Climate Variability, Communities\u27 Perceptions and Land Management Strategies in Lay Gayint Woreda, Northwest Ethiopia

Climate variability is the fluctuation of climatic elements from the normal or baseline values. Agrarian communities are the most sensitive social groups to climate variability and associate extreme weather-induced hazards due to the fact that climate variability affects the two most important direct agricultural production inputs, such as rainfall and temperature. As Ethiopia is heavily dependent on agriculture its economic development is being hindered by climate variability coupled with many other deriving forces. Therefore, the objective of this study is to examine climate variability, local communities\u27 perceptions and land management strategies to reduce the adverse impact of climate variability in Lay Gayint Woreda, Ethiopia. Both primary and secondary data were used to complete this study. Primary data were collected and analyzed from a total of 200 randomly selected respondents reside in different agro-ecological areas. Metrology data were gathered from Nefas Mewcha Station from the years 1979 to 2010. Standardized rainfall anomaly index (SRAI), crop diversification index (CDI) and other descriptive statistical techniques were used to analyze the data. The results obtained from the climate data revealed an increase in temperature, and decrease and/or erratic in rainfall distribution. Time series SRAI from 1979 to 2010 indicates that 2002 and 2008 were characterized by extreme and severe dry conditions in order of importance with high impact on crop yields whist only 1984 and 1990 received near normal rainfall amount. Similarly, the survey result reveals that out of the total household heads, 87.5 % perceived that there was an increase in temperature over the last 20 years. The survey result also disclosed that significant numbers of households are more likely to adopt different land management strategies to reduce the negative impact of climate variability. Constructing terraces and check dams as well as planting trees were the major land management strategies used by the local communities. However, crop diversification index (CDI) was found to be 0.11 as the cultivated area is stanch to one crop indicating very low alternative crop production in the study area. Although the study area receives variable and inefficient rainfall the rugged topography and poor soil conditions have hindered the development of irrigation facilities. Local context-specific integrated watershed management activities, small-scale irrigation schemes and extension services need to be strengthened to reduce the impact of climate variability. Policy makers need also to substantially invest in establishing information dissemination systems in order to provide reliable weather information for farmers given that crop production is largely dependent on it

Self-cleaning on a higher order mode in ytterbium-doped multimode fiber with parabolic profile

We experimentally demonstrate polarization-dependent Kerr spatial beam self-cleaning into the LP11 mode of an Ytterbium-doped multimode optical fiber with parabolic gain and refractive index profiles

Employment Protection and Misallocation of Resources across Plants:International Evidence

Employment protection affects aggregate productivity via several channels in potentially contradicting ways, which makes it difficult to establish the relationship between the two. This study focuses on the misallocation of production factors across plants, which has been shown in past studies to substantially reduce aggregate productivity. The study provides new evidence on the effect of employment protection on resource misallocation using a large dataset of manufacturing plants covering more than 90 countries. For measuring misallocation, I use the within‐industry dispersion of the marginal product of labor and total factor productivity. The results show that higher cost of dismissing redundant workers is positively associated with misallocation. The effect of dismissal cost is especially larger in industries that have greater demand for adjusting labor. More specifically, the effect is larger in industries that intrinsically have higher layoff rate, and in industries that have large positive or negative sales growth rates

Mechanical Property of Plastic Lumber Produced from Recycled High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

Recycling is a strategy to combat environmental pollution due to plastic wastes. Of the many plastic wastes, researchers confirmed the possibility to produce plastic lumber from used HDPE plastics. The aim of this study is to experimentally determine the mechanical property of the plastic lumber produced from pure HDPE and its composite with wood to proof usability and applicability for different purpose. The experiment considered different conditions. Pure plastic lumber and wood plastic composite lumber is initially produced and examined under room temperature and below room temperature. Under each condition, bending, tensile and impact strength were examined. For each test eight specimens were prepared based on international standards and the experiments were conducted using standard testing machines. The result shows that pure plastic lumber has demonstrated superior load carrying capability, tensile load resistance capability and impact load resistance at room temperature. Moreover, the pure plastic lumber has an elastic nature and the wood composite has a brittle nature. In both cases the mechanical property of the plastic lumber permits to use for different applications. This has been also tested and resulted in similar phenomena at 20C below room temperature

