Assessing financial literacy and food and nutritional security relationship in an African country.

This study investigates the relationship between rural Ghanaian household food and nutrition security and financial literacy. We used the endogenous treatment regression (ETR) technique to address the analysis's potential selection bias problem. The findings of our study demonstrated a beneficial relationship between food and nutrition security and financial literacy. According to further studies, the relationship between food security and financial literacy is heterogeneous. Our findings may have some ramifications for promoting food and nutritional security while preserving rural development methods.

The Relationship between Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases of Fish Farm Household Members and Production Efficiency: The Case of Ghana.

Prior studies explored the production and technical efficiency of fish farms and farmers from the perspectives of factors such as credit access and cooperative membership. We focused on the chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) of household members and their quantitative impacts on fish farm production efficiency, based on data of earthen pond fish farms from two regions (Bono East and Ashanti) in Ghana. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the IV Tobit technique were employed for the study's analysis. From the study's observations, we draw the following conclusions. We found that the NCDs of household members indeed reduce farm production efficiency, and the heterogeneous impact of the NCDs of female members on farm production efficiency was more prominent than that of male members. Insights from this study suggest that the national government should provide farmers with the necessary medical care through the provision of subsidized health insurance, which can facilitate access to healthcare services. Moreover, NGOs and governments should encourage health literacy, i.e., organizing programs aimed at educating farmers on NCDs and their impact on agriculture.

Impact of crop insurance on cocoa farmers' income: an empirical analysis from Ghana.

Risk is associated with every sector of an economy, and the pervasiveness of risk in agriculture is not new to farmers; they have, over the decades, developed ways to minimize and cope with it. The question is whether traditional strategies employed by farmers are adequate to curb unavoidable natural disasters. This study aims to see how crop insurance affects cocoa producers' incomes in Ghana. A well-structured questionnaire was delivered to a sample of 600 cocoa farmers in Ghana's Ashanti region, and data was collected using a multi-stage random sampling technique. Tobit and propensity score matching effect estimators were used to examine crop insurance's impact on cocoa farmers' income. We found that the age of a cocoa farmer has a negative effect on the farmer's income and is statistically significant. Our result also shows that the marital status of cocoa farmers has a significant positive impact on their income. The relationship between savings and farmers' income was positive in our estimation. It indicates that an increase in savings attitude leads to a higher income for the farmers. The result indicates that crop insurance had a significant positive impact on cocoa farmers' income in the Ashanti region. The study recommends that the government of Ghana, with urgency, design agricultural insurance policy that can capture various farmers in the country to enhance their income and reduce poverty. Again, insurers need to promote publicity through public seminars, training, and media advertising to improve farmer awareness and knowledge of the insurance scheme.

Does the Adoption of Climate-Smart Agricultural Practices Impact Farmers' Income? Evidence from Ghana.

People's lives, particularly farmers', have been affected by extreme weather conditions that have reduced the yield of numerous crops due to climate change. Climate-smart agriculture practices can reduce or eliminate greenhouse gas emissions and have the propensity to increase farm income and productivity. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to ascertain whether CSA practices impact farmers' income. This study includes all cocoa farmers in the selected districts in the Ashanti Region. The population includes those who live in the six cocoa production villages. The multistage sampling procedure was considered based on the dominants of literature. The study used an endogenous switching regression framework to examine the effects of the adoption of climate-smart agricultural practices (CSAPs) on farmers' income. While estimating treatment effects, telasso uses lasso techniques to select the appropriate variable sets. The results revealed that gender, farm experience, age, household size, and farm size do not significantly influence the adoption of irrigation and crop insurance. The study revealed a significant positive impact of access to credit on adopting irrigation and crop insurance. The adoption of climate-smart practices has a positive coefficient. This indicates that if all respondents in each region adopts these practices, their income would increase significantly. This study shows that adopting irrigation practices leads to an increase in household income of 8.6% and 11.1%, respectively, for cocoa farmers. Crop insurance has a positive coefficient and is statistically significant on household income, on-farm, and off-farm. This paper shows that climate-smart practices such as crop insurance can positively influence farmers' income in Ghana. We also conjecture that crop insurance is the most effective and efficient climate-smart practice among the various agricultural practices. The study suggests that access to credit and mass awareness should be compulsory modules coupled with the consistent training of farmers on new technologies for effective policy implementation. Expanding access to extension officers could enhance farmers' adaptive capacity and warrant the efficiency of implemented practices.

