Assessment of a Smallscale Irrigation Scheme on Household Food Security and Leisure in Kokoligu; Ghana

The main objective of this study was to assess the impact of a small scale irrigation scheme on household food security and leisure time of the people in Kokoligu - a subsistence-based farming community in the Nandom District of Ghana. A total of fifty household heads adequately represented Kokoligu as homogenous community via simple random sampling technique.  In-depth interview (IDI) schedules and observation guides were used to source information on food security situations before and after introducing the irrigation scheme and the effects of the scheme on residents’ leisure during the off farming season. The study revealed that the irrigation scheme enhanced household food security and wellbeing during the off farming (dry) season but significantly reduced leisure; communal intimacy in addition to degrading the cultural heritage in the study area. Majority of the farmers (83%) irrigated vegetables, for household consumption and sale to complement the significant proportion of staple food crops (maize, millet and rice) cultivated during farming season to salvage their nutritional needs. With regard to the fading cultural heritage and communal intimacy, the paper recommended that cultural reawakening should be pursued through both formal education in schools and informal education by initiatives of the community elders and the traditional council. Key words: food security, leisure, small scale irrigation, seasons, Ghan

Sensory Prioritization in Rats: Behavioral Performance and Neuronal Correlates

Operating with some finite quantity of processing resources, an animal would benefit from prioritizing the sensory modality expected to provide key information in a particular context. The present study investigated whether rats dedicate attentional resources to the sensory modality in which a near-threshold event is more likely to occur. We manipulated attention by controlling the likelihood with which a stimulus was presented from one of two modalities. In a whisker session, 80% of trials contained a brief vibration stimulus applied to whiskers and the remaining 20% of trials contained a brief change of luminance. These likelihoods were reversed in a visual session. When a stimulus was presented in the high-likelihood context, detection performance increased and was faster compared with the same stimulus presented in the low-likelihood context. Sensory prioritization was also reflected in neuronal activity in the vibrissal area of primary somatosensory cortex: single units responded differentially to the whisker vibration stimulus when presented with higher probability compared with lower probability. Neuronal activity in the vibrissal cortex displayed signatures of multiplicative gain control and enhanced response to vibration stimuli during the whisker session. In conclusion, rats allocate priority to the more likely stimulus modality and the primary sensory cortex may participate in the redistribution of resources

Malignant Progression in Two Children with Multiple Osteochondromas

Multiple Osteochondromas (MO) is a disease of benign bony growths with a low incidence of malignant transformation. Secondary chondrosarcoma in children is rare even in children with MO. Making a diagnosis of malignancy in low-grade cartilage tumors is challenging and requires consideration of clinical, radiographic, and histopathological factors. We report two cases of skeletally immature patients with MO who presented with rapidly enlarging and radiographically aggressive lesions consistent with malignant transformation. Both underwent allograft reconstruction of the involved site with no signs of recurrence or metastatic disease at a minimum of four-year follow-up

The motivations of high school male athletes

The purpose of this study was to determine the reasons for atheletic participation by high school male athletes. A pilot inquiry using high school students was undertaken to first identify some of the motivational incluences for sport involvement

Assessment of rectal toxicities after radiation therapy for localized prostate cancer: experience of the Akanda Cancer Institute in Gabon

Background: The purpose was to evaluate the incidence of acute and late rectal toxicities and their correlation with the clinical and dosimetric parameters of patients who underwent curative radiotherapy for localized prostate cancer at the Akanda Cancer Institute, Gabon. Materials and methods: Between 2013 and 2021, a cohort of 46 patients with clinically localized stage cT1c–T4 prostate cancer was treated with three-dimensional conformal radiation therapy (3D-CRT) at the national cancer institute with doses ranging from 66 to 80 Gy. Post-radiation gastrointestinal (GI) toxicities were classified and graded according to the Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events (CTCAE) v4.0. Results: In our study, 17.4% (8/46) developed acute GI. Grades 1 and 3 acute GI complications were seen in 13.0% (6/46) and 4.3% (2/46), respectively. No patient developed acute grade 2 or grade higher than 3 complications. Late GI side effects were limited. The median time to the development of late GI Grade ≥ 1 toxicities was 12 months (range: 9-19 months). 10.9% (5/46) had experience late GI. Among them, grade 1 and 2 were seen in 6.5% (3/46), and 4.3% (2/46), respectively. There was no grade 3 or higher complications. Statistically, we did not find any correlation between the presence of rectal toxicity and clinical factors or the presence of comorbidity. On the dosimetric level, the Mann-Whitney statistical test found a correlation between the presence of late GI toxicity and rectal volume irradiated at the prescribed dose (p = 0.02). Conclusion: Despite the high radiation doses involved, our results showed an acceptable complication rate.

