Role of women in value-chain systems of vegetables and spices in Atsbi Wemberta Woreda, Eastern Zone of Tigray

In Atsbi-Wemberta woreda, intensive interventions have been introduced and successfully applied in the value chains of vegetables and spices benefiting over 10,000 households who produce vegetables and spices on about 1,400 ha in 2007. In these interventions, women's participation, role and benefits shared in the value chains have not been reported. Thus the study was conducted to assess the role and benefits of women, associated constraints and suggest possible intervention in the value chains of vegetables and spices. Accordingly data was collected from individual interviews (108 interviewees) using semistructured questionnaires from five tabias drawn from beneficiary and non-beneficiary FHHs and MHHs. In each tabia, women and men farmers separate group discussions were conducted to generate further information. Each group consists of 8 farmers equally drawn from beneficiary and non-beneficiary households. The collected information was re-enforced through further group discussions with tabia administrators and DAs. The information collected from five tabias was cross checked at woreda level group discussion consists of experts from Offices of Agriculture and Rural development, Women's Affairs and Women's Association. Market related group discussions were also held with women vegetables and spices retailers in Atsbi, Haike Meshal and Habes market places separately. The result indicated that there was no significant difference in land ownership and quality between beneficiary FHHs and MHHs. On the other hand, MHHs had better access to sharecrop/rented in land (43%) than FHHs (8%). With regard to level of participation, about 29 % of the beneficiary households were FHHs covering about 24% of the land covered by vegetables and spices in 2007. Moreover, about 80% of the vegetables and spices retailers were women and 100% of wholesalers were men. Women involved in all activities along the value chain of vegetables and spices except in plowing. Aggregately, FHHs' role was (50-90%) whereas the role of women in MHHs (10-70%). There was a significant increase in women workload (FHHs and women in MHHs) due to their participation in the value chains. FHHs commands about 90% of the decision which was much higher than that of women in MHHs (25%) on what, when and how to produce vegetables and spices. Besides, the decision making power of FHHs on the income incurred from vegetables and spices was significantly higher (95%) than women in MHHs (20%). Moreover, the overall decision making power of women in the beneficiary households was significantly higher than the women in non-beneficiary households. There was no difference in the type of information dissemination mechanisms, extension service provision, credit access and input supply between beneficiary FHHs and MHHs but differences did exist in the frequency of DAs contact and training. Beneficiary MHHs incurred more annual income than FHHs. The proportion of households with saving culture between FHHs and MHHs was almost similar except in the amount of money saved. In terms of wealth status, beneficiary households were much wealthier than non-beneficiary households. The majority of the beneficiary FHHs were grouped as medium (65%) and very few as rich (7%). Similarly, the majority of the beneficiaries MHHs were grouped as medium (64%) and about 26% were rich. This indicates that FHHs are beneficiaries in the value-chain of vegetables and spices but the income benefited was below that of the MHHs. The reason for the disparity in income is due to the low level of investment in input and efficiency and in productivity and marketing of FHHs on vegetables and spices compared to that of MHHs. This requires further empowerment in capacity and uptake of knowledge to improve the productivity and marketing of vegetables and spices. Women in MHHs showed low level of decision making power than FHHs and thus facilitating their involvement in spices, seedling and retailing of vegetables and spices could make them competent enough economically

Evaluation of the effect of sorghum-legume intercropping and its residual effect on yield of sorghum in yeki woreda, sheka zone, Ethiopia

The imbalance between the crop production and population growth is currently the major issue in southern Ethiopia. To feed the growing population, increasing the production of food through growing more crop types in the same field as an intercropping is the right strategy. The current study was aimed at evaluating the effect of sorghum-legume intercropping and its residual effect on yield of sorghum. The land equivalent ratio was calculated for sorghum intercropped with pigeon pea and cowpea. Intercropping sorghum with pigeon pea and cowpea increases the land productivity as its Land Equivalent Ratio is greater than 1. In both cases, the land equivalent ratio is greater than 1 indicating the benefits of intercropping. The residual effect of sorghum intercrop with legumes was evaluated on the yield of sorghum. Although there was no statistically significance differences on yield and yield component of sorghum, sorghum planted on the plot of pigeon pea and cowpea sole has 44.6% and 27.8% yield advantage relative to sorghum alone respectively. Planting sorghum under sorghum-cowpea intercropped condition increase the yield of sorghum by 41.8%. The result also shows 74.0% sorghum yield change was observed when planted after intercropped condition of sorghum with pigeon pea. The productivity of sorghum also increases when planted on the plot of sole legume. The current finding in general shows that legume crops contributed to the yield of sorghum either intercropped with legume or grown up using residual contribution of legumes after a year. Therefore, for maximum sorghum production farmers in the area should plant either as intercrop or after residual effect of legumes. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 9(2): 62-66, December 201

Flood Mapping of Recent Major Hurricane Events with Synthetic Aperture Radar, Commercial Imaging, and Aerial Observations

