Tuberculosis among Students of Jimma University

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Improved Lower Bound for the Radius of Analyticity of Solutions to the fifth order KdV-BBM model

We show that the uniform radius of spatial analyticity $\sigma(t)$ of solutions at time $t$ to the fifth order KdV-BBM equation cannot decay faster than $1/ \sqrt{t}$ for large $t$, given initial data that is analytic with fixed radius $\sigma_0$. This improves a recent result by Belayneh, Tegegn and the third author, where they obtained a $1/t$ decay of $\sigma(t)$ for large time $t$.Comment: 1

Field Management of Anthracnose (Colletotrichum lindemuthianum) in Common Bean through Foliar Spray Fungicides and Seed Treatment Bioagents

Common bean anthracnose is a major production constraint in bean growing regions of Ethiopia. This study aimed to determine whether foliar sprays of mancozeb, folpan and mancolaxyl or antagonistic bioagents; Trichoderma harzianum, Trichoderma viride and Pseudomonas fluorescens could reduce anthracnose symptoms and consequently, increase yield and yield components. A total of seven treatments were arranged in a randomized complete block design with three replications. Statistical analysis showed significant differences among treatments. Anthracnose incidence, severity, infected pods per plant and the area under disease progress curve were highest in the control plots compared to the fungicide sprayed and bioagent treated seed plots. The highest percentage of infected pods per plant, 78.9 and 55 were recorded on the control and mancozeb sprayed plots respectively. The highest AUDPC value resulted in the lowest yield of 1.01 t/ha in the control plots compared to a highest yield of 3.33 t/ha from the sprayed plots with folpan and 1.79 t/ha from plots treated with Pseudomonas fluorescens. Relative yield losses of 69.67, 46.25 and 22.82% were recorded from the control, seed treated plots with P. fluorescens and sprayed plots with mancolaxyl respectively. Economic analysis revealed that the highest rate of return of 8,740 was obtained from Pseudomonas fluorescens seed treatment and the highest net benefit; 43,154 on folpan foliar spray treatment. The results of the present study support the novel possibility of using folpan foliar spray and Pseudomonas fluorescens seed treatments to decrease anthracnose symptoms in bean plants and consequently, achieve greater yield.Keywords: Bioagents; Folpan; Pseudomonas fluorescens; Mancolaxyl; seed treatmen

A simple method of formulating least-cost diets for smallholder dairy production in subSaharan Africa,”

Smallholder dairy farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are constrained by inadequate supply of good quality protein sources particularly during the dry season. Commercial protein concentrates are expensive and not readily accessible. Multipurpose forage legumes and other non-conventional protein sources available on-farm have been promoted as alternative cheaper protein sources. The major problem faced by smallholder dairy farmers however is the formulation of diets balanced for the key nutrients and also being cost-efficient. This paper presents a step by step spreadsheet based procedure of diet formulation for smallholder dairy production. The procedure ensures that the diet is balanced for all the key nutrients, is low-cost and the user has significant control over the formulation process. An example using this formulation method incorporating the fodder legumes Leucaena diversifolia, Leucaena pallida, Leucaena esculenta, Acacia angustissima and Calliandra calothyrsus indicate a cost reduction from 10% on C. calothyrsus to 30% on L. diversifolia inclusion when compared to the conventional dairy meal concentrate (US$ 0.34/kg). This ration formulation method is recommended for use by livestock extension advisors and smallholder dairy farmers to quickly formulate low-cost diets using locally available feed sources so as to optimise the feeding of dairy animals at the farm level

Acaricide resistance profiles of single- and multi-host ticks from communal and commercial farming areas in the Eastern Cape and North-West Provinces of South Africa

