Land Use Land Cover Change of Qotto-Asanao Micro Watershed

The dependency of farming community on the natural resource base aggravates its degradation and deterioration. To reverse and mitigate such natural resource degradation integrated watershed management has been implemented as one of the best strategies. Integrated watershed management is an action oriented development intervention in which farming communities are actively participated in all process starting from its planning to implementation. In southern Ethiopia, a micro-watershed known as Qotto-Asano was identified and integrated watershed management has been implemented since 2011. The land use and land cover change of the micro watershed was detected using Geographical Information System (GIS) and remote sensing techniques. The major land cover categories statistically compared in to two periods, i.e., before the intervention (1986 to 2010) and during the intervention (2011 to 2015) were cultivated land, forest, shrub, grass land, wet land and area allocated for built up. As a result of watershed intervention between the period 2011 and 2015, both positive and negative changes had occurred in the micro watershed. Positive land cover pattern was observed in forest (0.73%), grass land (0.35%) and cultivated land (1.12%) while shrub (-2.42%) and bare land (0.86%) showed negative increment.  In conclusion, integrated watershed management should be given due emphasis by development practitioners as a remedy action to maintain and conserve the natural resource base. Keywords: Integrated watershed management, Land use/land cover, Geographical Information System

In Vivo anti-malarial activities of Clerodendrum myricoides, Dodonea angustifolia and Aloe debrana against Plasmodium berghei

Background: Malaria caused by the parasite Plasmodium falciparum is an acute disease which kills an estimated 863,000 people per year according to the WHO report of 2009. The fight against malaria is faced with the occurrence of widespread resistance of P. falciparum. The search for plant-derived antimalarial drugs has great importance in this regard. Thus this study evaluates the toxicity and antimalarial activity of extracts of Clerodendrum myricoides, Dodonia angustifolia and Aloe debrana.Method: Acute and sub acute toxicity studies of the extracts were carried out by giving up to 3000mg/kg to noninfected mice. Weight loss, change in general behavior and mortality were used as indicators of toxicity. Doses of 200, 400 & 600mg/kg/day of each extract of C.myricoides, D. dodonia and A.debrana were given orally to Plasmodium berghei infected mice following the four-day suppressive test procedure.Results: None of the extracts caused symptoms of toxicity at the given doses. Each extract showed variable level of parasitaemia suppression in dose related manner. Methanol extract of C. myricoides leaves exerted 82.50% suppression at the dose of 600mg/kg. The methanol extract of the root of D. angustifolia showed the highest (84.52%) suppression of parasitaemia at the dose of 600mg/kg. Furthermore, methanol extract of A. debrana induced 73.95% suppression, whereas its water extract exerted 54.36% suppression of parasitaemia.Conclusion: Crude extracts of C. myricoides, D. angustifolia and A.debrana caused strong activities against P. berghei indicating that they contain some chemical constituents that possibly lead to antimalarial drug development. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 2010; 24(1):25-29

HIV self-testing practices among Health Care Workers: feasibility and options for accelerating HIV testing services in Ethiopia

Introduction: HIV is still an enormous global burden and it is also causing loss of huge health care workers (HCWs) on the already limited human resource capacity in health care services in Sub-Saharan Africa. Variety of methods of accelerating HIV testing is required to increase the rate of HIV testing and expand treatment services. Therefore, this study was aimed to find out the prevalence, feasibility and options of HIV self-testing practices in Ethiopia. Methods: A cross-sectional study design triangulated with qualitative method was conducted from February to May, 2012. The data was collected using a semi-structured pretested questionnaire and in-depth interview, at government and private health centers or clinics and hospitals. During the data collection all the available healthcare workers (HCWs) which encompass the internship students including: Medical, Health Officer, Nurses, Midwives and Laboratory students, and health professionals working in the selected health institutions were involved.Results: A total of 307 HCWs were included in the analysis and we found that 288(94.4%) of them were ever tested for HIV, of which majority 203 (70.5%) were tested by themselves though 244(80%) of the HCWs had motivation or interest to be tested by themselves. Generally, of the ever tested only 85(29.5%) were tested by the help of health care providers/counselors other than self. Regarding the place where the HCWs had the test, majority 136 (69.4%) tested by themselves at the health facility and the rest were tested at their home, office, market and church. The main reason stated for self-testing was the need for confidentiality for the test result, which was mentioned by 205(82%). Moreover, 35(14.0%) claims lack of time to access the ordinary counseling and testing services. Conclusion: This study depicts high rate of HIV self-testing practice among HCWs. This shows that HIV self-testing can be considered as one pillar to increase the HIV-testing services and a means for the HIV prevention and control policy, through increasing HIV testing uptake and awareness of HIV status. However, the implementation may require the role of different stakeholders and decision makers with further study to extend the options.Key words: HIV, VCT, self-test, health care workers, Ethiopi

Tropospheric Scintillation Signatures: Observations of the Possible Effect Thunderstorms have on GPS Signals

The Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) has wide applications from daily life to numerous industries. Understanding how space weather affects the radio signals is imperative to maintain its accuracy. Space weather events, such as geomagnetic storms, create a disturbance in the ionosphere by increasing the total electron content. However, these disturbances are found in high latitude regions where most studies are conducted; minimal research exists concerning the mid-latitude region. There is a gap in research focusing on how tropospheric sources such as thunderstorms might generate ionospheric structures that affect these signals as well. The purpose of this project is to fill that gap by analyzing the possible relationship between thunderstorms and scintillation. If a relationship is found, this could spark a whole new method of potentially predicting severe weather such as tornadoes and hurricanes. To study these relationships, 2 GPS receivers, both situated in Daytona Beach, Florida, were used to record GNSS data. A code was developed that graphed and analyzed the receiver data for scintillation signatures. Archived weather data was used to identify the exact date and time of thunderstorms. After favorable scintillation candidates were found, lightning location data was combed to compare it with the scintillation signatures. More accurate lightning data is required to determine a direct correlation to GPS scintillation, however, the current work lays a foundation to study relationship between tropospheric events and radio signal scintillation

Explaining Deep Learning Time Series Classification Models using a Decision Tree

This preliminary study proposes a new post hoc method to explain deep learning-based time series classification models using a decision tree. Our approach generates a decision tree graph or rulesets as an explanation, improving interpretability compared to saliency map-based methods. The method involves two phases: training and evaluating the deep learning-based time series classification model and extracting prototypical events from the evaluation set to train the decision tree classifier. We conducted experiments on artificial and real datasets, evaluating the explanations based on accuracy, fidelity, number of nodes, and depth. Our preliminary findings suggest that our post-hoc method improves the interpretability and trust of complex time series classification models.https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cddpos/1018/thumbnail.jp

Pathways to improved nutrition in the Ethiopian Highlands

United States Agency for International Developmen