Population status of the Critically Endangered African White-Backed Vultures (Gyps africanus) in and around Wolkite town, Southwestern Ethiopia

African white-backed vultures (Gyps africanus) are critically endangered bird species which are commonly found in areas where rubbish food sources and roosting and/or nesting sites are available. This study assessed the population size and threats of the African white-backed vultures in Wolkite town abattoir and the surrounding dumping site from April 2019 to March 2021. A total count method was employed to assess the population size of the species and analyzed using descriptive statistics. A questionnaire consisting semi-structured open-ended questions was used to study the attitude and perception of the local community. During the study period, 192 field visits were conducted to count the population size of African white-backed vultures. Individual African white-backed vultures were counted in the abattoir and dumping sites. About 472 individuals (36%) were counted in the dumping site (Mean ± SD: 20±7.4; Range: 8-29) and 839 individuals (64%) were counted in the abattoir (Mean ± SD: 34±8; Range: 22-47). The age category in the dumping site constituted 269 adults and 203 sub-adults with a statistically significant difference (x2= 8.14, df =1, p< 0.05) between adults and sub-adult age groups. In the abattoir, 319 of the population were adults and 520 were sub-adults, a significant difference (x2= 48.2, df =1, p< 0.05) in the age groups in the area. Threats such as human disturbance and competition for food and roosting with domestic and wild animals were observed during the study period.&nbsp

Factors Affecting Effectiveness of the Ethiopian Legislature

This study aimed at assessing factors affecting FDRE (Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia) legislature in the policy making process. Along with the use of Mixed-methods research design, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 162 respondents who were selected using random and nonrandom sampling technique. A self-constructed structured questionnaire and semi-structure interviews were used to gather research data from members of parliament, members of opposition parties, policy scholars and key stakeholders. Both confirmatory factor analysis and Multiple Regression Analysis were employed to analyze the data. The results indicate that three factors namely: political system; political will and space; and technical capacity are the major factors that make statistical significant contributions in the prediction of legislature’s effectiveness. The study recommends that there is a timely need to widening the political space as well as to make major levels of structural and administrative system improvements to make the FDRE legislature more effective in performing its entrusted policy making role. Keywords: FDRE legislature; political system; political will and space; public policy; technical capacity DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/11-3-03 Publication date: February 28th 202

Social Marketing: The Family Planning Experience in Ethiopia

The study aimed at analyzing the role and practice of social marketing as an approach to address issues related to attitudinal change about family planning.Based on the idea of social marketing and its application to positively influence the behavior through changing attitudes of individuals related to family planning and contraceptive use, the study developed with the methodology applied for preparing instruments of data collection, sampling and data analysis. Marketing-mix as designed for social issues such as family planning has a key role to play to positively develop the attitude towards the concept and brining favorable changes in the behavior of individuals. Also, individual’s responsibility towards society and his/her usage of family planning services was also found to be associated with, and contributed by, social marketing-mix. Therefore, social marketing activities are contributing favorably to individual’s concerning social responsibility i.e. increasing the level of individual’s responsibility towards society through his/her own usage experience of the services of family planning, and vice versa. In other words, as the social marketing activities and programs increase, the attitude towards family planning will become more favorable among the society members. The study is an attempt to relate the idea of social marketing, as an approach of bringing attitudinal changes in the behaviors of individuals towards the concept of family planning and the use of contraceptives. Therefore, the idea as being tested in the context of Ethiopia, and the factors contributing to behavioral change could be of great importance for policy makers of population control and health related areas. Furthermore, the study maintains relevance to contribute significantly to the existing literature of social marketing and consumer behavior related to family planning. Keywords: Social Marketing,Family Planning, Social Marketing Mix Elements Paper type: Research pape

Prevalence of the Different Types of Palmar Creases Among Medical and Dental Students in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

