• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.146-150
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• 2015

Occupational health and safety (OHS) is a broad field of professional practice, which involves specialists from different disciplines including but not limited to engineers, occupational health physicians, physical and biological scientists, economists, and statisticians. The preventive systems required to ensure workers are protected from injuries and illnesses dwell heavily on engineers; however, the extent to which the engineer can go regarding planning and implementing preventive measures is dependent on specific legal requirements, leadership commitment from the company, organization, and nation. The objective of this paper is to identify the areas of opportunities for improvements in OHS management in Ghana with regard to the nation's legal requirements, commitment of the Ghana government, and Ghanaian leadership as well as appropriate structuring of Ghanaian institutions responsible for monitoring and managing OHS in Ghana. This paper identified Ghana's fragmented legal requirements concerning OHS, which are under different jurisdictions with unclear responsibilities and accountabilities. The paper also highlights the training needs of Ghanaian academic institutions regarding OHS. Among other recommendations made including structuring of Ghanaian institutions to manage OHS in line with the ILO-OSH 2001, this paper aligns the recommendations with the articles and elements of International Labour Organization convention number 155 and OHSAS 18001 elements.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.93-99
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• 2008

A community-based longitudinal study was conducted in the Manya Krobo District of the Eastern Region of Ghana with the objective of assessing how caregiving practices influence nutritional status of young children in Ghana. The study subjects were one hundred mothers with infants between the ages of 6 and 12 months. Each child was visited at home monthly for a period of six months. On each visit, information was collected on caregiver household and personal hygiene, child's immunization status, child's dietary diversity, caregiver responsiveness during feeding, caregiver hygienic practices related to feeding and child's weight and length. At the end of the study, summary scores were generated for each variable and quality of care practice determined based on their distribution. Classification of child nutritional status was based on z-scores for both weight-for-age and length-for-age. The results revealed that caregivers who exhibited better quality of care practice had well-nourished children. Such caregivers were more likely to practice good household and personal hygiene than those of poorly nourished children (97.1% vs 31.8%, p<0.001). They were also more likely to complete their children's immunization schedules (88.2% vs 62.2%, p<0.001), provide good quality diets from highly diversified sources (79% vs 23%, p<0.001), exhibit high responsiveness during feeding (100% vs 22.7%, p<0.001) and feed under hygienic conditions (100% vs 22.7%, p<0.001). Based on the findings it was concluded that good caregiving practices are associated with improved child nutritional status.

• Cross-Cultural Studies
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• v.36
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• pp.149-173
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• 2014

This paper examines language policies of Ghana and Tanzania (former British Colonies) since independence. The view that language use in education is a problem for African countries is evident in the ever changing language in education policies in many African countries. Because of the inevitable multilingual situation in many African countries, there are unavoidable challenges in their quest to adopt a language policy that works for the entire country since it is not practical to adopt all the languages spoken in the country as Media of Instruction. Ghana is not immune to this challenge and has fallen victim to this tendency to change the language in education policy from time to time in an attempt to adopt a satisfactory policy which would yield the intended results. Tanzania, however, is one of the few African countries that have found a sustainable language in education policy since independence. Nonetheless, it has its fair share of challenges as a consequence of the perceived competition between Kiswahili and English as official languages. The paper discusses the challenges that both Ghana and Tanzania face against the background of colonization. The paper also offers a discussion on possible future perspectives for the two countries.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.535-556
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• 2024

Measuring stock market volatility and its determinants is critical for stock market participants, as volatility spillover effects affect corporate performance. This study adopted a novel approach to analysing and implementing GARCH-MIDAS modelling methods. The classical GARCH as a benchmark and the univariate GARCH-MIDAS framework are the GARCH family models whose forecasting outcomes are examined. The outcome of GARCH-MIDAS analyses suggests that inflation, interest rate, exchange rate, and oil price are significant determinants of the volatility of the Johannesburg Stock Market All Share Index. While for Nigeria, the volatility reacts significantly to the exchange rate and oil price. Furthermore, inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, and oil price significantly influence Ghanaian equity volatility, especially for the long-term volatility component. The significant shock of the oil price and exchange rate to volatility is present in all three markets using the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic-mixed data sampling (GARCH-MIDAS) framework. The GARCH-MIDAS, with a powerful fusion of the GARCH model's volatility-capturing capabilities and the MIDAS approach's ability to handle mixed-frequency data, predicts the volatility for all variables better than the traditional GARCH framework. Incorporating these two techniques provides an innovative and comprehensive approach to modelling stock returns, making it an extremely useful tool for researchers, financial analysts, and investors.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.2434-2438
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• 2011

Ghana is the country that produces world's biggest production of Cacao. Cacao is the main ingredient of chocolate, which has been widely used in a variety of food as its anti-oxidantal effect is well known to public. Moreover, Ghana-produced Cacao is known to have a bigger amount of polyphenol compared to the ones produced elsewhere, and as they are not processed with alkali Ghana-produced Cacoa is slightly acidic as it is. This project aimed at analysing this natural Ghana Cacao's polyphenol composition, developed cosmetic mask using it and don skin irritation tests in order to study skin improvement effect. As a result, it was found that Ghana-produced Cacao contains approximately 3.6% of tannin, showing 5.6 pH. From the result of the first skin irritation test, the result of experiment of the cometic masks which contain 15% of Ghana cacao powder showed that the irritation was not shown. After 120 minutes, in the experiment of skin improvement effect, it was proved to have skin improvement effect, appearing 20% increase in skin moisture, -17% decrease in skin moisture evaporation, convergence of 5.3pH, 24% increase in skin elasticity.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2008

