Village level labor market development in Tanzania : Evidence from spatial econometrics

While many empirical studies show that participation in rural labor markets is an important household livelihood strategy, data on Tanzania show that the participation in the rural labor markets is still relatively low. This study examines the factors behind the development of village labor markets in Tanzania. Using spatial econometric techniques, the study shows that, despite their incipient development, rural labor markets in Tanzania are significantly interlinked across space. Furthermore, underlying factors for development of rural labor markets, such as access to roads and availability of credit, have varying impacts across space. This implies that policy interventions such as making credit available to the rural households and investment in rural transport infrastructure would also have varying effects across space. The study reveals that interventions that reduce cash constraints such as rural credit schemes are likely to have greater impacts in the western part of the country than in the eastern part. However, interventions that reduce the time used in collecting firewood are likely to have more pronounced impacts in the eastern parts than in the western parts of the country. While east-west variations of most of these interventions are significant, most of the north-south variations are not significant. This phenomenon is partly attributed to east-west alignment of key infrastructure such as transport networks

Village Level Labor Market Development in Tanzania : Evidence from Spatial Econometrics

While many empirical studies show that participation in rural labor markets is an important household livelihood strategy, data on Tanzania show that the participation in the rural labor markets is still relatively low. This study examines the factors behind the development of village labor markets in Tanzania. Using spatial econometric techniques, the study shows that, despite their incipient development, rural labor markets in Tanzania are significantly interlinked across space. Furthermore, underlying factors for development of rural labor markets, such as access to roads and availability of credit, have varying impacts across space. This implies that policy interventions such as making credit available to the rural households and investment in rural transport infrastructure would also have varying effects across space. The study reveals that interventions that reduce cash constraints such as rural credit schemes are likely to have greater impacts in the western part of the country than in the eastern part. However, interventions that reduce the time used in collecting firewood are likely to have more pronounced impacts in the eastern parts than in the western parts of the country. While east-west variations of most of these interventions are significant, most of the north-south variations are not significant. This phenomenon is partly attributed to east-west alignment of key infrastructure such as transport networks.Während viele empirische Studien zeigen, dass die Partizipation in ländlichen Arbeitsmärkten eine wichtige Strategie zur Sicherung des Lebensunterhalts von Haushalten ist, ist die entsprechende Partizipation im Falle Tansanias immer noch verhältnismäßig gering. Diese Studie untersucht die für die Entwicklung der dörflichen Arbeitsmärkte in Tansania ausschlaggebenden Faktoren. Mittels räumlich-ökonometrischer Methoden, zeigt diese Studie, dass die ländlichen Arbeitsmärkte in Tansania?trotz ihrer bisher mässigen Entwicklung?stark räumlich Beziehungen aufweisen. Desweiteren haben die der Entwicklung der ländlichen Arbeitsmärkte zugrundeliegenden Faktoren, wie etwa der Zugang zu Transportwegen oder Krediten, sehr unterschiedliche rämliche/regionale Auswirkungen. Daraus ergibt sich, dass staatliche Maßnahmen wie etwa die Bereitstellung ländlicher Kredite oder Investitionen in ländliche Transportinfrastruktur ebenfalls sehr unterschiedliche räumliche/regionale Effekte haben. Die Studie verdeutlich, dass etwa Maßnahmen, die die Liquidität von Farmern erhöhen, wie etwa die Einführung eines ländlichen Kreditsystems, einen größeren Effekt auf den westlichen Teil des Landes hätten als auf den östlichen. Andererseits würden Interventionen, die zu einer Reduzierung der Zeit, die für das Sammeln von Feuerholz verwendet wird, führen, voraussichtlich stärker dem östlichen als dem westlichen Landesteil zugute kommen. Während die Ost-West-Abweichungen der meisten Interventionen signifikante sind, besteht keine eindeutige Nord-Süd-Abweichung. Dieses Phänomen ist zum Teil der Ost-West-Ausrichtung der bestehenden Infrastruktur, wie etwa dem Transportnetz zuzuschreiben

Industrial -Based GSM Water Leakage Detection, Monitoring and Controlling System in Promoting Sustainability: A Case of Kenyan Industries