A field study (February 2000 to August 2001) was conducted on communal and commercial farms in the Eastern Cape and North-West Provinces of South Africa to detect the levels of tick resistance to commonly used acaricides. The larvae obtained from engorged females of the one-host tick Boophilus decoloratus, the two-host tick Rhipicepalus evertsi evertsi and the three-host ticks Amblyomma hebraeum and Rhipicephalus appendiculatus were tested against various concentrations of amitraz , chlorfenvinphos and cypermethrin using the Shaw Larval Immersion Test method. Ticks from the communal farms showed higher levels of resistance to cypermethrin and some resistance to chlorfenvinphos whilst no resistance was detected against amitraz. However, ticks from commercial farms were equally resistant to amitraz, chlorfenvinphos and cypermethrin. The B. decoloratus populations tested were considerably more resistant to all the acaricides tested than the R. evertsi evertsi, A. hebraeum and R. appendiculatus populations. This supports the hypothesis that single-host ticks develop resistance faster than multi-host ticks. This trend was recorded on most of the farms where single- and multi-host ticks co-existed. It was concluded that the use of acaricides at high frequencies and high concentrations was one of the main causes of tick resistance in the study areas. Possible factors which caused the resistance problems are discussed and acaricide management strategies recommended.The articles have been scanned in colour with a HP Scanjet 5590; 600dpi. Adobe Acrobat v.9 was used to OCR the text and also for the merging and conversion to the final presentation PDF-format.mn201

Mortality and Disability-adjusted Life-years (DALYs) for common neglected tropical Diseases in Ethiopia, 1990 to 2015: evidence from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015

Introduction: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are important public health problems in Ethiopia. In 2013, the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has launched a national NTD master plan to eliminate major NTDs of public health importance by 2020. Benchmarking the current status of NTDs in the country is important to monitor and evaluate the progress in the implementation of interventions and their impacts. Therefore, this study aims to assess the trends of mortality and Disability-adjusted Life-Years (DALY) for the priority NTDs over the last 25 years. Methods: We used the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2015 estimates for this study. The GBD 2015 data source for cause of death and DALY estimation included verbal autopsy (VA), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), malaria indicator surveys (MICS) and other disease specific surveys, Ministry of Health reports submitted to United Nations (UN) agencies and published scientific articles. Cause of Death Ensemble modeling (CODEm) and/or natural history models were used to estimate malaria and NTDs mortality rates. DALY were estimated as the sum of Years of Life Lost (YLL) due to premature mortality and Years Lived with Disability (YLD). Results: All NTDs caused an estimated of 6,293 deaths (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 3699 – 10,080) in 1990 and 3,593 deaths (95% UI: 2051 – 6178) in 2015, a 70% reduction over the 25 years. Age-standardised mortality rates due to schistosomiasis, STH and leshmaniasis have declined by 91.3%, 73.5% and 21.6% respectively between 1990 to 2015. The number of DALYs due to all NTDs has declined from 814.4 thousand (95% UI: 548 thousand–1.2 million) in 1990 to 579.5 thousand (95%UI: 309.4 thousand – 1.3 million) in 2015. Age-standardised DALY rates due to all NTDs declined by 30.4%, from 17.6 per 1000(95%UI: 12.5-26.5) in 1990 to 12.2 per 1000(95%UI: 6.5 – 27.4) in 2015. Age-standardised DALY rate for trachoma declined from 92.7 per 100,000(95% UI: 63.2 – 128.4) in 1990 to 41.2 per 100,000(95%UI: 27.4 – 59.2) in 2015, a 55.6% reduction between 1990 and 2015. Age-standardised DALY rates for onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and lymphiatic filariasis decreased by 66.2%, 29.4% and 12.5% respectively between 1990 and 2015. DALY rate for ascariasis fell by 56.8% over the past 25 years. Conclusions: Ethiopia has made a remarkable progress in reducing the DALY rates for most of the NTDs over the last 25 years. The rapid scale of interventions and broader system strengthening may have a lasting impact on achieving the 2020 goal of elimination of most of NTDs. Ethiopia should strengthen the coverage of integrated interventions of NTD through proper coordination with other health programs and sectors and community participation to eliminate NTDs by 2020

Grain legumes and dryland cereals for enhancing carbon sequestration in semi-arid and sub-humid agro-ecologies of Africa and South Asia

