Seed Borne Fungal and Bacteria Pathogens Associated with Farmer-Stored Sorghum Seeds from Eastern, Coast and Nyanza Regions in Kenya

Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench) is an important cereal crop in Kenya. Access to good quality seeds is one of the constraints facing the small scale farmers in key areas growing sorghum. Good quality seed is an important factor for maintaining plant population and increasing crop yield to attain food security. One of the important aspects of good seed, besides high germination and purity is the absence of seed borne pathogens. In the present study, an experiment was carried out to identify fungal and bacterial pathogens associated with farmer-stored seeds of sorghum. The seeds were collected from farmers in Nyanza, Coast and Eastern regions, Kenya. The seeds were washed with sterile distilled water and sterilized in 1% Sodium hypochloride for 5 minutes, rinsed with sterile distilled water and dried using a blotting paper. The dried seeds were placed onto prepared Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) and macerated seeds streaked on nutrient Agar (NA) on sterile Petri dishes and incubated at 23±20C. The growing pathogens were sub-cultured on new media to make pure cultures. A segment of mycelia from the sporulating colonies in each pure culture was examined under a compound microscope and identified based on their morphology, colour and mycelia growth characteristics for fungi while bacterial identification was done using colony color and morphology on nutrient agar and biochemical tests. Ten fungal pathogens and one bacterium were identified growing on the sorghum seed samples. These were Acremonium spp., Alternaria spp., Aspergilus niger, Bipolaris cookie, Collectotrichum graminicola, Fusarium moniliforme, Fusarium solani, Fusarium ventrichosum, Phythium aphanidermatum, Rhizoctonia spp. and a bacterium Xanthomonas spp.  It was observed that majority (32%) of the seed samples from Coast region were infected with bacteria Xanthomonas spp. Phythium. aphanidermatum was the most prevalent fungal pathogen detected on seed samples from Nyanza region with about 20% prevalence. Results showed that majority of the seed samples from all the regions were contaminated with various pathogens. This study highlights the need to create awareness to farmers on the use of proper production practices, storage facilities and conditions to improve the quality of stored sorghum seeds. Keywords: farmer-stored seeds, seed-borne pathogens, sorghum DOI: 10.7176/JBAH/10-18-06 Publication date:September 30th 202

Disfluences et vieillissement langagier. De la base de données VALIBEL aux corpus outillés en français parlé

Après avoir fait l’état des lieux de la base de données VALIBEL en la situant dans son contexte institutionnel, nous mettons en exergue dans cet article quelques possibilités d’investigation qu’offre la base en regard de ses évolutions récentes. Une attention particulière est portée à l’outillage des corpus en termes de disfluences (avec le programme DisMo) et à l’étude du vieillissement langagier (liée au corpus Corpage). Nous concluons en montrant en quoi l’enrichissement constant de la base (en outillage et en corpus) permet d’ouvrir de nouvelles pistes de recherches dans des domaines encore peu explorés en linguistique, eu égard à des problématiques sociétales majeures.This paper aims at giving an overview of the VALIBEL database as it stands today. In addition, it opens up new perspectives with respect to more recent advances regarding (semi-automatic) annotation, as well as with regard to new corpora created to address societal issues (cf. the Corpage corpus). Particular attention is paid here to the automatic detection of disfluencies in the corpus data (using the DisMo program), with a developmental view on language and aging

Trends in cardiovascular disease biomarkers and their socioeconomic patterning among adults in the Scottish population 1995 to 2009: cross-sectional surveys

Objectives To examine secular and socioeconomic changes in biological cardiovascular disease risk factor and biomarker prevalences in the Scottish population. This could contribute to an understanding of why the decline in coronary heart disease mortality in Scotland has recently stalled along with persistence of associated socioeconomic inequalities. Design Cross-sectional surveys. Setting Scotland. Participants Scottish Health Surveys: 1995, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2009 (6190, 6656, 5497, 4202 and 4964 respondents, respectively, aged 25–64 years). Primary outcome measures Gender-stratified, age-standardised prevalences of obesity, hypertension, hypercholesterolaemia and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol blood concentration as well as elevated fibrinogen and C reactive protein concentrations according to education and social class groupings. Inequalities were assessed using the slope index of inequality, and time trends were assessed using linear regression. Results The prevalence of obesity, including central obesity, increased between 1995 and 2009 among men and women, irrespective of socioeconomic position. In 2009, the prevalence of obesity (defined by body mass index) was 29.8% (95% CI 27.9% to 31.7%) for men and 28.2% (26.3% to 30.2%) for women. The proportion of individuals with hypertension remained relatively unchanged between 1995 and 2008/2009, while the prevalence of hypercholesterolaemia declined in men from 79.6% (78.1% to 81.1%) to 63.8% (59.9% to 67.8%) and in women from 74.1% (72.6% to 75.7%) to 66.3% (62.6% to 70.0%). Socioeconomic inequalities persisted over time among men and women for most of the biomarkers and were particularly striking for the anthropometric measures when stratified by education. Conclusions If there are to be further declines in coronary heart disease mortality and reduction in associated inequalities, then there needs to be a favourable step change in the prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors. This may require radical population-wide interventions

