Journal articles on the topic 'Ghanaian Names'

In Ghanaian culture a name could tell the story of when a person is born, how the person is born or some special event at the time of their birth. However, difficulties in pronunciation, as well as misinterpretation of local names by the then colonial masters resulted in alterations of many local names to the convenience of the British and Portuguese, resulting in evolution of some local names over the years to new pronunciations and spellings. During colonial dominance and immediate post-colonial period, some renowned Ghanaian playwrights used names that reflect this confusion and consequently imbedded in their characters, traits that depicted such misrepresentations as well as the specific roles the playwright assigned them. This paper reflects on the character names in relation to the settings in selected Ghanaian plays and how these characters reveal Ghanaian naming philosophies in the ways these characters play their roles. The focus is on, but not limited to, playwrights such as Kobina Sekyi, Ama Ata Aidoo, J.C. deGraft and F.K. Fiawoo who seem to be enduring points of reference particularly when one appreciates the reasoning that informs how they craft their characters, courtesy the curiously noteworthy names they drape them in. The discussion is preceded by deliberations on the indigenous naming, names and their significance furthering on the colonial influence and attempts to Europeanize.

Several studies over the years have employed the rhetorical question "What is in a name?" to uncover the semantic-pragmatic imports of names. This paper examines church names (ecclesionyms) which constitute part of the religio-onomastic landscape of Ghana to discover the various languages embedded in them. To achieve this task, we gathered names of churches from ‘online’ (websites of associations of Christian churches) and ‘offline’ sources (posters, signages and billboards). We manually searched the data and identified all languages embedded in the church names. Guided by Akoto’s (2018) global-local model of language choice, the analysis showed that churches in Ghana generally adopt three global languages (Hebrew, Greek and Latin), a glocal language (English) and three local languages (Akan, Ewe and Ga). It is argued that the status of the global, glocal and local languages as canonical/biblical languages, an ‘ethnically neutral’ language and ‘Ghanaian majority’ languages respectively enable the churches to foreground their uniqueness. Implications for language planning in religion are discussed. Keywords: church names, ecclesionym, glocal language, identity, language choice

There is currently limited information on plant biodiversity from Ghana. Most of the information openly available has been published by the Ghana Herbarium at the Department of Plant and Environmental Biology, University of Ghana. The Ghana Herbarium has over 100,000 specimens from Ghana and other West African countries. Of these approximately 85% of the specimen labels have been digitized. The database contains information including species names, taxonomic family, barcode number, name of collector(s), locality data, date of collection, description of species and uses of the plants. Data were captured using Botanical Research and Herbarium Management Software (BRAHMS) software and is openly available on Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (http://www.gbif.org/country/GH/publishing). Less than 1% of the herbarium collection contains bryophyte information of Ghana. Even though bryophytes are an often overlooked flora, Ghana has a high diversity of bryophytes. Indeed Ghana has an enormous biomass of bryophytes, particularly in the humid forest areas, that is bound to contribute significantly to the water-retentive capacity of the Ghanaian forest, absorbing water quickly and releasing it slowly. It is clear that the bryophytes are an important part of the ecosystem generally, helping to stabilize the hillsides and acting as a source of water. As very little is known about Ghana's bryophyte flora, a short expedition was undertaken in the Atewa Forest in 2014. A total of 164 species were added to the herbarium collection, including about 58 new to Ghana and at least one new species (Cololejeunea sp. yet to be described). The Ghana Herbarium recognises the growing need for digitization across its collections. Data from bryophytes specimens in the Ghana Herbarium and other Ghanaian herbaria as well as other data types on Ghanaian bryophytes will need to be captured using appropriate workflows, technologies and comply with Darwin Core standards. There is also paucity of observational and bryophyte abundance data. This presentation will review the current status of biodiversity information on bryophytes from Ghana and biodiversity informatics activities at Ghana Herbarium. It will also explore ways forward for digitization which incudes capturing the information on the already existing bryophyte specimens in the Ghana Herbarium and the newly added collections using BRAHMS software.

