Food culture and child-feeding practices in Njombe and Mvomero districts, Tanzania

Author's accepted version (post-print).Available from 09/12/2017.This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Eastern African Studies on 08/06/2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17531055.2016.1184834.This article explores food culture and child-feeding practices, focusing on children below five years among the Bena and Luguru ethnic groups located in Njombe and Mvomero rural districts in Tanzania. In these two societies existing cultural norms, and beliefs related to child feeding focusing on breastfeeding and complementary feeding were investigated aiming at understanding how every-day practices on child feeding are socially and culturally constructed by actors including parents or guardians, thus giving cultural meanings that are attached to every-day realities on child feeding. The article is part of a larger research project whose overall purpose was to investigate the outcome of milk-based nutrition interventions involving dairy goat and cattle-keeping with the aim among others to improve health and nutritional status of family members, especially children below five years in societies where prevalence of malnutrition particularly undernutrition is rather high. Methods used included participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews. Findings show that early after birth, pre-lacteal feeds are commonly introduced in both societies and the most common complementary food includes plain maize porridge. On the other hand, milk consumption among children was rather limited. Existing food habits and feeding practices seem to be informed by widely-shared norms and beliefs. However, these culturally established practices do not always meet the current international recommendations on child feeding. Besides, recommendations and nutritional information on child feeding have largely not been used as suggested. This paper argues that, for the successful introduction and implementation of nutrition-based interventions targeting children, it is important to identify and improve upon the indigenous child-feeding practices, reflecting existing food habits, food-related beliefs, and their meanings

Bacterial assessment of effluents from selected abattoirs into adjoining water bodies in Kaduna Metropolis

Abattoir effluents discharged into water bodies have high health implications. The study was carried within Mar to September 2019, to isolate and characterize bacteria from effluents discharged into water bodies from three Local Government Area Kaduna South (Kakuri), Chikun (Sabo-Tasha) and Kaduna North (Kawo) abattoirs within Kaduna metropolis. Three hundred of water samples were collected during the period of study. The samples were analyzed for bacterial content using standard Spread plate technique. The water samples collected content the mixture of blood, urine, piece of bone, faeces, etc. The result obtained from the water samples from the three abattoirs showed a bacterial high means count of 3.5 x 103CFU/mL Kakuri abattoirs showed means bacterial count of 2.40x103CFU/mL, Sabo abattoirs showed means count of 2.20 x103CFU/mL and Kawo abattoir showed means of 1.90 x 103 CFU/mL Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, Klebsiella sp., Salmonella sp., Enterobacter sp., Shigella sp. and Preteus sp. were isolated from waste water samples obtained from the three abattoirs. Analysis of the water sample obtained from the three abattoirs were observed to have a high numbers of bacterial that are harmful to human like E. coli. There is need to study the ecological implication of these  bacteria. Keywords: Abattoirs, Bacterial Content, Characterize, Effluent and Metropolis

Simulations and Measurements of the Background Encountered by a High-Altitude Balloon-Borne Experiment for Hard X-ray Astronomy

We have modelled the hard X-ray background expected for a high-altitude balloon flight of the Energetic X-ray Telescope Experiment (EXITE2), an imaging phoswich detector/telescope for the 20--600 keV energy range. Photon and neutron-induced contributions to the background are considered. We describe the code and the results of a series of simulations with different shielding configurations. The simulated hard X-ray background for the actual flight configuration agrees reasonably well (within a factor of $\sim$ 2) with the results measured on the first flight of EXITE2 from Palestine, Texas. The measured background flux at 100 keV is $\sim$ 4 $\times$ 10$^{-4}$ counts cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ keV$^{-1}$.Comment: 17 pages Latex (uses aaspp4.sty) plus 7 postscript figures: available in file figs.tar.g

Report on the socio-economic impact of Natural Rubber cultivation under the block planting scheme in Tripura

The study is a pioneering attempt to assess the socio-economic impact of the Block Planting Scheme (BPS) from the angle of the beneficiaries,implementing agencies and the policymakers.The report is based on the primary information gathered from 480 households drawn from Block Planting Units with mature (Mature BPUs)and immature (Immature BPUs) area under Natural Rubber (NR) as well as households attached to Group Processing Scheme (GPUs) with mature area under NR during the year 2008.The tripartite BPS involving the Rubber Board, the State Government of Tripura and the beneficiaries has been unique in its contents and mode of implementation since 1992.The average household income of mature BPUs was Rs.99168 compared to Rs.46824 of immature BPUs. Therefore, an annual income difference of Rs.52344 (112%) was observed between households with and without income from rubber (mature and immature BPUs).The compositions of income showed that rubber was the major source of income for GPUs (75%) and mature BPUs (66%). For immature BPUs,employment was the major source of income (77%).In the long-run, the concerned agencies of the state government may initiate skill oriented programmes for empowering the unemployed/underemployed youth along with improvements in the infrastructural facilities. Such policy initiatives will enable diversification of the sources of income and ensure sustainability of NR cultivation as observed in the case of Kerala and FELDA in Malaysia

