Economic Impacts of COVID-19 on Microfinance Institutions and Small Businesses: Empirical Survey from Somalia

The microfinance institutions promote the entrepreneurial innovations that contribute the fundamentals of a healthy economy and job creation opportunities. In Somalia, the small businesses have ever been valuable resources to encourage the economic sustainability of Somali country. After the destruction in January 26, in 1991, the people of Somalia have relied on the entrepreneurial skills to develop small businesses on which the lives of many Somali people have hinged. Therefore, this study assesses the economic impacts of covid-19 on microfinance institutions and small businesses. The study follows descriptive correlation. The overall sample consisted of 40 participants in Benadir region.  The study found that covid-19 has negative impact on both microfinance institutions and small businesses as shown by the mean index of microfinance institutions 1.72 and standard deviation 0.48, likewise, the mean index of small businesses scored 1.86 and standard deviation 0.69. Key words: Economic impacts, Covid -19, Microfinance Institutions, Small Businesses, Benadir region DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/13-6-21 Publication date:March 31st 2021

Prevalence of Poultry Coccidiosis and Associated Risk Factors in Intensive Farm and Individual Small Holder Poultry Farm in Benadir Region, Somalia

A cross sectional study was conducted from September2021 to February2022 in Mogadishu, Somalia to determine the prevalence of poultry coccidiosis and associated risk factors in intensive farm and Individual smallholder poultry farm in Benadir region-Somalia. The objective of the study was to determine the prevalence of poultry coccidiosis, to assess the risk factors associated with poultry coccidiosis. However, floatation technique was used for isolation of coccidian oocysts obtained from 384 fecal samples of chicken and the prevalence revealed was 19.8%. There was no statistically significant difference in poultry coccidiosis between the different ages of chicken (P>0.05) Where the young chickens (chicks) had shown slightly higher prevalence (20.4%) than adult chickens (18.8%). The effect of sex on the disease prevalence was assessed and relatively slightly higher prevalence was recorded in male chickens (20%) than female (19.4%). However, the difference between sex groups was not statistically significant (P>0.05). According to the management system of the chickens, the study had shown a significant difference between extensive and intensive management systems, with the extensive system having a higher prevalence (25.5%) than intensive system (14%) with P-value (0.003). There was a significant difference in poultry coccidiosis between the different body condition score of chickens (P<0.05), where those poor body condition (26.6%) are more prevalence than middle (16%) and good (8.8%) chickens. The study also revealed a statistically significant association between infection rate and housing methods with the chickens kept in floor house had a higher prevalence (25.5%) than cage house (14%) with P-value (0.003) However, appropriate control strategies should be designed considering important risk factors such as age, management system and housing system. Especially, focus should be given to biosecurity practices in the prevention and control of coccidiosis, and in addition, further studies are needed to be conducted to identify the prevalent Eimeria species for strategic control

Cisplatin augments the anti-schistosomal effect of praziquantel in a schistosoma-infected cancer model

Schistosomiasis is the third most devastating tropical disease worldwide caused by blood flukes of the genus Schistosoma. Praziquantel (PZQ) is the drug of choice for treating all species of schistosomes. However, PZQ kills only adult Schistosoma worms, not immature stages. The inability of PZQ to abort early infection or prevent re-infection, and the lack of prophylactic effect prompt the need for novel drugs and strategies for the prevention of schistosomiasis. Tumor burden can be developed in Schistosoma-infected patients. The present study aimed to determine the host responses to mutual interaction between cancer, represented by Ehrlich ascites, and infection, represented by Schistosomiasis. Mice infected with Schistosoma and challenged with tumor 4-5 weeks later showed the same anti-schistosomal (worm and egg burden) and antitumor (total tumor cell count and mouse survival) parameters when compared to mice infected with Schistosoma alone or challenged with tumor cells alone. As expected, combinatorial treatment with PZQ and cisplatin of Schistosoma-infected mice that were challenged with tumor cell line decreased the tumor burden as well as the worm and egg burden after treatment as compared to the non-treated controls; while the worm burden and egg counts were significantly decreased (P <0.001) in treated group (VI) treated with cisplatin (0.5 mg/kg), group (VII) treated with cisplatin (2 mg/kg), group (VIII) treated with PZQ/ cisplatin (0.5 mg/kg) and group (IX) treated with PZQ / cisplatin (2 mg/kg) by 44.55% , 74%, 100% and 97.8% in worm burden, and by 47%, 78.7%, 96% and 97% in liver egg count , respectively than that of group (II) non treated S. mansoni infected alone and (IV) non treated S. mansoni/EAC alone. Also, Group IX caused a significant reduction (P <0.05) in worm burden than that of group VI. Also, total ascetic volume and the tumor cell counts in Ehrlich's ascites carcinoma (EAC)-cells were significantly decreased (P <0.001) in groups VIII and IX than that of the group (III) non-treated (EAC) inoculated alone. There was no mutual interaction between schistosomiasis infection and tumor burden. Also, whereas, PZQ did not affect on the antitumor parameters, cisplatin even at low doses had anti-schistosomal effects