During an investigation of the microbiology of Ghanaian cocoa fermentations, a number of yeast isolates with unusual pheno- and genotypic properties representing three possible novel species were isolated. Members of Group A divided by multilateral budding and ascospores were not produced. Group B strains produced true hyphae and ascospores were not produced. Group C representatives divided by budding and formed chains and star-like aggregates. Ascospores were not produced. Sequence analysis of the 26S rRNA gene (D1/D2 region) revealed that the Group A isolates were phylogenetically most closely related to Saturnispora mendoncae (gene sequence similarity 92.4 %), Saturnispora besseyi (88.8 %), Saturnispora saitoi (88.8 %) and Saturnispora ahearnii (88.3 %). Members of Group B were most closely related to representatives of the genera Dipodascus and Galactomyces and the asporogenous genus Geotrichum, but in all cases with 26S rRNA gene (D1/D2 region) similarities below 87 %. For Group C, the most closely related species were Candida rugopelliculosa (92.4 %), Pichia occidentalis (91.6 %) and Pichia exigua (91.9 %). The very low gene sequence similarities obtained for the three groups of isolates clearly indicated that they represented novel species. Repetitive Palindromic PCR (Rep-PCR) of the isolates and their closest phylogenetic relatives confirmed that the new isolates belonged to previously undescribed species. In conclusion, based on the genetic and phenotypic results, the new isolates were considered to represent three novel species, for which the names Candida halmiae (group A, type strain G3T=CBS 11009T=CCUG 56721T); Geotrichum ghanense (group B, type strain G6T=CBS 11010T=CCUG 56722T) and Candida awuaii (group C, type strain G15T=CBS 11011T=CCUG 56723T) are proposed.

Mislabelling of fish and fish products has attracted much attention over the last decades, following public awareness of the practice of substituting high-value with low-value fish in markets, restaurants, and processed seafood. In some cases, mislabelling includes illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, contributing to overexploit substitute species that are undetectable when sold under wrong names. This is the first study of DNA barcoding to assess the level of mislabelling in fish marketed in Ghana, focusing on endangered shark species. Genetic identification was obtained from 650 base pair sequences within the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene. All except one of 17 shark fillets analysed were wrongly labelled as compared with none of 28 samples of small commercial pelagic fish and 14 commercial shark samples purchased in Europe. Several substitute shark species in Ghana are endangered (Carcharhinus signatus and Isurus oxyrinchus) and critically endangered (Squatina aculeata). Shark products commercialized in Europe (n = 14) did not reveal mislabelling, thus specific shark mislabelling cannot be generalized. Although based on a limited number of samples and fish markets, the results that reveal trade of endangered sharks in Ghana markets encourage Ghanaian authorities to improve controls to enforce conservation measures.

The yellow nutsedge, Cyperus esculentus L. is an herbaceous species whose tubers are the edible parts. The tubers are very popular with children, and can be eaten raw, fried or after processing into a drink (Horchata). However, it does not exist in Burkina, a centralized collection and studies on the genetic variability, the socio-cultural and economic aspects of this species. In order to identify the morphotypes and to welcome the peasant knowledge on the management of the, yellow nutsedge, a prospection followed by collection of tubers were carried out in the main areas of production of this crop. A total of 22 villages in eight districts were visited and 108 accessions of tubers were collected. It emerges from this study that the cultivation is mainly practiced by women (97% of farmers). The cultivated yellow nutsedge is adapted to drought and to several types of soil. In addition, farmers classify the tubers according to their shape and size. Thus, the spherical tubers are qualified as "small tubers the non-spherical tubers as" large tubers. The number of tubers produced per foot varies from 20 to 60. Farmers use phenotypic characters, sexual dimorphism and ethnicity to name accessions for sweet peas. Vernacular names and methods of producing yellow nutsedge vary by region and ethnicity. According to the respondents, 84.34% think that the nut is of Burkinabé origin, 9.26% Ghanaian, 1.85% from Mali and 5.35% have no answers. There is great diversity in local knowledge and accessions collected in Burkina.Keywords: Ethnobotany, tubers, accessions, morphotypes.