Dynamical properties of the unitary Fermi gas: collective modes and shock waves

We discuss the unitary Fermi gas made of dilute and ultracold atoms with an infinite s-wave inter-atomic scattering length. First we introduce an efficient Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsacker density functional which describes accurately various static properties of the unitary Fermi gas trapped by an external potential. Then, the sound velocity and the collective frequencies of oscillations in a harmonic trap are derived from extended superfluid hydrodynamic equations which are the Euler-Lagrange equations of a Thomas-Fermi-von Weizsacker action functional. Finally, we show that this amazing Fermi gas supports supersonic and subsonic shock waves.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, invited talk at the International Workshop "Critical Stability 2011" (Erice, October 2011), to be published in the journal Few Body System

Role of Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Spinal Cord Astrocytes in the Functional Maturation of Motor Neurons in a Multielectrode Array System

The ability to generate human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-derived neural cells displaying region-specific phenotypes is of particular interest for modeling central nervous system biology in vitro. We describe a unique method by which spinal cord hiPSC-derived astrocytes (hiPSC-A) are cultured with spinal cord hiPSC-derived motor neurons (hiPSC-MN) in a multielectrode array (MEA) system to record electrophysiological activity over time. We show that hiPSC-A enhance hiPSC-MN electrophysiological maturation in a time-dependent fashion. The sequence of plating, density, and age in which hiPSC-A are cocultured with MN, but not their respective hiPSC line origin, are factors that influence neuronal electrophysiology. When compared to coculture with mouse primary spinal cord astrocytes, we observe an earlier and more robust electrophysiological maturation in the fully human cultures, suggesting that the human origin is relevant to the recapitulation of astrocyte/motor neuron crosstalk. Finally, we test pharmacological compounds on our MEA platform and observe changes in electrophysiological activity, which confirm hiPSC-MN maturation. These findings are supported by immunocytochemistry and real-time PCR studies in parallel cultures demonstrating human astrocyte mediated changes in the structural maturation and protein expression profiles of the neurons. Interestingly, this relationship is reciprocal and coculture with neurons influences astrocyte maturation as well. Taken together, these data indicate that in a human in vitro spinal cord culture system, astrocytes support hiPSC-MN maturation in a time-dependent and species-specific manner and suggest a closer approximation of in vivo conditions

Weibull Strength Analysis of Pineapple Leaf Fiber

Pineapple leave fiber (PALF) can be considered as one of the green materials to the industries, which is the potential to replace the non-renewable synthetic fiber. However, the high disparity in the mechanical properties of PALF becomes an issue in structural composite design. Hence, improved Weibull distribution is utilised to quantify the tensile strength variation of PALF in various gauge lengths. The single fiber tensile test was performed after the fiber surface treatment and fiber diameter scanning. The predicted PALF strength by applying the improved Weibull distribution incorporating with conical frustum model is well compromised with experimental data compared to the traditional Weibull model

Phenomenology of the Interplay between IR-Improved DGLAP-CS Theory and NLO ME Matched Parton Shower MC Precision

We present the current status of the application of our approach of {\it exact} amplitude-based resummation in quantum field theory to precision QCD calculations, by realistic MC event generator methods, as needed for precision LHC physics.In this ongoing program of research, we discuss recent results as they relate to the interplay of the attendant IR-Improved DGLAP-CS theory of one of us and the precision of exact NLO matrix element matched parton shower MC's in the Herwig6.5 environment in relation to recent LHC experimental observations. There continues to be reason for optimism in the attendant comparison of theory and experiment.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures; now 12 pages, 4 figures -- explanatory material added and title changed for publication in Phys. Lett.

Longitudinal double-spin asymmetry and cross section for inclusive neutral pion production at midrapidity in polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV

We report a measurement of the longitudinal double-spin asymmetry A_LL and the differential cross section for inclusive Pi0 production at midrapidity in polarized proton collisions at sqrt(s) = 200 GeV. The cross section was measured over a transverse momentum range of 1 < p_T < 17 GeV/c and found to be in good agreement with a next-to-leading order perturbative QCD calculation. The longitudinal double-spin asymmetry was measured in the range of 3.7 < p_T < 11 GeV/c and excludes a maximal positive gluon polarization in the proton. The mean transverse momentum fraction of Pi0's in their parent jets was found to be around 0.7 for electromagnetically triggered events.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D (RC