PCR array and protein array studies demonstrate that IL-1β (interleukin-1β) stimulates the expression and secretion of multiple cytokines and chemokines in human adipocytes

The role of IL-1β in regulating the expression and secretion of cytokines and chemokines by human adipocytes was examined. Adipocytes were incubated with human IL-1β for 4 or 24 h. The expression of a panel of 84 cytokine/chemokine genes was probed using PCR arrays. IL-1β stimulated the expression of >30 cytokine/chemokine genes on the arrays; 15 showed >100-fold increases in mRNA at 4 or 24 h including CSF3, CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL12 and IL8. CSF3 exhibited a 10,000-fold increase in mRNA at 4 h. ADIPOQ was among the genes whose expression was inhibited. Protein arrays were used to examine the secretion of cytokines/chemokines from adipocytes. IL-1β stimulated the secretion of multiple cytokines/chemokines including MCP-1, IL-8, IP-10, MIP-1α and MCP-4. The most responsive was IP-10, which exhibited a 5,000-fold increase in secretion with IL-1β. IL-1β is likely to play a substantial role in stimulating the inflammatory response in human adipocytes in obesity

Fixed Points of Kannan Maps in the Variable Exponent Sequence Spaces ℓp(·)

Kannan maps have inspired a branch of metric fixed point theory devoted to the extension of the classical Banach contraction principle. The study of these maps in modular vector spaces was attempted timidly and was not successful. In this work, we look at this problem in the variable exponent sequence spaces ℓ p ( · ) . We prove the modular version of most of the known facts about these maps in metric and Banach spaces. In particular, our results for Kannan nonexpansive maps in the modular sense were never attempted before

Asymmetric Probability Mass Function for Count Data Based on the Binomial Technique: Synthesis and Analysis with Inference

In this article, a new probability mass function for count data is proposed based on the binomial technique. After introducing the methodology of the newly model, some of its distributional characteristics are discussed in-detail. It is found that the newly model has explicit mathematical expressions for its statistical and reliability properties, which is not the case with many well-known discrete models. Moreover, it can be used as an effectively probability tool for modeling asymmetric over-dispersed data with leptokurtic shapes. The parameters estimation through the classical point of view have been done via utilizing the technique of maximum likelihood and Bayesian approaches. A MCMC simulation study is carried out to examine the performance of the estimators. Finally, two distinct real data sets are analyzed to prove the flexibility and notability of the newly model

Fixed Points of Multivalued Contraction Mappings in Modular Metric Spaces

The purpose of this paper is to study the existence of fixed points for contractive-type multivalued maps in the setting of modular metric spaces. The notion of a modular metric on an arbitrary set and the corresponding modular spaces, generalizing classical modulars over linear spaces like Orlicz spaces, were recently introduced. In this paper we investigate the existence of fixed points of multivalued modular contractive mappings in modular metric spaces. Consequently, our results either generalize or improve fixed point results of Nadler (Pac. J. Math. 30:475-488, 1969) and Edelstein (Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 12:7-10, 1961)

Convergence of Ishikawa iterates of two mappings in modular function spaces

We establish convergence in the modular sense of an iteration scheme associated with a pair of mappings on a nonlinear domain in modular function spaces. In particular, we prove that such a scheme converges to a common fixed point of the mappings. Our results are generalization of known similar results in the non-modular setting. In particular, we avoid smoothness of the norm in the case of Banach spaces and that of the triangle inequality of the distance in metric spaces