Social-cognitive factors influencing household decisions to grow orange-fleshed sweet potato in Uganda

Open Access Article; Published online: 16 Jan 2020This study examined the role of social-cognitive factors in farmers’ decisions to cultivate orange-fleshed sweetpotato as a food-based approach to alleviating vitamin A deficiency among rural households in Uganda. Cross-sectional survey data collected from 341 randomly selected household level decision-makers drawn from two rural districts in Uganda were analysed using hierarchical regression. Perceived capability and perceived social approval significantly predicted household decisions to grow orange-fleshed sweet potato (p≤0.001). Overall, decision-makers’ subjective norms and control beliefs were found to be significant mediators (p≤0.01) of the orange-fleshed sweet potato acceptance process. These results point to a cardinal role for processes that create supportive social and cognitive environments in promoting the cultivation of bio-fortified technologies such as orange-fleshed sweet potato

Covid-19 disruptions and coping strategies for media houses in Uganda: case of next media services

News production in the legacy media houses occurs in enclosed spaces. Editors, reporters, sub-editors, and news producers discuss and develop story ideas for production and dissemination on television, radio and print platforms. However, the Covid-19 pandemic presented a significant change in the traditional operation of the newsroom. This disruption interfered with the journalistic norms of story ideation, news sourcing, gatekeeping and distribution. Local and regional media organisations struggled through the Covid-19 pandemic because technological adoption mechanisms had long been dragged. By the time the pandemic hit Ugandan newsrooms, most media houses lacked fall-back plans, which led to several changes such as salary cuts, working in shifts, working from home, and downsizing. This study examined the nature of COVID-19 disruptions, their impact, and the coping strategies used by Next Media Services to deal with the interruption. This study used the Media Economics Theory to investigate the challenges and strategic mechanisms that this media house employed to remain viable in the industry. This research adopted a qualitative approach and a case study design with 19 journalists as the sample size. The study established that news consumers developed an urgency of staying informed, leading to increased consumption of digital news, especially in the digital age.The study established that the newsroom was the most affected department at Next Media Services. The researcher interviewed a series of staff, including 12 journalists and seven team members drawn from the marketing and sales department. The findings from the study also indicate that planning and story ideation meetings that were conducted daily were now adjusted to three times a week because journalists and editors were not meeting physically. Additionally, as the Covid-19 pandemic spread in the other parts of the world, audiences depended more on the online platforms for news and information updates

The development of novel collagen-glycosaminoglycan scaffold for in vitro mesenchymal stem cell chondrogenesis

Articular cartilage is an incredibly tough tissue owing to its ability to withstand repetitive compressive stress throughout an individual’s lifetime. Conversely, its single greatest limitation is the inability to heal even the most minor injuries (Newman, 1998). Due to the absence of a blood supply, articular cartilage responds to damage poorly (Nelson et al., 2010; Bora et al., 1987). Consequently, this predisposes the joint to articular cartilage degeneration. The repair of damaged tissue using conventional therapies and approaches has been elusive thus far. However, the use of tissue engineered biomaterials has shown promise in cartilage defect repair.In this context, the aim of this thesis was to develop a collagen-glycosaminoglycan (CG) scaffold with optimised intrinsic physico-chemical properties that might induce mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) differentiation towards a chondrogenic lineage in vitro. In addition, the effect of environmental factors such as oxygen tension and soluble growth factors in further enhancing chondrogenesis within these highly porous CG scaffolds was investigated. CG scaffolds developed in our laboratory have shown the potential to support MSC chondrogenesis (Farrell et al., 2006). In this thesis it was evident that different GAGs in the scaffolds elicit distinct cellular responses. In particular, hyaluronic acid stimulated enhanced migration, accelerated chondrogenic gene expression and cartilage matrix production in comparison to chondroitin sulphate. This thesis demonstrated that scaffold mean pore size plays a significant role in cellular behaviour. In particular, scaffolds with larger mean pore sizes supported significantly greater chondrogenic gene expression and accumulation of synthesised cartilage matrix in comparison to scaffolds with small mean pore sizes. In addition to the composition and micro-structure, this thesis also demonstrated that scaffold mechanical properties influence the fate of MSCs. Compliant scaffolds stimulated greater MSC chondrogenic differentiation whilst the stiffest scaffolds stimulated MSC osteogenic differentiation in the absence of differentiation factors. This further highlights the importance of scaffold physical characteristics in modulating the behaviour of progenitor cells. This thesis also looked at the effect of environmental factors on MSC chondrogenic differentiation in the optimised porous collagen-hyaluronic acid (CHyA) scaffolds. Low oxygen environments stimulated greater MSC chondrogenic differentiation with short term exposure to hypoxia eliciting additional enhancement chondrogenesis compared to normoxia. In order to further improve the biofunctionality we developed a bioactive CHyA scaffold for the delivery of therapeutic biomolecules such as TGF-P3 in order to enhance the regenerative capacity of the scaffold. It was evident that CHyA scaffolds subsequently permitted controlled release of the growth factors. Furthermore, control over their release rates could be achieved through manipulation of scaffold degradation rates. This demonstrates the potential of using these scaffold-based systems for the delivery of chondro-inductive growth factors with great implications over local control of cellular behaviour. Collectively, this study has led to the development of a type of CG scaffold with optimised composition, micro-architecture and mechanical properties which has significant capacity to promote cartilage regeneration. In addition, this thesis highlights the potential of using these scaffolds as templates for the development of tissue engineered constructs through enhancement of MSC-mediated chondrogenesis with environmental factors

