Rangeland dynamics in South Omo Zone of Southern Ethiopia: Assessment of rangeland condition in relation to altitude and Grazing types

A study was undertaken in Hamer and Benna-Tsemay districts of the Southern Ethiopia with the objective to determine the condition of the rangelands for grazing animals as influenced by altitude and grazing types. The rangelands in each of the study districts were stratified based on altitude and grazing types. In the study districts, a total of 32, 3, 2, 7 and 29 species of grasses, legumes, sedges, other herbaceous plants and woody species were identified, respectively. The common and/or dominant grass species in the enclosures was Cenchrus ciliaris while in the communal grazing areas they were Cynodon dactylon and Tetrapogon tennulis. In riverside grazing areas, the common and/or dominant grass species was Cynodon dactylon. The total grass biomass of communal, riverside and enclosure areas found in the different altitude categories of the study districts ranged from 398-503; 98-626, and 1,132 – 1,209 kg/ha, respectively. The common and/or dominant woody species in the communal grazing areas were highly palatable species of Acacia tortilis and Grewia bicolor and less palatable Solanum species. In riverside grazing areas, the common and/or dominant woody plants were species of Acacia tortilis, Grewia bicolor, and Solanum species while in the enclosures; Acacia brevispica and Acacia tortilis were found. The woody vegetation density per hectare of communal, riverside and enclosure areas in the different altitude categories of the study districts ranged from 2,501-3,021; 2251-3,021, and 201-700,wd/ha respectively which showed that the communal and riverside grazing areas were bush encroached. The range condition scores ranged from 17.87-20.38 (communal), 22-27 (riverside), 31.05-31.2 (enclosures) which were poor, fair and good condition classes, respectively. Similarly, with regard to the same variable the scored varied from 22-32.87, 19.73-31.43, 17.97-31.44 and 17.87-31.28% in altitudes >1550m, 1250-1550m, 900-1250m, and 550-900m, respectively. The result indicated the need for rangeland improvement measures in communal and riverside grazing areas, in order to attain sustainable livestock production from these areas. Establishment of community based enclosures was found to be one of the ways to improve the condition of the rangelands. The result indicated the need for rangeland improvement measures in communal and riverside grazing areas, in order to attain sustainable livestock production from these areas. Establishment of community based enclosures was found to be one of the ways to improve the condition of the rangeland

The structure of thin accretion discs around magnetised stars

Aims: We determine the steady-state of an axisymmetric thin accretion disc with an internal dynamo around a magnetised star. Methods: Starting from the vertically integrated equations of magnetohydrodynamics we derive a single ordinary differential equation for a thin accretion disc around a massive magnetic dipole and integrate this equation numerically from the outside inwards. Results: Our numerical solution shows that the torque between the star and the accretion disc is dominated by the contribution from the dynamo in the disc. The location of the inner edge of the accretion disc varies between $R_{\rm A}$ and $10R_{\rm A}$ depending mainly on the strength and direction of the magnetic field generated by the dynamo in the discComment: 9 pages, 10 figures. The paper is accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Health Care Seeking Behavior in Southwest Ethiopia

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Background: Rural and urban populations have disparate socio-demographic and economic characteristics, which have an influence on equity and their health seeking behavior. We examined and compared the health care seeking behavior for perceived morbidity between urban and rural households in Southwest Ethiopia. Methods Analytic cross-sectional study was conducted among urban and rural households living in Esera district of Southwest Ethiopia. A random sample of 388 head of households (126 urban and 262 rural) were selected. A pretested and structured questionnaire was used for data collection with face-to-face interview. In addition to descriptive methods, binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with health seeking behavior at p value of less than 0.05. Results Of the sample household heads, 377 (97.2%) (119 urban and 258 rural) were successfully interviewed. Among these, 58.4% (95% CI, 53.3–63.3%) of the households sought care from modern health care that was lower among rural (48.1%) than urban (80.7%) households. The prevalence of self-treatment was 35.3% in urban and 46.1% in rural households. Among the factors considered for modern health care utilization, higher monthly income (AOR, 5.6; 95% CI, 2.04–15.4), perceived severity of disease (AOR, 2.5; 95% CI, 1.1–5.8), acute duration of disease (AOR, 8.9; 95% CI, 2.4–33.3) and short distance from health facilities (AOR, 3; 95% CI, 1.2–8.4) among rural and being married (AOR, 11.3; 95% CI, 1.2–110.2) and perceived severity of disease (AOR, 6.6; 95% CI, 1.1–10.9) among urban households showed statistically significant association. Conclusions The general health seeking behavior of households on perceived morbidity was satisfactory but lower in rural compared to urban households. Self-medication was also widely practiced in the study area. The findings signal the need to work more on accessibility and promotion of healthcare seeking behavior especially among rural households

