Articles

This study addresses the critical challenge of material scarcity within Ghana’s creative industries by pioneering the synthesis of professional-grade stage blood from indigenous, locally-sourced materials. In the context of Ghanaian theatre and film, practitioners face significant barriers due to the high cost and limited availability of imported special effects products, often resulting in the use of inadequate substitutes that compromise aesthetic realism, safety, and narrative authenticity. This paper responds by exploring the potential of cassava starch, tapioca, kenkey dough, and fufu wax. Grounded in Schumacher’s theory of Appropriate Technology, the paper reframes indigenous resources not as inferior alternatives but as technologically and contextually appropriate solutions that align with Ghana’s economic, environmental, and social realities. The study provides detailed, reproducible recipes for both flowing and clotted blood variants, validated through practical application in simulated special effects such as gunshot wounds and deep-tissue scars. These formulations meet key performance criteria: visual fidelity under theatrical and cinematic conditions, controlled viscosity, ease of application and removal, and performer safety. Beyond technical innovation, this research contributes to shifting academic and professional discourse from dependency and scarcity toward resourcefulness, sustainability, and artistic self-reliance. It offers a practical framework for reducing production costs, enhancing the quality of visual storytelling, and fostering local value chains within Ghana’s growing creative economy.

Logistic growth model and its variants have been adjudged to be the most appropriate model for forecasting human population. However, in this article, we estimated the carrying capacity of Abuja using the logistic model. Then, we presented the parameters used to ascertain that the logistic model has the best fit in modelling population growth of Abuja over time. Meanwhile, a population growth sensitivity analysis is presented for the year 1962 to 2200.The result shows that by the year 2050, Abuja population growth rate will be out of control, if nothing substantial is implemented. Similarly, from the year 2150, the results show that stability will return again. Furthermore, the result of the error analysis conducted on the logistic model shows that Abuja has a growing population and that logistic growth model with MAPE and RMSE values of 0.98% and 7,817.07 respectively is the most accurate. The study concludes that logistic growth model with R−squared value of 0.776 has the best fit for population growth projection of Abuja. With approximate growth rate at 9.3% per annum, the projected population of Abuja will hit 30,220,701 million by the year 2039 all things being equal. Therefore, we recommend that the government should invest in massive agricultural reforms to accommodate the growing population, expand Abuja by developing its suburbs, and engage in massive reorientation of the populace on the dangers of uncontrolled births and the education of the girl child.

The initial omicron SARS-CoV-2 subvariants, BA.1 and BA.2 (BA.1.2), were progressively displaced by BA.5in Japan in 2022. In the BA.5-dominant period, there were significantly more healthcare staff infected by nosocomial contact with persons with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection than those infected by household contact, compared with the BA.1.2-dominant period. The staff infected via nosocomial contact included non-patient-facing staff, in the BA.5-dominant period, although they did not become infected by SARS-CoV-2 through nosocomial contact in the BA.1.2-dominant period. These data suggest the importance of infection control and care for non-patient-facing staff, in the same way as for patient-facing staff.

The initial omicron (B.1.1.529) severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) subvariants, BA.1 and BA.2 (BA.1/2), were progressively displaced by BA.5 in Japan, which showed not only higher transmittivity and less pathogenicity, but also differences in antibiotic use according to the difference in the clinical course of BA.5 compared with BA.1/2 infections. BA.5 patients received more antibiotics, especially ampicillin/sulbactam, although ceftriaxone and meropenem were used significantly in the BA.1/2 period. These data suggest an increased incidence of aspiration pneumonia in elderly patients in the BA.5 period, and we should consider changing the management tactics for COVID-19.

Since the first outbreak of SARS-CoV2, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 in Wuhan, China in the December 2019, the world continues to be in state of fear, uncertainty, tension and anxiety till date and this state might continue because of emerging mutants. The vaccination drive all over the world is continuing, still the new variants are cause of concern, with the aim to prevent the spread of the virus, focus should be on techniques and processes which helps in strengthening our defense mechanism, the immune system. It has becoming clear from several studies that the immune system is greatly impacted by the COVID-19 infection through several inflammatory reactions. The role of balanced diet full of nutrients cannot be overlooked in controlling infectious diseases. A balanced diet which should include plant foods, vitamins and micronutrients and this review wants to emphasize on the preventive role played by the plant foods, vitamins and minerals in COVID-19 infections, to reduce the mortality rate as well as the morbidity in patients who are infected.

The outbreaks and quick spread of severe-acute-respiratory-syndrome-coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), causing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), have badly affected the whole world due to continuous emergence-and-transmission of the latest-new viral-genomes forming new-variants revealing patterns of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak-and-global-pandemic with badly affecting advanced-medical-science-technology-communication-agriculture-agronomy-plant-breeding-horticulture, health-environment-socio-economy, and different-issues. India's emphasis on okra, the ‘Nature's-Gift to Human-Disease-Free-Healthy-Life’ and the most ‘Economically-Important-Number-One-Consumption Vegetable-Crops’ is destroyed by various-diseases causing pathogens like the root-knot (RK)-diseases caused by the nematodes, <i>Meloidogyne incognita</i> (Kofoid &#x26; White) Chitwood, and easily checked by many chemical-pesticides. But it causes different carcinogenic effects on the environment and our life. So it is an urgent need to develop potential biomedicines. The pretreatments with ultra-high-diluted-biomedicines (UHDBMs) Gall 200C and Nematode 200C, prepared from okra-root-galls (ORG) and nematode-females (NF) respectively, applied by foliar spray@ 20 ml/plant, are highly effective against the root-knot-disease of okra, Abelmoschus esculentus (L.) Moench Cv. Ankur-40, with the increasing growth of plants and fruits-production. The UHDBMs-Gall 200C is more effective than the Nematode 200C. Both the pretreatments-UHDBMs are responsible for induce-systemic-acquired-defense-response of the pretreated-plants through the expression of pathogenesis-related (PR)-proteins-genes (22-14 numbers), which are more or less similar-molecular-range (295kD-11kD) of many coronavirus, which will be responsible for preventing-RK and COVID-19 like virus-diseases by inducing-defense-resistance or increasing innate-immunity respectively, and advanced in medical-science, technology, communication, agriculture, agronomy, plant breeding, horticulture, health, environment, socio-economy, and different application-issues with pollution-free globe, developing new-preventive typical-biomedical vaccines or treatments methods or drug development and research against the ‘21<SUP>st</SUP>-Century Global Pandemic COVID-19 like Any Viral Diseases’ which lead to optimal contributions to the field of policymaking drug and vaccine development emphasizing new or important aspects of the study, and synthetic production of UHDBMs will be more practical implications, and social implications in the future research. And the farmers and the world would be benefitted most; by collecting and uprooting gall-roots after harvesting for cost-effective bio-controlling plant-diseases, and profit from shelling-and-buying of whole plants, fruits, and gall-roots also, and helps for the benefit of global health by developing the most cost-effective, personalized, non-toxic, easily-preparable, easily-maintainable, easily-available and suppliable, vaccines or treatments methods from their own product.