Browsing by Author "Darkwah, K.A."
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Item Application of Numerical Integration to Stochastic Estimation of the Gini Coefficient(University of Ghana, 2015-07) Darkwah, K.A.; Nortey, E.N.N.; Lotsi, A.; University of Ghana, College of Basic and Applied Sciences School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Department of StatisticsOver the years, measuring inequality based on the distribution of income has been a major concern to economist. Inequality has had a broader concept than poverty in that it is defined over the entire population not just for the portion of the population below a certain poverty line. The Gini coefficient satisfy many desirable properties of a good measure of inequality such as mean independence, population size independence, symmetry, and Pigou-Dalton Transfer sensitivity. The empirical observation (income) distribution exhibit excess kurtosis and heavy tails. This research first described the probability distribution of income. The study presented a proposed numerical integration method to stochastic estimation of the Gini coefficient. The Proposed Numerical Integration Method showed a better estimate of functions as compared to the Newton’s cotes methods such as the Trapezium rule, Simpson’s 1=3 rule, Simpson’s 3=8 rule, Boole’s rule and Weddle’s rule. Diagnostic tests such as Q-Q plots and Kolmogorov-Smirnov test were graphically and quantitatively used to assess the fitness to the income data respectively. The study therefore concludes that the proposed method is superior to the Newton-Cotes methods of integration. Also, the Gini coefficient estimate using the proposed numerical integration method with k=3 was 0.48 which shows that there is disparity in income in Ghana and recommend to statisticians or mathematicians to use the proposed numerical integration method when computing functions that can’t be easily integrated.Item Assessment of the determinants that influence the adoption of sustainable soil and water conservation practices in Techiman Municipality of Ghana(International Soil and Water Conservation Research, 2019) Darkwah, K.A.; Kwawu, J.D.; Agyire-Tettey, F.; Sarpong, D.B.This paper assesses the relationship between farmer characteristics and the degree to which nine soil and water conservation practices (SWCPs) are adopted by 300 maize farmers in Techiman Municipality, Ghana. Farmers were surveyed for their adoption of nine SWCPs, and 24 other characteristics including demographics, socio-economic factors, risk factors and costs of production. Sustainable soil and water conservation practices (SWCPs) in sub-Saharan Africa such as Ghana are important because they have positive effects on yield, increase sustainability of farming, stop degradation and reduce soil erosion. The adoption of sustainable soil and water conservation practices in the agricultural industry of Ghana has been variable. This study aims to explain differences in farmer adoption of SWCPs, by assessing factors that vary with the number of different SWCPs used by farmers. Hence, the Poisson model was used. The results show that farmer's household size, farm size, access to credit services and formal training of maize farmer have a positive significant association with the number of soil and water conservation practices adopted by maize farmers while distance to nearest output market, distance to input center, access to extension services, and risk of pest and diseases have a negative significant association with the number of soil and water conservation practices adopted by maize farmers at 5% significance level. The study concludes that any further research in Techiman Municipality on soil and water conservation practices should acknowledge the mixture of personal and demographic, institutional, socio-economic and risk factors. This suggests that agricultural policies formulated by the government should be aimed at supporting maize farmers to have access to extension service contact for frequent disseminating of agricultural technology information which is likely to increase the rate of adoption of soil and water conservation practices. © 2019 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation and China Water and Power PressItem Characterization of functional disability among older adults in Ghana: A multi-level analysis of the study on global ageing and adult health (SAGE) Wave II(PLOS ONE, 2022) Darkwah, K.A.; Iddi, S.; Nonvignon, J.; Aikins, M.Background Functional disability is a common public health problem that affects the health and quality of life of older adults. This causes them to be highly dependent on other members of their fam ily, receive home care, or to be institutionalized. Although functional disability has been widely studied in developed country settings, very limited studies have focused on age related functional disability in sub-Saharan Africa, and in particular Ghana. The purpose of this study is to assess various factors associated with the difficulties in performing basic and instrumental activities of daily living among older adults in Ghana. Methods This cross-sectional study used data on 1610 older adults aged 50 years and above from the Study on Global Ageing and Adult Health (SAGE) survey Wave II conducted in Ghana. Nine standard functioning difficulty tools of WHODAS II was used for the analysis. The WHODAS II offers continuous summary scores with higher scores showing higher disability, and vice versa. A multi-level regression model was used to identify individual and household level risk factors linked to the functional disability of older adults. Results Female older adults (53.7%) reported having functional disability. The mean functional dis ability among older adults aged 50 years and above was 5.2 (± 5.9). Results indicated that older adults who are females, aged 70 years and above, and had three or more chronic con ditions had a higher functional disability. Also, older adults who have adequate fruit intake and belong to wealthier households were found to have a lower functional disability. Conclusions The study reveals that functional disability among older adults is frequent in Ghana and is associated with having three or more chronic conditions and being overweight/obese. Pre vention of functional disability in old age in Ghana is therefore a matter of great social and economic concern, which calls for coordinate efforts across the board to mitigate this public health challengeItem Estimation of the Gini coefficient for the lognormal distribution of income using the Lorenz curve(SpringerPlus, 2016-07) Darkwah, K.A.; Nortey, E.N.N.; Lotsi, A.The main objective of the study is to compare the Newton–Cotes methods such as the Trapezium rule, Simpson 1/3 rule and Simpson 3/8 rule to estimate the area under the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient of income using polynomial function with degree 5. Comparing the Gini coefficients of income computed from the Polynomial function with degree 5 for the Trapezium, Simpson 1/3 and Simpson 3/8 methods using the relative errors showed that the trapezium rule, Simpson’s 1/3 rule and Simpson’s 3/8 rule show negative biases with the Simpson 1/3 rule yielding the lowest absolute relative true error of 4.230711 %. © 2016, The Author(s).