Evaluation of Nutritional Quality and Haematological Parameters of Moringa (Moringa oleifera) Lam Leaves in the Diet of African Catfish (Clarias gariepinus).

This study was carried out to evaluate the effects of dietary levels of Moringa oleifera leaves on the growth performance and haematological parameters of Clarias gariepinus juveniles. Five treatments were used and 10 Clarias gariepinus juveniles with mean weight (19.00±0.50g) per tank each in triplicate. The five treatment tanks were fed with five isonitrogenous diets containing 40% crude protein with varying inclusion of Moringa oleifera (control diet with 0% Moringa oleifera, 4.1g Moringa oleifera inclusion, 8.2g Moringa oleifera inclusion, 12.3g Moringa oleifera inclusion and 16.39g Moringa oleifera inclusion). The fishes were fed twice daily for an experimental period of 12 weeks. The fish in tank T (4.1g inclusion of Moringa oleifera) had the best weight gain with 2 range 27.67±0.60. The specific growth rate was highest in fish in tank T (0.96±0.01). The fish fed 2 4.1g M.oleifera inclusion had the best feed conversion ratio (1.36±0.03). The highest feed intake (15.11±0.00) was found in fish fed with 4.1g M.oleifera inclusion. The protein efficiency ratio was higher in fish fed with 4.1g M. oleifera with range 1.83±0.04. Percentage weight gain was higher in fish fed 4.1g M. oleifera with range 142.00±3.06.There was no significant difference in the growth performance of all the treatment. No mortality was recorded in all experimental tanks. The Fish fed with M. oleifera showed increase in the haematological values of Packed Cell Volume (PCV), (27.38±3.06), Haemoglobin, (HGB), (8.33 ±1.01), Red blood cell, (RBC), (2.48±0.21) and white blood cell, (WBC), (220.56±9.75) compared to the values of fish fed control diet with PCV (13.87±9.40), HGB (5.03±2.70), RBC (1.25±0.85) and WBC (149.60±64.28). The white blood cell (WBC) shows no significant difference (P>0.05) among the fish in tanks T , T , T , and T (25%, 1 2 3 4 50%, 75% and 100% inclusion of M. oleifera respectively) but they were significantly different(P<0.05) from the fish in the tank T (control tank).There was reduction in the haematological 0 values of the fish fed M.oleifera diet with Mean cell haemoglobin concentration, (MCHC), (28.90±6.62) and the Mean Corpuscular Haemoglobin, (MCH) (32.64±7.32) compared to the values of fish fed the control diet with MCHC (39.24±13.98) and MCH (44.00±17.12). It was concluded that using M.oleifera leaves as feed for Clarias gariepinus enhances the growth of the fish and has no negative impact on the health status of the fish. Therefore partial replacement of feed with M.oleifera should be encouraged.Keywords: Bio indicator, Heamatology, Moringa oleifera, Clarias gariepinu

Effect of lycium barbarum (wolfberry) polysaccharides on preserving retinal function after partial optic nerve transection

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The impact of advocacy and community mobilization on the utilization of health services at the Comprehensive Health Centre, Gindiri.

Primary Health Care facilities provide promotive, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to a community. They may be well built and equipped with adequate resources but grossly underutilized due to several factors. Health records at the Comprehensive Health Centre Gindiri for 2005 were compared with those of 2007 after a wellcoordinated advocacy and mobilization programme in that community. The results show that the total out patient attendance in 2007 increased by 220.6% when compared to that of 2005. 293 patients were admitted into the wards in 2005 compared to 813 in 2007(277%). There was no surgery carried out in the whole of 2005, whereas in 2007 there were 98 surgeries. Advocacy and community mobilization could be important factors in the utilization of primary health service

Review: Allelochemicals as multi-kingdom plant defence compounds: towards an integrated approach

