We conclude that this imbalance has negative implications for community-mining company relations and threatens sustainable mining operations. We therefore recommend the rigorous enforcement of legislation, introduction of appropriate governmental and mining company initiatives in building capacities of communities for improved negotiations for compensation, legal recognition of common resources as valuable community assets for compensation, the application of the investment approach to compensation valuation and improved CSR packages by mines as means of bridging the gap between communities’ perceptions and compensation practices and ensuring improved company-community relations in the mining industry

Genetic basis of maize resistance to multiple insect pests: integrated genome-wide comparative mapping and candidate gene prioritization

Several species of herbivores feed on maize in field and storage setups, making the development of multiple insect resistance a critical breeding target. In this study, an association mapping panel of 341 tropical maize lines was evaluated in three field environments for resistance to fall armyworm (FAW), whilst bulked grains were subjected to a maize weevil (MW) bioassay and genotyped with Diversity Array Technology’s single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) markers. A multi-locus genome-wide association study (GWAS) revealed 62 quantitative trait nucleotides (QTNs) associated with FAW and MW resistance traits on all 10 maize chromosomes, of which, 47 and 31 were discovered at stringent Bonferroni genome-wide significance levels of 0.05 and 0.01, respectively, and located within or close to multiple insect resistance genomic regions (MIRGRs) concerning FAW, SB, and MW. Sixteen QTNs influenced multiple traits, of which, six were associated with resistance to both FAWandMW, suggesting a pleiotropic genetic control. Functional prioritization of candidate genes (CGs) located within 10–30 kb of the QTNs revealed 64 putative GWAS-based CGs (GbCGs) showing evidence of involvement in plant defense mechanisms. Only one GbCG was associated with each of the five of the six combined resistance QTNs, thus reinforcing the pleiotropy hypothesis. In addition, through in silico co-functional network inferences, an additional 107 network-based CGs (NbCGs), biologically connected to the 64 GbCGs, and di erentially expressed under biotic or abiotic stress, were revealed within MIRGRs. The provided multiple insect resistance physical map should contribute to the development of combined insect resistance in maize

Factors influencing genomic prediction accuracies of tropical maize resistance to fall armyworm and weevils

Genomic selection (GS) can accelerate variety improvement when training set (TS) size and its relationship with the breeding set (BS) are optimized for prediction accuracies (PAs) of genomic prediction (GP) models. Sixteen GP algorithms were run on phenotypic best linear unbiased predictors (BLUPs) and estimators (BLUEs) of resistance to both fall armyworm (FAW) and maize weevil (MW) in a tropical maize panel. For MW resistance, 37% of the panel was the TS, and the BS was the remainder, whilst for FAW, random-based training sets (RBTS) and pedigree-based training sets (PBTSs) were designed. PAs achieved with BLUPs varied from 0.66 to 0.82 for MW-resistance traits, and for FAW resistance, 0.694 to 0.714 for RBTS of 37%, and 0.843 to 0.844 for RBTS of 85%, and these were at least two-fold those from BLUEs. For PBTS, FAW resistance PAs were generally higher than those for RBTS, except for one dataset. GP models generally showed similar PAs across individual traits whilst the TS designation was determinant, since a positive correlation (R = 0.92***) between TS size and PAs was observed for RBTS, and for the PBTS, it was negative (R = 0.44**). This study pioneered the use of GS for maize resistance to insect pests in sub-Saharan Africa

Global wealth disparities drive adherence to COVID-safe pathways in head and neck cancer surgery

Peer reviewe

Investigation of hospital discharge cases and SARS-CoV-2 introduction into Lothian care homes

Background The first epidemic wave of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Scotland resulted in high case numbers and mortality in care homes. In Lothian, over one-third of care homes reported an outbreak, while there was limited testing of hospital patients discharged to care homes. Aim To investigate patients discharged from hospitals as a source of SARS-CoV-2 introduction into care homes during the first epidemic wave. Methods A clinical review was performed for all patients discharges from hospitals to care homes from 1st March 2020 to 31st May 2020. Episodes were ruled out based on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) test history, clinical assessment at discharge, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) data and an infectious period of 14 days. Clinical samples were processed for WGS, and consensus genomes generated were used for analysis using Cluster Investigation and Virus Epidemiological Tool software. Patient timelines were obtained using electronic hospital records. Findings In total, 787 patients discharged from hospitals to care homes were identified. Of these, 776 (99%) were ruled out for subsequent introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into care homes. However, for 10 episodes, the results were inconclusive as there was low genomic diversity in consensus genomes or no sequencing data were available. Only one discharge episode had a genomic, time and location link to positive cases during hospital admission, leading to 10 positive cases in their care home. Conclusion The majority of patients discharged from hospitals were ruled out for introduction of SARS-CoV-2 into care homes, highlighting the importance of screening all new admissions when faced with a novel emerging virus and no available vaccine