Background and Aims
Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) individuals are at a higher risk of developing diabetes complications, with approximately 80% complication‐related mortality. The increased ...morbidity and mortality among T2DM patients are partly due to dysregulated hemostasis. This study determined the quality of glycemic control in T2DM and its association with markers of coagulation and inhibitors of fibrinolysis.
Methods
This case–control study recruited 90 participants involving: 30 T2DM patients with good glycemic control, 30 with poor glycemic control, and 30 nondiabetic subjects as controls at a Municipal Hospital in Ghana. Fasting blood glucose, glycated hemoglobin, activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT), prothrombin time (PT), calculated international normalized ratio (INR), and full blood count (FBC) were determined for each respondent. Plasma levels of plasminogen activator inhibitor‐1 (PAI‐1) and thrombin activatable fibrinolysis inhibitor (TAFI) were determined using the solid‐phase sandwich enzyme‐linked immunosorbent assay method. Data were analyzed using R language software.
Results
Plasma PAI‐1 antigen levels were significantly higher in the participants with poor glycemic control as compared to participants with good glycemic control (p < 0.0001). There was no significant difference in plasma TAFI levels between the participants with poor glycemic control as compared to participants with good glycemic control (p = 0.900). T2DM patients had significantly shorter APTT, PT, and INR than controls (p < 0.05). At a cut‐off of ≥161.70 pg/μL, PAI was independently associated with increasing odds (adjusted odds ratio = 13.71, 95% confidence interval: 3.67–51.26, p < 0.0001) of poor glycemic control and showed the best diagnostic accuracy for poor glycemic control (area under the curve = 0.85, p < 0.0001).
Conclusion
PAI‐1 levels were significantly increased in T2DM with poor glycemic control and emerged as the best predictor for poor glycemic control. Good glycemic management to control the plasma levels of PAI‐1 is required to prevent hypercoagulability and thrombotic disorders.
Background
Visceral obesity and insulin resistance contribute to developing cardiometabolic syndrome (MetS). We investigated the predictive abilities of lipid accumulation product (LAP), waist ...circumference‐triglyceride index (WTI), and triglyceride‐glucose (TyG) index for MetS screening among the general Ghanaian adults.
Methods
The final prospective analysis included 4740 healthy adults aged 30–90 years from three communities comprising Ejisu, Konongo, and Ashanti Akim Agogo in Ghana. Self‐structured questionnaire pretested was used to collect sociodemographic, anthropometric, and clinical data. Blood samples were taken after fasting to measure glucose and lipid levels. LAP, WTI, and TyG were calculated from standard equations. MetS was defined by the International Diabetes Federation criteria. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves and multivariable logistic regression were utilized to evaluate the potential of the three indices in identifying MetS.
Results
Of the 4740 participants, 39.7% had MetS. MetS was more common in females (50.3%) than in males (22.2%). Overall, LAP ≥ 27.52 yielded as the best index for MetS with the highest area under the ROC curve (AUC) (0.866). At cut‐off LAP point of ≥23.87 in males and ≥33.32 in females, an AUC of 0.951 and 0.790 was identified in MetS prediction, respectively. LAP was an independent risk measure of MetS for both males (45.6‐fold) and females (3.7‐fold) whereas TyG was an independent risk measure for females (3.7‐fold) only.
Conclusions
MetS is increasing among the general adult population. LAP and TyG are important sex‐specific risk measures to screen for MetS among the general adult population in our cohort.
Influenza vaccination is recommended by the World Health Organization for high risk groups, yet few data exist on influenza disease burden in West Africa.
We estimated medically attended ...influenza-associated illness rates among residents of Shai-Osudoku and Ningo Pram-Pram Districts (SONPD), Ghana. From May 2013 to April 2015, we conducted prospective surveillance for severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) and influenza-like illness (ILI) in 17 health facilities. In 2015, we conducted a retrospective assessment at an additional 18 health facilities to capture all SONPD SARI and ILI patients during the study period. We applied positivity rates to those not tested to estimate total influenza cases.
Of 612 SARI patients tested, 58 (9%) were positive for influenza. The estimated incidence of influenza-associated SARI was 30 per 100,000 persons (95% CI: 13-84). Children aged 0 to 4 years had the highest influenza-associated SARI incidence (135 per 100,000 persons, 95% CI: 120-152) and adults aged 25 to 44 years had the lowest (3 per 100,000 persons, 95% CI: 1-7) (p < 0.01). Of 2,322 ILI patients tested, 407 (18%) were positive for influenza. The estimated incidence of influenza-associated ILI was 844 per 100,000 persons (95% CI: 501-1,099). The highest incidence of influenza-associated ILI was also among children aged 0 to 4 years (3,448 per 100,000 persons, 95% CI: 3,727 - 3,898). The predominant circulating subtype during May to December 2013 and January to April 2015 was influenza A(H3N2) virus, and during 2014 influenza B virus was the predominant circulating type.
