An Assessment of the land use and land cover changes in Shurugwi district Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme and other economic activities have caused considerable land cover /land use changes to the country’s ecological environment and Shurugwi district has been no exception. Most of these changes are yet to be captured and documented as essential baseline information for developmental purposes. This paper seeks to establish the current status of land use and land cover changes for Shurugwi district as well as to determine the extent of these changes using Geographic Information System and remote sensing techniques. Three satellite images for three different years (1991, 2000 and 2009) were used to come up with a land use/land cover map classification for Shurugwi district. Image processing and image classification were done in order to establish the land use /land cover of the district. To determine the extent of land use/land cover changes in the district between 1990 and 2009 Landsat images of the district were downloaded from the Global Land cover Facility as well as from Google Earth Image Domain. The images were analysed using change detection techniques along with Google Earth screen to screen images to come up with the extent of the changes that have occurred. Results show that cultivation and bare land dominate land use/land cover for the district at 53.4% while degraded land covers 26.6% with the rest shared between vegetation (18.1%) and water (2%). There has been considerable land use/land cover change in Shurugwi district between 1990 and 2009.The greatest change occurred to vegetation which experienced a 9.4% decrease between 1991 and 2000 and an even higher decrease of 11.6% between 2000 and 2009.The study recommends that government concludes its land reform and resettlement programme to reduce continued ecological destruction. The Environmental Management Agency should also educate newly resettled farmers and other stakeholders like miners (including gold panners) on the need for proper environmental management essential for sustainable development.Key terms: Geographic Information System, Remote Sensing, Fast-Track Land Reform Programme, Satellite images

Property Rights and Environmental Conflicts in Africa: An Exploration of the Main Issues

Shared resources often engender environmental conflict. This is because the activities of some groups of users of a resource are often detrimental to others. This paper discusses the relationship between property rights and environmental conflicts in Africa. It illustrates this relationship both at intra-state as well as at inter-state levels. Gender relations and property rights are also discussed given that women, who undertake about 80% of farm work on the continent, are not accorded equal say as men in resource ownership and resource management. The paper suggests how the problem of resource ownership can be addressed in order to minimize or preventenvironmental conflicts and promote development at country as well as at continental level

An Assessment of the Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Shurugwi District, Midlands Province, Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme and other economic activities have caused considerable land cover /land use changes to the country’s ecological environment and Shurugwi district has been no exception. Most of these changes are yet to be captured and documented as essential baseline information for developmental purposes. This paper seeks to establish the current status of land use and land cover changes for Shurugwi district as well as to determine the extent of these changes using Geographic Information System and remote sensing techniques. Three satellite images for three different years (1991, 2000 and 2009) were used to come up with a land use/land cover map classification for Shurugwi district. Image processing and image classification were done in order to establish the land use /land cover of the district. To determine the extent of land use/land cover changes in the district between 1990 and 2009 Landsat images of the district were downloaded from the Global Land cover Facility as well as from Google Earth Image Domain. The images were analysed using change detection techniques along with Google Earth screen to screen images to come up with the extent of the changes that have occurred. Results show that cultivation and bare land dominate land use/land cover for the district at 53.4% while degraded land covers 26.6% with the rest shared between vegetation (18.1%) and water (2%). There  has been considerable land use/land cover change in Shurugwi district between 1990 and 2009.The greatest change occurred to vegetation which experienced a 9.4% decrease between 1991 and 2000 and an even higher decrease of 11.6% between 2000 and 2009.The study recommends that government concludes its land reform and resettlement programme to reduce continued ecological destruction. The Environmental Management Agency should also educate newly resettled farmers and other  stakeholders like miners (including gold panners) on the need for proper environmental management essential for sustainable development.Key words: Geographic Information System, Remote Sensing, Fast-Track Land Reform Progamme, Satellite image

Communal Land Tenure Security for Widows in the Eenhana Constituency of the Ohangwena Region, Namibia

Namibia is characterized by a history of discriminatory customary practices against women with regards to access to land, rights over land, and security of land tenure. Since independence in 1990, the country has adopted policies and legislative frameworks to bring about gender equality in all spheres of life, including the transformation of land tenure rights. These policies and acts give effect to the constitutional provisions that accord both men and women equal opportunities for access to land, rights over land and security of tenure. Widows are a particularly singled-out social group for legal protection, land security and rights to land enjoyed during their spouses’ lifetimes, and are granted protection, at least on paper, from discriminatory practices such as unlawful land evictions. This article evaluates and analyses the current status of land tenure security for widows in the Eenhana Constituency of the Ohangwena Region in Namibia. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative methods through questionnaires, interviews and focus group discussions with widows, as well as key informant interviews with Communal Land Board representatives, members of the traditional authorities, as well as the Ministry of Land Reform’s regional office officials. Through this case study, the findings establish that even though Namibia acclaims progressive policies and legislative frameworks on gender equality, there are still pockets of discrimination against widows where they continue to be at risk of losing their land rights in some of Namibia’s communal areas. Addressing the land tenure insecurities and a guarantee of legal land rights for widows is key to reducing vulnerabilities within female-headed households in the communal areas. Traditional authorities remain a key governance structure in communal areas, particularly in relation to access to land, and land rights inheritance issues, amongst others. Similarly, the Communal Land Boards are statutory institutions mandated to ensure implementation of the provisions of the Communal Land Reform Act of 2002, including the protection of land rights for widows. The study therefore recommends three main measures: the removal of all forms of discriminatory customary practices against widows; continued awareness-raising initiatives on the rights of widows; and full implementation of legal provisions for the protection of widows’ land rights and security of tenure

