Behavioral, Demographic, and Clinical Determinants of HIV Serostatus in Zambian Women

The rate of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection shows a diminishing trend at the global level while it shows increasing in intensity of mortality, morbidity, and burden in Sub-Saharan Africa. The intertwined behavioral, demographic, and clinical determinants fueled the incidence of infections in Zambian women. The purpose of this study was to determine the association between demographic, behavioral, and clinical determinants with HIV serostatus in Zambian women. With the conceptual framework of the World Health Organization’s Commission for Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) and quantitative method of MANOVA, this study examined Zambian Demographic Health Survey data for Zambian women of two age groups (adolescent and adult). The findings showed statistically significant results in the association between HIV serostatus and self-perceived HIV risk for both groups and in the association between education and HIV serostatus among women in both groups (adolescents and adults). However, there was no statistically significant association between behavioral, demographic, and clinical determinants of HIV serostatus. These findings imply the need to conduct prospective studies to curb this deadly virus and improve community health for women in Africa

Determination of Selected Heavy Metals Content and Health Risk Assessment of Cabbage Cultivated in Elalla Farmland, Mekelle, Ethiopia

Like other countries in Ethiopia vegetables are vital edible plants which are a crucial part of the human food. One from these vegetables cabbage is a leafy green biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable for its dense leaved heads. The heavy metal content of cabbage may vary on the composition of the water and nature of soil. The study was aimed to determine concentration of selected heavy metals like Cadmium (Cd), Chromium (Cr), Cupper (Cu), Lead (Pb), Iron (Fe) and Zinc (Zn) were measured in edible portion of cabbage and soils around four sites of cabbage production area in Elalla farmland Mekelle, Tigray, Ethiopia, and the potential health risk of heavy metal contamination to the local population via vegetable consumption, Transfer factor and daily intake of metal was also evaluated. The level of heavy metals in soil and Cabbage vegetable were determined by flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer (FAAS) that uses acetylene as fuel with air. The concentration of Cd (17.15 ± 1.26 to 17.52 ± 0.24) mg/Kg and Zn (325.10 ± 6.00 to 512.86 ± 3.13) mg/Kg in the soil sample exceeds from the limit the guideline of agricultural soil and the mean concentrations of Fe, Cu, Pb and Cr is below the guideline of agricultural soil. The mean concentration of Pb(3.060 ± 0.18 to 5.982 ± 0.11), Zn(144.662 ± 3.16 to 173.660 ± 2.18), Cr(11.825 ± 0.18 to 13.482 ± 0.37) and Cd(0.309 ± 0.01 - 0.712 ± 0.06) in all study sites of cabbage samples were exceeded the permissible limits set by FAO but Pb and Fe are below the permissible limit. The TF calculated were also investigated lower for all metals and for the value of HRI is below 1, according to the present study the result indicates that exposed population is assumed to be safe. As the results show that HRI of contamination in cabbage has less health risk to the consumers. Keywords: - Cabbage, Heavy metals, Health Risk, Health Risk Assessment, Daily Intake Metal DOI: 10.7176/CMR/11-6-03 Publication date: August 31st 201

Low dose BCG vaccination in mice : immune responses and implications for tuberculosis control

The outcome of an infection is often determined by the qualitative nature of the immune response generated against the infectious agent. Various intracellular pathogens, including those that cause leprosy, tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, and most probably malaria and AIDS appear to require a predominant cell-mediated, Th1, response for effective containment, whereas the generation of a mixed Th1/Th2 or predominantly Th2 response is associated with progressive disease. Therefore, any attempt to develop universally efficacious vaccination against these pathogens must generate an immunological imprint that ensures a strong and stable cell-mediated response upon natural infection with the relevant pathogen. We report here critical tests of a strategy designed to achieve such an imprint using Bacille-Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccine. BCG vaccine is an attenuated form of M. bovis, the causative agent of tuberculosis in cattle, and is the most widely used vaccine in humans. However, considerable uncertainty still surrounds its efficacy against tuberculosis both in man and animals. As the protective dose is not known, BCG has been given at the maximum tolerable dose. However, recent studies in mice and other animals have shown that the dose of an antigen can be a critical factor in determining the type of immune response generated. I tested the general hypothesis that low dose vaccination would preferentially induce cell-mediated immune response and generate a Th1 imprint that can protect the host against intracellular pathogens in the particular case of mycobacteria. To this end, both adult and newborn mice were vaccinated with different doses of BCG or saline and cell-mediated and humoral immune responses were assessed at different times post-vaccination. Several weeks after vaccination, mice from each group were challenged with a dose of BCG that induces a mixed Th1/Th2 response in naïve mice, and the T-cell and antibody responses were assessed using ELISPOT and ELISA assays, respectively. The splenic bacterial burden was also determined using colony formation on agar plates. Our results show that the class of immunity induced by BCG depends on the dose employed for vaccination, independent of the route of administration and the age and strain of mice used. In all cases, lower doses induce an exclusive cell-mediated, Th1, response with no antibody production, while higher doses induce either a mixed Th1/Th2 response or a predominantly Th2, humoral response, with higher titers of both IgG1 and IgG2a antibodies. Following intravenous high dose BCG challenge, all mice in the vaccinated groups developed a Th1 response associated with a more efficient clearance of BCG from the spleen. The greatest clearance of mycobacteria was generated following vaccination with lower doses, as low as 33 cfu of BCG. In addition, our findings demonstrate that newborn mice are not inherently biased towards generating Th2 responses, but they can generate Th1 responses and Th1 imprints if appropriate vaccination protocols (dose, route and time) are employed. Furthermore, subcutaneous exposure of young mice to environmental mycobacteria can induce a mixed Th1/Th2 response that can abrogate the potential to generate Th1 responses and Th1 imprints upon vaccination with low doses of BCG vaccine. Low dose neonatal BCG vaccination can circumvent the interference caused by “impingement” of environmental mycobacteria on the immune system. Therefore, our observations strongly support a neonatal low dose BCG vaccination strategy to provide universally efficacious protection against infections by pathogenic mycobacteria

