Crops of the West African Semi-Arid Tropics

This review deals with three aspects, i.e., ecology, cultivation, and diseases and pests, of 23 crops which are grown in the West African Semi-Arid Tropics. These crops form six groups: cereals, legumes, roots and tubers, vegetables, fibres, and other crops. The review no doubt has many errors. For these I express my apologies and hope that they would be brought to my attention so that correction can be made

Medicinal Plant Use and Health Sovereignty: Findings from the Tajik and Afghan Pamirs

Medicinal plants are indicators of indigenous knowledge in the context of political volatility and sociocultural and ecological change in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Medicinal plants are the primary health care option in this region of Central Asia. The main objective of this paper is to demonstrate that medicinal plants contribute to health security and sovereignty in a time of instability. We illustrate the nutritional as well as medicinal significance of plants in the daily lives of villagers. Based on over a decade and half of research related to resilience and livelihood security, we present plant uses in the context of mountain communities. Villagers identified over 58 cultivated and noncultivated plants and described 310 distinct uses within 63 categories of treatment and prevention. Presence of knowledge about medicinal plants is directly connected to their use

Conservation agriculture for sustainable and resilient agriculture: global status, prospects and challenges

This chapter discusses the following topics: conservation agriculture as the way forward for sustainable agricultural production; definition and concept of conservation agriculture; and the global history, current status and prospects of conservation agriculture. The chapter also includes reports of research studies conducted on: soil and water conservation; soil quality; rainwater use efficiency; nutrient use efficiency; input use efficiency; insect-pest, disease and weed dynamics; crop productivity; climate change mitigation and adaptation; benefits at ecosystem level; and farm profitabilit

Nonlinear Instability in a Semiclassical Problem

We consider a nonlinear evolution problem with an asymptotic parameter and construct examples in which the linearized operator has spectrum uniformly bounded away from Re z >= 0 (that is, the problem is spectrally stable), yet the nonlinear evolution blows up in short times for arbitrarily small initial data. We interpret the results in terms of semiclassical pseudospectrum of the linearized operator: despite having the spectrum in Re z < -c < 0, the resolvent of the linearized operator grows very quickly in parts of the region Re z > 0. We also illustrate the results numerically

Parent and child agreement for acute stress disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychopathology in a prospective study of children and adolescents exposed to single-event trauma

Examining parent-child agreement for Acute Stress Disorder (ASD) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in children and adolescents is essential for informing the assessment of trauma-exposed children, yet no studies have examined this relationship using appropriate statistical techniques. Parent-child agreement for these disorders was examined by structured interview in a prospective study of assault and motor vehicle accident (MVA) child survivors, assessed at 2-4 weeks and 6 months post-trauma. Children were significantly more likely to meet criteria for ASD, as well as other ASD and PTSD symptom clusters, based on their own report than on their parent's report. Parent-child agreement for ASD was poor (Cohen's κ = -.04), but fair for PTSD (Cohen's κ = .21). Agreement ranged widely for other emotional disorders (Cohen's κ = -.07-.64), with generalised anxiety disorder found to have superior parent-child agreement (when assessed by phi coefficients) relative to ASD and PTSD. The findings support the need to directly interview children and adolescents, particularly for the early screening of posttraumatic stress, and suggest that other anxiety disorders may have a clearer presentation post-trauma

Monoclonal Antibodies to Distinct Regions of Human Myelin Proteolipid Protein Simultaneously Recognize Central Nervous System Myelin and Neurons of Many Vertebrate Species