The level of students’ involvement in examination malpractice in Junior High Schools in Ghana has become increasingly worrying, problematic and threatening to the well-being of Ghanaian educational system. However, there seems to be paucity of studies on the causes and effects of examination malpractices among Junior High School students in Ghana and Adansi South District (New Edubiase) of the Ashanti Region of Ghana in particular. This research seeks to bridge this knowledge gap by identifying and discussing the causes and effects of examination malpractices among Junior High School students in New Edubiase. Study methods include the use of questionnaire (open and close ended questions). A total of ninety (90) respondents comprising of sixty (60) students and thirty (30) teachers who took part in this study were randomly and purposively selected. The results indicate that collusion, examination leakages, smuggling of answers scripts and late submission of parcels, sending foreign materials into the examination hall, impersonation, dubbing, writing on items (sheets of papers, handkerchief, erasers, and covers of calculator), writing answers on question papers and exchanging them with others to copy, communicating orally or through gestures during examination and using fake names index numbers, buying examination questions for students and offering money to examination authorities to assist their children and mass cheating are the nature of examination malpractices among Junior High School students in New Edubiase. The study revealed that examination malpractices brings total loss of trust in the educational system, reduced enrolmentof students in school, frequent cancellation of results, discourages good students/candidates from studying hard, derives innocent students’ opportunity for admission, decrease job efficiency, bring dissatisfaction on the part of the candidates, renders the goals of education invalid, examination cheats obtain certificates which they cannot defend, examination malpractice has reduced the quality and standard of education in the country, examination malpractice adversely affects national productivity as the certificates workers possess are not backed with commensurate knowledge, skills and values, examination malpractice makes employers of labour lose confidence in the educational system and the credentials that are paraded by job seekers and lastly examination malpractice leads to high educational wastage as those who cheat to pass examinations at a lower level, achieve very poorly at a higher level.Keywords: Causes, Effects, Examination, Malpractices, Junior High School, Students, New Edubiase, Ashanti Region, Ghana.

When a group comprised primarily of African-derived “people”—yes, the scare quotes matter—gather at the intersection of performance and subjectivity, the result is often not a renewed commitment to practice or an explicit ensemble of questions, but rather a palpable structure of feeling, a shared sense that violence and captivity are the grammar and ghosts of our every gesture. This structure of feeling is palpable even in the place-names “Africa” and “the Caribbean,” names whose articulation (grammar) and memory (ghosts) would not be names at all were it not for the trade in human cargo. The promise of sense and meaning, when these place-names are spoken, is imbricated in the syntax and morphology of structural violence. Isolation of its performative and episodic instances (the violent event) often robs us of our ability to see it as a grammar of emergence and being: the Maafa, or African Holocaust, as the condition for the emergence of African being, just as grammar conditions the emergence of speech. We know the apparitions: ghosts of lost ancestors whom Ghanaians mourn each year at the sea when they mark the Maafa on their side of the Atlantic; the strange surnames on this side, haunted by the memory of names unknown; that empty space between children and their grandparents where the scourge of AIDS walks in silence; civil wars and famines induced by “natural” disasters like World Bank policies and U.S. intervention—one need not name each and every ghost to remind oneself of their omnipresence.

ABSTRACT The Ghanaian cocoa bean heap fermentation process was studied through a multiphasic approach, encompassing both microbiological and metabolite target analyses. A culture-dependent (plating and incubation, followed by repetitive-sequence-based PCR analyses of picked-up colonies) and culture-independent (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis [DGGE] of 16S rRNA gene amplicons, PCR-DGGE) approach revealed a limited biodiversity and targeted population dynamics of both lactic acid bacteria (LAB) and acetic acid bacteria (AAB) during fermentation. Four main clusters were identified among the LAB isolated: Lactobacillus plantarum, Lactobacillus fermentum, Leuconostoc pseudomesenteroides, and Enterococcus casseliflavus. Other taxa encompassed, for instance, Weissella. Only four clusters were found among the AAB identified: Acetobacter pasteurianus, Acetobacter syzygii-like bacteria, and two small clusters of Acetobacter tropicalis-like bacteria. Particular strains of L. plantarum, L. fermentum, and A. pasteurianus, originating from the environment, were well adapted to the environmental conditions prevailing during Ghanaian cocoa bean heap fermentation and apparently played a significant role in the cocoa bean fermentation process. Yeasts produced ethanol from sugars, and LAB produced lactic acid, acetic acid, ethanol, and mannitol from sugars and/or citrate. Whereas L. plantarum strains were abundant in the beginning of the fermentation, L. fermentum strains converted fructose into mannitol upon prolonged fermentation. A. pasteurianus grew on ethanol, mannitol, and lactate and converted ethanol into acetic acid. A newly proposed Weissella sp., referred to as “Weissella ghanaensis,” was detected through PCR-DGGE analysis in some of the fermentations and was only occasionally picked up through culture-based isolation. Two new species of Acetobacter were found as well, namely, the species tentatively named“ Acetobacter senegalensis” (A. tropicalis-like) and “Acetobacter ghanaensis” (A. syzygii-like).