The need for a comprehensive international convention on crimes against humanity

Magister Legum - LLMIn the field of international law three core crimes generally make up the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals: war crimes; genocide; and crimes against humanity. Only two of these crimes (war crimes and genocide) are the subject of a global convention that requires States to prevent and punish such conduct and to cooperate among themselves toward those ends. By contrast, there is no such convention dedicated to preventing and punishing crimes against humanity. An international convention on prevention, punishment and inter-State cooperation with respect to crimes against humanity appears to be a key missing piece in the current framework of international law. The offence of crimes against humanity is a jus cogens and there is an erga omnes for states to prosecute and extradite offenders of crimes against humanity. This can be achieved by having international obligations founded on a specialised convention

Farmers’ multidimensional beliefs in orange-fleshed sweetpotato acceptance among rural households in Uganda

Open Access Journal; Published online: 11 July 2019This study sought to assess the role of multi-dimensional beliefs in acceptance of orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) as an important food for fighting micronutrient deficiencies among rural households in Uganda. Cross-sectional survey data gathered from 341 randomly selected household heads drawn from two districts were analyzed using one-way ANOVA. Post hoc tests indicate that multi-dimensional beliefs (resilience in the field (MD=0.442, p<.05), dry matter content (MD=0.90, p<.05) and control over timely access to labor (MD=0.45, p<.05) significantly enhanced farmers’ decisions to try OFSP cultivation. From trial to sustained cultivation, actions of peers (MD=1.57, p<.001); and control over timely access to labor, (MD=0.55, p<.05), availability of OFSP vines (MD=0.88, p<.001) and control over access to other OFSP farmers (MD=0.63, p<.001) revealed to be important variables. The results also suggest that multi-dimensional beliefs (actions of peers, (MD=1.17, p<.001), approval of peers (MD=1.00, p<.001), control over access to OFSP vines (MD=0.67, p<.001) and control over access to other OFSP farmers (MD=0.70, p<.01)), are vital in supporting farmers to maintain their decisions to cultivate OFSP. We conclude that farmers’ multi-dimensional beliefs are important in the cultivation of OFSP, and farmers’ advancement along each acceptance stage demands for different sets of beliefs. It is recommended that promotion efforts for OFSP and related crop enterprises pay attention to decision-makers’ beliefs

Motivators of couple HIV counseling and testing (CHCT) uptake in a rural setting in Uganda

Interview guide for Individuals in couple relationships (DOC 43 kb

The perceived role of innovation platforms in addressing the agricultural value chain collective problems: an empirical application of transaction cost theory

Agricultural innovation platforms are increasingly seen as a panacea for mitigating the agricultural value chain challenges through enabling the co-evolution of different elements in the innovation process. A number of previous studies on IPs show processes for their formation and contribution to innovations. Very few studies have attempted to investigate the perceived benefits from platforms as important determinants for actor participation. Using a sample of 319 randomly selected farmers from one innovation platform in Uganda, it was established that the uncertain markets for the agricultural output, sources of inputs and agricultural information were perceived to be the key motivators for the formation of the platform. The study found a positive significant relationship between transaction cost challenges of environmental uncertainty and structural embeddedness (p&lt;0.01) and frequency of interaction and structural embeddedness (p&lt;0.05). On the other hand, environmental uncertainty, asset specificity and frequency of interactions were significantly correlated with relational embeddedness (p&lt;0.05). However, the complexity of tasks in the value chain was not significantly correlated with structural and relational embeddedness (p≥0.05). It therefore means that to ensure effective participation and implementation of platform activities, efforts ought to be placed on fulfilling the platform’s promise as a forum for mitigation of transaction cost challenges such as inadequate markets for both output and inputs, customized products and inputs and lack of valuable agricultural information. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. &amp; Tech. 8 (2): 1-12, December, 201

The isolation and characterisation of novel natural products from marine bacterial symbionts

>Magister Scientiae - MScDrug-resistant infections are a global health crisis and drastically hinder the treatment options to effectively combat disease. Today, natural products remain an important source of novel drug candidates. Micro-organisms, in addition to being a source of bioactive natural products, represent a sustainable source of these compounds. As the marine environment is largely underexplored, the oceans represent a potential source of novel NPs. This study aimed at the discovery of novel NPs from bacteria associated with novel marine invertebrate species endemic to the South African coast, including a sponge Spongia (Spongia) sp. 001RSASPN and a tunicate, Pseudodistoma africanum Millar, 1954. The methodology comprised of culture-dependent and culture-independent strategies. The former involved the isolation of bacteria associated with the invertebrate species and subsequent screening for anti-microbial activity against a panel of indicator strains including a multi-drug resistant E. coli strain. Anti-bacterial activity was detected in 6.1% and 4% of bacterial isolates from the sponge and tunicate isolates respectively. The culture-independent strategy involved the use of PCR to select bioactive strains likely to contain novel NRPS or PKS secondary metabolite pathways. An NRPS A- domain exhibiting low sequence identity (65%) to reference sequences in the NCBI database was amplified from isolate PE8-15, a strain belonging to the genus Bacillus. This predicted a novel NRPS pathway within this strain. In addition, this isolate exhibited the most diverse anti-microbial profile including anti-bacterial and anti-fungal activity (A.fumigatus ATCC 46645). Therefore, as the most promising candidate, the genome of PE8-15 was sequenced following which 10 secondary metabolite pathways including bacteriocins (5), NRPS (3), siderophore (1) and a terpene pathway were identified. The A-domain amplified from PE8-15 originated from Cluster 4, and NRPS pathway predicted to encode a lipopeptide. Lipopeptides are an important class of compounds with a range of industrial applications in the pharmaceutical, cosmetic as well as food industry. The identification of potentially novel secondary metabolite pathways from even well- studied groups of organisms demonstrates the importance of sequence-based methods in natural product discovery. Furthermore, this study highlights the South African coast as a rich source of microbial natural products and should be exploited further for drug discovery