Myelin proteolipid protein (PLP), the major protein of mammalian CNS myelin, is a member of the proteolipid gene family (pgf). It is an evolutionarily conserved polytopic integral membrane protein and a potential autoantigen in multiple sclerosis (MS). To analyze antibody recognition of PLP epitopes in situ, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) specific for different regions of human PLP (50–69, 100–123, 139–151, 178–191, 200–219, 264–276) were generated and used to immunostain CNS tissues of representative vertebrates. mAbs to each region recognized whole human PLP on Western blots; the anti-100–123 mAb did not recognize DM-20, the PLP isoform that lacks residues 116–150. All of the mAbs stained fixed, permeabilized oligodendrocytes and mammalian and avian CNS tissue myelin. Most of the mAbs also stained amphibian, teleost, and elasmobranch CNS myelin despite greater diversity of their pgf myelin protein sequences. Myelin staining was observed when there was at least 40% identity of the mAb epitope and known pgf myelin proteins of the same or related species. The pgf myelin proteins of teleosts and elasmobranchs lack 116–150; the anti-100–123 mAb did not stain their myelin. In addition to myelin, the anti-178– 191 mAb stained many neurons in all species; other mAbs stained distinct neuron subpopulations in different species. Neuronal staining was observed when there was at least approximately 30% identity of the PLP mAb epitope and known pgf neuronal proteins of the same or related species. Thus, anti-human PLP epitope mAbs simultaneously recognize CNS myelin and neurons even without extensive sequence identity. Widespread anti-PLP mAb recognition of neurons suggests a novel potential pathophysiologic mechanism in MS patients, i.e., that anti-PLP antibodies associated with demyelination might simultaneously recognize pgf epitopes in neurons, thereby affecting their functions

An excess power statistic for detection of burst sources of gravitational radiation

We examine the properties of an excess power method to detect gravitational waves in interferometric detector data. This method is designed to detect short-duration (< 0.5 s) burst signals of unknown waveform, such as those from supernovae or black hole mergers. If only the bursts' duration and frequency band are known, the method is an optimal detection strategy in both Bayesian and frequentist senses. It consists of summing the data power over the known time interval and frequency band of the burst. If the detector noise is stationary and Gaussian, this sum is distributed as a chi-squared (non-central chi-squared) deviate in the absence (presence) of a signal. One can use these distributions to compute frequentist detection thresholds for the measured power. We derive the method from Bayesian analyses and show how to compute Bayesian thresholds. More generically, when only upper and/or lower bounds on the bursts duration and frequency band are known, one must search for excess power in all concordant durations and bands. Two search schemes are presented and their computational efficiencies are compared. We find that given reasonable constraints on the effective duration and bandwidth of signals, the excess power search can be performed on a single workstation. Furthermore, the method can be almost as efficient as matched filtering when a large template bank is required. Finally, we derive generalizations of the method to a network of several interferometers under the assumption of Gaussian noise.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Knowledge and training in paediatric medical traumatic stress and trauma-informed care among emergency medical professionals in low- and middle-income countries

© 2018, © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Background: Provision of psychosocial care, in particular trauma-informed care, in the immediate aftermath of paediatric injury is a recommended strategy to minimize the risk of paediatric medical traumatic stress. Objective: To examine the knowledge of paediatric medical traumatic stress and perspectives on providing trauma-informed care among emergency staff working in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Method: Training status, knowledge of paediatric medical traumatic stress, attitudes towards incorporating psychosocial care and barriers experienced were assessed using an online self-report questionnaire. Respondents included 320 emergency staff from 58 LMICs. Data analyses included descriptive statistics, t-tests and multiple regression. Results: Participating emergency staff working in LMICs had a low level of knowledge of paediatric medical traumatic stress. Ninety-one percent of respondents had not received any training or education in paediatric medical traumatic stress, or trauma-informed care for injured children, while 94% of respondents indicated they wanted training in this area. Conclusions: There appears to be a need for training and education of emergency staff in LMICs regarding paediatric medical traumatic stress and trauma-informed care, in particular among staff working in comparatively lower income countries

Numerical study of oscillatory regimes in the Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation

The aim of this paper is the accurate numerical study of the KP equation. In particular we are concerned with the small dispersion limit of this model, where no comprehensive analytical description exists so far. To this end we first study a similar highly oscillatory regime for asymptotically small solutions, which can be described via the Davey-Stewartson system. In a second step we investigate numerically the small dispersion limit of the KP model in the case of large amplitudes. Similarities and differences to the much better studied Korteweg-de Vries situation are discussed as well as the dependence of the limit on the additional transverse coordinate.Comment: 39 pages, 36 figures (high resolution figures at http://www.mis.mpg.de/preprints/index.html