Land Suitability Characterization for Crop and Fruit Production in Midlands of Tigray, Ethiopia

The aim of this evaluation was to find out which parcels of land may best support the different crops and fruits commonly grown by the local farmer and recommend these results to the local stakeholder for an increased yield. The focus was on food crops and fruits those can be used to  alleviate poverty and improve nutrition in farm households, with the highest priority assigned to crops and fruits already well established in the area. Remote sensing (ILWIS3.3) and GIS (ArcView3.2) softwares were used to establish the land unit maps of the area. The land suitability  assessment for annual crops and fruit trees was carried out with the use of the parametric methodology. Results showed that the cultivated land under question is marginally suitable (S3) for Zea mays L.; 91.5% of the land is S3 for Cicer arietinium, Psidium guajava and Mangifera indica; 68.9% is S3 for Persea americana and Hordeum vulgare L.; 77.4% is S3 for Carica papaya L. and Sorghum bicolor L. Moench. The use of land according to its suitability class or mitigating the limiting factors is, therefore, paramount for increased production. Keywords: Suitability, Crops, Fruits, Midlands, Cultivated land, Tigray

Factors Determining the Success of Small and Medium Enterprises in Tigray region: the Case of selected town Hintalo Wejerat Wereda

Micro and small enterprises and development opportunity have very direct relationships. They require less capital and more labor. SMEs have the capacity to generate a much higher degree of employment opportunity with less capital as compared to large-scale enterprise. The overall objective of the study is to analyze the factors that determine the success of small and medium scale enterprises at Hintalo Wejerat some selected town

Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Older siblings&#39; influence on sexual behavior of high school adolescents in Mekelle, northern Ethiopia

Mebrahtom Haftu, Haftu Berhe, Kinfe Tesfay, Martha GebremeskelCollege of Health Science, Mekelle University, Mekelle, EthiopiaBackground: Older siblings are one of the key sources of beliefs about sexual activity, including safe sexual practices, and can even exert pressure to engage in sexual activities. This effect persists beyond parental supervision and peer pressure. Despite this, although a considerable body of research has examined parental and peer influence, comparable data on older sibling influence on younger adolescent sexual behaviors are scant, and this area needs in-depth analysis.Objective: The objective of this study was to assess older siblings&rsquo; influence on sexual behavior of high school adolescents in Mekelle, northern Ethiopia in 2017&ndash;2018.Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used, and a total of 285 adolescents who had ever had sex were sampled randomly from selected schools. Data were entered into Epi-info version 07 and exported to and analyzed with SPSS version 22. Means &plusmn; SD, frequency, percentage, and cross-tabulation were used to describe the result. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was fitted to compute older sibling influence.Results: Perceiving older sibling sexual behavior as risky increased adolescents&rsquo; likelihood of engaging in risky sexual behavior. (AOR 4.52, 95% CI 2.59&ndash;7.89) whereas high intimacy with an older sibling (AOR 0.32, 95% CI 0.17&ndash;0.59) decreased the odds of risky sexual behavior (AOR 0.59, 95% CI 0.30&ndash;0.92).Conclusion: Older siblings had an influence on the sexual behavior of youngr adolescents. Perceiving older sibling sexual behavior as healthy and high sibling intimacy may serve as protective factors; however, risky sexual behavior of an older sibling can increase high school adolescents&rsquo; likelihood for same. As such, families should realize that elders can affect their younger siblings&rsquo; behavior, included the former in family strategies, and give them responsibility to protect their younger siblings.Keywords: older siblings, influence, adolescent, sexual behaviors, Ethiopi

Energy-efficient hybrid routing protocol for IoT communication systems in 5G and beyond

One of the major concerns in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is most of the sensor nodes are powered through limited lifetime of energy-constrained batteries, which majorly affects the performance, quality, and lifetime of the network. Therefore, diverse clustering methods are proposed to improve energy efficiency of the WSNs. In the meantime, fifth-generation (5G) communications require that several Internet of Things (IoT) applications need to adopt the use of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems to provide an improved capacity over multi-path channel environment. In this paper, we study a clustering technique for MIMO-based IoT communication systems to achieve energy efficiency. In particular, a novel MIMO-based energy-efficient unequal hybrid clustering (MIMO-HC) protocol is proposed for applications on the IoT in the 5G environment and beyond. Experimental analysis is conducted to assess the effectiveness of the suggested MIMO-HC protocol and compared with existing state-of-the-art research. The proposed MIMO-HC scheme achieves less energy consumption and better network lifetime compared to existing techniques. Specifically, the proposed MIMO-HC improves the network lifetime by approximately 3× as long as the first node and the final node dies as compared with the existing protocol. Moreover, the energy that cluster heads consume on the proposed MIMO-HC is 40% less than that expended in the existing protocol

Proportion of Attrition and Associated Factors Among Children Receiving Antiretroviral Therapy in Public Health Facilities, Southern Ethiopia

Tamirat Gezahegn Guyo,1,&ast; Temesgen Mohammed Toma,1,&ast; Desta Haftu,2 Mesfin Kote,2 Fasika Merid,1 Kebede Kulayta,3 Markos Makisha,4 Kidus Temesgen2 1Department of Public Health, Arba Minch College of Health Sciences, Arba Minch, Ethiopia; 2School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia; 3Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Arba Minch College of Health Sciences, Arba Minch, Ethiopia; 4Department of Midwifery, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University, Arba Minch, Ethiopia&ast;These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Tamirat Gezahegn Guyo, Department of Public Health, Arba Minch College of Health Sciences, P.O. Box 155, Arba Minch, Ethiopia, Tel +251 932573808, Fax +251 468811147, Email [email protected]: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a major global public health concern. Despite the improved access and utilization of antiretroviral therapy (ART), attrition from care among children continues to be a major obstacle to the effectiveness of ART programs. Hence, this study aimed to assess the proportion of attrition and associated factors among children receiving ART in public health facilities of Gamo and South Omo Zones, Southern Ethiopia.Patients and Methods: A retrospective follow-up study was conducted in public health facilities of Gamo and South Omo Zones in Southern Ethiopia from April 12, 2022, to May 10, 2022. The proportion of attrition was determined by dividing the number of attrition by the total number of participants. Descriptive statistics were calculated. A binary logistic regression model was used to identify factors associated with attrition. Statistical significance was set at p-value < 0.05.Results: The median age of the participants was 5.5 (IQR: 2– 9) years. The proportion of attrition from ART care was 32.4% (95% confidence interval (CI): 27.57% to 37.69%). Death of either of the parents (adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.19; 95% CI:1.14, 4.18), or both parents (AOR = 3.19; 95% CI: 1.20, 8.52), hemoglobin level < 10mg/dL (AOR = 2.39, 95% CI: 1.21, 4.70), a cluster of differentiation (CD)4 count ≤ 200 cells/mm3 (AOR = 6.78, 95% CI: 3.16, 14.53), CD4 count 200– 350 cells/mm3 (AOR = 2.65, 95% CI: 1.16, 6.03), suboptimal adherence (AOR = 6.38; 95% CI: 3.36, 12.19), and unchanged initial regimen (AOR = 6.88; 95% CI: 3.58, 13.19) were factors associated with attrition.Conclusion: Attrition from care is identified to be a substantial public health problem. Therefore, designing interventions to improve the timely tracing of missed follow-up schedules and adherence support is needed, especially for children with either/both parents died, unchanged initial regimen, low CD4, and/or low hemoglobin level.Keywords: proportion, antiretroviral therapy, attrition, children, Ethiopi