Compiling for coarse-grain reconfigurable architectures

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 1997.Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-224).by M. Morris E. Matsa.M.Eng

5-hydroxymethyl-cytosine enrichment of non-committed cells is not a universal feature of vertebrate development

5-hydroxymethyl-cytosine (5-hmC) is a cytosine modification that is relatively abundant in mammalian pre-implantation embryos and embryonic stem cells (ESC) derived from mammalian blastocysts. Recent observations imply that both 5-hmC and Tet1/2/3 proteins, catalyzing the conversion of 5-methyl-cytosine to 5-hmC, may play an important role in self renewal and differentiation of ESCs. Here we assessed the distribution of 5-hmC in zebrafish and chick embryos and found that, unlike in mammals, 5-hmC is immunochemically undetectable in these systems before the onset of organogenesis. In addition, Tet1/2/3 transcripts are either low or undetectable at corresponding stages of zebrafish development. However, 5-hmC is enriched in later zebrafish and chick embryos and exhibits tissue-specific distribution in adult zebrafish. Our findings show that 5-hmC enrichment of non-committed cells is not a universal feature of vertebrate development and give insights both into evolution of embryonic pluripotency and the potential role of 5-hmC in its regulation. © 2012 Landes Bioscience

The contribution of financial entities to the sustainable development through the reporting of corporate social responsibility information

This paper aims at examining the relationship between board composition and corporate social responsibility (CSR) of a sample of listed financial entities, discussing the driving reasons of these entities to disclose CSR information. We hypothesize that there is a positive association between outside (institutional and independent directors) and female directors and CSR disclosure and a negative relationship between inside directors and CSR reporting. Our findings provide evidence that the proportions of independent directors and female directors on boards encourage CSR disclosure. Moreover, the results also show that the proportions of inside directors and institutional directors on boards do not have influence on CSR reporting. Thus, our evidence suggests that board attributes such as independent and female directors encourage financial entities to report CSR matters, showing the effectiveness of these two corporate governance mechanisms. The paper shed light on the influence of board structure of financial entities on CSR disclosure. Therefore, this study contributes to past research by providing an index to measure CSR disclosure of financial entities and the importance of the distinction between outside and inside directors

Oxidation of Cellular Amino Acid Pools Leads to Cytotoxic Mistranslation of the Genetic Code

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases use a variety of mechanisms to ensure fidelity of the genetic code and ultimately select the correct amino acids to be used in protein synthesis. The physiological necessity of these quality control mechanisms in different environments remains unclear, as the cost vs benefit of accurate protein synthesis is difficult to predict. We show that in Escherichia coli, a non-coded amino acid produced through oxidative damage is a significant threat to the accuracy of protein synthesis and must be cleared by phenylalanine-tRNA synthetase in order to prevent cellular toxicity caused by mis-synthesized proteins. These findings demonstrate how stress can lead to the accumulation of non-canonical amino acids that must be excluded from the proteome in order to maintain cellular viability

A comprehensive TALEN-based knockout library for generating human induced pluripotent stem cell-based models for cardiovascular diseases

Rationale: Targeted genetic engineering using programmable nucleases such as transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs) is a valuable tool for precise, site-specific genetic modification in the human genome. Objective: The emergence of novel technologies such as human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and nuclease-mediated genome editing represent a unique opportunity for studying cardiovascular diseases in vitro. Methods and Results: By incorporating extensive literature and database searches, we designed a collection of TALEN constructs to knockout (KO) eighty-eight human genes that are associated with cardiomyopathies and congenital heart diseases. The TALEN pairs were designed to induce double-strand DNA break near the starting codon of each gene that either disrupted the start codon or introduced a frameshift mutation in the early coding region, ensuring faithful gene KO. We observed that all the constructs were active and disrupted the target locus at high frequencies. To illustrate the general utility of the TALEN-mediated KO technique, six individual genes (TNNT2, LMNA/C, TBX5, MYH7, ANKRD1, and NKX2.5) were knocked out with high efficiency and specificity in human iPSCs. By selectively targeting a dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM)-causing mutation (TNNT2 p.R173W) in patient-specific iPSC-derived cardiac myocytes (iPSC-CMs), we demonstrated that the KO strategy ameliorates the DCM phenotype in vitro. In addition, we modeled the Holt-Oram syndrome (HOS) in iPSC-CMs in vitro and uncovered novel pathways regulated by TBX5 in human cardiac myocyte development. Conclusions: Collectively, our study illustrates the powerful combination of iPSCs and genome editing technology for understanding the biological function of genes and the pathological significance of genetic variants in human cardiovascular diseases. The methods, strategies, constructs and iPSC lines developed in this study provide a validated, readily available resource for cardiovascular research