Impacts of Lake Victoria Level Fluctuations to Livelihoods Missungwi District Case Study

Lake Victoria experienced drastic levels changes in 2005 causing great inconveniences to lakeside communities. This study investigated effects of these changes on livelihoods through questionnaire surveys, focused group discussions, interviews and analysis of fish catches, diseases, crops, and lake levels data. Results indicate recession of levels had various socio-economic impacts. The changes caused severe water shortage due to drying up of shallow wells and a remarkable increase in prevalence of schistosomiasis because of increased utilization of lake water. There was no evidence for impact of level changes on malaria and diarrhea. Decline of water levels caused decline in fish catches due to retreat of water from breeding sites. However receding waters created a new land for cultivation which helped to boost Maize and sweet potatoes production. The results emphasize on ensuring stability of lake levels to avoid negative impacts on livelihoods and to maintain ecological integrity of the lake

Evaluasi Pengendalian Intern Pada Siklus Penggajian Dan Kepegawaian Untuk Menentukan Risiko Fraud (Studi Kasus PT World Yamatex Spinning Mills)

Issues relating to salary or wages, would be detrimental to employees and companies. One reason is the person who did fraud. Adequate internal control is believed to prevent the occurrence of fraud in the company. Two points examined in this study, whether in PT Yamatex Spinning Mills has had adequate internal controls and the relationship between internal control that has been owned by the risk of fraud, especially on the payroll and personnel cycle. The results showed that PT Yamatex Spinning Mills have internal control. This adequate internal control reduces the risk of fraud. Weaknesses that still exist in the companys internal control is the lack of job rotation policy periodically. Authorization policy in the company that is an offset for these weaknesses. The author suggested that the company established a rotation policy positions on a regular basis to prevent someone from being a position for too long and have the opportunity to conduct fraud

Isotopic evidence for contrast diets of early hominins Homo habilis and Australopithecus boisei of Tanzania

Isotopic dietary studies of early hominins have hitherto been confined to specimens from South Africa. We are now able to report isotopic analyses of two species of early hominins from Tanzania : Homo habilis and Australopithecus boisei. The results show that these two species had very different diets. The isotopic analyses of three South African species of early hominins, in contrast, show considerable variation in individual diets, but no marked differences between species

The moderating effect of employee motivation on workplace surveillance and employee engagement amongst employees at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority

Orientation: The study took place at the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA), an organisation noted to be undergoing varying challenges because of the macro-environmental issues in Zimbabwe. Research purpose: The study examined the moderating effect of employee motivation on workplace surveillance and employee engagement amongst employees at ZIMRA. Motivation for the study: Calls exist for studies that explore how organisations can assist their employees, especially within contexts deemed to be difficult to operate in. Research approach/design and method: This study adopted the positivist research philosophy and used the quantitative research approach. A self-administered questionnaire was sent to 364 respondents using an online survey. The study utilised the principles of structural equation modelling in analysing the data. Main findings: The results are twofold. Firstly, the results of the study show the existence of a relationship between workplace surveillance and employee engagement. Secondly, this relationship is partially moderated by employee motivation. Practical/managerial implications: There is need for ZIMRA management to involve employees when making decisions on issues about workplace surveillance. Such involvement may have an effect on outcomes such as engagement and motivation within the workplace. Contribution/value-add: The study contributes to the body of knowledge by noting that employee motivation moderates the relationship between workplace surveillance and employee engagement. Thus, the presence of workplace surveillance calls for more investment in employee motivation if employees are to remain engaged with their work

Prediction of protein structure: The problem of fold multiplicity

Three-dimensional (3D) models of four CASP3 targets were calculated using a simple modeling procedure that includes prediction of regular secondary structure, analysis of possible Β-sheet topologies, assembly of amphiphilic helices and Β-sheets to bury their nonpolar surfaces, and adjustment of side-chain conformers and loops to provide close packing and saturation of the “hydrogen bond potential” (exposure of all polar groups to water or their involvement in intramolecular hydrogen bonds). It has been found that this approach allows construction of 3D models that, in some cases, properly reproduce the structural class of the protein (such as Β-barrel or Β-sandwich of definite shape and size) and details of tertiary structure (such as pairing of Β-strands), although all four models were more or less incorrect. Remarkably, some models had fewer water-exposed nonpolar side-chains, more hydrogen bonds, and smaller holes than the corresponding native structures (although the models had a larger water-accessible nonpolar surface). The results obtained indicate that hydrophobicity patterns do not unequivocally determine protein folds, and that any ab initio or fold recognition methods that operate with imprecise potential energy functions, or use crude geometrical approximations of the peptide chain, will probably produce many different nonnative structures. Proteins Suppl 1999;3:199–203. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34970/1/25_ftp.pd

