The Toxicity of plant material, Drimia Altissima (Urginea Altissima), Against the Field Rat, Arvicanthis Abyssinicus: A potential non-synthetic rodenticide

Background: Rodents are important pests of public health and agricultural importance, capable of transmitting diseases to humans and causing crop damage. The present rodent control strategy depends primarily on synthetic rodenticides, which are highly toxic, affect non-target species, and are expensive. Naturally produced organic pesticides may be more desirable as they are less toxic to non-target animals and are  economically sustainable.Objective: The objective of the study is to explore the toxicity and palatability of the bulbs of Drimia altissima against the field rat, Arvicanthis abyssincus with the aim of developing locally based organic rodenticides.Method: This is a laboratory study for evaluating the toxicity of D. altissimia bait against the field rat, Arvicanthis abyssincus. In the study, field rats were randomly assigned to treatment and control groups. The treatment groups received different concentrations of D. altissimia poison bait prepared in the lab. The control groups received the plain bait. Mortality was recorded during the test period.Results: Of the treatment groups, 80%-100% of the rats receiving the poison bait died, while none of the rats offered a choice between the plain bait and the poisoned bait died. It is estimated that 8% of the powdered bulb would produce 50% mortality.Conclusion: The powdered bulb of D. altissima resulted in rat mortality in the test but not in the control group. The liberation of the toxic substance from the poisoned bait might have been slowed by the presence of the plain bait in the choice test. The result of this study suggests that further work is needed for understanding the toxicological properties of the active agents in the bulb

Pemberian Kapsul Ekstrak Daun Kelor Terhadap Kadar Vitamin A Pada Ibu Menyusui

Status gizi yang baik selama kehamilan, persalinan hingga menyusui merupakan hal yang penting, yaitu dengan mengkonsumsi banyak makronutrien dan mikronutrien yang memberikan manfaat untuk memenuhi kebutuhan tambahan nutrisi selama kehamilan dan pasca salin. Unsur yang terkandung dalam daun kelor termasuk unsur mikro yaitu zat besi 28, 2 mg, kalsium (ca) 2003,0 mg dan vitamin A 16,3 mg kaya, protein vitamin A, C, D, E, K dan B dalam jumlah sangat tinggi yang mudah dicerna dan diasimilasi oleh tubuh manusia Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat pengaruh pengaruh tepung daun kelor terhadap ibu menyusui vitamin A. Penelitian ini merupakan Quasi eksperiment. Teknik pengambilan sampel yang digunakan adalah purposive sampling dan diperoleh sebanyak 40 sampel yang terdiri dari 20 kelompok kontrol dan 20 kelompok intervensi. Sampel darah diuji dengan metode ELISHA, perlakuan dilakukan dengan pemberian kapsul tepung daun selama 3 minggu dan mempertahankan penarikan makanan pada kelompok kontrol yaitu kelompok yang tidak diberi kapsul tepung daun kelor. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kadar Vitamin A antara kelompok yang diberi Kapsul tepung daun (intervensi) dan kelompok kontrol setelah mempersembahkan daun melalui uji Mann Whitney menunjukkan nilai p = 0,001 Hal ini menunjukkan adanya pengaruh pengaruh kelor. Pemberian daun kelor dapat meningkatkan kadar vitamin A. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kadar Vitamin A antara kelompok yang diberi Kapsul tepung daun (intervensi) dan kelompok kontrol setelah mempersembahkan daun melalui uji Mann Whitney menunjukkan nilai p = 0,001 Hal ini menunjukkan adanya pengaruh pengaruh kelor. Pemberian daun kelor dapat meningkatkan kadar vitamin A. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa kadar Vitamin A antara kelompok yang diberi Kapsul tepung daun (intervensi) dan kelompok kontrol setelah mempersembahkan daun melalui uji Mann Whitney menunjukkan nilai p = 0,001 Hal ini menunjukkan adanya pengaruh pengaruh kelor. Pemberian daun kelor dapat meningkatkan kadar vitamin A

