Effects of seed fermentation method on seed germination and vigor in the oleaginous gourd Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl.

Supplying high quality seed to rural farmers is the basic requirement for the sustainable development of agriculture in developing countries. The present study was conducted to examine the influence of Lagenaria siceraria seed fermentation method on seed germination and vigor. Three seed fermentation methods (fermented in ambient air, plastic bag stored in ambient or in plastic bag buried) were tested on two cultivars during two years. Seed germination and vigor were better when fermentation was conducted in anaerobic, darkness, and at low temperature. Low seed quality was observed in unfermented seed, suggesting the occurrence of postharvest maturity in L. siceraria. Seed quality did not vary between cultivars. Regardless of the fermentation process and cultivars used, the best seed and seedling qualities were observed when the amount of rainfall during the experiment period was high, suggesting that wet soil is necessary for an on farm reliable evaluation of seed fermentation method in the bottle gourd L. siceraria.Keywords: Cucurbit, egussi, maturity, minor crops, oilseed, seedling, viability

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Caractéristiques Physicochimiques Récoltés des Miels de la Sous-Préfecture de Cechi (Dans le Département D’Agboville, Côte D’Ivoire)

La caractérisation des miels en développement d’un pays est nécessaire pour leur valorisation. Cette étude est une contribution à la connaissance de la qualité des miels des forêts de la Côte d’Ivoire. Des échantillons de miel de cinq localités de la Sous-Préfecture de Cechi (Agboville) ont été étudiés. Les paramètres physicochimiques des miels ont été analysés pour vérifier leur conformité aux normes du Codex alimentarius. Ces analyses ont donné les valeurs moyennes suivantes : le pH est 3,55±0,46; la conductivité électrique (σ) est 98,01±31 μS/cm, l’acidité libre est 19,50±4,47 mEq/Kg ; la densité relative est 1,42±0,07 ; la teneur en eau est de 20,2±3,11%, les cendres représentent 0,18±0,11% et la teneur en sucre totale est de 78,31±0,19%. La plupart de ces paramètres sont conformes au Codex alimentarius, à l’exception des teneurs en sucres qui dépasse la limite maximale accepté. Cela traduit que les miels analysés sont issus de nectar trop sucrés. The characterisation of a country's developing honeys is necessary for their valorisation. This study is a contribution of the knowledge of the Ivory Coast forests honeys quality. Honey samples from five localities of the Sub-Prefecture of Cechi (Agboville) were studied. The physicochemical parameters of the honeys were analyzed to verify their conformity to the standards of the Codex alimentarius. These analyses yielded the following average values: pH is 3.55±0.46; electrical conductivity (σ) is 98.01±31 μS/cm, free acidity is 19.50±4.47 mEq/Kg ; relative density is 1.42±0.07 ; water content is 20.2±3.11%, ash represents 0.18±0.11% and total sugar content is 78.31±0.19%. Most of these parameters are in conformity with the Codex Alimentarius, except for the sugar content which exceeds the maximum accepted limit. This means that the analyzed honeys are made from nectar with too much sugar

Effects of Seed orientation and sowing depths on Germination, Seedling vigor and yield in Oleaginous type of Bottle gourd, Lagenaria siceraria (Molina Standl)

Abstrac

Agro-morphological variability of Bottle Gourd accessions Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl in Côte d’Ivoire

Bottle gourd Lagenaria siceraria (Molina) Standl is one of the oleaginous cucurbits grown in Côte d'Ivoire with socio-economic and food importance that could play an important role in food security. The increase in the production of this species for improvement of plant yield remains a major challenge that begins with the agro-morphological characterization of local varieties present in different production areas. The objective of this study is to estimate agro-morphological variability within the Lagenaria siceraria seed collection of Nangui Abrogoua University. The study focused on 26 accessions collected in the different production areas of the species. The experimental design is a randomized complementary block. Descriptive analyzes under the observation of fourteen descriptors showed the existence of a great variability between accessions for the yield characters. Multiple variance analysis showed that there is a highly significant difference between accessions and provenances for the majority of traits studied. The structuring of accessions according to areas collection revealed by principal component analysis is confirmed by discriminant factor analysis. The classification of accessions and identification of the groups were carried out by hierarchical ascending classification which made it possible to elaborate a dendrogram which presents two groups of phenotypic diversity. It appears that the most relevant variables that describe the best variability between groups are fruit size (FH), fruit weight (FW), number of seed (NS), and seed weight (SW). These analyzed characters can thus constitute basic criteria to differentiate accessions and to be used in studies of morphological diversity of L. siceraria

Assessment of some key indicators of the ecological status of an African freshwater lagoon (Lagoon Aghien, Ivory Coast)