Sorghum, millets (pearl and finger millet) and grain legumes (chickpea, common bean, cowpea, lentils, pigeon pea and soybean), collectively referred to as GLDC under the CGIAR research program on Grain Legumes and Dryland Cereals, are commonly grown, eaten and traded by small holder farmers in Africa and South Asia. These crops contribute to food and nutritional security, environmental sustainability, and economic growth in the region. However, their possible contribution to carbon sequestration through biomass production and accumulation of soil organic carbon (SOC) is not known. To find out more about their contribution, and how to increase SOC, this study reviewed the evidence of carbon sequestration in farming systems that integrate GLDC in Africa and South Asia. A total of 437 publications reporting SOC and its proxies across 32 countries in Africa (N=250 studies) and South Asia (N=187) were identified as sources of evidence for carbon sequestration. Among these, 179 publications provided appropriate control groups for evaluating changes in aboveground carbon when GLDC were integrated under intercrop (n=38), crop rotation (n=8) or agroforestry (n=13), or when improved varieties of GLDC were compared with local varieties (n=14). A further 81 publications compared SOC content at the start and the end of the experiment while 43 publications compared SOC between farms growing GLDC and those which did not. Aboveground carbon of GLDC was found to be 1.51±0.05 Mg/ha in Africa and 2.29±0.10 Mg/ha in South Asia. Absolute SOC concentration in the topsoil (0-30 cm) was 0.96±0.06% in Africa and 0.58±0.04 in South Asia. It was observed that GLDC produced more aboveground carbon and significantly increased SOC when grown as intercrops and in crop rotations. The increase, however, depended on the species and whether the crop was a legume or a cereal. The largest amount of aboveground carbon (>2 Mg/ha) was found in cereals (and pigeon pea) while the largest increase in SOC was found in farming systems that included legumes. Aboveground carbon of improved varieties of GLDC was lower compared to local varieties. Soils which had low initial (32%) showed the greatest potential for carbon sequestration when GLDC were grown. Among the GLDC crops, pigeon pea which is a perennial grain legume showed the highest biomass production and carbon sequestration in the soil when integrated into farming systems in Africa and South Asia. Findings from this study underscore the importance of aboveground residues in regulating the addition of carbon to the soil, and the role of legumes in the enhancement of SOC

The roles and values of wild foods in agricultural systems

Almost every ecosystem has been amended so that plants and animals can be used as food, fibre, fodder, medicines, traps and weapons. Historically, wild plants and animals were sole dietary components for hunter–gatherer and forager cultures. Today, they remain key to many agricultural communities. The mean use of wild foods by agricultural and forager communities in 22 countries of Asia and Africa (36 studies) is 90–100 species per location. Aggregate country estimates can reach 300–800 species (e.g. India, Ethiopia, Kenya). The mean use of wild species is 120 per community for indigenous communities in both industrialized and developing countries. Many of these wild foods are actively managed, suggesting there is a false dichotomy around ideas of the agricultural and the wild: hunter–gatherers and foragers farm and manage their environments, and cultivators use many wild plants and animals. Yet, provision of and access to these sources of food may be declining as natural habitats come under increasing pressure from development, conservation-exclusions and agricultural expansion. Despite their value, wild foods are excluded from official statistics on economic values of natural resources. It is clear that wild plants and animals continue to form a significant proportion of the global food basket, and while a variety of social and ecological drivers are acting to reduce wild food use, their importance may be set to grow as pressures on agricultural productivity increase.</jats:p

A meta-analysis of long-term effects of conservation agriculture on maize grain yield under rain-fed conditions

Conservation agriculture involves reduced tillage, permanent soil cover and crop rotations to enhance soil fertility and to supply food from a dwindling land resource. Recently, conservation agriculture has been promoted in Southern Africa, mainly for maize-based farming systems. However, maize yields under rain-fed conditions are often variable. There is therefore a need to identify factors that influence crop yield under conservation agriculture and rain-fed conditions. Here, we studied maize grain yield data from experiments lasting 5 years and more under rain-fed conditions. We assessed the effect of long-term tillage and residue retention on maize grain yield under contrasting soil textures, nitrogen input and climate. Yield variability was measured by stability analysis. Our results show an increase in maize yield over time with conservation agriculture practices that include rotation and high input use in low rainfall areas. But we observed no difference in system stability under those conditions. We observed a strong relationship between maize grain yield and annual rainfall. Our meta-analysis gave the following findings: (1) 92% of the data show that mulch cover in high rainfall areas leads to lower yields due to waterlogging; (2) 85% of data show that soil texture is important in the temporal development of conservation agriculture effects, improved yields are likely on well-drained soils; (3) 73% of the data show that conservation agriculture practices require high inputs especially N for improved yield; (4) 63% of data show that increased yields are obtained with rotation but calculations often do not include the variations in rainfall within and between seasons; (5) 56% of the data show that reduced tillage with no mulch cover leads to lower yields in semi-arid areas; and (6) when adequate fertiliser is available, rainfall is the most important determinant of yield in southern Africa. It is clear from our results that conservation agriculture needs to be targeted and adapted to specific biophysical conditions for improved impact