Purpose The identification and development of appropriate competencies remain very critical and central to performance measures in mainstream human resource management genre towards effective teams. It is posited as a viable means for validating and engendering best practices and developing suitable competencies towards acceptable performance outcome in construction project delivery. The purpose of this paper is to identify the critical professional competencies of an architect in the Ghanaian construction industry (GCI) towards effective performance in the construction project delivery. Design/methodology/approach From a mixed method design involving semi-structured qualitative interview and a questionnaire survey of architects in Ghana, 16 professional architectural competencies were identified for respondents to indicate their importance to effective architectural practice and consulting in the GCI on a five-point Likert scale. Factor analysis was used to explore the interrelations among the variables and make possible empirical explanations. Findings Factor analysis revealed four underlying clusters named in order of their significance as efficient design response to client needs, legal aspects of practice, sustainable design and construction and efficient project management skills. The study provides insight into the contextual practice, characteristics and the critical professional architectural competencies needed by architects in the construction industry in Ghana. Originality/value The findings have rigorously revealed and provided clear understanding and insight into the thematic critical professional competencies of architects important to the construction industry in Ghana which should be the focus of architectural training and practice. It is also very important towards developing and stimulating a continuous professional development agenda, developing a body of knowledge of professional practice in architecture and conducting curriculum review to meet current emerging competency profiles necessary for influencing performance levels in the GCI.

Drug-like molecules are known to contain many different building blocks with great potential as pharmacophores for drug discovery. The continued search for unique scaffolds in our laboratory led to the isolation of a novel Ghanaian soil bacterium, Streptomyces sp. MA37. This strain produces many bioactive molecules, most of which belong to carbazoles, pyrrolizidines, and fluorinated metabolites. Further probing of the metabolites of MA37 has led to the discovery of a new naphthacene-type aromatic natural product, which we have named accramycin A 1. This molecule was isolated using an HPLC-photodiode array (PDA) guided isolation process and MS/MS molecular networking. The structure of 1 was characterized by detailed analysis of LC-MS, UV, 1D, and 2D NMR data. Preliminary studies on the antibacterial properties of 1 using Group B Streptococcus (GBS) produced a minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of 27 µg/mL. This represents the first report of such bioactivity amongst the naphthacene-type aromatic polyketides, and also suggests the possibility for the further development of potent molecules against GBS based on the accramycin scaffold. A putative acc biosynthetic pathway for accramycin, featuring a tridecaketide-specific type II polyketide synthase, was proposed.