In search of the authentic nation: landscape and national identity in Canada and Switzerland

While the study of nationalism and national identity has flourished in the last decade, little attention has been devoted to the conditions under which natural environments acquire significance in definitions of nationhood. This article examines the identity-forming role of landscape depictions in two polyethnic nation-states: Canada and Switzerland. Two types of geographical national identity are identified. The first – what we call the ‘nationalisation of nature’– portrays zarticular landscapes as expressions of national authenticity. The second pattern – what we refer to as the ‘naturalisation of the nation’– rests upon a notion of geographical determinism that depicts specific landscapes as forces capable of determining national identity. The authors offer two reasons why the second pattern came to prevail in the cases under consideration: (1) the affinity between wild landscape and the Romantic ideal of pure, rugged nature, and (2) a divergence between the nationalist ideal of ethnic homogeneity and the polyethnic composition of the two societies under consideration

The influence of wildlife water developments and vegetation on rodent abundance in the Great Basin Desert

Rodent communities have multiple functions including comprising a majority of the mammalian diversity within an ecosystem, providing a significant portion of the available biomass consumed by predators, and contributing to ecosystem services. Despite the importance of rodent communities, few investigations have explored the effects of increasing anthropogenic modifications to the landscape on rodents. Throughout the western United States, the construction of artificial water developments to benefit game species is commonplace. While benefits for certain species have been documented, several researchers recently hypothesized that these developments may cause unintentional negative effects to desert-adapted species and communities. To test this idea, we sampled rodents near to and distant from wildlife water developments over 4 consecutive summers. We employed an asymmetrical before-after-control-impact (BACI) design with sampling over 4 summers to determine if water developments influenced total rodent abundance. We performed an additional exploratory analysis to determine if factors other than free water influenced rodent abundance. We found no evidence that water developments impacted rodent abundance. Rodent abundance was primarily driven by vegetation type and year of sampling. Our findings suggested that water developments on our study area do not represent a significant disturbance to rodent abundance and that rodent abundance was influenced by the vegetative community and temporal factors linked to precipitation and primary plant production. Our findings represent one of the 1st efforts to determine the effects of an anthropogenic activity on the rodent community utilizing a manipulation design

Vadose Zone Transport Field Study: Summary Report

From FY 2000 through FY 2003, a series of vadose zone transport field experiments were conducted as part of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Groundwater/Vadose Zone Integration Project Science and Technology Project, now known as the Remediation and Closure Science Project, and managed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The series of experiments included two major field campaigns, one at a 299-E24-11 injection test site near PUREX and a second at a clastic dike site off Army Loop Road. The goals of these experiments were to improve our understanding of vadose zone transport processes; to develop data sets to validate and calibrate vadose zone flow and transport models; and to identify advanced monitoring techniques useful for evaluating flow-and-transport mechanisms and delineating contaminant plumes in the vadose zone at the Hanford Site. This report summarizes the key findings from the field studies and demonstrates how data collected from these studies are being used to improve conceptual models and develop numerical models of flow and transport in Hanford’s vadose zone. Results of these tests have led to a better understanding of the vadose zone. Fine-scale geologic heterogeneities, including grain fabric and lamination, were observed to have a strong effect on the large-scale behavior of contaminant plumes, primarily through increased lateral spreading resulting from anisotropy. Conceptual models have been updated to include lateral spreading and numerical models of unsaturated flow and transport have revised accordingly. A new robust model based on the concept of a connectivity tensor was developed to describe saturation-dependent anisotropy in strongly heterogeneous soils and has been incorporated into PNNL’s Subsurface Transport Over Multiple Phases (STOMP) simulator. Application to field-scale transport problems have led to a better understanding plume behavior at a number of sites where lateral spreading may have dominated waste migration (e.g. BC Cribs and Trenches). The improved models have been also coupled with inverse models and newly-developed parameter scaling techniques to allow estimation of field-scale and effective transport parameters for the vadose zone. The development and utility of pedotransfer functions for describing fine-scale hydrogeochemical heterogeneity and for incorporating this heterogeneity into reactive transport models was explored. An approach based on grain-size statistics appears feasible and has been used to describe heterogeneity in hydraulic properties and sorption properties, such as the cation exchange capacity and the specific surface area of Hanford sediments. This work has also led to the development of inverse modeling capabilities for time-dependent, subsurface, reactive transport with transient flow fields using an automated optimization algorithm. In addition, a number of geophysical techniques investigated for their potential to provide detailed information on the subtle changes in lithology and bedding surfaces; plume delineation, leak detection. High-resolution resistivity is now being used for detecting saline plumes at several waste sites at Hanford, including tank farms. Results from the field studies and associated analysis have appeared in more than 46 publications generated over the past 4 years. These publications include test plans and status reports, in addition to numerous technical notes and peer reviewed papers