The Poor Quality of Official Socio-Economic Statistics Relating to the Rural Tropical World: With Special Reference to South India

1984 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 491-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polly Hill
Keyword(s):  
Household Income ◽  
South India ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
West African ◽  
Main Concern ◽  
The West ◽  
Rural Economies ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
Professional Field

My main concern in this article is with statistics relating to such basic matters as the sizes of farm-holdings, the output and yield of crops, household income and expenditure, occupational statistics, cattle ownership, the sizes of villages, etc.—though I shall also range more widely. While the distinct and professional field of demographic statistics is necessarily outside my scope, I shall criticize some features of the Karnataka population census.Although since 1953 most of my fieldwork has been undertaken in the West African countryside, I am obliged to take most of my examples of bad statistics from south India, since West African statistics, which were never abundant, are now scantier than ever. Throughout my discussion I take it for granted that the lack of reliable statistics gravely impairs our understanding of the working of tropical rural economies.

scholarly journals The Impact of Successful Cataract Surgery on Quality of Life, Household Income and Social Status in South India

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (8) ◽  
pp. e44268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P. Finger ◽  
David G. Kupitz ◽  
Eva Fenwick ◽  
Bharath Balasubramaniam ◽  
Ramanathan V. Ramani ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Cataract Surgery ◽  
Social Status ◽  
Household Income ◽  
South India ◽  
The Impact

West African Anansesem as Timeless Conversation Pieces: A Gricean Approach

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Phyllis Kaburise ◽  
Grace Ramachona
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
West Africa ◽  
West African ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
The West ◽  
Verbal Interactions ◽  
Structural Characterisation ◽  
Gricean Maxims ◽  
Required Quality

The West African anansesem (short stories about the spider, Ananse) are considered ageless classics in many countries and continents; and their appeal has remained constant over generations. Although anansesem is a word taken from the Ashanti tribe in Ghana, the stories have impacted in the whole of West Africa and can also still be heard in Caribbean households. The appeal of anansesem is quite personal—but analysts have isolated varying characteristics; and these include linguistic, structural, characterisation, themes, plot, and a certain ambience. One quality of anansesem, which has enabled them to still command extensive audience, is their ability to reflect ‘‘a conversation’’ in line with Grice’s maxims. Grice is a theorist in pragmatics, who outlined the salient features or maxims of verbal interactions that should govern a conversation. These four maxims are—quantity (make your conversation as informative as is required), quality (do not say what you believe to be untrue), relation (be relevant) and manner (avoid obscurity of expressions). The aim of this article is to analyse selected ananse stories as examples of conversation pieces in accordance with these Gricean maxims. The analyses was based on the assumption that these short stories exhibit features different from the attributes of traditional short stories, and that this difference is the essence of anansesem’s timeless appeal. The results illustrated that despite the brevity of these stories, a certain ambience, created by their conversation-like writing style, ensures their ability to create sustaining humour, while being politically, socially, and economically relevant ‘‘conversations’’ for today. 

Message from Shekau

2018 ◽  
pp. 435-436
Author(s):  
David Cook
Keyword(s):  
Video Quality ◽  
Poor Quality ◽  
West African ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Boko Haram ◽  
The Poor ◽  
The Media

(22 MARCH 2016) [Trans.: Abdulbasit Kassim] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWzhr7dOyrk After a half-year’s hiatus, Shekau reemerged in a video which was erroneously interpreted by the Nigerian media as a call from him to end the group’s campaign and embrace peace. As the translation below shows, there is nothing in the video that suggests surrender or an end to the violence. Rather, Shekau was simply acknowledging that he received messages from his followers, while extending greetings to them and encouraging them to be steadfast. There are some reasons to doubt the authenticity of this video. First, unlike other videos of Boko Haram (after it became ISWAP), this video was posted on YouTube. Second, the poor quality of this video stands out amidst the upgrade in Boko Haram’s video quality. This video shares more features with Boko Haram videos from the period 2010–14. Third, Shekau also refers to himself as the leader of JASDJ, a title defunct after the group’s amalgamation with the Islamic State, and Shekau’s becoming emir of Islamic State West African Province. Fourth, the soft-spoken style of Shekau’s delivery in this video is quite different from his bombastic and taunting style in past videos. The doubts surrounding the release of this video were laid to rest when the video was countered almost immediately by another video produced by the media department of ISWAP (see text 70)...