Does financial development mitigate the effects of climate variability on rice cultivation? Empirical evidence from agrarian economy.

This study is the first attempt to examine the effects of changing climate and financial development on rice cultivation in the context of agrarian economy like Thailand from 1969 to 2016. The current study also uses other important variables, such as cultivated area, organic fertilizers usage, and rural labor to determine the long-term connection amid variables. In this study, we applied several econometric techniques, for instance the autoregressive distributive lag-error correction model (ARDL-ECM), vector error correction model (VECM), impulse response functions (IMFs), and variance decomposition (VARD) method to estimate the most reliable and robust outcomes. The empirical results showed that in the long- and short-run, there is a reduction in rice cultivation as temperature increase. The carbon dioxide (CO2) positively affects rice cultivation in the long-run, while this association is negative in the short-run. The findings further revealed that in the long- and short-run, domestic credit provided by the financial sector significantly positive improved rice cultivation, while domestic credit to private sector by banks negatively affects rice cultivation. The important input factors, including cultivated area, organic fertilizers usage, and rural labor significantly positive contributed toward rice cultivation in the long- and short-run. The calculated long-run causal connection of all the studied variables with rice cultivation is validated. The estimated short-run causal relationship is unidirectional among temperature, CO2 emissions, financial development, rural labor, and rice cultivation. In addition, our outcomes are robust and also verified by IMFs and VARD method. The study offers some important policy suggestions to increase rice production with the help of sound and well-developed financial systems and climate controls.

Endorsing Sustainable Enterprises Among Promising Entrepreneurs: A Comparative Study of Factor-Driven Economy and Efficiency-Driven Economy.

Understanding business trails among promising aspirants may contribute to an actual motive for diminishing ecological tracks and escort to developing devotion toward deciding intentions across various entrepreneurial types and tiers solely from the sustainability domains. Therefore, this study endeavors to comprehend and seek to employ the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to inspect the relationship between antecedents on sustainable enterprise intention and sustainable value creation. In this study, we used the convenience sampling method and the quantitative data of 1,070 respondents from Pakistan and China and applied a SmartPLS structural equation model and partial least square path modeling by mediational and multigroup analyses. Findings divulge that R2 (79.8%) value in the Pakistan sample of attitudes to sustainability, perceived entrepreneurial desirability (PED), and perceived entrepreneurial feasibility (PEF) was comparatively higher than in China. The R2 (75.6%) variance value on sustainable entrepreneurial intentions (SEI) was recorded higher in the Pakistani sample. However, the relationship of environmental values, self-efficacy, and extrinsic and intrinsic rewards show positive and significant mediational effects on both the economies of SEI. The findings disclosed an inconsistent character of extrinsic rewards, general self-efficacy, and job security depict negative significant impacts of aspirations on sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) among promising entrepreneurs on sustainability enterprises in both Pakistan and China. This study extends on existing entrepreneurship literature. Results supported the designed hypothesis and played a significant role in shedding light on an individual trait underpinning a career in a sustainable business start-up. The study looks at the issue from the viewpoint of sustainability domains. It seeks to determine the individual PED, PEF, and attitude toward sustainable entrepreneurship (ATSE) as the mediational variables. The study highlights the importance of work values in pursuing sustainability-oriented entrepreneurship programs for promising aspirants to improve their entrepreneurial skills and knowledge podium, which will encourage them to become sustainable future entrepreneurs. Furthermore, the study provides understandings for ratifying sustainable openings and debates the potential paths for sustainable business growth and opportunities among nascent entrepreneurs in both economies.

How do gender disparities in entrepreneurial aspirations emerge in Pakistan? An approach to mediation and multi-group analysis.