In the new issue, our scientific journal offers you thirteen scientific articles. As always, we try to offer a wide variety of topics and areas and follow current trends in the history of science and technology. In the article by Olha Chumachenko, оn the basis of a wide base of sources, the article highlights and analyzes the development of research work of aircraft engine companies in Zaporizhzhia during the 1970s. The existence of a single system of functioning of the Zaporizhzhia production association “Motorobudivnyk” (now the Public Joint Stock Company “Motor Sich”) and the Zaporizhzhia Machine-Building Design Bureau “Progress” (now the State Enterprise “Ivchenko – Progress”) has been taken into account. Leonid Griffen and Nadiia Ryzheva present their vision of the essence of technology as a socio-historical phenomenon. The article reveals the authors' vision of the essence of the technology as a sociohistorical phenomenon. It is based on the idea that technology is not only a set of technical devices but a segment of the general system – a society – located between a social medium and its natural surroundings in the form of a peculiar social technosphere, which simultaneously separates and connects them. Definitely the article by Denis Kislov, which examines the period from the end of the XVII century to the beginning of the XIX century, is also of interest, when on the basis of deep philosophical concepts, a new vision of the development of statehood and human values raised. At this time, a certain re-thinking of the management and communication ideas of Antiquity and the Renaissance took place, which outlined the main promising trends in the statehood evolution, which to one degree or another were embodied in practice in the 19th and 20th centuries. A systematic approach and a comparative analysis of the causes and consequences of those years’ achievements for the present and the immediate future of the 21st century served as the methodological basis for a comprehensive review of the studies of that period. The article by Serhii Paliienko is devoted to an exploration of archaeological theory issues at the Institute of archaeology AS UkrSSR in the 1960s. This period is one of the worst studied in the history of Soviet archaeology. But it was the time when in the USSR archaeological researches reached the summit, quantitative methods and methods of natural sciences were applied and interest in theoretical issues had grown in archaeology. Now there are a lot of publications dedicated to theoretical discussions between archaeologists from Leningrad but the same researches about Kyiv scholars are still unknown The legacy of St. Luke in medical science, authors from Greece - this study aims to highlight key elements of the life of Valentyn Feliksovych Voino-Yasenetskyi and his scientific contribution to medicine. Among the scientists of European greatness, who at the turn of the XIX and XX centuries showed interest to the folklore of Galicia (Halychyna) and Galician Ukrainians, contributed to their national and cultural revival, one of the leading places is occupied by the outstanding Ukrainian scientist Ivan Verkhratskyi. He was both naturalist and philologist, as well as folklorist and ethnographer, organizer of scientific work, publisher and popularizer of Ukrainian literature, translator, publicist and famous public figure. I. H. Verkhratskyi was also an outstanding researcher of plants and animals of Eastern Galicia, a connoisseur of insects, especially butterflies, the author of the first school textbooks on natural science written in Ukrainian. A new emerging field that has seen the application of the drone technology is the healthcare sector. Over the years, the health sector has increasingly relied on the device for timely transportation of essential articles across the globe. Since its introduction in health, scholars have attempted to address the impact of drones on healthcare across Africa and the world at large. Among other things, it has been reported by scholars that the device has the ability to overcome the menace of weather constraints, inadequate personnel and inaccessible roads within the healthcare sector. This notwithstanding, data on drones and drone application in Ghana and her healthcare sector in particular appears to be little within the drone literature. Also, little attempt has been made by scholars to highlight the use of drones in African countries. By using a narrative review approach, the current study attempts to address the gap above. By this approach, a thorough literature search was performed to locate and assess scientific materials involving the application of drones in the military field and in the medical systems of Africans and Ghanaians in particular. The paper by Artemii Bernatskyi and Vladyslav Khaskin is devoted to the analysis of the history of the laser creation as one of the greatest technical inventions of the 20th century. This paper focuses on establishing a relation between the periodization of the stages of creation and implementation of certain types of lasers, with their influence on the invention of certain types of equipment and industrial technologies for processing the materials, the development of certain branches of the economy, and scientific-technological progress as a whole. The paper discusses the stages of: invention of the first laser; creation of the first commercial lasers; development of the first applications of lasers in industrial technologies for processing the materials. Special attention is paid to the “patent wars” that accompanied different stages of the creation of lasers. A comparative analysis of the market development for laser technology from the stage of creation to the present has been carried out. Nineteenth-century world exhibitions were platforms to demonstrate technical and technological changes that witnessed the modernization and industrialization of the world. World exhibitions have contributed to the promotion of new inventions and the popularization of already known, as well as the emergence of art objects of world importance. One of the most important world events at the turn of the century was the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. Thus, the author has tried to analyze the participation of representatives of the sugar industry in the World's Fair in 1900 and to define the role of exhibitions as indicators of economic development, to show the importance and influence of private entrepreneurs, especially from Ukraine, on the sugar industry and international contacts. The article by Viktor Verhunov highlights the life and creative path of the outstanding domestic scientist, theorist, methodologist and practitioner of agricultural engineering K. G. Schindler, associated with the formation of agricultural mechanics in Ukraine. The methodological foundation of the research is the principles of historicism, scientific nature and objectivity in reproducing the phenomena of the past based on the complex use of general scientific, special, interdisciplinary methods. For the first time a number of documents from Russian and Ukrainian archives, which reflect some facts of the professional biography of the scientist, were introduced into scientific circulation. The authors from Kremenchuk National University named after Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi presented a fascinating study of a bayonet fragment with severe damages of metal found in the city Kremenchuk (Ukraine) in one of the canals on the outskirts of the city, near the Dnipro River. Theoretical research to study blade weapons of the World War I period and the typology of the bayonets of that period, which made it possible to put forward an assumption about the possible identification of the object as a modified bayonet to the Mauser rifle has been carried out. Metal science expert examination was based on X-ray fluorescence spectrometry to determine the concentration of elements in the sample from the cleaned part of the blade. In the article by Mykola Ruban and Vadym Ponomarenko on the basis of the complex analysis of sources and scientific literature the attempt to investigate historical circumstances of development and construction of shunting electric locomotives at the Dnipropetrovsk electric locomotive plant has been made. The next scientific article continues the series of publications devoted to the assessment of activities of the heads of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Empire. In this article, the authors have attempted to systematize and analyze historical data on the activities of Klavdii Semyonovych Nemeshaev as the Minister of Railways of the Russian Empire. The article also assesses the development and construction of railway network in the Russian Empire during Nemeshaev's office, in particular, of the Amur Line and Moscow Encircle Railway, as well as the increase in the capacity of the Trans-Siberian Railway. The article discusses K. S. Nemeshaev's contribution to the development of technology and the introduction of a new type of freight steam locomotive for state-owned railways. We hope that everyone will find interesting useful information in the new issue. And, of course, we welcome your new submissions.

