News Sourcing, Positioning and Thematic Focus: Examining Newspaper Portrayal of Herdsmen-Farmers Conflict in Nigeria

This study examined how Nigerian newspapers reported the herdsmen and farmers’ conflict in Nigeria. It analyzed the contents of six newspapers to explore the primary sources, the prominence accorded the conflict reports, and the themes focused on their reportage. Findings show that out of the 159 stories considered for the study, newspapers relied mostly on their correspondents and herdsmen representatives as primary news sources. Public condemnation/protests and government/public intervention were the dominant thematic focus. The northsouth media axis phenomenon in Nigeria resonated in the coverage as the frame of ‘herdsmen-against-farmers’ is indicated more in the southern-based newspapers consistent with the prevailing public notion. The study suggests that the media in Nigeria relied mainly on third party sources with the consequence their reports on the issue could be subject to source credibility deficiency. In addition to addressing the general theme of reportage of the herdsmen conflict, this study explicitly addresses how the newspapers covered the conflict in Benue and Enugu states

Migration and social mobility between Argentina and Spain : climbing the social hierarchy in the transnational space

Production of INCASI Project H2020-MSCA-RISE-2015 GA 691004This chapter analyses the relationship between migration and social mobility in Argentina and Spain from a transnational perspective focusing on two dimensions: the patterns of intergenerational social mobility of immigrants and natives in both countries; the social mobility strategies and trajectories of Galicians families in Buenos Aires and Argentinians, of Galician origin, who migrated to Galicia after the 2001 crisis. The chapter begins by contextualizing the migratory trends in Europe and Latin America. This is followed by a comparative study of how immigration impacts on the class structure and social mobility patterns in Argentina and Spain. Quantitative analysis techniques are used to study the intergenerational social mobility rates. The statistical analysis of stratification and social mobility surveys have been benchmarked against previous studies conducted in Argentina (Germani, G., Movilidad social en la sociedad industrial. EUDEBA, Buenos Aires, 1963; Dalle, P., Movilidad social desde las clases populares. Un estudio sociológico en el Área Metropolitana de Buenos Aires (1960-2013). CLACSO/Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani-UBA/CICCUS, Buenos Aires, 2016) and Spain (Fachelli, S., & López-Roldán, P., Revista Española de Sociología 26:1-20, 2017). Secondly, qualitative research methods are used to consider the social mobility strategies and class trajectories of migrant families. We analyse two fieldworks, developed in the framework of other research projects (based on 44 biographical and semi-structured interviews). These case studies were carried out with Galicians that migrated to Argentina between 1940 and 1960 and Argentinians, of Galician origin, who migrated to Galicia after the 2001 crisis

Awareness and Diffusion of TSA as Creative Governance Tool among Lagosians

This study examined public awareness, and of Treasury Single Account (TSA) a creative and innovative governance tool among Nigerians. Many previous studies on TSA have focused mainly on assessing the negative and positive effects and implications of the initiative, while little has been done to address the awareness and diffusion of the innovation among the people during and after its introduction. This study therefore sought to examine how the public became aware of the policy and how the innovation was diffused within the time of review. Survey was adopted to generate primary data while structured questionnaire was administered to 120 respondents randomly selected from among postgraduate students and lecturers of University of Lagos (with 96% return rate). Random sampling was informed by the need to give every member of the target group a chance to be selected while the choice of University of Lagos was informed by the need to involve educated and knowledgeable individuals with sufficient knowledge of the subject matter; university environment was selected purposively to simplify the process of reaching the respondents at one place without sacrificing adequate representation. Data was analysed using simple frequency and percentages. Findings show that the citizens’ knowledge of the introduction of the governance instruments was slow but steady within the first three months; many of the citizens were positively disposed to TSA based on their belief that it would bring transparency and curb financial corruption. The paper recommends that the introduction of new ideas into governance, particularly technologically driven initiatives, needs to be adequately publicised through the media to enable a good majority of the citizens to understand and buy into it as citizens’ acceptance and adoption are paramount

