A Sociolinguistic Study of Women Representation in Rwandan Proverbs

In almost all communities, proverbs reflect every aspect of the social and cultural lives of people. In Rwandan culture proverbs embed wisdom, values, norms, and social restriction. As in other languages, in Kinyarwanda, proverbs are used as a tool for human communication. Kinyarwanda proverbs have certainly the features of gender as they disclose the real and normal life of Rwandans. Gender-related Kinyarwanda proverbs that value women are referred to when valuing women's role in the community. This contributes to the journey of women’s emancipation that Rwanda is currently fostering. However, there are some negative proverbs that strengthen the roots of gender discrimination linked to patriarchal social norms and practices. Despite an outstanding progress in women’s empowerment and gender promotion that Rwanda has made, Kinyarwanda proverbs still contribute to women exclusiveness in a way that attributes negative traits to them. Thus, the gender discrimination persists.  This paper reveals the findings of a study on the socio-linguistic perspectives that explore the place and role of women and/or girls in the Rwandan society. Therefore, this paper outlines Kinyarwanda proverbs that loop women and girls in a negative perspective, and their effects in achieving Rwanda Vision 2050 goals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study examines 30 Kinyarwanda proverbs related to disempowerment of women and girls. They were analyzed by using the feminist theories of the Radicals and Critical Discourse Analysis by Norman Fairclough. Keywords: Proverbs, gender equality, Vision 2050, SDGs. DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-24-02 Publication date: December 31st 202

Genetic improvement of laying hens viability using survival analysis

The survival of about eight generations of a large strain of laying hens was analysed separating the rearing period (RP) from the production period (PP), after hens were housed. For RP (respectively PP), 97.8% (resp., 94.1% ) of the 109 160 (resp., 100 665) female records were censored after 106 days (resp., 313 days) on the average. A Cox proportional hazards model stratified by flock (= season) and including a hatch-within-flock (HWF) fixed effect seemed to reasonably fit the RP data. For PP, this model could be further simplified to a non-stratified Weibull model. The extension of these models to sire-dam frailty (mixed) models permitted the estimation of the sire genetic variances at 0.261 ± 0.026 and 0.088 ± 0.010 for RP and PP, respectively. Heritabilities on the log scale were equal to 0.48 and 0.19. Non-additive genetic effects could not be detected. Selection was simulated by evaluating all sires and dams, after excluding all records from the last generation. Then, actual parents of this last generation were distributed into four groups according to their own pedigree index. Raw survivor curves of the progeny of extreme parental groups substantially differed (e.g., by 1.7% at 300 days for PP), suggesting that selection based on solutions from the frailty models could be efficient, despite the very large proportion of censored records

Phytosociological Study of Nyungwe Montane Savannahs

It is uncommon to find savannahs encompassed into tropical montane rainforests. The case of Nyungwe savannahs is one of these particularities and until now no explanation on their origin, structure and dynamics was given. This unprecedented research documented special floristic diversity of montane savannahs of Nyungwe, described the structure of their plant communities to provide data for their sustainable conservation. In this paper origin of these savannahs was discussed. The study was conducted in three sites harbouring five savannahs:Karamba, Nyabitimbo and Muzimu. Eight plant communities (4 in savannah-forest contact zone and other 4 in savannah) were identified with 198 species. Vascular species were distributed in 71 families. Phytogeographic distribution analysis of species showed the predominance of afromontane species (Mo) in sampled savannahs (31%), followed by East African montane species (Mo, EA) with 22% of all species. Montane endemism proved the predominance of ‘relatively restricted endemic species’ identified in 2or3 montane systems (among Kivu-Ruwenzori, ImatongsUsambara, UluguruMlanje, and Ethiopia with 41.1%) followed by ‘afromontane endemic wades’ identified in 4to7 systems representing 39.9%). ‘Local endemic montane species’ represented 31% of all species. Thus, these savannahs are favourable to species coming from almost seven African montane systems. Keywords: Nyungwe, Plant communities, montane savannahs

Estimation of genetic parameters of egg production traits of laying hens by restricted maximum likelihood applied to a multiple-trait reduced animal model

International audienc

Champs de repères pour les modèles CAO

National audienceMaillage quadrangulaire de modèles CAO obtenus avec notre champ de repères. Le champ de repères le plus lisse, obtenu par une méthode usuelle, aurait une topologie incompatible avec un maillage quadrangulaire dans les zones montrées par les flèches en orange. L'impact de ces incohérences n'est pas local : cela produirait des quadrilatères dégénérés sur l'ensemble des zones surlignées en orange

Frame Fields for CAD models

International audienceGiven a triangulated surface, a unit length tangent vector field can be used to orient entities located on the surface, such as glyphs or strokes. When these entities are invariant under a π/2 rotation (squares, or curvature hatching), the orientation can be represented by a frame field i.e. four orthogonal tangent unit vectors at each point of the surface. The generation of such fields is a key component of recent quad meshing algorithms based on global parameterization, as it defines the orientation of the final facets. State-of-the-art methods are able to generate smooth frame fields subject to some hard constraints (direction and topology) or smooth constraints (matching the curvature direction). When we have a surface triangular mesh, and a vector defined on each facet, we can't directly know if all the vectors are colinear. We first have to define the (so called) parallel transport of every edge to compare the vectors on a common plan. When dealing with CAD models, the field must be aligned with feature edges. A problem occurs when there is a low angle corner formed by two colliding feature edges. Our solution not only defines the parallel transport to obtain smoothed frame fields on a surface triangular mesh, it also redefines the parallel transport wherever there is a low angle corner, to smooth a frame field as if these corners' angles were π/2

Experimental infection with Mycoplama galliseptioum in chikens, turkeys, laying hens and chick embryos

Le pouvoir pathogène de la souche Mycoplasma gallisepticum R est exacerbé par 10 passages successifs sur poulets exempts d’organismes patho gènes spécifiés (EOPS). La souche réisolée MGR P10 est inoculée à des pou lets et des dindonneaux EOPS, des poules pondeuses conventionnelles et des embryons de poule de 19 jours d’incubation. Les symptômes et lésions observés chez ces hôtes révèlent le tropisme respiratoire et le fort pouvoir pathogène de la souche MGR P10. Un léger décrochement de la courbe de ponte est enregistré chez les poules pondeuses et une mortalité impor tante et rapide est observée après inoculation à l’embryon de 19 jours. Le pouvoir de diffusion de la souche est également mis en évidence.The Mycoplasma gallisepticum R strain is serially passaged ten times through specific pathogen free (SPF) chickens in order to exacerbate its potential pathogenicity. The recovered MGR P10 strain is inoculated in SPF chickens and turkeys, commercial laying fowl and nineteen-day-old chick embryos. The inoculation induces general and respiratory symptoms in the different hosts. Mortality occurs in the chicks hatched from inoculated embryos. A drop in egg production is observed in the laying hens. The strain is also shown to be able to spread from bird to bird