Export Barriers and Competitiveness of Small and Medium-sized Enterprise in Developing Countries: Case study in Ethiopian Leather Footwear Manufacturing Firms

Export is one of the most important business activities that play a significant role for economic development of nations. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the export barriers and export competitiveness of the Ethiopian Leather Footwear manufacturing firms in particular and the industry in general. Purposively, 100 respondents were selected from 15 exporting firms in the leather industry. In addition, interview was held with some top managers and owners to collect more detail information. The survey data is analyzed using factor analysis and MDS techniques. Using factor analysis, 10 conceptually linked components were empirically identified. Both factor loadings and factor score coefficient results were used to interpretation the factor analysis result. With different perceived intensity, all the export barriers such as government policy, human resource, financial, product quality, marketing knowledge and information, competition barriers are important in impeding the export competitiveness of the industry. Going by the MDS, due to different perceived intensity of the barriers, four clusters of firms were constructed. Hence, based on the topmost barriers, the management of each exporting firms need to give focus to boost the competitiveness level. This implies that policy makers of the exporting firms, the industry and the government in general need to apply differentiated approaches

Socio-Economic Analysis of Market Oriented Beekeeping in Atsbi Wemberta District of Eastern Zone, Tigray Region

This study was initiated to assess the process of beekeeping development and diffusion of improved beekeeping management and evaluate the impact of improved beekeeping on household income, per capita income, changes in capacity development and social issues such as educational expenditure, health improvement, and human capita. The study was based on a representative sample of 200 farm households (99 modern beekeepers and 101 traditional beekeepers) selected using random sampling. To analyze the process of beekeeping development and diffusion of improved beekeeping management and to evaluate the impact of improved beekeeping on household descriptive statistics and matching estimation methods were used respectively. Estimated result of the Heckman regression model indicates there is no selection bias. The descriptive analysis explain due to a number of beekeeping development interventions (i.e. supply of beekeeping materials, training) most modern beekeepers had progressive improvement on the utilization methods and honey handling techniques (i.e. skill improvement) together with their accessories, have been distributed to farmers. The propensity score matching result also indicates that the mean income of modern beekeepers is significantly higher than that of traditional beekeepers. The estimated results for the matching methods showed that the average income gain due to improved beekeeping ranges from 2679 to 2888 Birr per household per annum. The overall average total educational expenditures gain due to improved beekeeping ranged between 79.75 and 90.74 Birr and was significant at 1% level based on the kernel, nearest neighbor, stratified and radius, matching methods. The overall average human capital gain due to improved beekeeping ranged between 82.35 and 98.45 Birr and was significant at 5% level based on the kernel, stratified, radius and nearest neighbor, matching methods. Average per capita income gain due to improved beekeeping ranged between 428.4 and 493.5 Birr and was significant at 1% level based on the stratified, radius, kernel and nearest neighbor matching methods. The results certainly imply that the modern beekeepers had better living status than the traditional beekeepers in the woreda. It is suggested to focus on modern beekeeping development technologies and provision of relevant training as well as technical assistances need to up grade for the improvements in beekeeping production

Land reclamation using reservoir sediments in Tigray, northern Ethiopia

Accelerated soil erosion leads to sedimentation in reservoirs and a decline in their life span. As many reservoirs in northern Ethiopia are dry at the end of the dry season, we were able to evaluate the potential of using reservoir sediments for land reclamation. Stripped land from which construction material for the reservoirs had been excavated was covered with 0, 15 and 30 cm of sediment and planted with a local garlic cultivar (Allium sativum). The applied reservoir sediments had low to medium organic C and total N contents and were high in available P and exchangeable cations. The yield of garlic increased with additional available water and the application of sediments. The results show that total biomass and bulb yield were three times higher on the reclaimed plots than on the control ones (11.7 t/ha vs. 3.6 t/ha for the biomass; 7.7 t/ha vs. 2.0 t/ha for the yield). When sediment transport and labour costs were taken into account, plots with 15 cm of sediments had in the first cropping season a cost-benefit ratio of 3, whilst those with 30 cm had a cost-benefit ratio of 0.9. This study demonstrates that the use of relatively small quantities of reservoir sediments is an economically viable strategy for land reclamation. The result can be improvement in income for resource-poor farmers by as much as 76%, and the life expectancy of the reservoirs is also increased

Anisotropic Particles Strengthen Granular Pillars under Compression

We probe the effects of particle shape on the global and local behavior of a two-dimensional granular pillar, acting as a proxy for a disordered solid, under uniaxial compression. This geometry allows for direct measurement of global material response, as well as tracking of all individual particle trajectories. In general, drawing connections between local structure and local dynamics can be challenging in amorphous materials due to lower precision of atomic positions, so this study aims to elucidate such connections. We vary local interactions by using three different particle shapes: discrete circular grains (monomers), pairs of grains bonded together (dimers), and groups of three bonded in a triangle (trimers). We find that dimers substantially strengthen the pillar and the degree of this effect is determined by orientational order in the initial condition. In addition, while the three particle shapes form void regions at distinct rates, we find that anisotropies in the local amorphous structure remain robust through the definition of a metric that quantifies packing anisotropy. Finally, we highlight connections between local deformation rates and local structure.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figure