Genotype by environment interaction and grain yield stability of Ethiopian black seeded finger millet genotypes

Finger millet ( Eleusine coracana \ua0(L.) Gaertn) is an important cereal widely produced in Ethiopia across diverse agro-ecologies. It is valued by local farmers for its ability to grow in adverse agro-climatic conditions, where other cereals fail. The yield potential of this crop is in the range of 4-5 tonnes/ha, but the current national average grain yield is far below the potential (2.1 tonnes). Lack of improve varieties which are stable, high yielder and stress tolerant is a major limiting factor to production of this crop in Ethiopia. A field experiment was conducted using twelve black seeded finger millet (Eleusine coracana subsp. coracana) genotypes, including local and standard checks (Degu) at two locations (Bako and Gute) in Ethiopia for three years (2014 - 2016). The objective of this study was to identify stable and high yielding genotypes for grain yield and other agronomic traits among the black seeded finger millet genotypes of Ethiopia. The additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI) model analysis of variance revealed highly significant (P<0.01) differences between environments, genotype, and Interaction Principal Component Analysis (IPCA-I), but significant variations (P<0.05) for G x E interactions. This indicates that the genotypes performed differently over environments and that the test environments are highly variable. Only the first IPCA-I showed high significance (P<0.01) and contributed 48.39% of the total genotype by environment interaction (G x E). Genotypes BKFM0020, BKFM0006 and BKFM0010, which had high grain yield, but with IPCA value close to zero, indicated the wide adaptability/stability. Similarly, analysis using Eberhart and Russell model revealed that these genotypes were within the relatively acceptable range of regression coefficients (bi), approaching to one (0.742, 0.8176 and 1.0578), and deviation from regression closer to zero (s2di) (0.0385, -0.0661 and -0.0248), respectively. This implied that pipeline genotypes were stable, widely adaptable and high yielders than the other genotypes. Genotype and genotype by environment (GGE bi-plot) analysis also revealed that these candidate genotypes were stable and high yielder. Besides, these genotypes showed resistance to blast disease, which is a threat to finger millet production in the study areas. Therefore, these genotypes were selected as potential candidates for possible release in western Oromia and similar agro-ecologies of the country.Le petit mil ( Eleusine coracana (L.) Gaertn) est une c\ue9r\ue9ale importante largement produite en \uc9thiopie dans les diff\ue9rents zones agro-\ue9cologiques. Il est appr\ue9ci\ue9 par les agriculteurs locaux pour sa capacit\ue9 de grandir dans des conditions agro-climatiques d\ue9favorables, o\uf9 les autres c\ue9r\ue9ales \ue9chouent. Le potentiel du rendement en grain de cette culture de mil se situe entre 4 \ue0 5 t ha-1, mais le rendement moyen national actuel est tr\ue8s inf\ue9rieur au potentiel (2,1 tonnes). Le manque de vari\ue9t\ue9s am\ue9lior\ue9es, stables, \ue0 rendement en grain \ue9lev\ue9 et tol\ue9rantes au stress est un t facteur majeur limitant la production de cette culture de mil en \uc9thiopie. Une exp\ue9rience au champs a \ue9t\ue9 conduite avec douze g\ue9notypes des grains noir de mil (Eleusine coracana subsp. Coracana), y compris des contr\uf4les locaux et standard (Degu) \ue0 deux locations (Bako et Gute) en \uc9thiopie pendant trois ans (2014 - 2016). L\u2019objectif de cette \ue9tude \ue9tait d\u2019identifier des g\ue9notypes stables et de rendement tr\ue8s\ua0\ue9lev\ue9 pour le rendement en grain de mil et d\u2019autres caract\ue9ristiques agronomiques parmi les genotypes des grains noir de mil en \uc9thiopie. L\u2019analyse de variance du methode avec effet principal additif et interaction multiplicative (AIM) a r\ue9v\ue9l\ue9 des diff\ue9rences tr\ue8s significatives (P <0,01) entre les locations, le g\ue9notype et l\u2019analyse en composantes principales de l\u2019interaction (IPCA-I), mais des variations significatives (P <0,05) pour G x E interactions. Cela indique que les g\ue9notypes se sont comport\ue9s diff\ue9remment selon les locations et que les locations de test sont tr\ue8s variables. Seule la premi\ue8re IPCA-I a montr\ue9 une signification \ue9lev\ue9e (P <0,01) et a contribu\ue9 pour 48,39% du total des interactions g\ue9notype par la location (G x E). G\ue9notypes BKFM0020, BKFM0006 et BKFM0010, qui avait un rendement en grain \ue9lev\ue9, mais avec une valeur IPCA proche de z\ue9ro, a indiqu\ue9 la grande adaptabilit\ue9 / stabilit\ue9. De m\ueame, une analyse utilisant les m\ue9thodes\ua0d\u2019Eberhart et Russell a r\ue9v\ue9l\ue9 que ces g\ue9notypes se situaient dans la plage relativement acceptable des coefficients de r\ue9gression (bi), se rapprochant de un (0,742, 0,8176 et 1,0578) et de l\u2019\ue9cart par rapport \ue0 la r\ue9gression proche de z\ue9ro (s2di) (0,0385, 0,0661 et -0,0248), respectivement. Cela impliquait que les g\ue9notypes de pipeline \ue9taient stables, largement adaptables et ont eu le rendement tr\ue8s\ua0\ue9lev\ue9 que les autres g\ue9notypes. Les analyses de g\ue9notype et g\ue9notype par la location (bi-parcelle GGE) ont \ue9galement r\ue9v\ue9l\ue9 que ces g\ue9notypes candidats \ue9taient stables et avaient une bonne rentabilit\ue9. En outre, ces g\ue9notypes ont montr\ue9 une r\ue9sistance \ue0 la maladie fongique qui constitue une menace pour la production de mil dans les zones d\u2018 \ue9tude. Par cons\ue9quent, ces g\ue9notypes ont \ue9t\ue9 s\ue9lectionn\ue9s comme candidats potentiels pour une lib\ue9ration \ue9ventuelle dans l\u2019ouest d\u2019Oromia et des zones agro-\ue9cologiques similaires du pays