Influenza accounted for 9% and 18% of medically attended SARI and ILI, respectively. Rates were substantive among young children and suggest the potential value of exploring the benefits of influenza vaccination in Ghana, particularly in this age group.
Three key questions guide this investigation into specific accusations of fakery related to some Christian religious leaders' acts in contemporary Ghana. The first question is: what do moving images ...and other popular visual forms (such as cartoons) contribute to assessments and accusations of fakery? The second question is: what can we learn from a close examination of religious leaders and their actions that citizens consider fake? The last question is: who gets to make public accusations of fakery on Ghanaian religious matters? I argue that the various analyzed cartoons and memes contribute to ongoing public discussions of the religious leaders as fake. I show how some of these religious leaders seem motivated by the need to be recognized as possessing superior supernatural powers which they exchange for material wealth. I draw attention to specific categories of Ghanaians, such as certain politicians with clout, to level accusations that these religious pastors are fakes.
An accurate description of the interfacial quasiparticle electronic structure is key to the design of heterogeneous materials. While the first-principles GW approach is state-of-the-art, the ...computational cost is high for large interface systems. This has led to the substrate screening GW approach for weakly coupled interfaces, which breaks down for covalently bonded interfaces. In this work, we present the generalized substrate screening GW approach, based on the following two considerations: (i) the contribution of the interfacial covalent bond to the polarizability can be efficiently calculated with a low energy cutoff; (ii) the contribution of the deprotonated adsorbate to the interface polarizability can be well approximated by that of the protonated molecule. Our approach is exemplified using interfaces formed between benzene-1,4-dithiol (BDT) and Au(111), which feature the widely used Au–S bonds in experiments. Our work provides a robust and simple scheme for accurate and efficient GW calculations of covalently bonded interfaces.
Supplementing literature study with in-depth unstructured interviews from the two dominant political parties in Ghana on how they mobilize funds, the key argument of this article is that the loss of ...a presidential election in Ghana is a reduction in a party’s major income streams. Unlike other studies that look at incumbency advantage in party funding from the angle of governments’ policies that weaken the opposition parties, this article analyses incumbency from their sources of funds. It fulfils two major objectives of identifying the sources of funds of political parties and establishing the link between these sources and incumbency.
Quantum dot (QD) assemblies are nanostructured networks made from aggregates of QDs and feature improved charge and energy transfer efficiencies compared to discrete QDs. Using first-principles ...many-body perturbation theory, we systematically compare the electronic and optical properties of two types of CdS QD assemblies that have been experimentally investigated: (i) QD gels, where individual QDs are covalently connected via di- or polysulfide bonds, and (ii) QD nanocrystals, where individual QDs are bound via van der Waals interactions. Our work illustrates how the electronic and optical properties evolve when discrete QDs are assembled into 1D, 2D, and 3D gels and nanocrystals, as well as how the one-body and many-body interactions in these systems impact the trends as the dimensionality of the assembly increases. Furthermore, our work reveals the crucial role of the di- or polysulfide covalent bonds in the localization of the excitons, which highlights the difference between QD gels and QD nanocrystals.
The author discusses how a key Ghana-China geopolitical issue was debated in everyday life through popular visual; satirical media. Yet, current research on Africa-China media communicative practices ...on popular media and literary genres is scarce, and mostly does not pay attention to the specifics of China’s engagement with various African countries.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate overconfidence bias and the effect of presidential elections on investor overconfidence bias in sub-Saharan African stock ...markets.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses the vector autoregressive (VAR) model and its associated impulse response functions to investigate overconfidence bias. Furthermore, we make use of OLS regressions to examine the effect of presidential elections on investor overconfidence bias.FindingsInvestor overconfidence bias is present in the markets of Ghana and Tanzania suggesting that the phenomenon persists in sub–Saharan Africa's small markets. We also find that post-presidential election periods have a dampening effect on investor overconfidence in a country where there is less post-election uncertainty.Originality/valueDespite the previous studies on investor overconfidence bias in sub-Saharan Africa, this paper to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to investigate investor overconfidence bias in the context of presidential elections.
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