Mineralogical and Geochemical Characterization of Clay and Lacustrine Deposits of Lake Ashenge Basin, Northern Ethiopia: Implication for Industrial Applications

The paper tries to characterize and evaluate clay, lacustrine and diatomaceous earth deposits of Lake Ashenge basin, near Koram, northern Ethiopia and comment on its industrial implications. The country rocks are dominantly basalts and basaltic agglomerates overlain by minor amounts of rhyolite and ignimbrite. Sedimentary deposits, clays and associated sediments include 1) intercalations of lacustrine diatomaceous earth, other lacustrine and clays with channel deposits (gravel, pebbly sand and silt); 2) intercalations of diatomaceous earth, peat and clays with channel deposits exposed; and 3) intercalations of clay with channel deposits. X-ray diffractometer analysis of clay samples indicates kaolinite as a dominant clay mineral among others. On the basis of the abundance of different minerals, the clays are subdivided into four groups, 1) Kaolinite (K), 2) Microcline-Kaolinite (MK), 3) Muscovite-Kaolinite (MuK), and 4) Muscovite-Microcline-Kaolinite (MuMK). Other minor mineral phases include quartz, vermiculite, low-high albite, calcite and calcite magnesia. Diatomaceous clays are almost free from kaolinite. Kaolinite, being the dominant clay mineral varies from 6% in light brown to 77% in light grey clays. Al2O3 and SiO2 dominate the clay geochemistry among other oxides and based on the Al2O3 content, the kaolinite variety is subdivided into high Al2O3 (16-21 wt %) and low Al2O3 (8-13 wt%) types. Higher Al2O3 and similar SiO2 and Fe2O3 values in clays compared to the source basaltic rocks are related to the topography, mineralogy and climatic conditions that exist in the area. Compared to the low grade kaolinite type (about 56*106 tones), diatomaceous earth variety (77.3*105 tones) is relatively of good quality with high SiO2 content.Keywords: Clay and lacustrine deposits, Kaolinite, Diatomite, Lake Ashenge, Tigray, Ethiopi

Modeling of relative permeabilities including dynamic wettability transition zones

Wettability is a pore-scale property that impacts the relative movement and distribution of fluids in a porous medium. There are reservoir fluids that provoke the surface within pores to undergo a wettability change. This wettability change, in turn, alters the dynamics of relative permeabilities at the Darcy scale. Thus, modeling the impact of wettability change in relative permeabilities is essential to understand fluids interaction in porous media. In this study, we include time-dependent wettability change into the relative permeability--saturation relation by modifying the existing relative permeability function. To do so, we assume the wettability change is represented by the sorption-based model that is exposure time and chemistry dependent. This pore-scale model is then coupled with a triangular bundle-of-tubes model to simulate exposure time-dependent relative permeabilities data. The simulated data is used to characterize and quantify the wettability dynamics in the relative permeability--saturation curves. This study further shows the importance of accurate prediction of the relative permeability in a dynamically altering porous medium

A comparison of the neuroprotective efficacy of newly developed oximes (K117, K127) and currently available oxime (obidoxime) in tabun-poisoned rats

The potency of newly developed bispyridinium compounds (K117, K127) to reduce tabun-induced acute neurotoxic signs and symptoms was compared with currently available oxime (obidoxime) using functional observational battery. The neuroprotective effects of atropine alone and atropine combined with one of three bispyridinium oximes (K117, K127, obidoxime) on rats poisoned with tabun at a sublethal dose (180 μg/kg i.m.; 80% of LD50 value) were studied. Tabun-induced neurotoxicity was monitored using a functional observational battery and automatic measurement of motor activity at 24 h following tabun challenge. The results indicated that all tested oximes combined with atropine enabled tabun-poisoned rats to survive 24 h following tabun challenge while one tabun-poisoned rats died within 24 h after tabun poisoning when the rats were treated with atropine alone. Newly developed oxime K127 combined with atropine was the most effective in decreasing tabun-induced neurotoxicity in the case of sublethal poisonings among all oximes tested. Nevertheless, the differences of neuroprotective efficacy between K127 and obidoxime are not sufficient to replace obidoxime by K127 for the treatment of acute tabun poisonings

Can integration of legume trees increase yield stability in rain-fed maize cropping systems in Southern Africa?