Natural coagulates for wastewater treatment; a review for application and mechanism

The increase of water demand and wastewater generation is among the global concerns in the world. The less effective management of water sources leads to serious consequences, the direct disposal of untreated wastewater is associated with the environmental pollution, elimination of aquatic life and the spread of deadly epidemics. The flocculation process is one of the most important stages in water and wastewater treatment plants, wherein this phase the plankton, colloidal particles, and pollutants are precipitated and removed. Two major types of coagulants are used in the flocculation process included the chemical and natural coagulants. Many studies have been performed to optimize the flocculation process while most of these studies have confirmed the hazardous effects of chemical coagulants utilization on the ecosystem. This chapter reviews a summary of the coagulation/flocculation processes using natural coagulants as well as reviews one of the most effective natural methods of water and wastewater treatment

Brucellosis remains a neglected disease inthe developing world: a call forinterdisciplinary action

Brucellosis places significant burdens on the human healthcare system and limits the economic growth of individuals, communities, and nations where such development is especially important to diminish the prevalence of poverty. The implementation of public policy focused on mitigating the socioeconomic effects of brucellosis in human and animal populations is desperately needed. When developing a plan to mitigate the associated consequences, it is vital to consider both the abstract and quantifiable effects. This requires an interdisciplinary and collaborative, or One Health, approach that consists of public education, the development of an infrastructure for disease surveillance and reporting in both veterinary and medical fields, and campaigns for control in livestock and wildlife species

Brucellosis in Sub-Saharan Africa:Current challenges for management, diagnosis and control

Brucellosis is a highly contagious zoonosis caused by bacteria of the genus Brucella and affecting domestic and wild mammals. In this paper, the bacteriological and serological evidence of brucellosis in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and its epidemiological characteristics are discussed. The tools available for the diagnosis and treatment of human brucellosis and for the diagnosis and control of animal brucellosis and their applicability in the context of SSA are presented and gaps identified. These gaps concern mostly the need for simpler and more affordable antimicrobial treatments against human brucellosis, the development of a B. melitensis vaccine that could circumvent the drawbacks of the currently available Rev 1 vaccine, and the investigation of serological diagnostic tests for camel brucellosis and wildlife. Strategies for the implementation of animal vaccination are also discussed.Publishe