BACKGROUND: Studies have suggested that identification of aberrant palmar creases may give clues for an early and noninvasive method of diagnosis of certain disease conditions. Toward this purpose, awareness of the normal variants of palmar creases must be first recognized. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the patterns of palmar creases in healthy Ethiopian population among Medical and Dental Students in Addis Ababa.SUBJECTS AND METHODS: Right and left palm pictures from 318 (177 females and 141 males) participants were taken using a mobile camera, and evaluated qualitatively. Observations were analyzed by Fisher's exact test, and significance levels for comparisons were set at p<0.05.RESULTS: Aberrant creases were observed in 13.8% of the palms. Simian crease was the most common among the aberrant crease types, followed by Suwon and Sydney. Palmar creases with two and three points of origin were significantly more common, respectively, in males and the females. Minor variants as accessory to the radial longitudinal crease and middle longitudinal crease were also observed.CONCLUSION: This study suggests that aberrant crease types at the observed frequencies may not be indicative of known disease conditions as they occurred in apparently healthy Ethiopians. However, the results of this study, besides revealing the patterns of palmar creases among Ethiopians, could give a baseline for studies aimed at diagnosis of disease conditions based on palmar crease configurations. Further qualitative and quantitative studies of palmar creases in wider populations with various conditions, including ethno-geographic factors, are recommended

Assessment of Anchote Breeding and Its Physiological Adaptive Mechanisms for Moisture Stress

Anchote (Coccinia abyssinica), is a perennial climbing, monoecious root crop, endemic and indigenous to Ethiopia. It is the richest in protein, iron, calcium and phosphate contents with minimum anti-nutritional content as compared to other root and tuber crops. Despite its importance the production and productivity is hampered by biotic and abiotic factors. Among the abiotic factors drought stress is the most serious threat to world food security. Therefore, understanding the extent of drought stress and assessing the mechanisms of drought tolerance in plants is very crucial to devise different coping mechanisms with the stresses. The information generated in this review may serve as a guideline in future Anhote improvement programs in terms of moisture stress tolerance. Keywords: Anchote, Breeding, Drought, Moisture stress, Physiology DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/120-01 Publication date:October 31st 2022

Immunomic and transcriptomic profiling of the immune response to gluten exposure in celiac disease

