Organisation as communication: an empirical study of how the communication of impact investing is shaping its development in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya

Over the years, investors demand greater transparency on how their funds are being invested. Whilst in the past it would have been enough for investment firms to seek primarily financial returns against all else; it is now becoming more common for investors to demand some form of positive impact above and beyond financial returns. In response to this, many strategies that seek more than just financial returns have been developed and impact investing being one such strategy. This research explores how fund managers and, or investors operating in the impact investment space communicate their practices to stakeholders in order to obtain an understanding of what they understand impact investing to be, and for those who may be investing for impact, understand the type of impact they seek to attain and also to appreciate how impact is being measured. The research findings suggest that despite much effort being put into the development of impact investing as a distinctive field, there are still a number of issues to iron out particularly with how companies communicate impact. The confusion and use of related terminology interchangeably is also an issue that is found to be detracting instead of adding to the development of the field

VESICO-UTERINE FISTULA FOLLOWING A CAESAREAN SECTION: A CASE STUDY.

Background: Vesico-uterine fistula refers to abnormal communication between the urinary bladder and the uterine cavity. It’s among the obstetric fistulas which occur as part of the complications of medico-surgical procedures such as post-caesarian sections, and post-irradiation as in cancer treatment among others. About two million women worldwide have genital fistula with an annual incidence of 50,000 to 100,000 cases. In sub-Saharan Africa. an estimated 33,000 new fistula cases occur each year.  Case presentation:  This case study was of a 34-year-old female who came into the hospital complaining of long-standing abdominal pains associated with constant vaginal watery discharge, menstrual irregularities, painful sexual intercourse, and on-and-off urinary incontinence. All these started after a caesarian section was done one year ago. Her past Obstetric history revealed that she had ever had two vaginal deliveries and 1 caesarian section a year ago.  Results: On ultrasonography, it was revealed that there was a defect in the continuity of the anterior wall of the uterus making a connection between the endometrial cavity and the urinary bladder. This was in line with the definition of a vesicouterine fistula. Conclusion:  The report concluded that vesicouterine fistula is one of the genital urinary fistulae that can occur following a caesarian section and with increasing trends directly proportional to an increase in the incidence of caesarian sections. Recommended: That every mother who has had a caesarian section should do a post-natal ultrasound at least within the first 6 months following the operation. This will help to identify potential genito-urinary fistulas earlier enough which can improve their overall management

Causes et mécanismes de la perte de l’aptitude au fractionnement du maïs séché à haute température

Le séchage par entrainement d’air chaud dénature les principales familles des protéines du maïs, ce qui entraine la diminution de leur solubilité. Les températures élevées de séchage induisent également une diminution de l’aptitude à l’imprégnation d’eau des grains lors du trempage des maïs avec pour conséquence la diminution du ramollissement des grains, ce qui occasionne des moutures imparfaites et une réduction de la libération des granules d’amidon lors des phases de séparation de l’amidon et des protéines. La fonction logistique à deux asymptotes permet une meilleure prévision des rendements d’extraction de l’amidon et des quantités des glutens récoltées au tamisage en fonction de la température du séchage

Structure de l'amidon de maïs et principaux phénomènes impliqués dans sa modification thermique

Structures and phenomena occurring during the heat treatment of cornstarch. The structure of cornstarch and the modifications induced during the heat treatments are presented in this review. Current knowledge indicate that the starch granules are semi-crystalline entities composed mainly by amylose and amylopectin, undergoing deep reorganizations during the heat treatments. Gelatinization, glass transitions, relaxation phenomena, retrogradation and the formation of amylose-lipids complexes are the major phenomena involved in these reorganisations, and are the basis of changes of the techno-functional properties of cornstarch-based products during their heat treatment. La rhizosphère est le volume du sol situé au voisinage immédiat des racines des plantes et qui se caractérise par la présence d'exsudats racinaires (rhizodépôts). Ces exsudats sont utilisés par la microflore endémique en tant que signaux chimiques en plus d'être un substrat nutritif disponible pour la croissance et le développement de ces microorganismes dans la rhizosphère. Certaines de ces bactéries du sol, appelées PGPRs (Plant Growth Promoting Rhizobacteria), sont capables de coloniser les racines ou bien encore la rhizosphère, mais à la différence des autres bactéries rhizosphériques elles ont, en retour, un effet bénéfique sur la plante. Cet effet bénéfique peut être direct, ou indirect. La promotion directe de la croissance est le résultat du pouvoir d'acquisition des nutriments ou de la stimulation des hormones de la plante. D'autres mécanismes indirects, mais le plus souvent liés à la croissance des plantes, sont impliqués dans la réduction/suppression des pathogènes des plantes. Cet article décrit les différents mécanismes mis en jeu par les PGPRs dans leur environnement naturel pour influencer favorablement la croissance et la santé des plantes

AfriWeb: A Web Search Engine for a Marginalized Language

isiZulu is a Bantu language spoken by approximately 9 million people, but with very few written documents available on the Internet. The lack of electronic documents and supporting infrastructure to store and retrieve documents in isiZulu is an additional threat for its survival as a written language. This paper documents an investigation into the creation of one such infrastructural element - a custom Web search engine - for isiZulu, where previously no such system was in existence. The focus of the search engine was on the language-specific elements of morphological parsing and statistical language modelling. Morphological parsing was shown to produce better results for isiZulu, an agglutinative language, than traditional affix-based stemming. Statistical language modelling was able to successfully separate isiZulu documents from others, thus enabling the use of a language-based focused crawler

Physicochemical properties of African wild mango (Irvingia gabonensis) seed fat and its potentialities in food industries