This cross-sectional study sought to identify gender differences in individual behavioral attitudes, personal traits, and entrepreneurial education based on planned behavior theory. The Smart partial least squares (PLS) structural equation model and PLS path modeling were used. A survey design was used to collect data from 309 samples using quantitative measures. The model was tested for validity and reliability and showed variance (full, R2 = 58.9% and split, R2 = 62.7% and R2 = 52.7%) in male and female model predictive power, respectively. Subjective norms (SN), personality traits (PT), and entrepreneurial education (EE) significantly impacted the male sample's intention. Females' intentions toward entrepreneurship was less affected by attitude toward behavior (ATB), subjective norms (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), and entrepreneurship education (EE). Further, attitudes, social norms, and behavioral controls as mediation variables indicate a significant and positive role of male and female intentions. These findings imply that behavioral beliefs (ATB, PBC, and SN) influence entrepreneurial intention-action translation. The results significantly supported the designed hypotheses and shed light on individual personality traits (PT) and entrepreneurship education (EE) underpinning enterprise intention. The study determined that EE and PT are the strongest predictors of intention, thus highlighting the role of these motives in the entrepreneurial process. This study contributes to the growing body of knowledge on youth entrepreneurs, expands our understanding of entrepreneurship as a practical career choice, and offers a novel account differentiating male and female PT. The drive to evaluate the effects of entrepreneurial intention among budding disparities in Pakistan requires a more profound knowledge of the aspects that endorse entrepreneurship as a choice of profession and enhances youth incentive abilities to engage in entrepreneurial activities based on exploitation.

Genesis and influencing factors of the colour of chrysoprase.

The genesis and influencing factors of the colour of chrysoprase were studied based on the results of transmission electron microscopy and X-ray fluorescence, ultraviolet-visible and Raman spectroscopies. The results show that under a 6504-K fluorescent lamp, chrysoprase colour is divided into the grades of fancy, fancy intense and fancy deep. The lightness of chrysoprase is affected mainly by its chromium content, the chroma is affected by its nickel content and the hue angle is affected by the sum of its chromium and ferrum contents. The colour of chrysoprase is related significantly to the transmission window that occurs between the two main bands centred at 380 and 660 nm and the absorption peaks at 380 and 660 nm in the ultraviolet-visible spectrum. Chrysoprase with low crystallinity has more nickel and a higher chroma. The inclusions that cause the chrysoprase colour have been identified as pimelite.

The impact of climate change coping and adaptation strategies on livestock farmers' technical efficiency: the case of rural Ghana.

Compared with developed nations, developing countries are more vulnerable to climate change and variability. In this study, a coping and adaptation strategies (CCCAs) index, data envelopment analysis (DEA), and fractional regression model (FRM) are used to explore the impact of farmers' CCCAs on technical efficiency (TE) among goat farmers in Ghana. Using survey data collected from goat farmers in the northern part of Ghana, the results reveal the following: first, most of the farmers were inefficient in their production. Thus, out of the 124 goat farmers, only 13 (10.5%), 3 (2.4%), and 4 (3.2%) were efficient under variable return to scale (VRS), constant returns to scale (CRS), and scale efficiency (SE), respectively. Second, regarding a quantitative relationship, CCCAs can help increase farmer' efficiency. Again CCCAs impact on female farmers' TE was profound than their counterparts. Finally, CCCAs have heterogeneous impacts on goat farmers in different groups. Our findings provide policy implications to improve CCCAs and enhance the goat farmers' TE.

Investigating the long-run interaction between electricity consumption, foreign investment, and economic progress in Pakistan: evidence from VECM approach.

In this study, we attempt to investigate the relationship between electricity consumption, foreign direct investment (FDI) and economic progress in Pakistan during the period from 1997 to 2017. We applied the unit root tests to cointegration approach with the vector error correction model (VECM) approach. We also authenticated the robustness of the outcomes with the help of the regression methods. The main findings indicated that variables are cointegrated in the long-run and the VECM approach verified long-run causal links among the variables. The short-run causality is running from electricity consumption and economic development to FDI. The results remained uniform under the fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS), dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS), and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimations. Correspondingly, these three methods ratified that there is a significant long-run linkage between electricity consumption and the economic development of Pakistan. Additionally, the diagnostic assessments fixed that results are free from correlations and models are stable. Thus, based on these results, electricity generation and consumption, as well as FDI, is crucial for the economic progress of Pakistan. The priority should be given to promote the optimum use of available resources to generate energy, and FDI in the energy sector should be attracted through various incentives to support the economic advancement of Pakistan. Renewable energy resources are recyclable springs that can cut the intensity of carbon emissions and encourage to the promising magnitude of FDI and also certify sustainable and economic progression of Pakistan.

