State policy framework and entrepreneurial outcome in Sierra Leone

Abstract. The outcome of youth entrepreneurship in developing economies is impacted by something much more acute than the lack of entrepreneurial competence and finance: The legitimacy of the state policy framework and its compatibility with the entrepreneur’s expectations. This study investigates youth entrepreneur’s legitimacy judgments about the current state policy framework in Sierra Leone. The purpose of this study is to understand the legitimacy of the state policy framework and its implication on youth entrepreneurship through an empirical study; and to propose an adapted framework of the linkage between state policy, legitimacy, and entrepreneurial outcome. The study adopts a qualitative approach in evaluating the congruence between the state policy and entrepreneurial outlook in Sierra Leone. Data were obtained through extensive interviews with participants from three groups: The Ministry of Youth Affairs and its Commission, Sierra Leone Opportunity for Business Operation, and devoted youth entrepreneurs. The data were coded manually and analyzed using the Gioia method to complement a comprehensive literature review of entrepreneurship and legitimacy. The findings of this study show that youth entrepreneurs perceived the current state policy as non-legitimate, due to lack of awareness about the functions of various policy organizations, political commitments to specific communities, and limited access to existing entrepreneurial resources. However, it also provides suggestions on how to ensure that policy actions and activities are legitimate and compatible with the entrepreneur’s expectations. The country already has a suitable policy framework designed to support the actions and activities of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and its Commission that must be compatible with the entrepreneur’s expectations. There are also extensive entrepreneurial resources that must be easily attainable and accessible to all youth entrepreneurs. Sierra Leone also needs a policy that affects the entrepreneur’s attitude towards policymakers to reduce the stigma of apprehensive youth attitude. The result of this study provides a suitable angle to evaluate entrepreneurship and identify other factors that strengthen the effectiveness of entrepreneurship research in developing economies

Surveillance on the frontline of the COVID-19 response in Sierra Leone

As a surveillance officer in Northern Sierra Leone, Abass Kamara reflects on the experience of mounting a rapid response to the COVID-19 pandemic from the frontline. In his conversation with Luisa Enria, he emphasises personal apprehensions, the social and political implications of the pandemic on his border District and the deep-rooted challenge of gaining citizens’ trust

The Melbourne Shuffle: Improving Oblivious Storage in the Cloud

We present a simple, efficient, and secure data-oblivious randomized shuffle algorithm. This is the first secure data-oblivious shuffle that is not based on sorting. Our method can be used to improve previous oblivious storage solutions for network-based outsourcing of data

Full Database Reconstruction with Access and Search Pattern Leakage

The widespread use of cloud computing has enabled several database providers to store their data on servers in the cloud and answer queries from those servers. In order to protect the confidentiality of data in the cloud, a database can be stored in encrypted form and all queries can be executed on the encrypted database. Recent research results suggest that a curious cloud provider may be able to decrypt some of the items in the database after seeing a large number of queries and their (encrypted) results. In this paper, we focus on one-dimensional databases that support range queries and develop an attack that can achieve full database reconstruction, inferring the exact value of every element in the database. We consider an encrypted database whose records have values from a given universe of $N$ consecutive integers.Our attack assumes access pattern and search pattern leakage. It succeeds after the attacker has seen each of the possible query results at least once, independent of their distribution. If we assume that the client issues queries uniformly at random, we can decrypt the entire database with high probability after observing $O(N^2 \log N)$ queries

Low efficacy of the combination artesunate plus amodiaquine for uncomplicated falciparum malaria among children under 5 years in Kailahun, Sierra Leone.

OBJECTIVE: In 2004, Sierra Leone adopted artesunate plus amodiaquine as first-line antimalarial treatment. We evaluated the efficacy of this combination in Kailahun, where a previous study had shown 70.2% efficacy of amodiaquine in monotherapy. METHODS: Method and outcome classification of the study complied with WHO guidelines. Children 6-59 months with uncomplicated malaria were followed-up for 28 days. PCR genotyping was used to distinguish recrudescence from reinfection. Reinfections were reclassified as cured. RESULTS: Of 172 children who were referred to the study clinic, 126 satisfied inclusion criteria and were enrolled. No early treatment failures were reported. The day 14, efficacy was 98.2% (95% CI: 93.8-99.8). Of 65 recurrent parasitaemias analysed by PCR, 17 were recrudescences. The PCR-adjusted day 28 efficacy was 84.5% (95% CI: 76.4-90.7). All true failures occurred in the last 8 days of follow-up. Of 110 children who completed the 28-day follow-up, 54 (49.1%) experienced a novel infection. CONCLUSION: The efficacy of this combination was disappointing. The high reinfection rate suggested little prophylactic effect. In Kailahun a more efficacious combination might be necessary in the future. The efficacy of AS + AQ needs to be monitored in Kailahun and in the other regions of Sierra Leone

Changes in Serum Electrolytes and Lipid Profile in Diabetes Subjects in Freetown Sierra Leone

Background: Measurement of blood electrolytes level and lipid profile usually give good indications of the disease progression in a number of non communicable diseases. Objective: To investigate the effect of diabetes on electrolyte and lipid status of male and female diabetics in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Subjects and Methods: Serum concentrations of electrolytes and lipids in one hundred and twenty (120) adult diabetics attending some diagnostic centers in Freetown Sierra Leone were measured and compared with those of one hundred and twenty (120) non-diabetic individuals. Results: Total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk ratio in diabetic patients were significantly higher (