African names, as signs of language, can be divided into two morpho-syntactic categories: they are either nominal, which means they constitute single words, or syntagmatic, implying they are made up of sentences or parts thereof. Therefore, understanding place names in general hugely depends on a critical look at the internal structure of the word(s) or placename(s). This research uses complete semi-structured interviews and documents to critically investigate 20 randomly selected placenames from Kwahu South and Kwahu East districts in the Eastern Region of Ghana. It analyses the syntax, morphology and meaning of these placenames. It applies the Frame Semantic (Fillmore, 1982) concept to ascertain whether the meaning-making elements in the individual names reflect the views or purposes of their ‘namers’ or otherwise, as (oral) histories have them. The selected placenames are then grouped using Tent and Blair (2011) model of Motivations for Naming. The semantic and morphological analysis reveal that some Kwahu habitation names could be realized from non-morphemic parts of words, single stems/roots, phrases, inflections (affixations), etc. Again, vowel elision, coinage, and backformation are used by the name givers, with the topography, environment and other factors being key in the naming process. The paper concludes that Kwahu placenames are useful linguistic sources. The study contributes to the body of knowledge on Kwahu placenames in particular, and Ghanaian toponymy in general. It is recommended that ‘Kwahu’, which also stands as an Akan dialect type, spoken by this speech community, be explored by future researchers. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0787/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

The liberalisation of the Ghanaian media since the 1990s has drastically changed the media landscape of Ghana and given rise to the use of the mass media for evangelism purposes. The advent of the mass media offered churches and televangelists a unique opportunity to fulfil the Great Commission, and it is the Pentecostals who continue to use it effectively. Many Ghanaian Pentecostal Churches in the past 20 years have made good use of the mass media (radio and television) for the propagation of the gospel. In this article the televangelism ministry of the Church of Pentecost, named ‘Pentecost Hour’, and how it has influenced the mission and discipleship agenda of the Church of Pentecost in their endeavour to participate in the missio Dei are discussed.

