Xeroderma Pigmentosum Group C Deficiency Alters Cigarette Smoke DNA Damage Cell Fate and Accelerates Emphysema Development

Cigarette smoke (CS) exposure is a major risk factor for the development of emphysema, a common disease characterized by loss of cells comprising the lung parenchyma. The mechanisms of cell injury leading to emphysema are not completely understood but are thought to involve persistent cytotoxic or mutagenic DNA damage induced by CS. Using complementary cell culture and mouse models of CS exposure, we investigated the role of the DNA repair protein, xeroderma pigmentosum group C (XPC), on CS-induced DNA damage repair and emphysema. Expression of XPC was decreased in mouse lungs after chronic CS exposure and XPC knockdown in cultured human lung epithelial cells decreased their survival after CS exposure due to activation of the intrinsic apoptosis pathway. Similarly, cell autophagy and apoptosis were increased in XPC-deficient mouse lungs and were further increased by CS exposure. XPC deficiency was associated with structural and functional changes characteristic of emphysema, which were worsened by age, similar to levels observed with chronic CS exposure. Taken together, these findings suggest that repair of DNA damage by XPC plays an important and previously unrecognized role in the maintenance of alveolar structures. These findings support that loss of XPC, possibly due to chronic CS exposure, promotes emphysema development and further supports a link between DNA damage, impaired DNA repair, and development of emphysema

HOW TO REDUCE DELAYS ON PASSENGER AIRCRAFT: A STUDY OVER NON-WEATHER-RELATED ISSUES

Delays are contentious and a chronic issue that affects millions of air-travel passengers in the world. Delays have effects that can follow passengers from one airport to another on a multiple leg journey. Weather delays are different from airline arrival delays. It is obvious that weather delays are uncontrollable and unpredictable. Severe thunderstorms can force airline schedulers to cancel flights that may cause arrival delays for flight passengers. A collection of six years of flight delay data from Bureau of Transportation Statistics was used for three airlines, namely American Airlines, Delta Airlines, and Southwest Airlines, at four different airports (Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport, O'Hare International Airport, Midway International Airport, and Nashville International Airport). The purpose of this study was to determine whether there is any correlation between Hub-and-Spoke and Point-to-Point systems that can be associated with arrival delays on travel passengers from the above airlines with regards to their associated hub airports.M.S

THE OPERATIONS OF SAVINGS AND LOANS AND THE PERFORMANCES OF BUSINESSES IN ACCRA

Savings and Loans operations in Ghana represent significant development and performance of most businesses and therefore maintaining these Savings and Loans operations is important. However, there seems to be paucity of studies on the operations of savings and loans companies’ effects on the performances of businesses in general and Greater Accra in particular. This research seeks to bridge this knowledge gap by analyzing the operations of savings and loans companies’ effects on the performances of businesses in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana. The study will be guided by three research objectives. Study methods include the use of questionnaire for data analysis. A total of 40 respondents (20 staff of Savings and Loans companies and twenty (20) small business operators (men and women) who took part in this study were randomly purposively selected. The results indicate that small businesses in Accra township sourced start-up capital from savings and loans companies, personal savings and support from friends and families. It also emerged from the study that the business operators that were unable to receive entire amount requested from the financial institutions attributed it to failure to meet the credit requirements, failure to provide the required collateral security and the absence of active account with the financial institutions. Again the study found that credit received by the business operators in Accra township was utilized for the expansion of business. The study further found that business operators in Accra township are confronted with several challenges in accessing credit facilities from Savings and Loans Companies. These challenges include bureaucracy, lack of opportunity to take second loan, high risk and uncertainty, high level of interest rate on credit, low level of knowledge about credit sourcing and shorter repayment period. It is recommended that to enhance small and medium business operators in Accra township access and acquisition of credit facilities from Savings and Loans companies should be efficiently utilized. Keywords: Operations, Savings and Loans, Performance, Businesses, Accra

Assessment of noise levels in heavy and light industries in Blantyre City, Malawi

This study was aimed at assessing noise levels in various companies in Blantyre City, Malawi in relation to their compliance with the National Standards and the Occupational Safety, Health and Welfare Act of Malawi (1997) on noise pollution control program. The noise levels, ambient temperature and humidity were measured in various sections of the different industries in the city. A questionnaire was used to check if the industries applied any control measures to prevent induced hearing loss. The results show that noise levels in most industries are above the recommended limit level of 85 dBA. The study has also shown that only 21 % of the industries complied with the national regulations. Lack of noise data, awareness, commitment, and enforcement by the regulatory authorities were observed to be contributing factors to the failure to implement induced noise hearing loss control programmes. The study recommends that in some sections of the industries where the noise levels are high, programs to reduce or prevent hearing loss should be implemented. In addition, there is a need for regular inspections of noise levels in industries out to ensure compliance of permissible noise levels.Keywords: Compliance, Decibels, Hearing loss, Industries, Noise level