This research article was published by Transdisciplinary Journal of Engineering & Science,2024The current system for detecting and monitoring water leaks is manual and costly. Despite emerging new technological trends, many industries lack automated systems to detect, monitor, and control water leakage due to the high cost of maintenance and instal lation. This study aimed to develop an automatic, remote, and real -time detection, monitoring, and control system for water leaks. The system is made up of two nodes, one at the source and one at the destination or tap. The two nodes are made up of an ESP microcontroller, which is u sed to control all the connected components. The use of the ESP 32 microcontroller was efficient due to its ability to provide WI -FI. Aside from the solenoid valve, which was used to turn the water flow on or off in the event of leaks, the system also incl udes the FY -201 water flow sensor, which was used to gauge the amount of water flowing through the pipe. Water leakage is detected when the volume of water passing through the two sensors differs in terms of volume, indicating that a water leakage has just occurred. Thing- Board, an IoT -based platform used to monitor and visualize data from various devices connected, was used for real -time monitoring, visualization, and control. The developed system was tested with differ ent water service providers, and the results showed that the system responds positively to water leakage parameters with the capability of monitoring water leakages in real -time , and can contribute to water sustainability and management effo rts for indutries .

Stabilizing effects of group formation by Serengeti herbivores on predator-prey dynamics

Predator-prey theory often assumes that potential prey individuals are solitary and evenly distributed in space. This assumption is violated in social, mobile prey, such as many ungulates. Here we use data from 80 monthly field censuses to estimate the parameters for a power relationship between herd density and population density for eight species of large herbivores commonly found in the diet of Serengeti lions, confirming a power relationship proposed from a preliminary Serengeti dataset. Here we extend our analysis of that model to demonstrate how parameters of the power function relate to average herd size and density-dependent changes in herd size and evaluate how interspecific variation in these parameters shapes the group-dependent functional response by Serengeti lions for eight prey species. We apply the different prey-specific functional response models in a Rosenzweig-MacArthur framework to compare their impact on the stability of predator–prey dynamics. Model outcomes suggest that group formation plays a strong role in stabilizing lion–herbivore interactions in Serengeti by forcing lions to search over a larger area before each prey encounter. As a consequence of grouping by their prey, our model also suggests that Serengeti lions are forced to broaden their diets to include multiple species of prey in order to persist, potentially explaining the generalist foraging by lions routinely recorded across multiple ecosystems

Predicted Impact of Barriers to Migration on the Serengeti Wildebeest Population

The Serengeti wildebeest migration is a rare and spectacular example of a once-common biological phenomenon. A proposed road project threatens to bisect the Serengeti ecosystem and its integrity. The precautionary principle dictates that we consider the possible consequences of a road completely disrupting the migration. We used an existing spatially-explicit simulation model of wildebeest movement and population dynamics to explore how placing a barrier to migration across the proposed route (thus creating two disjoint but mobile subpopulations) might affect the long-term size of the wildebeest population. Our simulation results suggest that a barrier to migration—even without causing habitat loss—could cause the wildebeest population to decline by about a third. The driver of this decline is the effect of habitat fragmentation (even without habitat loss) on the ability of wildebeest to effectively track temporal shifts in high-quality forage resources across the landscape. Given the important role of the wildebeest migration for a number of key ecological processes, these findings have potentially important ramifications for ecosystem biodiversity, structure, and function in the Serengeti

Exposure to aflatoxin and fumonisin in children at risk for growth impairment in rural Tanzania

Growth impairment is a major public health issue for children in Tanzania. The question remains as to whether dietary mycotoxins play a role in compromising children's growth. We examined children's exposures to dietary aflatoxin and fumonisin and potential impacts on growth in 114 children under 36 months of age in Haydom, Tanzania. Plasma samples collected from the children at 24 months of age (N = 60) were analyzed for aflatoxin B₁-lysine (AFB₁-lys) adducts, and urine samples collected between 24 and 36 months of age (N = 94) were analyzed for urinary fumonisin B₁ (UFB₁). Anthropometric, socioeconomic, and nutritional parameters were measured and growth parameter z-scores were calculated for each child. Seventy-two percent of the children had detectable levels of AFB₁-lys, with a mean level of 5.1 (95% CI: 3.5, 6.6) pg/mg albumin; and 80% had detectable levels of UFB₁, with a mean of 1.3 (95% CI: 0.8, 1.8) ng/ml. This cohort had a 75% stunting rate [height-for-age z-scores (HAZ) < −2] for children at 36 months. No associations were found between aflatoxin exposures and growth impairment as measured by stunting, underweight [weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ) < −2], or wasting [weight-for-height z-scores (WHZ) < −2]. However, fumonisin exposure was negatively associated with underweight (with non-detectable samples included, p = 0.0285; non-detectable samples excluded, p = 0.005) in this cohort of children. Relatively low aflatoxin exposure at 24 months was not linked with growth impairment, while fumonisin exposure at 24–36 months based on the UFB₁ biomarkers may contribute to the high growth impairment rate among children of Haydom, Tanzania; which may be associated with their breast feeding and weaning practices