Teneur en oligo-éléments dans les fourrages et le plasma des ruminants domestiques en Ethiopie

Le cuivre, le zinc, le fer, le cobalt et le manganèse ont été dosés dans 59 échantillons de fourrages provenant de l'ensemble du territoire éthiopien. 1082 plasmas de ruminants domestiques (432 bovins, 425 ovins, 173 caprins et 52 camelins) provenant de 89 lieux différents ont été analysés pour déterminer le cuivre, le zinc et le fer plasmatique par spectrométrie d'absorption atomique et pour doser les teneurs en céruloplasmine et en transaminase (TGO). Les résultats des analyses ont montré l'importance considérable à la fois qualitative et quantitative de la carence en cuivre chez les animaux et de la carence en zinc dans les fourrages. La vallée du Rift constitue un ensemble pédogéologique fortement déficient en cuivre alors que les carences en zinc chez les animaux coïncident avec les zones granitiques ou dioritiques. La carence en fer (anémie) semble liée au parasitisme surtout sanguin, mais aussi à la carence en cuivre. Il ne semble pas y avoir en Ethiopie de carences en cobalt et en sélénium, les taux de transaminases étant dans les normes chez toutes les espèces considérées. L'ensemble des résultats obtenus point par point a permis de dresser une carte des carences que des études ultérieures devront préciser dans le détai

The inequality-resource curse of conflict: Heterogeneous effects of mineral deposit discoveries

Despite a sizeable literature, there is no consensus as to whether and how mineral resources are linked to conflict. In this paper, we estimate the relationship between giant mineral deposit discoveries and the intensity of armed conflict (measured by battle deaths) around the world in the post-war era. The impact of such discoveries is potentially heterogeneous with respect to mineral commodity type: metals with a low value-to-weight ratio are not easy to exploit and smuggle and will disproportionally aid governments in their counterinsurgency efforts and raise the opportunity cost of fighting, whereas the discovery of deposits of high value-to-weight ratio metals may increase incentives for rebellion and make insurgency feasible. The data indeed show discoveries of giant deposits to lower the intensity of conflict for low unitvalue ores, but giant discoveries increase the intensity of conflict for high unit-value minerals. We also show that discoveries in countries with high ethnic inequality increase conflict intensity to a greater extent than in countries with low ethnic inequality - this heterogeneity is likely due to grievances related to the distribution of resource rents and revenues

Yam breeding at IITA: achievements, challenges, and prospects

African food system Yam (Dioscorea spp.) is a multispecies, clonally propagated crop cultivated for its starchy tubers. About 10 species are widely cultivated around the world, but only D. rotundata, D. alata, and D. cayenensis are the most widely cultivated species in West Africa, accounting for 93% of the global yam production. Since inception, IITA R4D efforts have focused on developing new varieties of yam with desired agronomic and quality traits and to improve yam-based cropping systems

Improvement of accession distinctiveness as an added value to the global worth of the yam (Dioscorea spp) genebank

Open Access JournalMisidentification of accessions is a common problem in genebanks. Along the years, mistakes accumulate and this is particularly true when dealing with a large number of accessions requiring annual regeneration. Human errors such as mislabeling or misreading and material mix up during planting or storage are the main causes for misidentification of accessions. The international collection of yam, maintained at IITA, has accumulated ‘non true to type’ accessions along the years. In the present study, 53 morphological descriptors were used to detect uniformity of individuals within accessions of the yam gene bank collection i.e. agro morphological mismatch between individual plants of the same accession. Based on a similarity matrix, individual pairs with less than 0.90 similarity coefficients, which varies in six descriptors and more, were considered as distinct and mismatched, whereas those that had similarity coefficients greater than or equal to 0.90 were considered as clones from the same parent. Overall, 20.60% of the total 3156 accessions were found not true to type i.e., misidentified individuals. The descriptive analysis shows that morphological traits like distance between lobes, upward folding of leaf along main vein, young stem color, old stem color, leaf shape, leaf density and plant vigor are the most discriminative descriptors for individual identification within accession. Some other traits were also found species specific and they may aid in distinguishing misidentifications between species