Awareness of Breast Cancer and Its Early Detection Measures Among Female Students, Northern Ethiopia

Globally breast cancer is the most common of all cancers. Since risk reduction strategies cannot eliminate the majority of breast cancers, early detection remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control. This paper, therefore, attempts to assess the awareness of breast cancer and its early detection measures among female students in Mekelle University, Ethiopia. An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected female students. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select the participants. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 16. In this study, 760 students participated making a response rate of 96 percent. Respondents with good knowledge score for risk factors, early detections measures and warning signs of breast cancer were 1.4 percent, 3.6 percent and 22.1 percent respectively. The majority 477 (62.8 percent) of participants practiced self-breast examination. In conclusion the participants had poor knowledge of risk factors, early detection measures and early warning signs of breast cancer.Therefore, the Ministry of health of Ethiopia together with its stalk holders should strengthen providing IEC targeting women to increase their awareness about breast cancer and its early detection measure

Surface modification of polyester using chicken feather keratin hydrolysate to improve water absorbency and dye uptake

PET fiber has an intrinsic low hydrophilic character and an inactive surface which make it uncomfortable for wearing purpose. Moreover, it is difficult to colour polyester fabric other than disperse dyes. Therefore, surface modification of PET is very important to improve its absorbency and bring the possibility to dye polyester with anionic dyes by altering its surface characteristics. This research was focused on surface modification of polyester using chicken feather which involves serine as the most abundant amino acid with hydroxyl groups. The treated polyester fabric using 20ml/L concentration of chicken feather extract showed improved water drop absorbency from 45 into 3 seconds and the reactive dye uptake by 36 folds from 0.15 to 5.37 K/S values

A Farmer-based fruit seedling supply system in Dale Pilot Learning Woreda (PLW): experiences from IPMS

Dale Woreda is well known for its avocado (Persia americana) and to a lesser extent mango (Mangifera indica) production. These fruit trees are planted along with coffee (Coffee arabica), enset (Enset ventricosum) and other crops. They are important sources of income and food, playing a considerable role in the livelihood of thousands of smallholder farmers of Dale. However, the varieties found in the area have large canopies that reduce land availability for other crops. They are also tall (10-15 m) thus harvesting becomes a challenge, particularly for women. Market prices for these varieties are low and during collection, there is considerable fruit loss when they fall, causing cracks and bruises and hence their rejection. The trees also take 7- 10 years to bear fruit and farmers mention that the land can be used more productively and therefore want to replace fruit trees with other more profitable crops. The diagnostic survey carried out by Improving Productivity and Marketing Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian farmers’ project identified some of the above production constraints as the major area of intervention. Further study was conducted by the International Centre for Research on Agro Forestry (ICRAF) which confirmed the above problems and suggested introduction of improved variety through grafting as one of the best solution to improve the quality of seed, reduce size and height as well as improve productivity and marketability of these varieties. Taking the experience of Dale for coffee seedling production where farmer’s nurseries have taken over 95% of seedling production, the Dale partners decided to use farmers’ nurseries as the base to start production of grafted seedlings. Using participatory extension methods with the help of various partners, the number of private nursery operators increased from the initial six (3 females) to 20 (7 female) in 2009. The number of seedlings produced has now reached 12,000 annually and this can be easily expanded since scions can now be obtained from mother trees established earlier in each of the nursery sites. Currently, seedlings are sold at around Birr 15/seedling to neighboring farmers, some on credit provided by the nursery operators. Linkages with the Productive Safety Net program are made to facilitate the scaling out of the sale of seedlings to emerging commercial farmers. Nursery operators earned between Birr 4,000–7,000 per year from these operations. Further skills development can still be made to improve survival rates of grafted seedlings. Attention will also need to be paid to the marketing of these improved varieties as well as the development of a responsive support system providing fresh knowledge, building capacity and new technologies

Market-oriented beekeeping development to improve smallholder income: Results of development experiences in Atsbi-Womberta District, northern Ethiopia

Beekeeping is an important income-generating activity in the Atsbi-Womberta district of Tigray. Beekeeping can also be easily integrated into the on-going natural resources conservation developments in the district. However, beekeeping has traditionally been considered as a supplementary enterprise and its potential as a source of smallholder income has never been fully utilized. The Improving Productivity and Market Success (IPMS) of Ethiopian Farmers Project, in collaboration with the district Office of Agriculture and Rural Development (OoARD), the regional Bureau of ARD and other partners have introduced, tested and promoted improved beekeeping development practices based on the value chains framework. This paper presents results of this experience. The core of the experience is the transformation of a largely traditional system towards a more knowledge based and market-oriented beekeeping. Major interventions include introduction, testing and promotion of learning platforms on improved use of hive equipment, improved apiary and colony management, bee forages, harvesting and postharvest handling practices, and facilitation of access to market information and linkages. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted to assess developmental changes made due to the interventions. Results show that the honey productivity of adopters increased by about threefold (32 kg honey/hive per year) compared to the non-adopters (10 kg honey/hive per year) in 2008 despite the variation in rainfall distribution and amount. Interestingly, the honey productivity of adopters increased by 52% in 2008 (32 kg honey/hive per year) compared to those adopters in 2004 (21 kg honey/hive per year). Market-oriented improved beekeeping adopters had a threefold higher income from the sale of honey (Ethiopian birr, ETB1 1820/household per year) than non-adopters (ETB 614/household per year). Moreover, the gross annual income of smallholder beekeepers in the district increased from about ETB 2.7 million in 2004 to ETB 19.5 million in 2008. Similarly, the number of honeybee colonies has increased by about fourfold and that of beneficiaries increased by about threefold. About 36% of the beekeepers adopted improved beekeeping management which contributed to about 75% of the district gross annual income of smallholder beekeepers in 2008. The basis of transformation towards market-oriented beekeeping has been capacity building of beekeepers to acquire, share and use improved skills. Results show that marketoriented improved beekeeping appears to be a more resilient income generating business under the uncertain and variable rainfall conditions