Child wasting and concurrent stunting in low- and middle-income countries

Sustainable Development Goal 2.2—to end malnutrition by 2030—includes the elimination of child wasting, defined as a weight-for-length z-score that is more than two standard deviations below the median of the World Health Organization standards for child growth 1. Prevailing methods to measure wasting rely on cross-sectional surveys that cannot measure onset, recovery and persistence—key features that inform preventive interventions and estimates of disease burden. Here we analyse 21 longitudinal cohorts and show that wasting is a highly dynamic process of onset and recovery, with incidence peaking between birth and 3 months. Many more children experience an episode of wasting at some point during their first 24 months than prevalent cases at a single point in time suggest. For example, at the age of 24 months, 5.6% of children were wasted, but by the same age (24 months), 29.2% of children had experienced at least one wasting episode and 10.0% had experienced two or more episodes. Children who were wasted before the age of 6 months had a faster recovery and shorter episodes than did children who were wasted at older ages; however, early wasting increased the risk of later growth faltering, including concurrent wasting and stunting (low length-for-age z-score), and thus increased the risk of mortality. In diverse populations with high seasonal rainfall, the population average weight-for-length z-score varied substantially (more than 0.5 z in some cohorts), with the lowest mean z-scores occurring during the rainiest months; this indicates that seasonally targeted interventions could be considered. Our results show the importance of establishing interventions to prevent wasting from birth to the age of 6 months, probably through improved maternal nutrition, to complement current programmes that focus on children aged 6–59 months

Causes and consequences of child growth faltering in low-resource settings

Growth faltering in children (low length for age or low weight for length) during the first 1,000 days of life (from conception to 2 years of age) influences short-term and long-term health and survival 1,2. Interventions such as nutritional supplementation during pregnancy and the postnatal period could help prevent growth faltering, but programmatic action has been insufficient to eliminate the high burden of stunting and wasting in low- and middle-income countries. Identification of age windows and population subgroups on which to focus will benefit future preventive efforts. Here we use a population intervention effects analysis of 33 longitudinal cohorts (83,671 children, 662,763 measurements) and 30 separate exposures to show that improving maternal anthropometry and child condition at birth accounted for population increases in length-for-age z-scores of up to 0.40 and weight-for-length z-scores of up to 0.15 by 24 months of age. Boys had consistently higher risk of all forms of growth faltering than girls. Early postnatal growth faltering predisposed children to subsequent and persistent growth faltering. Children with multiple growth deficits exhibited higher mortality rates from birth to 2 years of age than children without growth deficits (hazard ratios 1.9 to 8.7). The importance of prenatal causes and severe consequences for children who experienced early growth faltering support a focus on pre-conception and pregnancy as a key opportunity for new preventive interventions

Early-childhood linear growth faltering in low- and middle-income countries

Globally, 149 million children under 5 years of age are estimated to be stunted (length more than 2 standard deviations below international growth standards) 1,2. Stunting, a form of linear growth faltering, increases the risk of illness, impaired cognitive development and mortality. Global stunting estimates rely on cross-sectional surveys, which cannot provide direct information about the timing of onset or persistence of growth faltering—a key consideration for defining critical windows to deliver preventive interventions. Here we completed a pooled analysis of longitudinal studies in low- and middle-income countries (n = 32 cohorts, 52,640 children, ages 0–24 months), allowing us to identify the typical age of onset of linear growth faltering and to investigate recurrent faltering in early life. The highest incidence of stunting onset occurred from birth to the age of 3 months, with substantially higher stunting at birth in South Asia. From 0 to 15 months, stunting reversal was rare; children who reversed their stunting status frequently relapsed, and relapse rates were substantially higher among children born stunted. Early onset and low reversal rates suggest that improving children’s linear growth will require life course interventions for women of childbearing age and a greater emphasis on interventions for children under 6 months of age