Assessment of needs and feasibility of commercial production of tropical fruits and vegetables for diversified exports in Ethiopia and Sudan

Diversification into the production and export of horticultural crops is a strategy increasingly adopted by developing countries to enhance incomes, employment and foreign exchange earnings. However, a relatively small number of countries dominate exports of horticultural products from Sub-Saharan Africa and for most African countries the horticulture export sector has remained very small and/or has experienced severe bottlenecks to expansion. The Common Fund for Commodities (CFC) is financing projects to assist Least Developed Countries in the diversification of their commodity exports. As part of this programme, the CFC is funding this pilot project in Ethiopia and the Sudan to assess the needs and feasibility of developing commercial production of high value tropical fruit and vegetable products based on these countries' comparative advantage. The purpose of this report is to identify and prioritise the various capacity building measures that need to be devised and developed to overcome these constraints and thus facilitate an expansion of fruit and vegetable exports. The aim is to advise the relevant international and national institutions on modalities to adopt in order to strengthen the existing horticultural strategy in Ethiopia and Sudan and thus reduce poverty while enhancing the livelihood benefits accruing. The report has five chapters. The first is an introduction, while aspects of horticultural production and trade in Ethiopia and Sudan are discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 respectively. Chapter 4 reviews the international market situation looking specifically at European Union and Middle East markets. Chapter 5 contains conclusions and recommendations of the study. In addition, there are 7 Annexes, covering methodology, contacts and itinerary, workshops in Sudan and Ethiopia, detailed production and trade data, and materials consulted

The production of fresh produce in Africa for export to the United Kingdom: mapping different value chains

This report maps the involvement of African smallholders in supplying produce to UK markets (with emphasis on detailed characterisation of UK markets) by determining origin of product, types of product, volumes, values and numbers of smallholders involved and destination markets. The study is important because there is strong evidence that exporters and importers are moving away from the smallest of growers, not because of product quality or productivity, but because of transaction costs associated with private retailer standards. At present, it is not clear whether production by small-scale farmers throughout Africa destined for export to retailers abroad can remain viable

Computational Semantics with Functional Programming, by Jan van Eijck and Christina Unger

One of the fundamental tasks of science is to find explainable relationships between observed phenomena. One approach to this task that has received attention in recent years is based on probabilistic graphical modelling with sparsity constraints on model structures. In this paper, we describe two new approaches to Bayesian inference of sparse structures of Gaussian graphical models (GGMs). One is based on a simple modification of the cutting-edge block Gibbs sampler for sparse GGMs, which results in significant computational gains in high dimensions. The other method is based on a specific construction of the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampler, which results in further significant improvements. We compare our fully Bayesian approaches with the popular regularisation-based graphical LASSO, and demonstrate significant advantages of the Bayesian treatment under the same computing costs. We apply the methods to a broad range of simulated data sets, and a real-life financial data set

Wavelength Tunability of Ion-bombardment Induced Ripples on Sapphire

A study of ripple formation on sapphire surfaces by 300-2000 eV Ar+ ion bombardment is presented. Surface characterization by in-situ synchrotron grazing incidence small angle x-ray scattering and ex-situ atomic force microscopy is performed in order to study the wavelength of ripples formed on sapphire (0001) surfaces. We find that the wavelength can be varied over a remarkably wide range-nearly two orders of magnitude-by changing the ion incidence angle. Within the linear theory regime, the ion induced viscous flow smoothing mechanism explains the general trends of the ripple wavelength at low temperature and incidence angles larger than 30. In this model, relaxation is confined to a few-nm thick damaged surface layer. The behavior at high temperature suggests relaxation by surface diffusion. However, strong smoothing is inferred from the observed ripple wavelength near normal incidence, which is not consistent with either surface diffusion or viscous flow relaxation.Comment: Revtex4, 19 pages, 10 figures with JPEG forma

Epidemiology of epidermolysis bullosa in the antipodes: The Australasian epidermolysis bullosa registry with a focus on Herlitz junctional epidermolysis bullosa

To present epidemiologic and clinical data from the Australasian Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) Registry, the first orphan disease registry in Australia. Design: Observational study (cross-sectional and longitudinal). Setting: Australian private dermatology practice, inpatient ward, and outpatient clinic. Patients: Systematic case finding of patients with EB simplex, junctional EB (JEB), and dystrophic EB and data collection were performed throughout Australia and New Zealand from January 1, 2006, through December 31, 2008. Patients were consecutively enrolled in the study after clinical assessment and laboratory diagnosis. Medical records were retrospectively examined, and physicians involved in EB care were contacted to obtain patient history. A Herlitz JEB case series was prepared from registry data. Main Outcome Measures: Demographics and prognosis of patients with Herlitz JEB. Results: A total of 259 patients were enrolled in the study: 139 with EBS, 91 with dystrophic EB, 28 with JEB, and 1 with Kindler syndrome. Most enrollees were Australian citizens (n=243), with an Australian prevalence rate of 10.3 cases per million. The age range in the registry was birth to 99 years, with a mean and median age of 24.1 and 18.0 years, respectively. Ages were similar in patients with EBS and dominant dystrophic EB but were markedly lower in patients with JEB. Patients with Herlitz JEB (n=10) had the highest morbidity and mortality rates, with a mean age at death of 6.8 months. Sepsis, failure to thrive, and tracheolaryngeal complications were the leading causes of death. Conclusions: The Australasian EB registry is the first registry in Australia and New Zealand to provide original data on age, sex, ethnicity, and geographical and disease subtype distribution. The Australasian Herlitz JEB cohort witnessed a high infant mortality rate and poor prognosis overall

Review article: defining remission in ulcerative colitis

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/87130/1/j.1365-2036.2011.04701.x.pd

Terminology and Classification of Muscle Injuries in Sport: The Munich Consensus Statement

Objective: To provide a clear terminology and classification of muscle injuries in order to facilitate effective communication among medical practitioners and development of systematic treatment strategies. Methods: Thirty native English-speaking scientists and team doctors of national and first division professional sports teams were asked to complete a questionnaire on muscle injuries to evaluate the currently used terminology of athletic muscle injury. In addition, a consensus meeting of international sports medicine experts was established to develop practical and scientific definitions of muscle injuries as well as a new and comprehensive classification system. Results: The response rate of the survey was 63%. The responses confirmed the marked variability in the use of the terminology relating to muscle injury, with the most obvious inconsistencies for the term strain. In the consensus meeting, practical and systematic terms were defined and established. In addition, a new comprehensive classification system was developed, which differentiates between four types: functional muscle disorders (type 1: overexertion-related and type 2: neuromuscular muscle disorders) describing disorders without macroscopic evidence of fibre tear and structural muscle injuries (type 3: partial tears and type 4: (sub)total tears/tendinous avulsions) with macroscopic evidence of fibre tear, that is, structural damage. Subclassifications are presented for each type. Conclusions: A consistent English terminology as well as a comprehensive classification system for athletic muscle injuries which is proven in the daily practice are presented. This will help to improve clarity of communication for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and can serve as the basis for future comparative studies to address the continued lack of systematic information on muscle injuries in the literature. What are the new things: Consensus definitions of the terminology which is used in the field of muscle injuries as well as a new comprehensive classification system which clearly defines types of athletic muscle injuries