Celiac disease (CD) is an immune-mediated gastrointestinal disease that is precipitated by ingestion of dietary gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley and rye. The development of CD almost always requires genetic predisposition with the patients carrying either the DQ2 or DQ8 HLA-DQ alleles. As these genetic alleles are prevalent also in the healthy population, the main factors involved in CD pathogenesis, gluten and the genetic association, are necessary but not sufficient for CD development. Thus, the initial milieu of factors that lead to CD pathogenesis is still not completely understood, with current research suggesting other yet unidentified factors. The complexity of CD is also mirrored in its manifestation, with CD patients having symptoms ranging from gastrointestinal disorders to system-wide extra-intestinal manifestations, including skin and neurological conditions. It can also be asymptomatic. Consequently, CD misdiagnosis or late diagnosis is prevalent. Thus, further investigation of the immune response in CD is needed to better shed light on the intricacies of the cell and molecular changes involved, as well as to provide better diagnostic and therapeutic options. The advent and application of high throughput sequencing at the beginning of the last decade provided the opportunity to study the immune response in CD on an unprecedented scale. Particularly, with immune repertoire sequencing (RepSeq) and genome wide RNA sequencing (RNAseq), as well as the development of bioinformatics analysis methods, we considered the possibility of investigating the effect of gluten exposure in CD at a systemic level. The aim of this work was then to utilize RepSeq and RNAseq to characterize the global immunological and transcriptomic changes that occur in CD during in vivo gluten exposure. We also aimed to develop new computational methodologies for mining immune repertoire datasets to identify gluten associated T-cell receptor (TCR) clonotypes. At the beginning of our first study, which examined the global immune repertoire, there were few groundbreaking studies that had reported immunogenic gluten peptide-specific T-cell receptors in CD patients. However, as these studies used tetramer assays that allowed investigation of only a handful of gluten peptides at a time, they largely ignored the repertoire-wide immune response dynamics and the repertoire of T-cell receptors induced by gluten that may target not just gluten peptides but other antigens possibly relevant in CD. With study I, some of these shortcomings were addressed by using RepSeq to study the gluten-exposed global repertoire in the blood and gut of CD patients in an unbiased manner. The study showed that gluten exposure leads to increased TCR sharing in both blood and gut between unrelated CD patients, suggesting that the public component of the TCR immune response is important in CD. In addition, we identified particular TCR clonotypes that were induced by gluten exposure through the bioinformatics pipeline developed for differential abundance analysis in this study. The identified gluten-induced TCR clonotypes included novel as well as previously reported gluten-peptide binding TCRs, indicating that in spite of the immense diversity of the total immune repertoire, it was possible to utilize RepSeq to identify CD relevant clonotypes computationally without necessarily knowing their targeted antigen. In study I, the limited sharing of TCRs across individuals necessitated the comparison of TCR abundances within an individual (across different time points) or across-individuals, but only using the small set of public TCRs that were seen in multiple individuals. In study II, a comprehensive bioinformatic method that allows direct population level comparison of RepSeq datasets in two conditions for the identification of both public and private condition-associated TCRs was developed. The method relies on the assumption that private TCRs that are specific to an antigen, for example gluten peptide, are likely to have high similarity in their sequence to public TCRs targeting the same antigen and thus could be detected by proxy. It also assumes that such immune sequence components needed to mount an immune response to an antigen are likely to be shared across individuals, at least to a degree that may prove useful for computational