Determinants of credit constraint of artisanal fishermen in Ghana / Determinantes da restrição de crédito a pescadores artesanais em Gana

ABSTRACT: Due to the high risk associated with fishing, access to credit becomes very difficult for fishermen. The study was conducted to investigate the determinants of credit constraint on artisanal fishermen with survey data collected from artisanal fishermen in the Western and Central Regions of Ghana. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select respondents for the study. Data collected were analyzed with the aid of descriptive and IV-Probit model. Most of the fishermen were in their youthful stage. From the study, while boat ownership and off-fishing activity reduce the probability being credit constrained, complex procedure, and disbursement time lag increase fishermen probability of being credit constrained. The findings of the study also indicated that there is a significant difference between constrained and unconstrained fishermen fishing activity and financial status. Therefore, fishermen in need of additional credit should be catered for to increase their production, hence, livelihood.

RESUMO: Devido ao alto risco associado à pesca, o acesso ao crédito se torna muito difícil para os pescadores. O estudo foi conduzido para investigar os determinantes da restrição de crédito em pescadores artesanais com dados de pesquisa coletados nas regiões oeste e central de Gana. Um procedimento de amostragem em vários estágios foi usado para selecionar os entrevistados para o estudo. Os dados coletados foram analisados com o auxílio do modelo descritivo e IV-Probit. A maioria dos pescadores estava em sua fase juvenil. A partir do estudo, enquanto a propriedade do barco e a atividade fora da pesca reduzem a probabilidade de restrição de crédito, procedimentos complexos e atraso no desembolso aumentam a probabilidade dos pescadores sofrerem restrição de crédito. Os resultados do estudo também indicaram que há uma diferença significativa entre a atividade pesqueira e a situação financeira dos pescadores com e sem restrição. Portanto, os pescadores que precisam de crédito adicional devem ser atendidos para aumentar sua produção e, portanto, meios de subsistência.

Steady-state analytical models for performance assessment of landfill composite liners.

One-dimensional mathematical models were developed for organic contaminant transport through landfill composite liners consisting of a geomembrane (GM) and a geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) or a GM and a compacted clay liner (CCL). The combined effect of leakage through GM defects, diffusion in GM and the underlying soil liners, and degradation in soil liners were considered. Steady state analytical solutions were provided for the proposed mathematical models, which consider the different combinations of advection, diffusion, and degradation. The analytical solutions of the time lag for contaminant transport in the composite liners were also derived. The performance of GM/GCL and GM/CCL was analyzed. For GM/GCL, the bottom flux can be reduced by a factor of 4 when the leachate head decreases from 10 to 0.3 m. The influence of degradation can be ignored for GM/GCL. For GM/CCL, when the leachate head decreases from 10 to 0.3 m, the bottom flux decreases by a factor of 2-4. Leachate head has greater influence on bottom flux in case of larger degradation rate (e.g., half-life = 1 year) compared to the case with lower degradation rate (e.g., half-life = 10 years). As contaminant half-life in soil liner decreases from 10 to 1 year, bottom flux decreases by approximately 2.7 magnitudes of orders. It is indicated that degradation may have greater influence on time lag of composite liner than leachate head. As leachate head increases from zero to 10 m, time lag for GM/CCL can be reduced by 5-6 years. Time lag for the same composite liner can be reduced by 10-11 years as contaminant half-life decreases from 10 to 1 year. Reducing leachate head acting on composite liners and increasing the degradation capacity of the soil liner would be the effective methods to improve the performance of the composite liners. The proposed analytical solutions are relatively simple and can be used for preliminary design and performance assessment of composite liners.