© 2020 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry. The capability of synthetic pesticides to manage weeds, insect pests and pathogens in crops has diminished due to evolved resistance. Sustainable management is thus becoming more challenging. Novel solutions are needed and, given the ubiquity of biologically active secondary metabolites in nature, such compounds require further exploration as leads for novel crop protection chemistry. Despite improving understanding of allelochemicals, particularly in terms of their potential for use in weed control, their interactions with multiple biotic kingdoms have to date largely been examined in individual compounds and not as a recurrent phenomenon. Here, multi-kingdom effects in allelochemicals are introduced by defining effects on various organisms, before exploring current understanding of the inducibility and possible ecological roles of these compounds with regard to the evolutionary arms race and dose–response relationships. Allelochemicals with functional benefits in multiple aspects of plant defence are described. Gathering these isolated areas of science under the unified umbrella of multi-kingdom allelopathy encourages the development of naturally-derived chemistries conferring defence to multiple discrete biotic stresses simultaneously, maximizing benefits in weed, insect and pathogen control, while potentially circumventing resistance. © 2020 The Authors. Pest Management Science published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry

Cellulolytic Bacteria in the foregut of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius)

Foregut digesta from five feral dromedary camels were inoculated into three different enrichment media: cotton thread, filter paper, and neutral detergent fiber. A total of 283 16S rRNA gene sequences were assigned to 33 operational taxonomic units by using 99% species-level identity. LIBSHUFF revealed significant differences in the community composition across all three libraries

Second trimester inflammatory and metabolic markers in women delivering preterm with and without preeclampsia.

ObjectiveInflammatory and metabolic pathways are implicated in preterm birth and preeclampsia. However, studies rarely compare second trimester inflammatory and metabolic markers between women who deliver preterm with and without preeclampsia.Study designA sample of 129 women (43 with preeclampsia) with preterm delivery was obtained from an existing population-based birth cohort. Banked second trimester serum samples were assayed for 267 inflammatory and metabolic markers. Backwards-stepwise logistic regression models were used to calculate odds ratios.ResultsHigher 5-α-pregnan-3β,20α-diol disulfate, and lower 1-linoleoylglycerophosphoethanolamine and octadecanedioate, predicted increased odds of preeclampsia.ConclusionsAmong women with preterm births, those who developed preeclampsia differed with respect metabolic markers. These findings point to potential etiologic underpinnings for preeclampsia as a precursor to preterm birth

“Excellence R Us”: university research and the fetishisation of excellence

The rhetoric of “excellence” is pervasive across the academy. It is used to refer to research outputs as well as researchers, theory and education, individuals and organisations, from art history to zoology. But does “excellence” actually mean anything? Does this pervasive narrative of “excellence” do any good? Drawing on a range of sources we interrogate “excellence” as a concept and find that it has no intrinsic meaning in academia. Rather it functions as a linguistic interchange mechanism. To investigate whether this linguistic function is useful we examine how the rhetoric of excellence combines with narratives of scarcity and competition to show that the hypercompetition that arises from the performance of “excellence” is completely at odds with the qualities of good research. We trace the roots of issues in reproducibility, fraud, and homophily to this rhetoric. But we also show that this rhetoric is an internal, and not primarily an external, imposition. We conclude by proposing an alternative rhetoric based on soundness and capacity-building. In the final analysis, it turns out that that “excellence” is not excellent. Used in its current unqualified form it is a pernicious and dangerous rhetoric that undermines the very foundations of good research and scholarship

Peptide exchange on MHC-I by TAPBPR is driven by a negative allostery release cycle.

Chaperones TAPBPR and tapasin associate with class I major histocompatibility complexes (MHC-I) to promote optimization (editing) of peptide cargo. Here, we use solution NMR to investigate the mechanism of peptide exchange. We identify TAPBPR-induced conformational changes on conserved MHC-I molecular surfaces, consistent with our independently determined X-ray structure of the complex. Dynamics present in the empty MHC-I are stabilized by TAPBPR and become progressively dampened with increasing peptide occupancy. Incoming peptides are recognized according to the global stability of the final pMHC-I product and anneal in a native-like conformation to be edited by TAPBPR. Our results demonstrate an inverse relationship between MHC-I peptide occupancy and TAPBPR binding affinity, wherein the lifetime and structural features of transiently bound peptides control the regulation of a conformational switch located near the TAPBPR binding site, which triggers TAPBPR release. These results suggest a similar mechanism for the function of tapasin in the peptide-loading complex