Diffusion of Technologies by the Tikonko Agricultural Extension Centre (TAEC) to Farmers of the Tikonko Chiefdom in Sierra Leone: Impacts, Problems, Proposed Solutions, and an Updated Outlook

Sierra Leone is a west African nation with about two-thirds of its population engaged in agriculture but it cannot feed itself. The country’s agricultural activities were disrupted by a decade-long Civil War that created a great need for improved farming technologies. The Tikonko Agricultural Extension Centre (TAEC) operates in the Tikonko Chiefdom to assist local farmers in improving food production through the fabrication of farm tools to be adopted and used by farmers. This study was conducted to investigate the impacts of the TAEC’s technologies on farmers and their communities in the Tikonko Chiefdom and identify problems and solutions associated with the technologies and their diffusion. The target population included farmers (N = 318) who used TAEC’s technologies and TAEC staff (N = 18) who were involved in the diffusion process. A majority of the farmers adopted and used TAEC’s technologies readily, which they perceived had considerable impact on their farming practices and communities. The relevance of TAEC’s technologies to farmers in Tikonko Chiefdom was also evident. However, the participating farmers and TAEC staff encountered numerous problems. A majority agreed that the diffusion and adoption process could be improved by increasing the farmers’ access to loans. Providing appropriate technologies that can be adopted by low income farmers stands to increase their productivity and self-reliance while improving their nations’ food security. It is undeniable that technologies contributing to food sufficiency and alleviating poverty are needed throughout the developing world; policymakers must be reminded of this condition continually

First order optical potentials and 25 to 40 MeV proton elastic scattering

The differential cross sections and analyzing powers from the elastic scattering of 25 and 40 MeV protons from many nuclei have been studied. Analyses have been made using a fully microscopic model of proton-nucleus scattering seeking to establish a means appropriate for use in analyses of radioactive beam scattering from hydrogen with ion energies 25A and 40A MeV.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, 4 figure

New insights into the genetic etiology of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias

Characterization of the genetic landscape of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related dementias (ADD) provides a unique opportunity for a better understanding of the associated pathophysiological processes. We performed a two-stage genome-wide association study totaling 111,326 clinically diagnosed/'proxy' AD cases and 677,663 controls. We found 75 risk loci, of which 42 were new at the time of analysis. Pathway enrichment analyses confirmed the involvement of amyloid/tau pathways and highlighted microglia implication. Gene prioritization in the new loci identified 31 genes that were suggestive of new genetically associated processes, including the tumor necrosis factor alpha pathway through the linear ubiquitin chain assembly complex. We also built a new genetic risk score associated with the risk of future AD/dementia or progression from mild cognitive impairment to AD/dementia. The improvement in prediction led to a 1.6- to 1.9-fold increase in AD risk from the lowest to the highest decile, in addition to effects of age and the APOE ε4 allele

Search for a pseudoscalar boson decaying into a Z boson and the 125 GeV Higgs boson in ℓ+ℓ-bb final states

Results are reported on a search for decays of a pseudoscalar A boson into a Z boson and a light scalar h boson, where the Z boson decays into a pair of oppositely-charged electrons or muons, and the h boson decays into bb- The search is based on data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy s=8 TeV collected with the CMS detector, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb-1. The h boson is assumed to be the standard model-like Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV. With no evidence for signal, upper limits are obtained on the product of the production cross section and the branching fraction of the A boson in the Zh channel. Results are also interpreted in the context of two Higgs doublet models. © 2015