TAX RISES IMPACT ON THE SPENDING PATTERN OF THE POPULATION IN GREATER ACCRA REGION OF GHANA

The study was aimed at examining the role of high tax rises on the spending patterns of the people in Accra township of Ghana. The research gathered data from both secondary and primary sources and used the quantitative research method approach. The key instruments used for the data collection was questionnaire. In all seventy (70) respondents were selected for the study comprising thirty five (35) people from Accra township and thirty five (35) University of Ghana students. The study found out that taxation is very good for nation building since the allocation of funds depends upon the collection of taxes and the government used that revenue for specific purposes. This has a direct economic impact on the socio economic development of Ghana. The study found out that there is a fairly strong relationship between people spending and high tax rises. That is to say the study found out that when tax is high it affects people spending negatively especially the poor because it reduces their income levels, put a tax burden on them, it increases their expenditure and it also increases poverty. The study found out that to be able to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in our tax system it is essential to strike the right balance between designing an attractive tax, there must be transparency and effectiveness in the tax system, tax reform needs to be promoted to widen the tax base and bring a larger part of the population into the formal economy and also tax must reduce excessive reliance on aid and offers a path away from unsustainable revenue streams  It is recommended that the government of Ghana should structure the tax based system in a way that there is no inequality in the payment by the poor and the rich and also the people of Ghana should understand the importance of taxation for the development of Ghana and hence there should not be invasion of tax since tax brought to light the importance of tax. Keywords: Tax, Spending Pattern, Population, Greater Accra Region, Ghana

AN EXAMINATION OF FACTORS LEADING TO THE COLLAPSE OF PUBLIC SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS IN GHANA: A CASE STUDY OF METRO MASS TRANSPORT

Tax payers money are been used every day in Ghana to establish public sector organizations. This is why the management of public sector organizations is important in sustainable development. The main objective of this study was to examine the factors leading to the collapse of Metro Mass Transit in Ghana. The study revealed literature on transportation, the role of the state in public transportation, the nature of Metro Mass Transit operations, management practice of Metro Mass Transit and challenges of the public transport system. The study purposively sampled sixty (60) respondents which comprises of 30 workers of Metro Mass Transit (10 Professional Drivers, 10 Senior Management Staff and 10 Junior Staff) and 30 passengers (comprising of 15 passengers from Metro Mass Transit, 5 passengers of OA Transport, 5 passengers of VIP Transport and 5 passengers from VISION Transport). The major findings of the study revealed that Metro Mass Transit offers scheduled trips on intercity and intra city route but does not offer quality transport services as private transport like OA, VIP and VISION does in Accra. The study also found out that passengers prefer private transport more to Metro Mass Transit because the workers have good communication skills as compared to the workers of Metro Mass Transit in Accra, Metro Mass Transit officials have inefficient managerial skills and therefore can’t meet the demands of their customers, Metro Mass Transit have inadequate operation buses, there is frequent breaking of Metro Mass Transit vehicles. The study recommends that the management of Metro Mass Transit should make proper use of Public Private Partnership. This can help in securing more buses to boost their operations. The study also recommends that the management of Metro Mass Transit should work on improving their management practices to enhance performance in other to meet the demand of their customers. Again the management of Metro Mass Transit should ensure that there is frequent maintenance of vehicles to enhance effective operations and also management must also try to maintain an optimum level of providing good communication and effective managerial skills in order to improve its operations.  Keywords: Factors, Collapse, Public Sector Organizations, Metro Mass Transport, Ghana

Early Detection of Stroke for Ensuring Health and Well-Being Based on Categorical Gradient Boosting Machine

Stroke is believed to be among the leading causes of adult disability worldwide. It is wreaking havoc on African people, families, and governments, with ramifications for the continent’s socio-economic development. On the other hand, stroke research output is insufficient, resulting in a dearth of evidence-based and context-driven guidelines and strategies to combat the region’s expanding stroke burden. Indeed, for African and other developing economies to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 3, which aims to guarantee healthy lifestyles and promote well-being for people of all ages, the issue of stroke must be addressed to reduce early death from non-communicable illnesses. This study sought to create a robust predictive model for early stroke diagnosis using an understandable machine learning (ML) technique. We implemented a categorical gradient boosting machine model for early stroke prediction to protect patients’ health and well-being. We compared the effectiveness of our proposed model to existing state-of-the-art machine learning models and previous studies by empirically testing it on a real-world public stroke dataset. The proposed model outperformed the others when compared to the other methods using the research data, achieving the maximum accuracy (96.56%), the area under the curve (AUC) (99.73%), F1-measure (96.68%), recall (99.24%), and precision (93.57%). Functional outcome prediction models based on machine learning for stroke were verified and shown to be adaptable and helpful

A Mini-Review of Machine Learning in Big Data Analytics: Applications, Challenges, and Prospects

The availability of digital technology in the hands of every citizenry worldwide makes an available unprecedented massive amount of data. The capability to process these gigantic amounts of data in real-time with Big Data Analytics (BDA) tools and Machine Learning (ML) algorithms carries many paybacks. However, the high number of free BDA tools, platforms, and data mining tools makes it challenging to select the appropriate one for the right task. This paper presents a comprehensive mini-literature review of ML in BDA, using a keyword search; a total of 1512 published articles was identified. The articles were screened to 140 based on the study proposed novel taxonomy. The study outcome shows that deep neural networks (15%), support vector machines (15%), artificial neural networks (14%), decision trees (12%), and ensemble learning techniques (11%) are widely applied in BDA. The related applications fields, challenges, and most importantly the openings for future research, are detailed