Growing maize (Zea mays) in association with legume tree in agroforestry arrangements has been shown to increase yields in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, the stability of crop yields has not been critically analyzed in the various cropping systems that integrate leguminous trees. The objective of this analysis was to compare yield stability in improved cropping systems, namely maize-Gliricidia (Gliricidia sepium) intercropping and fertilized monoculture maize, with the de facto practice of resource-poor farmers who grow maize continuously without any external input. Yield stability was determined for three long-term field trials (12-13 consecutive years) conducted at Makoka Research Station in southern Malawi and Msekera Research Station in eastern Zambia. At Makoka, the most stable yield was recorded in maize-Gliricidia intercrops. Average yield was highest in maize-Gliricidia intercropping amended with 50% of the recommended N and P fertilizer, and this was comparable with yield recorded in monoculture maize that received inorganic fertilizer. On the two sites at Msekera, the highest yield was recorded in fertilized monoculture maize followed by maize-Gliricidia intercrops. However, yields were more stable in maize- Gliricidia intercropping compared to fertilized maize on both sites at Msekera. It is concluded that maize yields remain more stable in maize-Gliricidia intercropping than in fertilized maize monoculture in the longterm although average yields may be higher with full fertilization.The government of Ireland through the Irish Aid and Irish Embassy in Malawi to the World Agroforestry Centre.https://www.agronomy.org/publications/a

Genetic Patterns of Domestication in Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan (L.) Millsp.) and Wild Cajanus Relatives

Pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan) is an annual or short-lived perennial food legume of acute regional importance, providing significant protein to the human diet in less developed regions of Asia and Africa. Due to its narrow genetic base, pigeonpea improvement is increasingly reliant on introgression of valuable traits from wild forms, a practice that would benefit from knowledge of its domestication history and relationships to wild species. Here we use 752 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) derived from 670 low copy orthologous genes to clarify the evolutionary history of pigeonpea (79 accessions) and its wild relatives (31 accessions). We identified three well-supported lineages that are geographically clustered and congruent with previous nuclear and plastid sequence-based phylogenies. Among all species analyzed Cajanus cajanifolius is the most probable progenitor of cultivated pigeonpea. Multiple lines of evidence suggest recent gene flow between cultivated and non-cultivated forms, as well as historical gene flow between diverged but sympatric species. Evidence supports that primary domestication occurred in India, with a second and more recent nested population bottleneck focused in tropical regions that is the likely consequence of pigeonpea breeding. We find abundant allelic variation and genetic diversity among the wild relatives, with the exception of wild species from Australia for which we report a third bottleneck unrelated to domestication within India. Domesticated C. cajan possess 75% less allelic diversity than the progenitor clade of wild Indian species, indicating a severe ‘‘domestication bottleneck’’ during pigeonpea domestication

MTrainS: Improving DLRM training efficiency using heterogeneous memories

Recommendation models are very large, requiring terabytes (TB) of memory during training. In pursuit of better quality, the model size and complexity grow over time, which requires additional training data to avoid overfitting. This model growth demands a large number of resources in data centers. Hence, training efficiency is becoming considerably more important to keep the data center power demand manageable. In Deep Learning Recommendation Models (DLRM), sparse features capturing categorical inputs through embedding tables are the major contributors to model size and require high memory bandwidth. In this paper, we study the bandwidth requirement and locality of embedding tables in real-world deployed models. We observe that the bandwidth requirement is not uniform across different tables and that embedding tables show high temporal locality. We then design MTrainS, which leverages heterogeneous memory, including byte and block addressable Storage Class Memory for DLRM hierarchically. MTrainS allows for higher memory capacity per node and increases training efficiency by lowering the need to scale out to multiple hosts in memory capacity bound use cases. By optimizing the platform memory hierarchy, we reduce the number of nodes for training by 4-8X, saving power and cost of training while meeting our target training performance