Genetic Characterization of Foot-and-Mouth Disease Viruses, Ethiopia, 1981–2007

Virus diversity indicates a virus reservoir in this country

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

TAENIASIS AND ITS SOCIO-ECONOMIC IMPLICATION IN AWASSA TOWN AND ITS SURROUNDINGS, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Objective: The study was conducted between October 2005 and April 2006 in Awassa town and its surroundings to investigate the status of T. saginata taeniasis, its socio-economic importance and potential risk factors. Methods: Questionnaire survey was conducted on 120 volunteer individuals selected at random. Additionally, retrospective study on taenicidal drugs inventories at 12 pharmaceutical shops was conducted. Results: T. saginata taeniasis was a wide spread problem in the town and its surroundings with overall prevalence of 64.2% (77 out of 120) and maximum infection frequencies of five times per year. The prevalence of taeniasis was significantly varied between religion, occupation, raw meat consumption and use of spices with raw meat. Accordingly, Christian communities (OR = 5.2, 95% CI=1.20- 22.50), high-risk groups (OR = 4.05, 95% CI=1.27-12.93), raw meat consumers (OR = 7.9, 95% CI=2.46 - 5.66), and spices users (OR = 11.6, 95% CI=2.85- 47.28) had higher likelihood of acquiring taeniasis than Muslim communities, low risk groups, cooked meat eaters and non-spices users, respectively. Conversely, prevalence was not varied between sex, age, marital status and educational backgrounds of the respondents. Respondents’ preferences to available taenicidal drugs had strong linear relationship with drug dose sold (R2 = 0.92), and showed that Niclosamide (46.8%) was the drug of first choice while Praziquantel (13%) was the least preferred drug. The taenicidal drug doses and treatment cost from 2002 to 2005 were estimated to be 4,913,346 adult doses and 820,343 USD (7,219,021 Eth. Birr as per rate of 2006). Conclusion: Taeniasis was a wide spread problem with higher prevalence and frequent infections in the town and its surroundings. Socio-cultural conditions and occupation were the major risk factors for the occurrence of the disease. Hence, owing to its public health and economic importance, taeniasis deserves serious attention in order to safeguard the public health

Prevalence of prelacteal feeding and its associated factors among mothers of under-24-month-old children at Arba Minch Zuria District, Ethiopia : a cross-sectional study

Background. Introduction of prelacteal feeds to newborn babies negates the recommendation of the World Health Organization that breastfeeding should be initiated within an hour after childbirth. As a result, many known health benefits of breastfeeding for infants, children and mothers are precluded. Therefore, to obviate the harmful effects of prelacteal feeding, it remains of paramount concern to identify the current status of prelacteal feeding and its contributing factors. Objective. To assess the prevalence of prelacteal feeding and associated factors among mothers of under-24-month-old children in Arba Minch Zuria District, Ethiopia. Methods. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 400 mother/caregiver-child pairs. A structured and pretested questionnaire uploaded on mobile devices pre-installed with open data kit software was used for data collection. Factors associated with prelacteal feeding practices were explored using multivariable logistic regression analysis. The Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test was used to determine whether the model adequately described the data or not. Results. A total of 400 mothers/caregivers participated in the study, of whom 67 (16.8%) practised prelacteal feeding. Mothers who had poor knowledge of breastfeeding were nearly four times more likely to practise prelacteal feeding than those who had good knowledge (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 3.95; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.82 - 8.54). Mothers who did not receive counselling on breastfeeding during antenatal care (ANC) follow-up were 4.1 times more likely to provide prelacteal feeds than those who received counselling (aOR 4.1; 95% CI 1.70 - 9.76). Furthermore, mothers who did not receive immediate postnatal care were 6.46 times more likely to give prelacteal feeding than those who received immediate postnatal care (aOR 6.46; 95% CI 2.85 - 14.63). Conclusions. One out of six neonates was given prelacteal feeds in the study area. Poor knowledge among mothers about breastfeeding, lack of counselling on optimal breastfeeding during ANC visits, and lack of immediate postnatal care mainly led to prelacteal feeding. Therefore, attention should be given to improving maternal knowledge of breastfeeding through the refining of skilled counseling during ANC and immediate postnatal care