Floodwater mapping is an important remote sensing process that is used for disaster response, recovery, and damage assessment practices. Developing a system to read in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data and perform land cover classification will allow for the production of near real-time inundation mapping, enabling government and emergency response entities to get a preliminary idea of the situation. SAR is a unique remote sensing tool. Data in this project was obtained by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratorys Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle SAR (UAVSAR), an L-band radar mounted to a Gulfstream III jet. Data collected by UAVSAR is similar to what will be available from the NASA-Indian Space Research Organization (NISAR) mission starting in early 2022. Using Python and ArcGIS applications, a model was developed using training samples taken from NOAA post-event aerial photography and UAVSAR data gathered in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in September 2018

Integration of pediatric mental health in general pediatrics in eritrea: improving access and collaboration

Background: Recognition of mental health problems among children continues to be a diagnostic challenge especially in resource poor countries where integration of such services within the primary health care framework has not been fully successfully. Objective: To document the prevailing mental services among children in Eritrea Methods: prospective descriptive study on policies, practices and interventions targeted at improvement of mental health services among children in Eritrea. Results: The Pediatric Residency Programme established at Orotta School Postgraduate School of Medicine developed a curriculum which was sensitive to recognition and management of mental disorders among children. Of a total of 42 children with mental health disorders, one third had anxiety disorders, 30% had pervasive developmental disorders one quarter psychosomatic disorders and 10% had behaviour disorders predominantly attention deficit disorder. Two illustrative cases have been presented to highlight the challenges and the requisite solutions. Conclusion: The establishment of the Pediatric residency with a dedicated curriculum to address mental health services has contributed to the awareness and integration of such services with primary health care in Eritrea

Conformational and Structural Relaxations of Poly(ethylene oxide) and Poly(propylene oxide) Melts: Molecular Dynamics Study of Spatial Heterogeneity, Cooperativity, and Correlated Forward-Backward Motion

Performing molecular dynamics simulations for all-atom models, we characterize the conformational and structural relaxations of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(propylene oxide) melts. The temperature dependence of these relaxation processes deviates from an Arrhenius law for both polymers. We demonstrate that mode-coupling theory captures some aspects of the glassy slowdown, but it does not enable a complete explanation of the dynamical behavior. When the temperature is decreased, spatially heterogeneous and cooperative translational dynamics are found to become more important for the structural relaxation. Moreover, the transitions between the conformational states cease to obey Poisson statistics. In particular, we show that, at sufficiently low temperatures, correlated forward-backward motion is an important aspect of the conformational relaxation, leading to strongly nonexponential distributions for the waiting times of the dihedrals in the various conformational statesComment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Trends and determinants of underweight and overweight/obesity among urban Ethiopian women from 2000 to 2016

Background: Nutritional, epidemiological and demographic transitions have been associated with the emergence of the double burden of malnutrition globally. In Ethiopia, there has been no nationally representative investigation of trends and determinants of both underweight and overweight/obesity among urban women. This study examined the trends and determinants of underweight and overweight/obesity in urban Ethiopian women from 2000 to 2016. Methods: Trends in the prevalence of underweight and overweight/obesity were investigated based on a series of the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) data for the years 2000 (n = 2559), 2005 (n = 1112), 2011 (n = 3569), and 2016 (n = 3106). Multivariable multinomial logistic regression was used to investigate the association between socioeconomic, demographic, behavioural, and community-level factors with underweight and overweight/obesity. Results: The prevalence of underweight in urban Ethiopian women reduced significantly from 23.2% (95% confidence interval [CI]: 20.3, 26.3%) in 2000 to 14.8% (95% CI: 13.1, 16.7%) in 2016, while overweight/obesity increased significantly from 10.9% (95% CI: 9.1, 13.0%) in 2000 to 21.4% (95% CI: 18.2, 25.1%) in 2016. Urban women from rich households and those who had never married were less likely to be underweight. Urban women who were from wealthy households and those who attained at least secondary education were more likely to be overweight/obese. Women who were informally employed and listened to the radio were less likely to be overweight/obese compared to those who were unemployed and did not listen to the radio, respectively. Conclusion: The prevalence of overweight/obesity increased from 2000 to 2016, with a concurrent reduction in the prevalence of underweight. Interventions aiming to reduce overweight and obesity should target urban women with higher education, those who resided in wealthier households and those who watched the television

Growing Correlation Length on Cooling Below the Onset of Caging in a Simulated Glass-Forming Liquid

We present a calculation of a fourth-order, time-dependent density correlation function that measures higher-order spatiotemporall correlations of the density of a liquid. From molecular dynamics simulations of a glass-forming Lennard-Jones liquid, we find that the characteristic length scale of this function has a maximum as a function of time which increases steadily beyond the characteristic length of the static pair correlation function $g(r)$ in the temperature range approaching the mode coupling temperature from above

Corresponding States of Structural Glass Formers

The variation with respect to temperature T of transport properties of 58 fragile structural glass forming liquids (68 data sets in total) are analyzed and shown to exhibit a remarkable degree of universality. In particular, super-Arrhenius behaviors of all super-cooled liquids appear to collapse to one parabola for which there is no singular behavior at any finite temperature. This behavior is bounded by an onset temperature To above which liquid transport has a much weaker temperature dependence. A similar collapse is also demonstrated, over the smaller available range, for existing numerical simulation data.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Updated References, Table Values, Submitted for Publicatio