International audienceThe supply of drinking water is a vital challenge for the people who live on the African continent, as this continent is experiencing strong demographic growth and therefore increasing water demands. To meet these needs, surface water resources are becoming increasingly mobilized because underground resources are not always available or have already been overexploited. This situation is the case in the region of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, where the drinking water deficit is a growing problem and it is therefore necessary to mobilize new water resources to ensure the supply of drinking water. Among the potential resources, local managers have identified a freshwater lagoon, Lagoon Aghien, That is in close proximity to the city of Abidjan. With the aim of enhancing knowledge on the ecological functioning of the lagoon and contributing to the assessment of its ability to provide drinking water, several physical and chemical parameters of the water and the phytoplankton community of the lagoon were monitored for 17 months (December 2016-April 2018) at six sampling stations. Our findings show that the lagoon is eutrophic, as evidenced by the high concentrations of total phosphorus (>140 μg L-1), nitrogen (1.36 mg L-1) and average chlorophyll-a (26 to 167 μg L-1) concentrations. The phytoplankton community in the lagoon is dominated by genera typical of eutrophic environments including mixotrophic genera such as Peridinium and by cyanobacteria such as Cylindrospermopsis/Raphidiopsis, Microcystis and Dolichospermum that can potentially produce cyanotoxins. The two rainfall peaks that occur in June and October appeared to be major events in terms of nutrient flows entering the lagoon, and the dynamics of these flows are complex. Significant differences were also found in the nutrient concentrations and to a lesser extent in the phytoplankton communities among the different stations, especially during the rainfall peaks. Overall, these results reveal that the quality of the lagoon's water is already severely degraded, and this degradation could increase in future years due to increasing urbanization in the watershed. These results therefore raise questions about the potential use of the lagoon as a source of drinking water if measures are not taken very quickly to protect this lagoon from increasing eutrophication and other pollution sources

Abstracts of the 1st International Colloquium in Mine & Society

This book presents the abstracts of the selected contributions to the First International Colloquium on Mines and Society (CIMS) organized by The Higher Institute of Mining and Geology of Boke. The theme of this colloquium was "Mining and Sustainable Development, a major challenge for an Emerging Africa" which aims to bring together teachers, researchers, and Professionals from different backgrounds in order to exchange the results of their research work, share their points of view on the issue of mining and sustainable development. It also aims to define, in a collaborative and inclusive manner, research prospects or future projects between all the actors involved in this field. Colloquium Title: 1st International Colloquium in Mine & SocietyTheme: Mining and Sustainable Development, A Major Challenge for an Emerging AfricaColloquium Date: 20-22 May 2022Colloquium Location: A L’Hôtel Rio Nunez de BokeColloquium Organizer: The Higher Institute of Mining and Geology of Bok

Effect of isoniazid preventive therapy on risk of death in west African, HIV-infected adults with high CD4 cell counts: long-term follow-up of the Temprano ANRS 12136 trial

Background: Temprano ANRS 12136 was a factorial 2 × 2 trial that assessed the benefits of early antiretroviral therapy (ART; ie, in patients who had not reached the CD4 cell count threshold used to recommend starting ART, as per the WHO guidelines that were the standard during the study period) and 6-month isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) in HIV-infected adults in Côte d'Ivoire. Early ART and IPT were shown to independently reduce the risk of severe morbidity at 30 months. Here, we present the efficacy of IPT in reducing mortality from the long-term follow-up of Temprano. Methods: For Temprano, participants were randomly assigned to four groups (deferred ART, deferred ART plus IPT, early ART, or early ART plus IPT). Participants who completed the trial follow-up were invited to participate in a post-trial phase. The primary post-trial phase endpoint was death, as analysed by the intention-to-treat principle. We used Cox proportional models to compare all-cause mortality between the IPT and no IPT strategies from inclusion in Temprano to the end of the follow-up period. Findings: Between March 18, 2008, and Jan 5, 2015, 2056 patients (mean baseline CD4 count 477 cells per μL) were followed up for 9404 patient-years (Temprano 4757; post-trial phase 4647). The median follow-up time was 4·9 years (IQR 3·3–5·8). 86 deaths were recorded (Temprano 47 deaths; post-trial phase 39 deaths), of which 34 were in patients randomly assigned IPT (6-year probability 4·1%, 95% CI 2·9–5·7) and 52 were in those randomly assigned no IPT (6·9%, 5·1–9·2). The hazard ratio of death in patients who had IPT compared with those who did not have IPT was 0·63 (95% CI, 0·41 to 0·97) after adjusting for the ART strategy (early vs deferred), and 0·61 (0·39–0·94) after adjustment for the ART strategy, baseline CD4 cell count, and other key characteristics. There was no evidence for statistical interaction between IPT and ART (pinteraction=0·77) or between IPT and time (pinteraction=0·94) on mortality. Interpretation: In Côte d'Ivoire, where the incidence of tuberculosis was last reported as 159 per 100 000 people, 6 months of IPT has a durable protective effect in reducing mortality in HIV-infected people, even in people with high CD4 cell counts and who have started ART. Funding: National Research Agency on AIDS and Viral Hepatitis (ANRS)