Traditional food processing practices of oats (Avena sativa) and its contribution to food security in Gozamin District of northwest Ethiopia

Oat is one of the cereal crops in Ethiopia, which is less recognized in terms of its food value and productivity. It is grown and utilized as a staple food only in a specific part of the country. The objective of this study was to assess the food significance of oat and document associated traditional food knowledge of the crop in Gozamin district, Northwest part of Ethiopia. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire, focus group discussion and key informant interviews. Secondary data collected from Gozamin agriculture development offices and research centers were used to support our results. A total of 388 households participated in this cross-sectional study. Data were edited, coded, entered and analyzed using SPSS for windows version 20.0. The results of this study affirmed that 97.2% of the producers cultivated oat every year and high rainfall is the suitable weather condition for its production. As per the results of this study, oat is tolerant to acidic and marginally fertile soils where other plants do not grow and yield well. As compared to other conventional cereal crops, 85% of the participants of the study reported that the cultivation of oat does not require extensive farming and can be produced with minimum inputs. The entire population of respondents (100%) reported that oat grain was used as food. Almost all the respondents (99.2%) utilized oat as their staple crop for their families. Oat ranked first in terms of consumption at household level as compared to other cereal crops (tef, maize, wheat, and barley). In the district, oat is processed into different food types and beverages including injera, kitta/anababiro, gruel, porridge, enket, and local alcoholic drinks, tella. Oat is rarely used to prepare porridge and local alcoholic beverages as compared to other cereal-based staple food types. Porridge and local alcoholic beverages are commonly prepared for special occasions and on holidays. Oat is a less known crop in specific locations but could contribute to enhancing food diversity options to improve food and nutrition security efforts in the country

Isolation and Characterization of Chi-like \u3ci\u3eSalmonella\u3c/i\u3e Bacteriophages Infecting Two \u3ci\u3eSalmonella enterica\u3c/i\u3e Serovars, Typhimurium and Enteritidis

Salmonella enterica Serovar Typhimurium and Salmonella enterica Serovar Enteritidis are well-known pathogens that cause foodborne diseases in humans. The emergence of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella serovars has caused serious public health problems worldwide. In this study, two lysogenic phages, STP11 and SEP13, were isolated from a wastewater treatment plant in Jeddah, KSA. Transmission electron microscopic images revealed that both phages are new members of the genus “Chivirus” within the family Siphoviridae. Both STP11 and SEP13 had a lysis time of 90 min with burst sizes of 176 and 170 PFU/cell, respectively. The two phages were thermostable (0 ◦C ≤ temperature \u3c 70 ◦C) and pH tolerant at 3 ≤ pH \u3c 11. STP11 showed lytic activity for approximately 42.8% (n = 6), while SEP13 showed against 35.7% (n = 5) of the tested bacterial strains. STP11 and STP13 have linear dsDNA genomes consisting of 58,890 bp and 58,893 bp nucleotide sequences with G + C contents of 57% and 56.5%, respectively. Bioinformatics analysis revealed that the genomes of phages STP11 and SEP13 contained 70 and 71 ORFs, respectively. No gene encoding tRNA was detected in their genome. Of the 70 putative ORFs of phage STP11, 27 (38.6%) were assigned to functional genes and 43 (61.4%) were annotated as hypothetical proteins. Similarly, 29 (40.8%) of the 71 putative ORFs of phage SEP13 were annotated as functional genes, whereas the remaining 42 (59.2%) were assigned as nonfunctional proteins. Phylogenetic analysis of the whole genome sequence demonstrated that the isolated phages are closely related to Chi-like Salmonella viruses