scholarly journals GRAIN REPLACEMENT VALUE OF CASSAVA AND SWEET POTATO FOR GROWING LAMBS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 69-76
Author(s):  
O. O. Tewe ◽  
A. O. Akinsoyinu ◽  
Y. Suleiman-Oba
Keyword(s):  
Growth Rate ◽  
Protein Content ◽  
Sweet Potato ◽  
West African ◽  
Potato Tubers ◽  
The West ◽  
West African Dwarf ◽  
Cynodon Nlemfuensis ◽  
Dietary Treatments

TWENTY-FOUR rams of the West African Dwarf X Yankasa crosses, 6 to 7 months old, ranging in liveweight from 11 to 14 kg were randomly alloted to maize, sweet potato and cassava based rations. These rations constituted the concentrates which were fed as supplement to Cynodon nlemfuensis. Three rams from each treatment were slaughtered at the end of 30 day and another set of three rams each were slaughtered on the dietary treatments and other nine, 140 day later Replacement of the conventional maize grains by dried milled cassava and potato tubers in sheep diet did not dentess the growth rate, dressing-out percentages, major cuts, quality of the organs. and the general performances of the animals. Sweet potato based diet however improved the feed per gain estimate, the fats and protein content of the carcass. The highest proportion of lean ment was produced by the animals fed cassava based diet. 

scholarly journals Seasonal forecast quality of the West African monsoon rainfall regimes by multiple forecast systems

2014 ◽  
Vol 119 (13) ◽  
pp. 7908-7930 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Ricardo Lage Rodrigues ◽  
Javier García-Serrano ◽  
Francisco Doblas-Reyes
Keyword(s):  
Monsoon Rainfall ◽  
West African Monsoon ◽  
Seasonal Forecast ◽  
West African ◽  
The West ◽  
African Monsoon ◽  
Rainfall Regimes ◽  
Forecast Quality

scholarly journals Kualitas butir bank soal statistika (Studi kasus: Instrumen ujian akhir mata kuliah statistika Universitas Terbuka)

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-176
Author(s):  
Agus Santoso ◽  
Kartianom Kartianom ◽  
Gulzhaina K. Kassymova
Keyword(s):  
Poor Quality ◽  
Reliability Coefficient ◽  
Dominant Factor ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Final Exam ◽  
Good Reliability ◽  
Economic Statistics ◽  
Statistics Course ◽  
Statistics Courses

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mendeksripsikan kualitas butir soal ujian akhir semester mata kuliah statistika ekonomi yang dikembangkan oleh Universitas Terbuka (UT) sebagai dasar dalam mengembangkan bank soal yang terkalibrasi menggunakan pendekatan Teori Respons Butir. Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian deskriptif kuantitatif. Sumber data penelitian ini adalah pola jawaban mahasiswa UT yang telah mengikuti ujian akhir semester (UAS) mata kuliah statistika ekonomi selama enam masa ujian, dengan ukuran sampel sebanyak 23334 mahasiswa. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa butir-butir soal ujian akhir semester mata kuliah statistika ekonomi yang dikembangkan UT: (1) terbukti valid secara konstruk, yakni hanya mengukur satu faktor dominan, yaitu kemampuan statistika ekonomi; (2) memiliki kehandalan yang baik dengan nilai koefisien reliabilitas empiris lebih dari 0,70 (koefisien reliabilitas empiris = 0,7335); (3) dari 140 butir soal yang dikalibrasi terdapat 108 butir soal (25 butir soal berkualitas baik atau tanpa revisi dan 83 butir soal berkualitas kurang baik atau perlu revisi) yang layak disimpan dalam bank soal, sedangkan 32 butir soal berkualitas tidak baik; dan (4) mampu memberikan informasi akurat terkait kemampuan statistika ekonomi mahasiswa pada level kemampuan yang tinggi (-1,3 sampai +4,0). Quality of statistical test bank items (Case study: Final exam instrument of statistics courses in Universitas Terbuka) AbstractThis study aims to determine the quality of final semester test items of economic statistics course that was developed by Universitas Terbuka (UT) as a basis for developing calibrated item banks using Item Response Theory. This research uses a quantitative descriptive approach. The researcher investigates the answer pattern of the final semester exam (UAS) in the economic statistics course during six periods of the final exams. The sample size in this study was 23334 students. The results of this study indicate that the final semester exam items of economic statistics courses developed by UT: (1) proved to construct valid, i.e. only measure one dominant factor, namely the ability of economic statistics; (2) has good reliability with empirical reliability coefficient values more than 0.70 (empirical reliability coefficient = 0.7335); (3) of the 140 items calibrated there are 108 items (25 items of good quality or without revision and 83 items of poor quality or need to be revised) that are worth keeping in the question bank, while 32 items of quality are not good; and (4) able to provide accurate information related to students' economic statistical abilities at a high level of ability (-1.3 to +4.0)

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