Background: This study describes the rationale, adaptation, and final protocol of a project developed to address the increase in obesity and nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NR-NCDs) in Ghana. Code-named the Measurement, Evaluation, Accountability, and Leadership Support for NCDs (MEALS4NCDs) project, it aims to measure and support public sector actions that create healthy food marketing, retail, and provisioning environments for Ghanaian children using adapted methods from the International Network for Food and Obesity/NCDs Research Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS).Methods: The protocol for this observational study draws substantially from the INFORMAS' Food Promotion and Food Provision Modules. However, to appraise the readiness of local communities to implement interventions with strong potential to improve food environments of Ghanaian children, the MEALS4NCDs protocol has innovatively integrated a local community participatory approach based on the community readiness model (CRM) into the INFORMAS approaches. The setting is Ghana, and the participants include health and nutrition policy-makers, nutrition and food service providers, consumers, school authorities, and pupils of Ghanaian basic schools.Results: The study establishes a standardized approach to providing implementation science evidence for the prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Ghana. It demonstrates feasibility and the innovative application of the INFORMAS expanded food promotion and food provision modules, together with the integration of the CRM in a lower-middle income setting.Conclusion: The research will facilitate the understanding of the processes through which the INFORMAS approach is contextualized to a lower-middle income African context. The protocol could be adapted for similar country settings to monitor relevant aspects of food environments of children.

This article examines the processes through which the J.H. Kwabena Nketia Archives has struggled to build a sustainable model for audio-visual archiving within an African university and looks to how its contents may serve future students and scholars in an effort to locate African cultural materials and knowledge production in Africa. The archive, operated within the University of Ghana’s Institute of African Studies, was named in honor of Professor Nketia in 2015 and is the realization of over six decades of gathering audio and visual data, acquiring new collections, conducting research, and preservation efforts. The core collection of quarter-inch reels were recorded by Nketia in the early decades of his extensive career shaping Ghana’s cultural policy, building teaching and research institutions, and studying music, culture, and language in Africa. As a part of the University of Ghana, the Nketia Archives provide a valuable resource for local students and scholars and creates a site in which broader conversations about the country’s cultural legacies are brought into the socio-political discourse. The archive is also a resource for housing and making available new acquisitions including over 300 recently digitized recordings of Ghanaian popular music from professor John Collins’ Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation (BAPMAF). With ongoing challenges in accessibility, the Nketia Archives provides a valuable case study for how an African audio-visual archive is created and sustained.

A comparison was undertaken of confidence in 17 institutions in Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and the USA using data from the World Values Survey to find shared valuations and distinguishing characteristics as markers of cultural categories. Frequencies and rankings were examined and exploratory factor analysis was used to find plausible meanings of groups of institutions. The findings show that, although African respondents score institutions higher than their US counterparts, the rankings vary. With frequencies, the meaning is manifest. The analysis shows that 10 institutions load similarly on one latent variable and their combinations with the others indicate culture-specific characteristics. The latent variables were named ‘not-for-profit’, ‘for-profit’, ‘political’, ‘watchdog or fourth estate’ and ‘social order’ and they show Ghana is closer to the USA than to Nigeria, which is closer to Zimbabwe. The ‘not-for-profit’ variable is more important in the USA and Ghana and ‘political’ is more important in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. Institutional-specific loadings show that whereas the police and courts are grouped as ‘political’ in Nigeria, in other countries they belong to ‘social order’; and while universities are perceived as ‘for-profit’ in Africa, they are ‘not-for-profit’ in the USA. Comparing frequencies and rankings or dividing along the lines of individualistic versus collective or private and public sectors, masks the dynamic distribution of the systems of meaning in the local cultures; the latent variables approach therefore offers a more conceptually sound categorisation informed by shared and distinguishing institutions. Significance: • Nigerians, as at the time of the survey, were yet to perceive the principles of separation of powers between political institutions, the judiciary and the police – an essential feature of a good democracy and a characteristic of other countries in the study. Zimbabweans and Nigerians perceive their public institutions in generally the same way with the domination of the political establishments while Ghanaians are closer to the USA in terms of the values they attach to their establishments with the most important group being the charities. The universities in Africa, as well as the civil service in Nigeria, are associated with business/ profit centres with the Nigerian labour movement also seen as political. The army also remains relevant as a part of the fourth estate in Ghana and Nigeria.