identification. By dissecting the immune repertoire into clusters of TCRs with similar kmer composition and finding shared clusters of TCRs with similar kmer composition across individuals, the method facilitates the comparison of clonal abundances between condition groups and the identification of condition-relevant TCRs. The method was applied on CD RepSeq datasets from study I and successfully identified gluten-induced clonotypes, with TRBV-gene usage and positional amino acid usage patterns similar to known gluten-specific clonotypes. Overall, development of the method and its application on CD demonstrated that direct cross-individual comparison of immune repertoires for identification of disease relevant TCRs was possible, paving the way for direct investigation of the TCR immune response at the population-level, without necessarily knowing all the antigens targeted in an autoimmune disease like CD. In the final study, RNAseq was utilized to investigate the genome-wide transcriptional changes in the PBMC of CD patients, which showed that a short 3-day gluten exposure was enough to induce distinct transcriptional profile in patients. Importantly, this study identified genes with persistently altered expression and biological pathways with persistently perturbed regulation in CD patient PBMC, regardless of a long period of treatment with gluten-free diet. This study also suggested new candidate genes for known CD linked and/or associated genetic loci 19p13.11 and 21q22.3. In conclusion, this thesis developed new bioinformatic methods for the analysis of high throughput TCR immune repertoire datasets and the identification of condition-relevant clonotypes and applied the method on CD patient immune repertoires to identify gluten induced clonotypes. The thesis also provides several new insights into the global immune and transcriptional signatures associated with gluten exposure in CD. The methods and findings in this thesis have potential future use in CD disease stratification, diagnosis, therapy, and monitoring.Keliakia on immuunivälitteinen maha-suolikanavan sairaus, jonka aiheuttaa vehnässä, ohrassa ja rukiissa esiintyvä gluteeni. Keliakian kehittyminen vaatii melkein aina geneettisen alttiuden; potilaat kantavat joko HLA-DQ-geenin alleelia DQ2 tai DQ8. Koska nämä alleelit ovat yleisiä myös terveessä populaatiossa, tärkeimmät keliakian patogeneesiin liittyvät tekijät, gluteeni ja perintötekijät, ovat välttämättömiä, mutta eivät riittäviä keliakian kehittymiselle. Näin ollen kaikkia keliakian kehittymiseen johtavia tekijöitä ei vieläkään täysin ymmärretä, ja nykyiset tutkimukset viittaavat muihin, vielä tunnistamattomiin tekijöihin. Keliakian monimutkaisuus näkyy myös sen ilmenemismuodoissa: keliaakikoilla voi olla oireita aina maha-suolikanavan häiriöistä laajempiin suolen ulkopuolisiin ilmenemismuotoihin, mukaan lukien iho- ja neurologiset sairaudet. Tauti voi olla myös oireeton. Siten väärä tai viivästynyt diagnoosi on yleistä. Keliakian immuunivasteen lisätutkimusta tarvitaan, jotta voidaan paremmin selvittää siihen liittyviä monimutkaisia solu- ja molekyylimuutoksia sekä kehittää parempia diagnostisia ja terapeuttisia vaihtoehtoja. Uuden sukupolven sekvensointimenetelmien kehitys ja käyttö viime vuosikymmenen alussa on mahdollistanut keliakian immuunivasteen tutkimuksen ennennäkemättömässä mittakaavassa. Erityisesti immunorepertuaarisekvensointi (RepSeq), genomin laajuinen RNA-sekvensointi (RNAseq) sekä bioinformatiikan analyysimenetelmien kehittäminen mahdollisti tämän systemaattisen tutkimuksemme gluteenialtistuksen vaikutuksista keliakiassa. Tämän työn tavoitteena oli hyödyntää RepSeqiä ja RNAseq:ia löytämään ne immunologiset ja geeniekspressiotasojen muutokset, joita esiintyy keliakiassa in vivo gluteenialtistuksen aikana. Kehitimme myös uusia laskennallisia menetelmiä immunorepertuaaridatan louhintaan gluteenia tunnistavien T-solureseptorien (TCR) klonotyyppien tunnistamiseksi. Tutkimuksemme alussa keliakian immunogeenisistä gluteenispesifisistä T-solureseptoreista oli tehty vasta muutamia uraauurtavia tutkimuksia tetrameerimääritysten avulla, jotka kuitenkin mahdollistivat vain yksittäisten gluteenipeptidien tutkimisen kerrallaan. Siten ne jättivät suurelta osin huomiotta koko laajemman immuunivasteen dynamiikan ja gluteenin indusoimien T-solureseptorien repertuaarin, joka saattaa