African wild mango (Irvingia gabonensis) is recognized for its numerous food and medicinal uses (Leakey et al., 2005). This plant produces seeds rich in fat, which is traditionally used as a soup thickener (Adeyeye & Kenni, 2011; Kayode et al., 2010; Leakey et al., 2005). In the present study, fat from I. gabonensis seeds was solvent extracted and characterized. Melting and crystallization behaviour of the extracted fat was studied by pNMR, DSC and X-ray diffraction in order to get basic information regarding its physical properties and more particularly, about its polymorphism and its applicability in food industries. Results of this investigation showed that this seed represent an important source of lipids (69-75 g/100 g), rich in myristic (49.8 g/100 g) and lauric acid (37 g/100 g). Due to his high saturated fatty acids content, I. gabonensis fat (IGF) presents a high SFC (solid fat content) at room temperature. The melting profiles of IGF can be compared to that of cocoa butter, but the melting point of IGF is higher, even after tempering, which has moreover no effect on IGF properties. This fat remains solid at temperatures up to 30°C and the complete melting was detected at around 40°C. The most stable polymorph of this fat is the β’1-form, even after tempering and storage. Due to this high melting point, IGF could be used in fat blends, as hard stock, for structured product formulation (i.e margarine, shortenings and cacao butter substitute)

Survival time and its predictors among preterms in the neonatal period post-discharge in Busoga region-Uganda June – July 2017

Introduction: Globally, out of 15 million babies born preterm each year, one million die. In Uganda, preterm deaths contribute 30% of the neonatal mortality rate. There is a paucity of information on the most critical time to conduct high impact interventions among neonate born preterm especially post-discharge from hospital. We determined the survival time to mortality and its predictors among preterm infants in the neonatal period post-discharge from hospital. Methods: We conducted a prospective cohort study in which 128 preterm infants were recruited from six hospitals including Jinja Regional Referral, St. Francis Buluba, Kamuli mission, Iganga, Kamuli and Bugiri district hospitals were prematurity was confirmed using gestation age and birth weight. Initially, background characteristics of the participants were assessed and then followed prospectively until 28 days. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis was used to estimate survival probabilities while time to preterm mortality was described using the 5thpercentile. Cox proportional hazards regression was used to determine predictors of survival. Results: Overall, 8% (10/128) of the preterm infants died; the 5th percentile survival time was 17 days. There was a 6-fold increase in hazard to mortality among preterm infants who had Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) compared to those who did not (adjusted HR: 6.4, 95%CI: 1.7 – 24.5), a 5-fold increase in the hazard to preterm mortality among preterm infants born to HIV positive mothers compared to their counterparts who had HIV negative mothers (adjusted HR: 4.9, 95%CI: 1.1 – 22.2); and a 4-fold increase in the hazard to preterm mortality among preterm infants who were not exclusively breastfed compared to those who were exclusively breastfed (adjusted HR: 4.4, 95%CI: 1.1 – 18.3). Conclusion: Among babies who died, death occurred in the first 17 days while factors negatively associated with preterm survival included; not practicing Kangaroo Mother Care, not being breastfed exclusively and being born to an HIV positive mother. We recommend follow-up care for preterm infants following hospital discharge, implementation of prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV and exclusive breastfeeding of preterm babies

Does in vitro protocol predict the nutritional value of thermally treated cereals?

Several in vitro protocols were proposed to rapidly evaluate the nutritional value of cereal and food ingredients. These In vitro protocols are based on restricted parameters and may involve results differing to the reality once assessed in vivo. Moreover, information about some in vitro parameters is sometimes insufficiently described. In the present study, a three steps in vitro digestion simulation developed by Tervila-Wilo et al. (1996) to mimic digestion in poultry digestive tract was assessed and compared with in vivo digestibility of corn grain harvest at two moisture contents and dried at three temperatures. In vitro digestion simulation showed that increasing drying temperature led to an increase in in vitro digestibility of dry matter (IVDMD) while in vivo digestibility of dry matter (DM) measured on force fed broilers chickens decreased in the same conditions. To improve this in vitro digestion model, the effect of amylase activity of pancreatin, substrate concentration, corn flour particles reduction and agitation were investigated. Results showed that increasing amylase activity of pancreatin and decreasing substrate concentration improved DM digestibility through starch digestibility while corn flour particles reduction had little effect on its final DM digestibility. Rotational agitation greatly improved starch digestibility and therefore DM digestibility, even at low speed. This increase in DM digestibility reached 20% and was attributed to the better contact between substrate and enzymes and a reduction in solution viscosity under constant agitation. A good adjustment of these parameters would improve the ability of in vitro digestion simulation to accurately predict nutritional value of thermally treated cereals. They have to be taken into account on the implementation of in vitro digestion simulation aiming to predict in vivo performances of consumers.Maïsecvol:Optimisation des modalités de séchage du maïs grain cultivé en Wallonie au regard des performances zootechniques du poulet de chai

Physicochemical Characterization of a Biodiesel Produced from Oil Extract from the Pulp of Raffia Sese de Wild Collected in Democratic Republic of Congo

Biodiesel are produced and characterized from the oil extract from the pulp of Raphia sese de Wild collected in Democratic republic of Congo. The transesterification reaction was used in homogeneous phase with acid and base catalysts. The reaction was carried out in volume ratio 6:1 of ethanol to oil using 1% in volume of the concentrated sulfuric acid (H2SO4) or sodium hydroxide (NaOH). The yield of the reaction was 73% in transesterified oil for the acid catalyzed reaction runned during 3 hours at 60°C, and 99.2% for the base catalyzed reaction runned during 2 hours, at the same temperature.   The physiochemical properties were determined for B100 (pure biodiesel), B10 and B5 (blended biodiesel with the fossil gazole). The results show that these three types of biodiesel can be used in a diesel engine in replacement of the traditional gazole