A cross-sectional study involving 400 mothers was conducted in the Manya Krobo district of Ghana with the objective of studying household dietary practices, quality of diets and family nutritional status of rural Ghana, A combination of methods, including structured interviews using questionnaire, dietary assessments and anthropometry was used to collect data for the study. The data obtained was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 10 in Windows. Means and standard deviations were generated for continuous variables and frequency distribution for categorical variables. Most women consumed meals three times a day but only a few (12.5%) cooked all three meals at home. Breakfast and lunch were the two main meals purchased from food vendors. The most frequently consumed food items on daily basis were the starchy staples, maize, fish, pepper, onion, tomato and palm fruits. The nutritional qualities of diets were poor in terms of calcium and the B-vitamins. A significant proportion of the women were nutritionally at risk of being either underweight (12%), overweight (17%) or obese (5%). For adequate nutrition in this population, nutrition education intervention programs aimed at improving nutrient intake through improved diet diversity and increased use of local foods rich in calcium and the B-vitamins needs to be undertaken. There is also the need to intensify education on excessive weight gain and its attendant health problems in the area.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.340-346
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• 2016

Background: safety and healthy working environment has received numerous research attention over the years. Majority of these researches seem to have been conducted in the construction industry, with little attention in the health sector. Nonetheless, there are couple of studies conducted in Africa that suggest pressure in hospitals. Therefore the aim of the study was to examine how pressure influence safety behavior in the hospitals. With reference to the relevance of safety behavior in primary health care delivery, there was the need for the study. Method: Data was obtained from 422 public hospital employees. Respondents were assured that all information would be kept confidential to increase the response rate and acquire more accurate information. Collection of questionnaires from participants took four weeks (20 working days), after which the data was analyzed. Results: The result of the study showed that work pressure correlated negatively with safety behavior. General safety climate significantly correlated positively with safety behavior and negatively with work pressure, although the effect size for the latter was smaller. Hierarchical regression analysis showed management commitment to safety to moderate the relationship between work pressure and safety behavior. Conclusion: When employees perceive safety communication, safety systems and training to be positive, they seem to comply with safety rules and procedures than voluntarily participate in safety activities.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.45-54
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• 2020

Access to relevant information determines the quality of life of an individual in society and the academe. Academic institutions have established information literacy programmes to enhance students' access to information. With the elevation of colleges of education to tertiary status in Ghana, pre-service teachers are now required to conduct research to improve their reflective thinking in order to be certified. However, the information access skills of students in colleges of education in Ghana are uncertain. This study draws empirical evidence from students in the Nusrat Jahan Ahmadiyya College of Education, Wa, Ghana on their information access skills. Primary data were collected from 303 respondents from the college using a stratified sampling procedure. The data were collected using a questionnaire and analysed using descriptive statistics. The results indicate that information is available to students through different sources such as the Internet, libraries, and contact with friends and authorities. However, students were limited in respect to access to relevant online resources for their academic activities due to inadequate information access skills. Potential solutions are discussed.

• Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.193-202
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• 2017

The study estimated the relationship between carbon dioxide, crop and livestock production index in Ghana: Estimating the long-run elasticities and variance decomposition by employing a time series data spanning from 1960-2013 using both fit regression and ARDL models. There was evidence of a long-run equilibrium relationship between carbon dioxide emissions, crop production index and livestock production index. Evidence from the study shows that a 1% increase in crop production index will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 0.52%, while a 1% increase in livestock production index will increase carbon dioxide emissions by 0.81% in the long-run. There was evidence of a bidirectional causality between a crop production index and carbon dioxide emissions and a unidirectional causality exists from livestock production index to carbon dioxide emissions. Evidence from the variance decomposition shows that 37% of future fluctuations in carbon dioxide emissions are due to shocks in the crop production index while 18% of future fluctuations in carbon dioxide emissions are due to shocks in the livestock production index. Efforts towards reducing pre-production, production, transportation, processing and post-harvest losses are essential to reducing food wastage which affects Ghana's carbon footprint.

• International Journal of Knowledge Content Development & Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.7-25
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• 2023

This paper presents the outcome of a survey done in two colleges of education in Kumasi, Ghana to determine the reading habits of students. A questionnaire was conveniently administered to the third-year students of Wesley College of Education and St. Louis College of Education all in Kumasi the capital of Ashanti Region of Ghana. One hundred and sixty-two copies of the questionnaire were administered to the students in the two colleges. The study found that both parents and tutors influence students reading at the same rate, in both colleges students read an average of one book in two months which was not encouraging with the most preferred reading materials being course books followed by textbooks and fiction. Their purpose of reading is to broaden their knowledge, and to pass examination. They choose busy schedule on campus and too much academic work as the reasons which affect their reading habits. Furthermore, it was revealed that, too much family responsibilities and lack of conducive environment were major constraints that restrict their reading at home. The study recommends the following to enhance reading habits of the students: parents should create healthy surrounding for learning; students should also be motivated to read through the formation of reading clubs and group presentation of assignment.