Proposta de Avaliação para a Aprendizagem Invisível com o uso das Personal Learning Environment (PLEs)

Com intuito de propor uma discussão sobre avaliação da aprendizagem destinada a aprendizagem invisível com auxílio de PLEs, realizou-se uma pesquisa bibliográfica com propósito de integrar as mesmas no ensino regular. Com isso, primeiramente percebeu-se a necessidade de adaptação dos professores ao modelo de ensino, em seguida a necessidade da formalização de um método avaliativo

Effect of Process Parameters on the Surface Roughness and Kerf Width of Mild Steel during Plasma Arc Cutting Using Response Surface Methodology

This study investigated the effects of process parameters of plasma arc cutting (PAC) of low carbon steel material using analysis of variance. Three process parameters, cutting speed, cutting current and gas pressure were considered and experiments were conducted based on response surface methodology (RSM) via the box-Behnken approach. Process responses viz. surface roughness (Ra) and kerf width of cut surface were measured for each experimental run. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was performed to get the contribution of process parameters on responses. Cutting current has the most significant effect of 33.43% on the surface roughness and gas pressure has the most significant effect on  kerf width of  41.99% . For minimum surface roughness and minimum kerf width, process parameters were optimized using the RSM. Keywords: Cutting speed, cutting current, gas pressure,   surface roughness, kerf widt

Repurposing of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for the management of COVID-19

The Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted adversely on the global health and socio-economic activities. There is currently no evidence-based anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug for COVID-19 therapy. This review highlights some pharmacological properties of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine and prospects of repurposing them for the treatment of COVID-19. Google scholar was employed in searching relevant published journal articles (n=118) in English. The search was later narrowed down to SARS-CoV-2, pathophysiology of COVID-19, available drugs for the management of COVID-19, clinical trials on repurposing drugs for COVID-19 therapy, and the role of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID-19. Documented evidence revealed that chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine have antiviral and immune-modulatory properties. Their antiviral effect is due to inhibition of the spike proteins of SARS-CoV-2 from binding to the cellular transmembrane receptors, angiotensin converting enzyme-2 thereby preventing viral infections. Also, sequestration of these drugs into the lysosomes elevates lysosomal pH thus inhibiting lysosomal enzymatic functions vital for viral replication in those cells. Whereas, their immune-modulatory activity averts the inflammatory complications of COVID-19, particularly acute respiratory syndrome, by preventing cytokine storm through suppression of the production and putative release of pro-inflammatory cytokines. The adverse effects from these drugs, notably irreversible retinopathy and cardiac arrhythmia are rare but become life-threatening when they occur. These are minimal with hydroxychloroquine compared to chloroquine. Chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine could be repurposed for managing COVID-19 cases because they are already extensively used for treating acute nonresistant malaria and auto-immune diseases. Also, a viable vaccine cannot be available in the near future while there is a pressing need for treatments to lower the daily rise in morbidity and mortality associated with the disease. Nevertheless, we suggest that emphasis should be on hydroxychloroquine because of its superior antiviral effect and clinical safety

Critical assessment of methods of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP) – Round XIII

CASP (Critical Assessment of Structure Prediction) assesses the state of the art in modeling protein structure from amino acid sequence. The most recent experiment (CASP13 held in 2018) saw dramatic progress in structure modeling without use of structural templates (historically ‘ab initio’ modeling). Progress was driven by the successful application of deep learning techniques to predict inter-residue distances. In turn, these results drove dramatic improvements in three-dimensional structure accuracy: With the proviso that there are an adequate number of sequences known for the protein family, the new methods essentially solve the long-standing problem of predicting the fold topology of monomeric proteins. Further, the number of sequences required in the alignment has fallen substantially. There is also substantial improvement in the accuracy of template-based models. Other areas - model refinement, accuracy estimation, and the structure of protein assemblies - have again yielded interesting results. CASP13 placed increased emphasis on the use of sparse data together with modeling and chemical crosslinking, SAXS, and NMR all yielded more mature results. This paper summarizes the key outcomes of CASP13. The special issue of PROTEINS contains papers describing the CASP13 assessments in each modeling category and contributions from the participants