GROWTH RESPONSE OF BROILER BIRDS FED Asystasia gangetica LEAF MEAL IN HOT HUMID ENVIRONMENT

A 35- day feeding trial was conducted to study the effects of inclusion of Asystasia gangetica leaf meal (AGLM) on the growth response of broiler chickens. Samples of Asystasia gangetica leaves were sourced from the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta environment. The leaves were chopped and wilted, sun dried to reduce the moisture level to the minimal level. The dried leaves were milled to produce leaf meal. Asystasia gangetica leaf meal contain 19.38% crude protein, 15.30% crude fibre, 12.70% ether extract, 1.70% ash and 36.34% NFE.  A total number of 120 day old Marshal Strain of broiler chicks was used. A standard starter diet was fed to the birds prior to the commencement of the experiment. At the end of the 3rd week, birds were allotted into four treatments having three replicates of 10 birds each. Four experimental diets were formulated with varying levels of A. gangetica leaf meal (0, 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 %) respectively.  Final live weight and daily weight gain varied significantly (P<0.05) among treatment groups. The feed intake and feed conversion ratio were not significantly influenced (P>0.05) by dietary treatments. Final weight and weight gain values were found to decrease across the dietary treatments with increasing level of A. gangetica leaf meal. The results of the experiment show that the use of A. gangetica as feed ingredient in broiler production significantly depressed growth.Â

Phytochemical fingerprint and biological activities of three Malaysian Ficus Deltoidea Cultivars

Background: Ficus deltoidea(Moraceae), is a Malay Traditional Medicine locally known as Mas Cotek. Three varieties (angustifolia, deltoidea and kunslerii) has been indictincty used. Aims We here aim to better understand their chemistry and bioactivities to inform future scientific and agronomic research. Methods: We extracted and analyzed (HPTLC and HPLC-UV) samples from these varieties. The in vitro screening included the scavenging of DPPH and NO radicals, activity upon tyrosinase and cytotoxicity against three human prostate cancer cells (PC3, DU145 and LNCaP)using the sulforhodamine B proliferation assay and the MTT mitochondrial viability assay. Results : We show that vitexin, orientin and isoorientin may act as intraspecific and interorgan phytomarkers The biological activities of the extracts point out to the antioxidant value of extracts from the deltoidea and kunslerii varieties whilst the inhibition of tyrosinase is only present in the root extract of the var. deltoidea which is also endowed with cytotoxic activity against prostate cancer cells. Conclusion: We suggest that the three Malaysian Ficus deltoideabotanical varieties (angustifolia, deltoideaand kunslerii) can be considered chemovars. The most active extract was from the roots of var. deltoids that show antioxidant, antimelanogenic and cytotoxic potential

The effect of using solid-state fermented peeled and unpeeled cassava root tubers and limiting amino acid supplementation on metabolisable energy for meat-type cockerels