An analytical model for volatile organic compound transport through a composite liner consisting of a geomembrane, a GCL, and a soil liner.

An analytical model for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) transport through a composite liner consisting of a geomembrane (GM), a geosynthetic clay liner (GCL), and a soil liner (SL) was developed for the assessment of the performance of this triple liner system. Both advection through the defects of GM and diffusion in the intact GM were considered in the model, and dimensionless analytical solution was obtained. The soil concentration profiles obtained by the proposed analytical solution have a good agreement with those obtained by the finite-layer-based software POLLUTE v7. The effects of leachate head, length of the connected wrinkles, and the interface transmissivity of GM/GCL on the breakthrough curves of the liner system were then investigated. Results show that the 30-year base flux of the liner system for the case with leachate head = 10 m and length of the connected wrinkles = 1,000 m can be over 60 times greater than that of the pure diffusion case. The length of the connected wrinkles of the GM has greater influence on the base flux of the liner system than on the base concentration. The interface transmissivity has negligible effect on the solute breakthrough curves of the liner system for relatively low values of the length of the connected wrinkles (e.g., <100 m). The groundwater protection level achieved by GM/CCL is more effective than that by GM/GCL/SL in the earlier times. However, the steady state base flux for GM/GCL/SL can be seven to eight times lower than that for GM/CCL. The analytical solution can also be used for experimental data fitting, verification of complicated numerical models, and preliminary design of composite liners.

Excitation energy calculation of conjugated hydrocarbons: a new Pariser-Parr-Pople model parameterization approaching CASPT2 accuracy.

A new parameterization for the Pariser-Parr-Pople (PPP) model for conjugated hydrocarbons is proposed in this work. The distance-dependence of PPP parameters are obtained from CASPT2 ground state and low-lying excited state energies of ethylene and its cation at various C-C single bond lengths and are fitted to a set of carefully chosen mathematical functions. Our new PPP model is applied to the calculation of vertical singlet-triplet energy gaps and the excitation energies for low-lying π→π(*) valence excitations in various π-conjugated molecules. Results with the new PPP model are consistently better than the standard PPP model in use. It often surpasses density functional theory and single-reference excited state methods such as configuration interaction singles or time-dependent density functional theory in terms of its accuracy and agrees reasonably well with high-level theories or experiments.

Open-shell ground state of polyacenes: a valence bond study.

Applying the density matrix renormalization group (DRMG) method to a nonempirical valence bond (VB) model Hamiltonian, we studied polyacene oligomers of different lengths in the strong electron correlation limit. Geometrical optimizations were performed for the lowest singlet and triplet states of oligomers up to [40]-acene, and a convergence of the bond lengths toward the polymer limit is observed in the interior of the oligomer. For large oligomers, as well as for the polymer, the ground state can be reasonably determined to be a singlet. Furthermore, a high similarity between the singlet geometries and triplet geometries suggests an open-shell character for the singlet ground state. A reasonable speculation of the soliton-antisoliton pair character of the singlet ground state was supported by a spin distribution analysis of the triplet state wave function of large oligomers, with each of the two solitons being broadly delocalized over the upper or bottom edge of the oligomers, respectively.

Performance of block correlated coupled cluster method with the CASSCF reference function for the prediction of activation barriers, spectroscopic constants in diatomic molecules, and singlet-triplet gaps in diradicals.

The spatial orbital formulations of block correlated coupled cluster (BCCC) theory with a general CASSCF reference function (CAS-BCCC in short) is derived and an efficient implementation of this approach at the four-block correlation level (abbreviated CAS-BCCC4) is reported. We have applied the CAS-BCCC4 approach to investigate energy barriers for several reactions (the ring-opening isomerization of the cyclopropyl radical, cyclobutene, cyclobutadiene, and bicyclo[3.1.0]hex-2-ene), spectroscopic constants in several multibond diatomic molecules (C(2), O(2), CO, and N(2)), and singlet-triplet gaps in two diradicals (trimethylenemethane and oxyallyl). A comparison of CAS-BCCC4 results with the experimental data or other theoretical estimates shows that the present approach can provide very satisfactory descriptions for all the studied systems.

