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Background: Stingless bees are vital pollinators and honey producers in the tropics. Research on stingless bees is generally underrepresented compared to the western honeybees, and while stingless bee studies from some regions are reported, there is a particular lack of reports on the species endemic to Sub-Saharan Africa. Since conventional entomological methods such as mark-recapture and radar harmonic tags suffer from limited observation counts and amount to a significant payload, fluorescent powder tagging offers a promising alternative to understanding their behavior. We deploy a hyperspectral fluorescence lidar monitors a 25-mm-wide transect in front of the hives. Results: During a 1 day study at the International Stingless Bee Center, near Kakum National Park, Ghana, 17,862 insects were observed with the lidar, of which 7520 were tagged with fluorescent dyes. Approximately half of the bees from the selected hives were successfully tagged, with an estimated misclassification of 1%. According to our limited data, the observed species, Meliponula bocandei and the Dactylurina staudingeri exhibited different activity patterns. D. staudingeri displayed a half-hour longer active day, with clear crepuscular activity peaks. In contrast, M. bocandei activity was diurnal, with less pronounced crepuscular peaks. Conclusions: We demonstrate how hyperspectral fluorescence lidar can monitor powder-tagged insects throughout the day. The monitored species revealed distinct activity patterns over the day. Our findings highlight the potential of this technology as a valuable tool for understanding insect behavior and environmental preferences of species, in situ, which could potentially give clues of response to climate changes of these critical species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the declining volumes of Foreign Portfolio Investments (FPI) in Africa, the study sought to examine the moderating role institutional quality (INST) plays in the relationship between country-level corporate governance (CG) and FPI in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is motivated by arguments from the hierarchy of institutions hypothesis, which posits that the quality of political institutions (INST) determine the strength of economic institutions (CG) and how they affect economic activities. Data was collected on 33 SSA countries from 2009 to 2017 and analysed using the systems GMM approach. The results revealed that economies characterised by strict adherence to international auditing and reporting standards, ethically behaved firms, effective corporate boards, and well-regulated security markets tend to attract more FPI inflows, even though weak shareholder protection regimes are likely to deter FPI. We also confirmed the positive impact of robust institutions in luring FPI into SSA. Finally, we found the FPI-CG nexus to be significantly moderated by the quality of institutions prevalent in a country. This implies that the effectiveness of country-level corporate governance mechanisms can be affected by the existing institutions, thereby impacting the level of FPI an economy receives. We recommend that SSA firms take pragmatic steps to develop and practice sound CG mechanisms while the institutional setting in SSA is strengthened to harness more FPI inflows to support their economic growth agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of COVID-19 vaccination programmes on disease transmission, morbidity and mortality relies heavily on the population's willingness to accept the vaccine. We explore Ghanaian adult citizens' vaccine hesitancy attitudes and identify the likelihood of participation or non-participation in the government's effort to get citizens vaccinated. A fully anonymised cross-sectional online survey of 2345 adult Ghanaians was conducted from 23 to 28 February 2021. Differences in intentions regarding COVID-19 vaccination were explored using Pearson Chi-square tests. Additionally, multinomial logistic regression was used to analyse the factors associated with willingness to receive vaccines. Responses were weighted using the iterative proportional fitting technique to generate a representative sample. About half (51%) of mostly urban adult Ghanaians over 15 years are likely to take the COVID-19 vaccine if made generally available. Almost a fifth (21%) of the respondents were unlikely to take the vaccine, while another 28% were undecided. Additionally, we find differences in vaccine hesitancy among some socio-demographic characteristics such as age, gender, and primary sources of information. Attaining the proverbial 63% to 70% herd immunity threshold in Ghana is only possible if the preventive vaccination programmes are combined with an enhanced and coordinated public education campaign. Such a campaign should focus on promoting the individual and population-level benefits of vaccination and pre-emptive efforts towards addressing misinformation about vaccines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]