kohdistua gluteenipeptidien lisäksi myös muihin keliakian kannalta merkityksellisiin antigeeneihin. Osatyössä I tätä tutkittiin käyttämällä RepSeq menetelmää valikoimattomasti koko veren ja suoliston repertuaarikirjolle gluteenialtistuksen yhteydessä. Tutkimus osoitti, että gluteenialtistus johtaa potilaiden kesken samankaltaisten T-solureseptoreiden lisääntymiseen sekä veressä että suolistossa, mikä viittaa siihen, että TCR-immuunivasteen ns. julkinen komponentti on tärkeä keliakiassa. Lisäksi löysimme tiettyjä gluteenialtistuksen indusoimia TCR-klonotyyppejä käyttämällä kehittämäämme bioinformatiikan työkalua toisistaan poikkeavien klonotyyppimäärien tilastolliseen vertailuun. Tunnistetut gluteenin indusoimat TCR-klonotyypit sisälsivät sekä uusia, että aiemmin raportoituja gluteenipeptidejä sitovia reseptoreita. Tämä osoittaa, että koko repertuaarin valtavasta monimuotoisuudesta huolimatta RepSeqillä oli mahdollista tunnistaa keliakian kannalta merkityksellisiä klonotyyppejä laskennallisesti, ilman tarkkaa tietoa spesifisistä antigeeneistä. Tutkimuksessa I TCR-klonotyyppien identtisyys yksilöiden välillä mahdollisti TCR-määrien vertailun saman yksilön sisällä (eri ajankohtina) tai eri yksilöiden välillä, mutta analyyseissä käytettiin vain pientä joukkoa niitä julkisia T-solu-reseptoreita, jotka havaittiin useilla yksilöillä. Tutkimuksessa II kehitettiin kattava bioinformatiikan menetelmä, joka mahdollistaa Repseq-aineistojen suoran populaatiotason vertailun sekä julkisten että yksityisten tautiin tai altistukseen liittyvien T-solureseptoreiden tunnistamiseksi. Menetelmä perustuu oletukseen, että yksityiset reseptorit, jotka ovat spesifisiä antigeenille kuten gluteenipeptidille, ovat todennäköisesti sekvensseiltään samankaltaisia julkisten reseptorien kanssa, jotka kohdistuvat samaan antigeeniin, ja siten ne voidaan löytää sen perusteella. Menetelmässä oletetaan myös, että sellaiset immuunisekvenssikomponentit, joita tarvitaan immuunivasteen muodostamiseen antigeenille, jaetaan todennäköisesti yksilöiden kesken ainakin siinä määrin, että sitä voidaan hyödyntää laskennallisessa tunnistamisessa. Jakamalla immunorepertuaari TCR-klustereihin, joilla on samanlainen kmer-koostumus, ja löytämällä jaettuja TCR-klustereita, joilla on samanlainen kmer-koostumus, menetelmä mahdollistaa kloonimäärien vertailun ryhmien välillä ja esimerkiksi taudin tai altistuksen kannalta merkityksellisten TCR:ien tunnistamisen. Menetelmää sovellettiin keliakian RepSeq dataan tutkimuksesta I, ja sillä tunnistettiin onnistuneesti gluteenin indusoimia klonotyyppejä, joissa TRBV-geenin käyttö ja aminohappojen sijainnit olivat samanlaisia tunnettujen gluteenispesifisten klonotyyppien kanssa. Kaiken kaikkiaan menetelmän kehittäminen ja sen soveltaminen keliakiaan osoitti, että immuunorepertuaarien suora ristiinvertailu taudin kannalta merkityksellisten T-solureseptoreiden tunnistamiseksi oli mahdollista, mikä viitoittaa tietä TCR-immuunivasteen suoralle tutkimukselle populaatiotasolla ilman että kaikkia autoimmuunitautiin liittyviä antigeenejä tarvitsee tuntea. Viimeisessä osatyössä käytettiin RNAseq menetelmää genominlaajuisten transkriptiomuutosten tutkimiseen keliakia-potilaiden veren mononukleaarisoluissa. Tutkimus osoitti, että lyhyt kolmen päivän gluteenialtistus riitti indusoimaan selvän transkriptioprofiilin muutoksen potilailla. Tutkimuksessa tunnistettiin geenejä, joiden ilmentyminen oli pysyvästi muuttunutta, sekä biologisia reittejä, joiden säätely on pysyvästi häiriintynyt keliaakikoiden valkosoluissa, riippumatta pitkästä hoidosta gluteenittomalla ruokavaliolla. Tutkimus löysi myös uusia ehdokasgeenejä tunnetuille keliakiaan kytkeytyville ja/tai assosioituville geenilokuksille 19p13.11 ja 21q22.3. Yhteenvetona voidaan todeta, että väitöskirjatyössä kehitettiin uusia bioinformaattisia menetelmiä massiivisten TCR-immunorepertuaariaineistojen analysointiin ja esimerkiksi tautien kannalta merkittävien klonotyyppien tunnistamiseen, ja sovellettiin menetelmää keliakia-potilaiden immunorepertuaareihin gluteenin indusoimien klonotyyppien tunnistamiseksi. Väitöskirja tarjoaa myös useita uusia havaintoja keliakian gluteenialtistukseen liittyvistä immuuni- ja transkriptioprofiileista. Tämän väitöskirjatyön menetelmistä ja tuloksista on tulevaisuudessa potentiaalisesti hyötyä keliakian diagnosoinnissa, hoidossa ja seurannassa

