Factors associated with compliance of prenatal iron folate supplementation among women in Mecha district, Western Amhara: A cross-sectional study

Introduction: Iron and folate supplementation can effectively control and prevent anaemia in pregnancy. In Ethiopia, all pregnant women are prescribed iron folate during their ANC visit. However, limited adherence is thought to be a major reason for the low effectiveness of iron supplementation programs. Therefore this study was done to investigate factors associated with compliance of prenatal iron folate supplementation among women who gave birth in the last 12 months before the survey in Mecha district.Methods: Community based cross sectional study design was employed in Mecha district from June 25 - July 15/2013. A sample of 634 women who gave birth 12 months before the survey was included in the study. Study participants were selected by systematic random sampling technique after allocating the total sample to each kebele proportionally. Data were  collected using a pre-tested structured Amharic questionnaire. Collected data were edited, coded and entered to Epi info version 3.1 and exported to` SPSS version 16. Bivariate and multivariable analysis was computed. Results: A total of 628 women who gave birth twelve months before the survey were enrolled. In this study only 20.4% of participants were  compliant with iron foliate supplementation. In multivariable analysis, age of the mother, educational status of the mother, knowledge of anaemia and iron folate tablets, and history of anaemia during pregnancy were  significantly associated with compliance to iron folate supplementation (P < .05). Belief that too many tablets would harm the baby and fear of side effects were the major reasons given for noncompliance.Conclusion: Compliance to iron folate supplementation is very low in the study area. Increasing female education and increasing knowledge of women about anaemia and iron folate tablets are recommended to  increase compliance to iron folate supplementation

Agronomic and Economic Evaluation of Wheat-Chickpea Double Cropping on the Vertisol of Takusa, North Western Ethiopia

Takusa district in north Gondar zone has a high potential for double cropping per one growing season. Farmers in the area, however, do not practice double cropping so far, a reflection of lack of research outputs that addressed its feasibility. The objective of this study was, therefore, formulated around the need to evaluate the technical and economic feasibility of double cropping in the area using wheat-chickpea. Experiments were established at Takusa district during the 2015 main cropping season. The trials were laid down in factorial arrangement of randomized complete block design (RCBD) with three replications. Three bread wheat varieties (Senkegna, Tay and Dinknesh) and two chickpea varieties (Habru and Natoli) were used. The combined data showed that, wheat variety Dinknesh took the shortest days to mature (81 days) compared to Senkegna and Tay (97 days each) varieties. The highest thousand seed weight and grain yield was observed on variety Denknesh and has significance difference at P<0.05 with the other two varieties. Sole planting of Natoli (2926 kg/ha) and Habru (2103kg/ha) chickpea varieties gave relatively higher yield when compared with their respective double cropping combination. The Marginal rate of return (MRR) result showed that double cropping Natoli chickpea variety with Denekinesh wheat variety had 104% MRR. The land equivalent ration demonstrated double cropping rewards to a maximum of 1.99, implying the yield and benefit maximization per unit area per season. The highest grain yield in the double cropping system was obtained with Dinknesh wheat variety (2709kg/ha) double cropped with Natoli chickpea variety (2562 Kg/ha) and this combination could be recommended for similar agroecologies

The Afrotropical breeding grounds of the Palearctic-African migratory painted lady butterflies (Vanessa cardui)

Migratory insects are key players in ecosystem functioning and services, but their spatiotemporal distributions are typically poorly known. Ecological niche modeling (ENM) may be used to predict species seasonal distributions, but the resulting hypotheses should eventually be validated by field data. The painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) performs multigenerational migrations between Europe and Africa and has become a model species for insect movement ecology. While the annual migration cycle of this species is well understood for Europe and northernmost Africa, it is still unknown where most individuals spend the winter. Through ENM, we previously predicted suitable breeding grounds in the subhumid regions near the tropics between November and February. In this work, we assess the suitability of these predictions through i) extensive field surveys and ii) two-year monitoring in six countries: a large-scale monitoring scheme to study butterfly migration in Africa. We document new breeding locations, year-round phenological information, and hostplant use. Field observations were nearly always predicted with high probability by the previous ENM, and monitoring demonstrated the influence of the precipitation seasonality regime on migratory phenology. Using the updated dataset, we built a refined ENM for the Palearctic-African range of V. cardui. We confirm the relevance of the Afrotropical region and document the missing natural history pieces of the longest migratory cycle described in butterflies.This work was funded by the National Geographic Society (grant WW1-300R-18); by the British Ecological Society (grant LRB16/1015); by the Research and Conservation Projects of the Fundació Barcelona Zoo; by the grant PID2020-117739GA-I00/MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and the Spanish State Research Agency to G.T.; by the grant LINKA20399 from the Spanish National Research Council iLink program to G.T., C.P.B., N.E.P., and R.V.; by fellowship FPU19/01593 of the program Formación de Profesorado Universitario (FPU) to A.G.-B.; by the Turkana Basin Institute, National Geographic Society, and Whitley Fund for Nature to D.J.M.; and by grant 2018-00738 of the New Frontiers in Research Fund (Government of Canada) to G.T. and C.P.B.Significance Abstract Results Field Surveys, Larval Hostplants, and Field-Based Model Validation Monitoring Results and Population Dynamics across Regions A Refined Model for the Afrotropical Region Discussion The Afrotropical Breeding Grounds of V. cardui: Multiple Generations Shift South Toward the Tropics Diversity and Phenology of Larval Hostplants in the Afrotropics The Ecological Relevance of Delimiting Spatiotemporal Distributions in Migratory Insects Conclusion Methods December-January Field Surveys and Year-Round Monitoring Spatiotemporal Ecological Niche Modeling Data, Materials, and Software Availability Acknowledgments Supporting Information Reference

