USE OF ONLINE DATABASES BY NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS OF GHANA ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION, GHANA: A REVIEW

ICT has greatly changed how research, teaching and learning is done. In the past, these activities were aided mainly by manual databases consisting of paper or print material records. However, over the period of time this has dramatically changed to digital electronic formats such as portable document format (PDF). The goal of this paper was to examine the use of online databases by Nuclear Scientists of Ghana Atomic Energy Commission and review the literature available. A systematic review of 20 articles from 1970 to 2021 was conducted. The review covered studies on both quantitative and qualitative research approaches both locally and abroad. The findings revealed that from the older literature, awareness of the existence of online databases by patrons in their institutions was low. However from the current literature the trend has changed with patrons now been much aware of these online databases. Some problems identified as hindering the access to online databases included low bandwidth speed, and cost of infrastructure which are stumbling blocks especially in developing countries of which Ghana is a part. Recommendations included the provision and expansion of infrastructure, training programmes, information literacy, subscription to current and relevant online databases, conducting regular surveys and funding and financing of electronic resources. It is essential libraries are supported to improve access and usage whiles creating awareness of the numerous benefits that can be gained by research and academic institutions in channelling their energies into having current, available electronic resources for their patrons for teaching, learning and research

PRESERVATION OF LIBRARY MATERIALS: A CASE OF A PUBLIC LIBRARY WITHIN THE ACCRA METROPOLITAN AREA OF GHANA

Preservation is an important component of the library as it is designed to prolong the lifespan of library collections in order to provide access to users. The study was achieved through different reviews on literature in relation to library preservation. Globally different kinds of literature have been reviewed on the preservation of library materials and specifically narrowed to Ghana. The purpose of the study was to review the literature on the prospects and challenges of library materials in Ghana. The study further sought to find out the benefits of preserving library materials and identification of the internal and external factors that affect the preservation of library materials in Ghana. Some of the benefits identified were the cost-effectiveness, promotion of scholarly work, protection of organisational memory and heritage. Other internal and external factors include; quality of materials in terms of manufacturing and putting measures in place to protect loyalty and access to documentary materials. It was recommended that both user and staff training must be encouraged, the need for librarians to keep good housing practices and to be aware of the total library collections, proper shelving of library materials must be taught and unfavourable environmental conditions for biological agents must be enhanced

Problems and Prospects of Automating Public Libraries in Ghana

Automation has become a very integral aspect of modern libraries. Automation of libraries is designed to replace traditional libraries with its numerous challenges, specifically for public libraries in Ghana. This study was conducted by reviewing different papers on prospects and challenges of library automation globally and specifically narrowed to Ghana. From the study, it was revealed that the main problems of automating libraries have been categorised under four main headings which are; No automation problem, pre automation problem, automation problem, and post automation problem. Other problems revealed were poor construction of databases, lack of provision of information literacy education among patrons, poor usage of online information resources among others. The study further sought to identify the potential benefits of automating public libraries in Ghana which were the availability of more resources to patrons, deployment of inventory libraries, reduce manual labor, and increased rate of patron’s access to catalogs. It was recommended that funds must be allocated to automate public library systems, encouragement of practical hands-on workshops, review progress on areas of digitisation, planning, and consultation from other automated libraries, and employment of computer mastery databases

Cycle-centrality in complex networks

Networks are versatile representations of the interactions between entities in complex systems. Cycles on such networks represent feedback processes which play a central role in system dynamics. In this work, we introduce a measure of the importance of any individual cycle, as the fraction of the total information flow of the network passing through the cycle. This measure is computationally cheap, numerically well-conditioned, induces a centrality measure on arbitrary subgraphs and reduces to the eigenvector centrality on vertices. We demonstrate that this measure accurately reflects the impact of events on strategic ensembles of economic sectors, notably in the US economy. As a second example, we show that in the protein-interaction network of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, a model based on cycle-centrality better accounts for pathogen activity than the state-of-art one. This translates into pathogen-targeted-proteins being concentrated in a small number of triads with high cycle-centrality. Algorithms for computing the centrality of cycles and subgraphs are available for download

TVWS Devices Spectrum Mask Test and Analysis

Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) plays a vital role in opportunistic access to spectrum. A key component of DSA is preventing interference to the incumbent (primary) user from the secondary user. We present the results of an experiment to analyze the output signal and spectral mask of a low-cost TVWS device at specific power levels and specific channels in order to evaluate its potential level of interference to primary users

Head to Head Battle of TV White Space and WiFi for Connecting Developing Regions

TV White Space networks are gaining momentum worldwide as an important addition to the suite of wireless protocols available for connecting developing regions. However, there has been no thorough investigation of scenarios where TV White Space performs better or worse than alternative low-cost wire- less technology such as WiFi. This paper analyzes the performance of 5 GHz WiFi links and TV White space links using down-converted WiFi, typically used as wireless backhaul for poorly connected regions, in different scenarios including line-of-sight links and links obstructed by trees and structures. The experiments make use of 802.11a/b/g WiFi and TV White Space equipment that down- converts standard 802.11 a/b/g WiFi from the 2.4 GHz band into the UHF band. The paper finds that 5 GHz links outperformed TVWS where clear line-of-sight is available and point-to-point links are required. TVWS however is a clear choice where there are obstructions and where wider coverage is needed. Some interesting observations on the negative effect of TV transmissions in adjacent channels a few channel-hops away from the channel being used for TVWS are also provided