The impact of Ethiopian land certification on land conservation, maintenance and tree planting

This study analyses the impact of land registration and certification on rural farm households’ investment on conservation, maintenance and tree planting in Ethiopia. I used cross-sectional data collected from Tigray region in 2015. The Instrumental variable approach used to control for endogeneity in certificate ownership shows there is no systematic distribution in certificate ownership or no endogeneity. The estimation results suggest a mixed result with different outcome variables used as proxy for land related investment. There is positive and significant correlation between possession of land certificates and investment in conservation and maintenance or improvement of conservation structures. However, I didn’t find a significant correlation between certificate and tree planting. Variables such as distance of farm plots and public investment on plots tend to have a strong and positive effect on farmers decision on land related investments.M-ECO

The Home-Grown Wind Instruments Social Beliefs and Attitudes for the Peoples of Wolaitta : The Case of Dinkiya and Chacha-Zayiya, Southern Ethiopia

The Dinkiya and Chachazaiyiya music for spiritual actions was specifically created for the occasion publicly performed in the context of the worship In some cases participation in these events was selective usually for initiates and was not open to every member of the community The concept of performance composition in ritual place is one of the unique features of Wolaitta music especial Dinkiya and Chachchzayeya wind-instruments The Wolaita nation s Social structure involves three levels of stratification The privileged class of nobles Kawonata the commoners Goqqaa at the upper strata is followed by the artisans called the Chenashasha Blacksmiths Degelaa leather workers From above mentioned social structure the artisans Chenashasha play vital role in musical industry The artisans are professional musicians in the community of Wolaita They took these professional by birth or inheritance The nations of wolaita musicians might be professionals Thos are called Chenashsha These musicians serve numerous functions for a variety of occasions in traditional Wolaita society Given that all members of the professionals participate in music making The Wolaita nation s musicians trained music by inheritance My informants told that a wolaitta professional musician is learned primarily through social experience and communal partakin

Practical Power and Effectiveness Level of the Ethiopian Legislature

This study examines the influence, independence and effectiveness level of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) legislature throughout the policy making process in the first year of the fifth tenure in 2016. To this end, descriptive research design is used and heavily relied on data gathered from a number of relevant documents and other related secondary sources. The findings indicate that even if most of the legislative and oversight powers are vested in it, the FDRE legislature is practically powerless and ineffective in using these important mandated powers. Moreover, the results clarify that rubber stamp parliamentary model is the typology that best describes the legislature. The findings further suggest that the legislature’s ineffectiveness might be attributed to the presence of a single dominant party which continually practices strict party discipline on its members, along with the absence of opposition parties in the House. Hence, we recommend that there is a timely need to winding the political space for the opposition parties and the legislature, as well as to make major levels of structural and administrative system improvements to make the FDRE legislature more effective in performing its public policy making role. Keywords: FDRE legislature; parliamentary model; power and effectivenes

Practical Power and Effectiveness Level of the Ethiopian Legislature

This study examines the influence, independence and effectiveness level of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE) legislature throughout the policy making process in the first year of the fifth tenure in 2016. To this end, descriptive research design is used and heavily relied on data gathered from a number of relevant documents and other related secondary sources. The findings indicate that even if most of the legislative and oversight powers are vested in it, the FDRE legislature is practically powerless and ineffective in using these important mandated powers. Moreover, the results clarify that rubber stamp parliamentary model is the typology that best describes the legislature. The findings further suggest that the legislature’s ineffectiveness might be attributed to the presence of a single dominant party which continually practices strict party discipline on its members, along with the absence of opposition parties in the House. Hence, we recommend that there is a timely need to winding the political space for the opposition parties and the legislature, as well as to make major levels of structural and administrative system improvements to make the FDRE legislature more effective in performing its public policy making role. Keywords: FDRE legislature; parliamentary model; power and effectivenes