Understanding the challenges and nature of land administration in the Tamale Metropolis, Northern Region, Ghana

Land plays an integral role in almost every economic activity. Land administration, therefore, is critical for the national development of a country. It is the hope and aspiration of many to own landed property for various reasons such as for residential, agricultural, and commercial purposes amongst others. Some African countries over the years have embarked on several land administration and land registration reforms to stimulate growth and reduce poverty amongst its people and these programmes are yielding positive results in some of these countries. This paper used semi-structured questionnaires to elicit information from fifty-one (51) participants in the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly, including traditional leaders, members of the general public who have ever registered their lands with the Lands Commission and Divisional heads at the Lands Commission, through randomly and purposefully selected sampling, respectively. This paper reveals that there are still teething challenges affecting land administration in Tamale which include the cost of land, cost of registration, corruption, weak coordination among land sector agencies, encroachment of state land, poor record-keeping on the land transaction and unidentified traditional land boundaries. This paper recommends effective coordination among land sector stakeholders including the land commission, land use and spatial planning authority and the traditional authorities for meaningful reforms on land administration

Corporate Social Responsibility and Bank Performance: A Cointegration Approach

The aim of this study is to examine the short- and the long-run effects of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) on the performance of listed Ghanaian banks. An elongated balanced panel design with secondary data of 65 years’ bank observations spanning 2004 to 2016 was used for the study. A cointegration approach – Pooled Mean Group (PMG/Panel ARDL) – was used to examine the short- and the long-term effects of CSR on bank performance while controlling for bank variability, growth in interest income and bank size. The results were mixed. In the short term, it was found that CSR has positive but insignificant effect on bank performance (market-to-book value). In the long-term, however, CSR has significant negative effect on bank performance. Based on the findings, the study concludes that, in the long run, engaging in CSR reduces bank performance. Therefore, CSR needs to be carefully planned and implemented to serve as a boost to bank performance and not just regarded as an inconsequential addendum

Scope of partial least-squares regression applied to the enantiomeric composition determination of ketoprofen from strongly overlapped chromatographic profiles

Valuable quantitative information could be obtained from strongly overlapped chromatographic profiles of two enantiomers by using proper chemometric methods. Complete separation profiles where the peaks are fully resolved are difficult to achieve in chiral separation methods, and this becomes a particularly severe problem in case that the analyst need to measure the chiral purity, i.e., when one of the enantiomers is present in the sample in very low concentrations. In this report, we explore the scope of a multivariate chemometric technique based on unfolded partial least-squares regression, as a mathematical tool to solve this quite frequent difficulty. This technique was applied to obtain quantitative results from partially overlapped chromatographic profiles of R- and S-ketoprofen, with different values of enantioresolution factors (from 0.81 down to less than 0.2 resolution units), and also at several different S:R enantiomeric ratios. Enantiomeric purity below 1% was determined with excellent precision even from almost completely overlapped signals. All these assays were tested on the most demanding condition, i.e., when the minor peak elutes immediately after the main peak. The results were validated using univariate calibration of completely resolved profiles and the method applied to the determination of enantiomeric purity of commercial pharmaceuticals.Fil: Padro, Juan Manuel. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Laboratorio de Investigación y Desarrollo de Métodos Analíticos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Osorio Grisales, Jaiver. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Laboratorio de Investigación y Desarrollo de Métodos Analíticos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Arancibia, Juan Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto de Química Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Olivieri, Alejandro Cesar. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto de Química Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Castells, Cecilia Beatriz Marta. Universidad Nacional de la Plata. Laboratorio de Investigación y Desarrollo de Métodos Analíticos; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Dissipation of endosulfan in field-grown tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) and cropped soil at Akumadan, Ghana

The dissipation and persistence of endosulfan (6,7,8,9,10,10-hexachloro-1,5,5a,6,9,9a-hexahydro- 6,9-methano-2,4,3-benzodioxathiepin 3-oxide) applied to field-grown tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) were studied at a vegetable-growing location in Ghana. Plant tissue samples and cropped soil collected at 2 h-14 days and 8 h-112 days, respectively, after application, were analyzed by gas chromatography-electron capture detection (63Ni) to determine the content and dissipation rate of endosulfan isomers (R- and _-endosulfan) and the major metabolite, endosulfan sulfate. After two foliar applications of commercial endosulfan at 500 g of active ingredient/hectare, the first-order reaction kinetic was confirmed to describe the dissipation of endosulfan residues in tomato foliage and cropped soil. However, functions that best fit the experimental data were the biphasic process for foliage and the monophasic process for cropped soil. Calculated DT50 and DT90 values for endosulfan residues in cropped soil were not significantly (p < 0.05) different for each of the two isomers