Evaluation Of Loan Disbursement And Repayment Of Supervised Credit Scheme Of Nigeria Agricultural Cooperative And Rural Development Bank(Nacrbd) In Zaria And Kaduna North Local Government Areas Of Kaduna State, Nigeria

The study examined the activities of NACRBD with a view to determine the amount of loan disbursed compared to amount of loan applied for, the nature of loan repayment performance of beneficiaries of NACRDB credit loan, lapses associated with loan to disbursement and repayment schedules and impact of proper supervision on loan recovery. Data for the study were collected through questionnaires, a total number of fifty(50) beneficiaries of NACRDB credit scheme were selected randomly from the study areas . Data collected were analysed using simple descriptive statistical tools, such as mean, percentage and frequency table in order to achieve the stated objectives. From the evaluation of loan schemes, it was found that there were short fall when comparing the amount of loan applied for, to the actual amount disbursed to beneficiaries, loan were nottimely granted some sincere seekers were unable to benefit from credit scheme partially due to lack of adequate financing of NACRDB by the apex bank; the efficiency of methods employed by the bank as regard to loan supervision was scored low as a result of low rate of loan recovery, which will not augur well, if the bank’s contribution to the development agricultural sector of the economy was to be sustained. It was recommended that loans should be disbursed on time to farmers as at when due so that they can make use of it for agricultural production, NACRBD should employ better strategy to recover outstanding debts and reduce interest charge on loans

Control Environment and Risk Management of Listed Financial Services Firms in Nigeria

A considerable number of studies have examined the effect of control environment on risk management at corporate level. However, these studies failed to disaggregate control environment into its elements and therefore failed to answer the question of which of the elements of control environment has the most impact. It is in view of this that this study examines the effect of control environment on risk management of listed financial services firms in Nigeria. Primary data was collected using the 5-point Likert scale structured questionnaire adopted from Ernst and Young (2003), the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (2013) and Simon and Fishbacher (2009) frameworks. 30 copies of the questionnaire were administered on each of the 35 sampled listed financial services firms. The data were diagnosed by means of normality test, multicollinearity test, heteroskedasticity test and reliability test and analyzed using descriptive (mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum) and multiple regression analysis. Results show that all the 6 measures of control environment have significant effects on risk management among listed finance services firms in Nigeria. The study, therefore, concludes that integrity, values, ethics and behaviours of managers, management control and consciousness, commitment, board and audit committee participation in corporate governance and oversight and organizational structure, assignment of authority and human resource policy and practices are important considerations in risk management. The study recommends among others that the board and audit committee of the firms to take a more proactive participation in corporate governance and oversight. Managers must acknowledge their role in shaping organizational ethics and values and seize this opportunity to create a climate that can strengthen the relationships and reputations on which their companies’ success depends. Sound decision-making is a crucial skill for managers.  From overseeing a team to leading a critical meeting, being an effective manager requires knowing how to analyze complex business problems and implement a plan for moving forward.  Finally, management should position their organizations within their markets to exploit organizational competencies and strengths. Keywords: Control Environment, Risk Management, Financial services Firms, Internal Control, and Management Control. DOI: 10.7176/RJFA/12-6-05 Publication date:March 31st 202

C. elegans SIRT6/7 Homolog SIR-2.4 Promotes DAF-16 Relocalization and Function during Stress

FoxO transcription factors and sirtuin family deacetylases regulate diverse biological processes, including stress responses and longevity. Here we show that the Caenorhabditis elegans sirtuin SIR-2.4—homolog of mammalian SIRT6 and SIRT7 proteins—promotes DAF-16–dependent transcription and stress-induced DAF-16 nuclear localization. SIR-2.4 is required for resistance to multiple stressors: heat shock, oxidative insult, and proteotoxicity. By contrast, SIR-2.4 is largely dispensable for DAF-16 nuclear localization and function in response to reduced insulin/IGF-1-like signaling. Although acetylation is known to regulate localization and activity of mammalian FoxO proteins, this modification has not been previously described on DAF-16. We find that DAF-16 is hyperacetylated in sir-2.4 mutants. Conversely, DAF-16 is acetylated by the acetyltransferase CBP-1, and DAF-16 is hypoacetylated and constitutively nuclear in response to cbp-1 inhibition. Surprisingly, a SIR-2.4 catalytic mutant efficiently rescues the DAF-16 localization defect in sir-2.4 null animals. Acetylation of DAF-16 by CBP-1 in vitro is inhibited by either wild-type or mutant SIR-2.4, suggesting that SIR-2.4 regulates DAF-16 acetylation indirectly, by preventing CBP-1-mediated acetylation under stress conditions. Taken together, our results identify SIR-2.4 as a critical regulator of DAF-16 specifically in the context of stress responses. Furthermore, they reveal a novel role for acetylation, modulated by the antagonistic activities of CBP-1 and SIR-2.4, in modulating DAF-16 localization and function

Policy Coherence in US Tobacco Control: Beyond FDA Regulation

Joshua Yang and Thomas Novotny explore whether the US government can develop and implement a coherent policy agenda to reduce tobacco-related morbidity and mortality