Generation of mice with a conditional Foxp2 null allele

Disruptions of the human FOXP2 gene cause problems with articulation of complex speech sounds, accompanied by impairment in many aspects of language ability. The FOXP2/Foxp2 transcription factor is highly similar in humans and mice, and shows a complex conserved expression pattern, with high levels in neuronal subpopulations of the cortex, striatum, thalamus, and cerebellum. In the present study we generated mice in which loxP sites flank exons 12–14 of Foxp2; these exons encode the DNA-binding motif, a key functional domain. We demonstrate that early global Cre-mediated recombination yields a null allele, as shown by loss of the loxP-flanked exons at the RNA level and an absence of Foxp2 protein. Homozygous null mice display severe motor impairment, cerebellar abnormalities and early postnatal lethality, consistent with other Foxp2 mutants. When crossed to transgenic lines expressing Cre protein in a spatially and/or temporally controlled manner, these conditional mice will provide new insights into the contributions of Foxp2 to distinct neural circuits, and allow dissection of roles during development and in the mature brain. genesis 45:440–446, 2007. Published 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Efficiency of arsenic oxidizing bacterial biofilms for arsenic contaminated drinking water treatment

In drinking water supplies, arsenic exists mostly as two inorganic forms, arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)] which are toxic to living organisms . According to WHO recommendations, the drinking water standard was reduced from 50 to 10 µg/L and many regulatory agencies have recently accepted this new standard. Most of the existing treatment processes are effective only on arsenic anionic forms [As(V)] and not on neutral and mobile arsenic complexes. To overcome this lack of efficiency, a first oxidation step of As(III) form is necessary and is usually performed using strong oxidant or binding materials that are costly for small drinking water treatment units. An alternative to theses physico-chemical treatments is the biological treatment using As(III)-oxidising bacteria. Numerous autotrophic bacteria are able to oxidise arsenic. Among them, Thiomonas arsenivorans [4-6] is able to oxidise As(III) up to 100 mg As(III)/L and appears to be a good candidate for its known capacity to use As(III) as an energy source and carbon dioxide or carbonates as carbon source. An As(III)-oxidizing biological treatment pilot unit coupled to trapping units for As(V) removal at the outflow of the biological bioreactor was performed on site in order to study the strength of the biological process in real operating conditions. The bioreactor was previously inoculated with the autotrophic As(III)-oxidizing Thiomonas arsenivorans. Then, it has been intermittently fed with contaminated water from the drinking water well, at site temperature (15-17°C) and under downstream mode. As(III)-oxidizing biofilm development has been followed during the pilot functioning using CE-SSCP-16S (targeting the global community) and PCR-DGGE-aoxB (targeting As(III) oxidizers) fingerprinting techniques. Results showed a complete colonization of the mineral support (i.e. pozzolana) by indigenous bacteria of the groundwater to be treated. Moreover, the oxidation yield of the biological step was in the range of 54 to 100 % depending on the residence time (from 30 to 7 minutes) and the residual As concentration at the end of the complete treatment process (biological oxidation and trapping) was below 2 µg As/L. These results are thus very encouraging for an industrial application in regard to the strength and its absence of nutrients supply, except for the low amount of oxygen needed if it is not in sufficient concentration in the site water.

Perception of Prosodic Boundaries by Naïve Listeners in French

We present the results of an experiment on the on-line perception of prosodic boundaries by 84 naïve listeners. Potential samples from a multi-genre corpus of spoken French were stratified based on 3 prosodic measures, and 48 samples (mean length 29.9 seconds) were selected, balanced for their degree of fluency. Each sample was resynthesized to obliterate lexical content while keeping its syllabic structure and intonation. Four sets of stimuli were created (12 natural, 12 manipulated speech). Each sample was presented only once to 20 to 22 participants, who were instructed to press the space-bar as soon as they heard the end of a “group of words”. Baseline reaction time to simple tones was measured before and after the perception task. In total, 17195 perceived prosodic boundaries (PPB) were recorded. For each PPB, we calculated its strength, the temporal delay and density of responses. Results show that although the number of PPBs is similar in NS and MS, the types of PPBs, their acoustic correlates and relation to syntax greatly vary between the two conditions; in natural speech, we show that the presence of a filled pause and the syntactic structure act as strong cues to PPBs

Resilienz Strategien in Bio-Schweinebetrieben: Wie reagieren Bauern und Bäuerinnen auf Herausforderungen? Welche Strategien gibt es?

Was ist Resilienz? Die POWER Studie - Wer würde interviewet? - Was haben wir von den Bauern gelernt ? - Was für Strategien gibt es? Schlussfolgerun

The Role of Fish in the First 1,000 Days in Zambia

Fish is especially rich in essential omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids and micronutrients, including bioavailable calcium, iron and zinc. Fish features prominently in the diet of most, especially poor, Zambians. Despite this, its significance in the diet of women and children in the first 1,000 days is not well understood. Our current knowledge of the nutrient content of commonly consumed fish species in Zambia is synthesised. The importance of fish in food and nutrition security of rural and urban households and the impact of intra-household distribution on nutrient intake from fish, especially among pregnant and lactating women and children 6–23 months of age, are explored in this article. Key knowledge gaps are identified, and research priorities are highlighted. Recommendations are provided on policy, communications and technological initiatives to maximise the role fish can play in the First 1000 Most Critical Days Programme in Zambia