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

Correction: Determinants of change in long-acting or permanent contraceptives use in Ethiopia; A multivariate decomposition analysis of data from the Ethiopian demographic and health survey.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227218.]

Low Dimensional State Representation Learning with Robotics Priors in Continuous Action Spaces

Autonomous robots require high degrees of cognitive and motoric intelligence to come into our everyday life. In non-structured environments and in the presence of uncertainties, such degrees of intelligence are not easy to obtain. Reinforcement learning algorithms have proven to be capable of solving complicated robotics tasks in an end-to-end fashion without any need for hand-crafted features or policies. Especially in the context of robotics, in which the cost of real-world data is usually extremely high, reinforcement learning solutions achieving high sample efficiency are needed. In this paper, we propose a framework combining the learning of a low-dimensional state representation, from high-dimensional observations coming from the robot &#39;s raw sensory readings, with the learning of the optimal policy, given the learned state representation. We evaluate our framework in the context of mobile robot navigation in the case of continuous state and action spaces. Moreover, we study the problem of transferring what learned in the simulated virtual environment to the real robot without further retraining using real-world data in the presence of visual and depth distractors, such as lighting changes and moving obstacles

Chronic intermittent oxygen deprivation alters hippocampal cholinergic and glutamatergic system via oxido-inflammatory burden and HIF-1a/Bcl-2 activity in hypothyroid mice: Ameliorative role of Ginkgo biloba supplement

Background: Several investigations in recent years have reported a relationship between hypothyroidism or ischemia and central nervous system (CNS) beginning from fetal to adult life, but the effect of ischemia and hypothyroidism comorbidity on CNS and whether phytotherapeutic approach would attenuate this pathology remains unknown. Thus, the study investigated the role of ginkgo biloba supplement (GBS), a potent anti-oxido-inflammatory and neurorestorative plant-based product on hypoxic stress-induced neurobehavioral and neurophysiological alterations in hypothyroid mice, and the underpinning molecular mechanisms Methodology: Mice were orally pre-treated with Carbimazole (1.2 mg/kg) for 14 days to develop hypothyroidism. Post-hypothyroid induction, mice were treated orally with GBS (20 mg/kg) and levothyroxine (10 µg/kg) 1 hr before 20 min exposure to hypoxia (5 times daily) for 14 consecutive days. Symptoms of behavioral deficit and neuropsychiatry were evaluated in using different models. Thereafter, brain hippocampi were sectioned for biochemical assays, immunohistochemistry and histoarchitectural studies. Results: Herein, treatment with GBS suppressed spatial memory deficit and neuropsychiatric phenotypes and attenuated hippocampal cholinergic excitotoxicity by enhancing acetylcholinesterase enzyme and glutamatergic release in the hypothyroid mice following hypoxic stress exposure. The hippocampal endogenous antioxidant system was also upregulated with concomitant downregulation of inflammatory mediators. GBS treatment consequently regulated the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis to reduce corticosterone release. Additionally, our data showed that the suppressive impact of GBS on oxido-inflammatory mainstream decreases immunoexpression of hypoxic inducible factor-1alpha (HIF-1α) and loss of hippocampal pyramidal neurons in the CA3 region with marked increase in viable neuronal cells and upregulated immunoexpression of B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) anti-apoptotic marker. Conclusion: Herein, we deduced that prolonged intermittent exposure to hypoxia in hypothyroidism may provoke further the psychological and physiological status in the hippocampal brain region. Meanwhile, reversal of these provocative effects by the GBS treatment might be playing an important effect to suppress the hypoxic/ischemic triggered neurobehavioral and neurophysiological alterations