Theoretical study of very high spin organic pi-conjugated polyradicals.

Different forms of pi-conjugated polyarylmethyl systems, such as diradicals, polyradicals, spin clusters, and polymers, were studied with valence bond (VB) calculations within the density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) framework. For these systems, the energy gap between the high-spin ground state and the lowest low-spin excited state (DeltaE(L-H)) was computed and found to correlate well with their stability. On the basis of our analysis, medium-sized polyarylmethyl cycles are suggested to be potential key building blocks of very high spin spin clusters and polymers.

Solvent effects on electronic structures and chain conformations of alpha-oligothiophenes in polar and apolar solutions.

Solvent effects on electronic structures and chain conformations of alpha-oligothiophenes nTs (n = 1 to 10) are investigated in solvents of n-hexane, 1,4-dioxane, carbon tetrachloride, chloroform, and water by using density functional theory (DFT) and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Both implicit and explicit solvent models are employed. The polarized continuum model (PCM) calculations and MD simulations demonstrate the weak solvent effects on the electronic structures of alpha-oligothiophenes. The lowest dipole-allowed vertical excitation energies of nTs, obtained from time-dependent DFT/PCM calculations at the B3LYP/6-31G(d) level, exhibit a red shift as the solvent polarity increases, in agreement with experiments. The studied solvents have little impact on the state order of the low-lying excited states provided that the nTs are kept in C2h or C2v symmetry. The MD simulations demonstrate that the chain conformations are distorted to some extent in polar and nonpolar solvents. A qualitative picture of the distribution of solvent molecules around the solvated nTs is drawn by means of radial and spatial distribution functions. The S...H-O and pi...H-O solute-solvent interactions are insignificant in aqueous solution.

Generalized energy-based fragmentation approach for computing the ground-state energies and properties of large molecules.

We present a generalized energy-based fragmentation (GEBF) approach for approximately predicting the ground-state energies and molecular properties of large molecules, especially those charged and polar molecules. In this approach, the total energy (or properties) of a large molecule can be approximately obtained from energy (or properties) calculations on various small subsystems, each of which is constructed to contain a certain fragment and its local surroundings within a given distance. In the quantum chemistry calculation of a given subsystem, those distant atoms (outside this subsystem) are modeled as background point charges at the corresponding nuclear centers. This treatment allows long-range electrostatic interaction and polarization effects between distant fragments to be taken into account approximately, which are very important for polar and charged molecules. We also propose a new fragmentation scheme for constructing subsystems. Our test calculations at the Hartree-Fock and second-order Møller-Plesser perturbation theory levels demonstrate that the approach could yield satisfactory ground-state energies, the dipole moments, and static polarizabilities for polar and charged molecules such as water clusters and proteins.

Static polarizability and second hyperpolarizability of closed- and open-shell pi-conjugated polymers.

The static longitudinal linear polarizability (alpha) and second order hyperpolarizability (gamma) for neutral and charged, closed- and open-shell trans-polyacetylene (PA) chains C(2n)H(2n+2), C(2n-1)H(2n+1), C(2n-1)H(2n+1) (+), C(2n)H(2n+2) (+), and C(2n)H(2n+2) (2+) are systematically investigated and compared. The polarizabilities are calculated within the Pariser-Parr-Pople model, and the electron correlation effect is included through density matrix renormalization group. It turns out that for both alpha, and gamma, two neutral PA chains C(2n)H(2n+2) and C(2n-1)H(2n+1) give similar values, while both singly charged and doubly charged systems present significantly larger magnitude of alpha and gamma values than the two neutral chains. The two singly charged PA chains C(2n-1)H(2n+1) (+) and C(2n)H(2n+2) (+) give more apparent nonlinear optical responses than doubly charged case C(2n)H(2n+2) (2+) and both present negative second order hyperpolarizabilities for short to medium sized oligomers. The sign inversion of gamma values in singly charged PA molecules is anticipated to take place at the much longer length than ever observed due to the significant effects of electron correlation and geometry.