Diagnostic accuracy of PAT-POPS and ManChEWS for admissions of children from the emergency department

Background The Pennine Acute Trust (PAT) Paediatric Observation Priority Score (PAT-POPS) is a specific emergency department (ED) physiological and observational aggregate scoring system, with scores of 0–18. A higher score indicates greater likelihood of admission. The Manchester Children’s Early Warning System (ManChEWS) assesses six physiological observations to create a trigger score, classified as Green, Amber or Red. Methods Prospectively collected data were used to calculate PAT-POPS and ManChEWS on 2068 patients aged under 16 years (mean 5.6 years, SD 4.6) presenting over 1 month to a UK District General Hospital Paediatric ED. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) comparison, using STATA V.13, was used to investigate the ability of ManChEWS and PAT-POPS to predict admission to hospital within 72 h of presentation to the ED. Results Comparison of the area under the ROC curve indicates that the ManChEWS ROC is 0.67 (95% CI 0.64 to 0.70) and the PAT-POPS ROC is 0.72 (95% CI 0.68 to 0.75). The difference is statistically significant. At a PAT-POPS cut-off of ≥2, 80% of patients had their admission risk correctly classified ( positive likelihood ratio 3.40, 95% CI 2.90 to 3.98) whereas for ManChEWS with a cut off of ≥Amber only 71% of patients were correctly classified ( positive likelihood ratio 2.18, 95% CI 1.94 to 2.45). Conclusions PAT-POPS is a more accurate predictor of admission risk than ManChEWS. Replacing ManChEWS with PAT-POPS would appear to be clinically appropriate in a paediatric ED. This needs validation in a multicentre study

COMMERCIAL DRINKING WATER QUALITY AND SAFETY IN BO CITY, SIERRA LEONE

Many people who lack reliable access to a quality and safe drinking water source in or near the home rely on commercial drinking water products, such as machine-filled sachet water, that may be of variable quality.A participatory geographic information system was used in conjunction with distribution point and vendor census in the study area to identify a total of 36 water sources across Bo city that  are used for commercial water production.  These include 6 water sources and the production facilities for 10 brands of machine-filled factory-produced water sachets as well as the 10 sources and finished samples for 10hand-tied plastic-bagged water producers. Water samples from all 16 water sources and 20 commercial water products purchased from randomly-selected retail outlets and street vendors were tested for microbiological and physicochemical properties. Workers at all of these facilities were also interviewed about their knowledge and practices.All of the machine-filled sachet waters were free of microbial contamination, but several of the hand- tied water sachets, all filled from unlined local wells, and had coliform bacteria.  Both machine-filled sachet water and hand-tied sachet water had pH levels that were below the World Health Organization’s recommended range. Water with acidic pH can cause corrosion of the metal pipes used with wells and can release those potentially harmful minerals into drinking water. Water factory workers used a variety of water treatment methods to purify their products; hand-tied sachets generally used only cloth filters to purify the water and often stored water in open containers. Improved quality of commercial water products would improve health in Sierra Leone.

Science-based decision support for formulating crop fertilizer recommendations in sub-Saharan Africa

Open Access Article; Published online: 31 Jan 2020In sub-Saharan Africa, there is considerable spatial and temporal variability in relations between nutrient application and crop yield, due to varying inherent soil nutrients supply, soil moisture, crop management and germplasm. This variability affects fertilizer use efficiency and crop productivity. Therefore, development of decision systems that support formulation and delivery of site-specific fertilizer recommendations is important for increased crop yield and environmental protection. Nutrient Expert (NE) is a computer-based decision support system, which enables extension advisers to generate field- or area-specific fertilizer recommendations based on yield response to fertilizer and nutrient use efficiency. We calibrated NE for major maize agroecological zones in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania, with data generated from 735 on-farm nutrient omission trials conducted between 2015 and 2017. Between 2016 and 2018, 368 NE performance trials were conducted across the three countries in which recommendations generated with NE were evaluated relative to soil-test based recommendations, the current blanket fertilizer recommendations and a control with no fertilizer applied. Although maize yield response to fertilizer differed with geographic location; on average, maize yield response to nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) were respectively 2.4, 1.6 and 0.2 t ha−1 in Nigeria, 2.3, 0.9 and 0.2 t ha−1 in Ethiopia, and 1.5, 0.8 and 0.2 t ha−1 in Tanzania. Secondary and micronutrients increased maize yield only in specific areas in each country. Agronomic use efficiencies of N were 18, 22 and 13 kg grain kg−1 N, on average, in Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania, respectively. In Nigeria, NE recommended lower amounts of P by 9 and 11 kg ha−1 and K by 24 and 38 kg ha−1 than soil-test based and regional fertilizer recommendations, respectively. Yet maize yield (4 t ha−1) was similar among the three methods. Agronomic use efficiencies of P and K (300 and 250 kg kg−1, respectively) were higher with NE than with the blanket recommendation (150 and 70 kg kg−1). In Ethiopia, NE and soil-test based respectively recommended lower amounts of P by 8 and 19 kg ha−1 than the blanket recommendations, but maize yield (6 t ha−1) was similar among the three methods. Overall, fertilizer recommendations generated with NE maintained high maize yield, but at a lower fertilizer input cost than conventional methods. NE was effective as a simple and cost-effective decision support tool for fine-tuning fertilizer recommendations to farm-specific conditions and offers an alternative to soil testing, which is hardly available to most smallholder farmers