Robust estimation of microbial diversity in theory and in practice

Quantifying diversity is of central importance for the study of structure, function and evolution of microbial communities. The estimation of microbial diversity has received renewed attention with the advent of large-scale metagenomic studies. Here, we consider what the diversity observed in a sample tells us about the diversity of the community being sampled. First, we argue that one cannot reliably estimate the absolute and relative number of microbial species present in a community without making unsupported assumptions about species abundance distributions. The reason for this is that sample data do not contain information about the number of rare species in the tail of species abundance distributions. We illustrate the difficulty in comparing species richness estimates by applying Chao's estimator of species richness to a set of in silico communities: they are ranked incorrectly in the presence of large numbers of rare species. Next, we extend our analysis to a general family of diversity metrics ("Hill diversities"), and construct lower and upper estimates of diversity values consistent with the sample data. The theory generalizes Chao's estimator, which we retrieve as the lower estimate of species richness. We show that Shannon and Simpson diversity can be robustly estimated for the in silico communities. We analyze nine metagenomic data sets from a wide range of environments, and show that our findings are relevant for empirically-sampled communities. Hence, we recommend the use of Shannon and Simpson diversity rather than species richness in efforts to quantify and compare microbial diversity.Comment: To be published in The ISME Journal. Main text: 16 pages, 5 figures. Supplement: 16 pages, 4 figure

Chromogenic detection of yam mosaic virus by closed-tube reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (CT-RT-LAMP)

A closed-tube reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (CT-RT-LAMP) assay was developed for the detection of yam mosaic virus (YMV, genus Potyvirus) infecting yam (Dioscorea spp.). The assay uses a set of six oligonucleotide primers targeting the YMV coat protein region, and the amplification products in YMV-positive samples are visualized by chromogenic detection with SYBR Green I dye. The CT-RT-LAMP assay detected YMV in leaf and tuber tissues of infected plants. The assay is 100 times more sensitive in detecting YMV than standard RT-PCR, while maintaining the same specificity

Transgenic expression of the dicotyledonous pattern recognition receptor EFR in rice leads to ligand-dependent activation of defense responses

Plant plasma membrane localized pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) detect extracellular pathogen-associated molecules. PRRs such as Arabidopsis EFR and rice XA21 are taxonomically restricted and are absent from most plant genomes. Here we show that rice plants expressing EFR or the chimeric receptor EFR::XA21, containing the EFR ectodomain and the XA21 intracellular domain, sense both Escherichia coli- and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae (Xoo)-derived elf18 peptides at sub-nanomolar concentrations. Treatment of EFR and EFR::XA21 rice leaf tissue with elf18 leads to MAP kinase activation, reactive oxygen production and defense gene expression. Although expression of EFR does not lead to robust enhanced resistance to fully virulent Xoo isolates, it does lead to quantitatively enhanced resistance to weakly virulent Xoo isolates. EFR interacts with OsSERK2 and the XA21 binding protein 24 (XB24), two key components of the rice XA21-mediated immune response. Rice-EFR plants silenced for OsSERK2, or overexpressing rice XB24 are compromised in elf18-induced reactive oxygen production and defense gene expression indicating that these proteins are also important for EFR-mediated signaling in transgenic rice. Taken together, our results demonstrate the potential feasibility of enhancing disease resistance in rice and possibly other monocotyledonous crop species by expression of dicotyledonous PRRs. Our results also suggest that Arabidopsis EFR utilizes at least a subset of the known endogenous rice XA21 signaling components

Convergent Processing of Both Positive and Negative Motivational Signals by the VTA Dopamine Neuronal Populations

Dopamine neurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA) have been traditionally studied for their roles in reward-related motivation or drug addiction. Here we study how the VTA dopamine neuron population may process fearful and negative experiences as well as reward information in freely behaving mice. Using multi-tetrode recording, we find that up to 89% of the putative dopamine neurons in the VTA exhibit significant activation in response to the conditioned tone that predict food reward, while the same dopamine neuron population also respond to the fearful experiences such as free fall and shake events. The majority of these VTA putative dopamine neurons exhibit suppression and offset-rebound excitation, whereas ∼25% of the recorded putative dopamine neurons show excitation by the fearful events. Importantly, VTA putative dopamine neurons exhibit parametric encoding properties: their firing change durations are proportional to the fearful event durations. In addition, we demonstrate that the contextual information is crucial for these neurons to respectively elicit positive or negative motivational responses by the same conditioned tone. Taken together, our findings suggest that VTA dopamine neurons may employ the convergent encoding strategy for processing both positive and negative experiences, intimately integrating with cues and environmental context

Household Welfare Effects of Stress-Tolerant Varieties in Northern Uganda

This study assessed the adoption of stress-tolerant varieties and their effect on household welfare, measured by net crop income per capita in Nwoya District, Uganda. The stress-tolerant varieties were considered to be climate-smart because they stabilise and increase crop income in the presence of climatic shocks. However, the uptake of the stress-tolerant varieties was still low in northern Uganda, due to bad past experience in terms of the performance of other improved varieties. Using data from a random sample of 585 households, a logistic model was estimated to assess the drivers for adoption of stress-tolerant varieties. In addition, a propensity score matching model was employed to assess causal effects. The second model was estimated because it controls for unobserved heterogeneity caused by self-selection bias. Results showed that adoption of stress-tolerant varieties was positively influenced by household size, access to information from non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the perception of future climate change, the number of years an individual had lived in the village, and the number and type of assets owned as an indicator of household well-being. Average treatment effect from results showed that stress-tolerant varieties can increase crop income within a range of United States Dollars (USD) 500–864 per hectare per year, representing an 18–32% increase in crop income. The findings offer justification for scaling up stress tolerant varieties among smallholder farmers in northern Uganda to improve their welfare