A preliminary in-vitro solid-state fermentation of peeled (PCRM) and unpeeled cassava root tuber meal (UCRM) using Aspergillus niger van Tieghem, was conducted, followed by a force-feeding experiment to investigate the effects of a diet of solid state fermented peeled (PCRM) and unpeeled (UPCRM) cassava root, supplemented with limiting amino acid, on metabolizable energy (ME) for meat-type cockerels. Forty eight, 84 d-old meat-type cockerels (Ross 308) were assigned to 8 treatments consisting of 6 birds per treatment laid out in a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatment consisting of PCRM and UCRM subjected or not to solid-state fermentation and supplemented with or without limiting amino acids. An additional 6 cockerels were used for endogenous study. Peeling of cassava root increased (P < 0.05) gross energy content of the resultant cassava meal when compared with UCRM. Solid-state fermentation using Aspergillus niger increased (P < 0.05) the crude ash, ether extract and arginine concentration of PCRM and UCRM. Solid-state fermented PCRM recorded the highest (P < 0.05) amylopectin, least (P < 0.05) resistant starch and hydrocyanide concentration. Highest (P < 0.05) apparent metabolizable energy (AME) and nitrogen corrected AME (AMEn) values were obtained for cockerels fed with solid-state fermented PCRM supplemented with or without amino acid. However, supplementation of solid-state fermented PCRM with amino acid resulted in highest (P < 0.05) true metabolisable energy (TME) and nitrogen corrected TME (TMEn) for meat-type cockerels. Reduced (P < 0.05) AME and AMEn values were recorded for UCRM, regardless of solid-state fermentation and amino acid supplementation. In conclusion, solid-state fermentation and amino acid supplementation of PCRM resulted in improved AME, AMEn, TME and TMEn values for meat-type cockerels. Amino acid supplementation had no improvement on AME, AMEn and TME values of UCRM for meat-type cockerels

Generalisability of deep learning models in low-resource imaging settings: A fetal ultrasound study in 5 African countries

Most artificial intelligence (AI) research have concentrated in high-income countries, where imaging data, IT infrastructures and clinical expertise are plentiful. However, slower progress has been made in limited-resource environments where medical imaging is needed. For example, in Sub-Saharan Africa the rate of perinatal mortality is very high due to limited access to antenatal screening. In these countries, AI models could be implemented to help clinicians acquire fetal ultrasound planes for diagnosis of fetal abnormalities. So far, deep learning models have been proposed to identify standard fetal planes, but there is no evidence of their ability to generalise in centres with limited access to high-end ultrasound equipment and data. This work investigates different strategies to reduce the domain-shift effect for a fetal plane classification model trained on a high-resource clinical centre and transferred to a new low-resource centre. To that end, a classifier trained with 1,792 patients from Spain is first evaluated on a new centre in Denmark in optimal conditions with 1,008 patients and is later optimised to reach the same performance in five African centres (Egypt, Algeria, Uganda, Ghana and Malawi) with 25 patients each. The results show that a transfer learning approach can be a solution to integrate small-size African samples with existing large-scale databases in developed countries. In particular, the model can be re-aligned and optimised to boost the performance on African populations by increasing the recall to $0.92 \pm 0.04$ and at the same time maintaining a high precision across centres. This framework shows promise for building new AI models generalisable across clinical centres with limited data acquired in challenging and heterogeneous conditions and calls for further research to develop new solutions for usability of AI in countries with less resources

Grain and seed protein functionality

Editado por Jiménez-López, José Carlos (CSIC

Making health news: Examining how health influencers drive coverage of maternal and child healthcare issues in Nigerian newspapers

Nigeria is a developing country with varied developmental challenges. It has one of the worst maternal and child healthcare (MCH) indices, globally. The media, as a vital element within the society, has the potential to contribute to improving MCH through appropriate framing and communication of MCH issues. Achieving media inclusion poses a challenge as media contents are often products of varied power relations. Extant studies have established that health is often not primed in Nigerian newspapers where politics and business hold sway. News media contents are also influenced by varied factors which exists both within and outside of news media organisations. Premised on sociology of news as critical perspective, this study examines power relations in newspaper representation of MCH issues in Nigeria. Combining content analysis of MCH-related stories in newspapers with in-depth interview of newspaper health editors, it explores factors and underlying reasons driving coverage of MCH. It finds that government, local and international aid agencies, and civil societies often influence coverage of MCH issues. These groups drive media representation of MCH through established journalistic routine and reporter-source relations, often favouring priming of official news sources and ‘powerful’ elements within the society, as a necessity for maximising limited news media resources. This paper identifies various forms in which these groups manipulates media representation of MCH, urging the media to be more proactive in driving agenda for improved MCH for the citizenry, and not accede to satisfying peculiar interests over public interest