Functional shoe for the detection of walking pattern anomalies

Analysis of walking patterns can play an important role in the diagnosis of musculoskeletal disorder and detecting anomalies in walking gaits. In this work, we introduce a systematic approach to detect person's walking patterns. A flexible resistive pressure sensor, developed from electro-conductive textile fabric, is non-intrusively integrated in an ordinary shoe together with a time of flight height sensor. The constructed shoe detects both the pressure between shoe and foot and the gap between shoe and ground. The combination of those give a trace of the walking pattern. The shoe should be functional in detecting walking pattern anomalies

Global ecological predictors of the soil priming effect.

Identifying the global drivers of soil priming is essential to understanding C cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. We conducted a survey of soils across 86 globally-distributed locations, spanning a wide range of climates, biotic communities, and soil conditions, and evaluated the apparent soil priming effect using 13C-glucose labeling. Here we show that the magnitude of the positive apparent priming effect (increase in CO2 release through accelerated microbial biomass turnover) was negatively associated with SOC content and microbial respiration rates. Our statistical modeling suggests that apparent priming effects tend to be negative in more mesic sites associated with higher SOC contents. In contrast, a single-input of labile C causes positive apparent priming effects in more arid locations with low SOC contents. Our results provide solid evidence that SOC content plays a critical role in regulating apparent priming effects, with important implications for the improvement of C cycling models under global change scenarios

A composite light-harvesting layer from photoactive polymer and halide perovskite for planar heterojunction solar cells

A new route for fabrication of photoactive materials in organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells is presented in this report. Photoactive materials by blending a semiconductive conjugated polymer with an organolead halide perovskite were fabricated for the first time. The composite active layer was then used to make planar heterojunction solar cells with the PCBM film as the electron-acceptor. Photovoltaic performance of solar cells was investigated by J-V curves and external quantum efficiency spectra. We demonstrated that the incorporation of the conjugated photoactive polymer into organolead halide perovskites did not only contribute to the generation of charges, but also enhance stability of solar cells by providing a barrier protection to halide perovskites. It is expected that versatile of conjugated semi-conductive polymers and halide perovskites in photoactive properties enables to create various combinations, forming composites with advantages offered by both types of photoactive materials

Development of a health-related website for parents of children receiving hematopoietic stem cell transplant: HSCT-CHESS

Parents of pediatric hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) play a pivotal role in the care of their child during and after transplant. In addition to the child’s comforter, parents also serve as care coordinators and conduits of communication between various health care providers, family and community members. The stress on the parent and family is enormous during this process, which for many is compounded by geographic dislocation to accompany their child during the rigorous treatment and recovery process. For many parents, their own recovery spans months to years

Interpreting ambiguous ‘trace’ results in Schistosoma mansoni CCA Tests: Estimating sensitivity and specificity of ambiguous results with no gold standard

Background The development of new diagnostics is an important tool in the fight against disease. Latent Class Analysis (LCA) is used to estimate the sensitivity and specificity of tests in the absence of a gold standard. The main field diagnostic for Schistosoma mansoni infection, Kato-Katz (KK), is not very sensitive at low infection intensities. A point-of-care circulating cathodic antigen (CCA) test has been shown to be more sensitive than KK. However, CCA can return an ambiguous ‘trace’ result between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’, and much debate has focused on interpretation of traces results. Methodology/Principle findings We show how LCA can be extended to include ambiguous trace results and analyse S. mansoni studies from both Côte d’Ivoire (CdI) and Uganda. We compare the diagnostic performance of KK and CCA and the observed results by each test to the estimated infection prevalence in the population. Prevalence by KK was higher in CdI (13.4%) than in Uganda (6.1%), but prevalence by CCA was similar between countries, both when trace was assumed to be negative (CCAtn: 11.7% in CdI and 9.7% in Uganda) and positive (CCAtp: 20.1% in CdI and 22.5% in Uganda). The estimated sensitivity of CCA was more consistent between countries than the estimated sensitivity of KK, and estimated infection prevalence did not significantly differ between CdI (20.5%) and Uganda (19.1%). The prevalence by CCA with trace as positive did not differ significantly from estimates of infection prevalence in either country, whereas both KK and CCA with trace as negative significantly underestimated infection prevalence in both countries. Conclusions Incorporation of ambiguous results into an LCA enables the effect of different treatment thresholds to be directly assessed and is applicable in many fields. Our results showed that CCA with trace as positive most accurately estimated infection prevalence