Tag-Aware Recommender Systems: A State-of-the-art Survey

In the past decade, Social Tagging Systems have attracted increasing attention from both physical and computer science communities. Besides the underlying structure and dynamics of tagging systems, many efforts have been addressed to unify tagging information to reveal user behaviors and preferences, extract the latent semantic relations among items, make recommendations, and so on. Specifically, this article summarizes recent progress about tag-aware recommender systems, emphasizing on the contributions from three mainstream perspectives and approaches: network-based methods, tensor-based methods, and the topic-based methods. Finally, we outline some other tag-related works and future challenges of tag-aware recommendation algorithms.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figure

Performance of LED-Based Fluorescence Microscopy to Diagnose Tuberculosis in a Peripheral Health Centre in Nairobi.

Sputum microscopy is the only tuberculosis (TB) diagnostic available at peripheral levels of care in resource limited countries. Its sensitivity is low, particularly in high HIV prevalence settings. Fluorescence microscopy (FM) can improve performance of microscopy and with the new light emitting diode (LED) technologies could be appropriate for peripheral settings. The study aimed to compare the performance of LED-FM versus Ziehl-Neelsen (ZN) microscopy and to assess feasibility of LED-FM at a low level of care in a high HIV prevalence country

Transformation of spin information into large electrical signals via carbon nanotubes

Spin electronics (spintronics) exploits the magnetic nature of the electron, and is commercially exploited in the spin valves of disc-drive read heads. There is currently widespread interest in using industrially relevant semiconductors in new types of spintronic devices based on the manipulation of spins injected into a semiconducting channel between a spin-polarized source and drain. However, the transformation of spin information into large electrical signals is limited by spin relaxation such that the magnetoresistive signals are below 1%. We overcome this long standing problem in spintronics by demonstrating large magnetoresistance effects of 61% at 5 K in devices where the non-magnetic channel is a multiwall carbon nanotube that spans a 1.5 micron gap between epitaxial electrodes of the highly spin polarized manganite La0.7Sr0.3MnO3. This improvement arises because the spin lifetime in nanotubes is long due the small spin-orbit coupling of carbon, because the high nanotube Fermi velocity permits the carrier dwell time to not significantly exceed this spin lifetime, because the manganite remains highly spin polarized up to the manganite-nanotube interface, and because the interfacial barrier is of an appropriate height. We support these latter statements regarding the interface using density functional theory calculations. The success of our experiments with such chemically and geometrically different materials should inspire adventure in materials selection for some future spintronicsComment: Content highly modified. New title, text, conclusions, figures and references. New author include

Tracking Spending Among Commercially Insured Beneficiaries Using a Distributed Data Model

T imely, local data are important to policy-makers, providers, patients, payers, and employers working to slow the growth of healthcare spending, which is a major focus of federal, state, and local healthcare reform initiatives. Community-based multistakeholder coalitions have formed across the country in an effort to influence their local healthcare markets and reduce costs. More than 40 percent of people in the United States live in a community with a multistakeholder coalition aimed at improving health and healthcare, including collaboratives focused on improving the exchange of health information, accelerating engagement by key local opinion leaders and stakeholders, or promoting quality improvement. 1 All of these entities, however, lack the local data needed to determine if their efforts are making a difference. The factors contributing to rising healthcare spending differ across communities and depend on local context; understanding the drivers of local spending growth is complicated by the variety of inputs. Provider culture and supply, various market segments (outpatient, inpatient, long-term care), payer mix, regulation, and the competitiveness of hospital and physician markets all affect pricing, utilization, and ultimately, the total cost of care. Research has shown that the relative contribution of these factors varies across markets and that drivers of commercial spending are not necessarily the same as drivers of Medicare spending. Chernew et al found that commercial spending was not correlated with Medicare spending across hospital referral regions. ABSTRACT Objectives To explore the feasibility of using a distributed data model for ongoing reporting of local healthcare spending, specifically to investigate the contribution of utilization and pricing to geographic variation and trends in reimbursements for commercially insured beneficiaries younger than 65 years. Study Design Retrospective descriptive analysis. Methods Commercial claims were obtained for beneficiaries in 5 states for the years 2008 to 2010 using a distributed data model. Claims were aggregated to the hospital service area (HSA) level and healthcare utilization was quantified using a novel, National Quality Forum-endorsed measure that is independent of price and allows for the calculation of resource use across all services in standardized units. We examined trends in utilization, prices, and reimbursements over time. To examine geographic variation, we mapped resource use by HSA in the 3 states from which we had data from multiple insurers. We calculated the correlation between commercial and Medicare reimbursements and utilization. Medicare claims were obtained from the Dartmouth Atlas