Lake Victoria Fisheries Management Plan

The purpose of this Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) within the Lake Victoria Fisheries Research Project was to sustain the livelihoods of the communities who depend on the fishery resources of the lake and to reduce poverty, food insecurity and unemployment. To achieve this goals, a better management of the resources, which would mobilize and include stakeholders at local, regional, national and international level was believed to be the right strategy for success. (PDF contains 79 pages

Incidence and bacteriological pattern of puerperal infections within the first 120 hours post caesarean section in Redemption Hospital Monrovia, Liberia

Background: Maternal infection contributes to 11% of all maternal mortalities globally, with most of these deaths in developing countries. This study was triggered by an anecdotal evidence of a high prevalence of puerperal infection following Caesarean sections at the Redemption Hospital, Monrovia Liberia.Objective: To determine the incidence and bacteriological pattern of puerperal infections within the first 120 hours among women delivered by Caesarean section.Design: Prospective descriptive cohort study.Setting: Redemption Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia.Subjects: Two hundred and thirty five immediate post Caesarean section mothers.Results: The Mean (SD) age of study participants was 27 years. The incidence of puerperal sepsis was 21% (49/235), out of which 49% (24/49) met the clinical criteria of puerperal infection and 51% (25/49) had laboratory confirmed puerperal sepsis. Of the specimens cultured, 44% were Staphylococcus aureus, 44% were Escherichia coli and 12% Pseudomonas aeuroginosum. About three quarters of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli infections are resistant to ceftriaxone, while more than half these infections are resistant to gentamicin.Conclusion: The incidence of puerperal infection in Redemption Hospital, Liberia, within the first 120 hours after Caesarean section is 21%. Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli were the most common pathogens isolated and showed resistance to ceftriaxone and gentamicin

Ogilvie’s syndrome: case report of spontaneous rupture of the ceacum following caesarean section

In acute colonic pseudo-obstruction (ACPO) there is colonic distension without an organic obstacle (intrinsic or extrinsic to intestinal wall). This becomes a potential site of ceacal rapture which can lead to the demise of the patient. Presented is a case of a mother who had spontaneous caecal rapture five days after Caesarean delivery. At Laparotomy the ceacal rapture was confirmed and a colostomy was done. The patient succumbed in Intensive care unit two days post-operatively

Human-wildlife conflict, benefit sharing and the survival of lions in pastoralist community-based conservancies

No abstract available

Pheochromocytoma in pregnancy: Case report

This is a case presentation of a 32 year old woman with pheochromocytoma diagnosed at 27 weeks of gestation, she was managed till term, induced and had assisted vaginal delivery. The pheochromocytoma was surgically re-sected successfully at six weeks postpartum

Unilateral spontaneous tubal twin ectopic pregnancy: A rare occurrence

Unilateral tubal twin pregnancy remains rare despite a rise in the incidence of singleton ectopic pregnancies. A 27-year-old  Gravida 1 Para 0+0 at 12 weeks gestation, presented to our institution with a 1-month history of lower abdominal pain, that  progressively worsened and became very severe. An abdominal ultrasound revealed an extrauterine gestational sac that looked like a single viable fetus in the right adnexa at about 12 weeks by crown rump length. Free fluid was noted in the right iliac fossa and Morrison’s pouch. A conclusion of a right-ruptured ectopic pregnancy was made. The patient underwent laparotomy and a diagnosis of twin right-sided fimbrial ectopic pregnancy was made. The crown rump lengths of the twins were 6cm and 4cm. We present this case because unilateral tubal twin pregnancy is still a rare phenomenon, and clinicians as well as clinical  embryologists need to acknowledge its existence considering the diagnosis of this case was not made pre-operatively.Key words: Twin Tubal, ectopic pregnancy, unilatera

Liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry for the simultaneous quantitation of ceftriaxone, metronidazole and hydroxymetronidazole in plasma from seriously ill, severely malnourished children.

We have developed and validated a novel, sensitive, selective and reproducible reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography method coupled with electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HPLC-ESI-MS/MS) for the simultaneous quantitation of ceftriaxone (CEF), metronidazole (MET) and hydroxymetronidazole (MET-OH) from only 50 µL of human plasma, and unbound CEF from 25 µL plasma ultra-filtrate to evaluate the effect of protein binding. Cefuroxime axetil (CEFU) was used as an internal standard (IS). The analytes were extracted by a protein precipitation procedure with acetonitrile and separated on a reversed-phase Polaris 5 C18-Analytical column using a mobile phase composed of acetonitrile containing 0.1% (v/v) formic acid and 10 mM aqueous ammonium formate pH 2.5, delivered at a flow-rate of 300 µL/min. Multiple reaction monitoring was performed in the positive ion mode using the transitionsm/z555.1→m/z396.0 (CEF),m/z172.2→m/z128.2 (MET),m/z188.0→m/z125.9 (MET-OH) andm/z528.1→m/z364.0 (CEFU) to quantify the drugs. Calibration curves in spiked plasma and ultra-filtrate were linear (r2≥ 0.9948) from 0.4-300 µg/mL for CEF, 0.05-50 µg/mL for MET and 0.02 - 30 µg/mL for MET-OH. The intra- and inter- assay precisions were less than 9% and the mean extraction recoveries were 94.0% (CEF), 98.2% (MET), 99.6% (MET-OH) and 104.6% (CEF in ultra-filtrate); the recoveries for the IS were 93.8% (in plasma) and 97.6% (in ultra-filtrate). The validated method was successfully applied to a pharmacokinetic study of CEF, MET and MET-OH in hospitalized children with complicated severe acute malnutrition following an oral administration of MET and intravenous administration of CEF over the course of 72 hours

Assessing the Socio-economic Impacts of Secure Texting and Anti-Jamming Technologies in Non-Cooperative Networks

Operating securely over 5G (and legacy) infrastructure is a challenge. In non-cooperative networks, malicious actors may try to decipher, block encrypted messages, or specifically jam wireless radio systems. Such activities can disrupt operations, from causing minor inconvenience, through to fully paralyzing the functionality of critical infrastructure. While technological mitigation measures do exist, there are very few methods capable of assessing the socio-economic impacts from different mitigation strategies. This leads to a lack of robust evidence to inform cost-benefit analysis, and thus support decision makers in industry and government. Consequently, this paper presents two open-source simulation models for assessing the socio-economic impacts of operating in untrusted non-cooperative networks. The first focuses on using multiple non-cooperative networks to transmit a message. The second model simulates a case where a message is converted into alternative plain language to avoid detection, separated into different portions and then transmitted over multiple non-cooperative networks. A probabilistic simulation of the two models is performed for a 15 km by 15 km spatial grid with 5 untrusted non-cooperative networks and intercepting agents. The results are used to estimate economic losses for private, commercial, government and military sectors. The highest probabilistic total losses for military applications include US$300, US$150, and US$75, incurred for a 1, 3 and 5 site multi-transmission approach, respectively, for non-cooperative networks when considering 1,000 texts being sent. These results form a framework for deterministic socio-economic impact analysis of using non-cooperative networks and secure texting as protection against radio network attacks. The simulation data and the open-source codebase is provided for reproducibility

Sustainability assessment of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite broadband mega-constellations

The growth of mega-constellations is rapidly increasing the number of rocket launches required to place new satellites in space. While Low Earth Orbit (LEO) broadband satellites help to connect unconnected communities and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, there are also a range of negative environmental externalities, from the burning of rocket fuels and resulting environmental emissions. We present sustainability analytics for phase 1 of the three main LEO constellations including Amazon Kuiper (3,236 satellites), OneWeb (648 satellites), and SpaceX Starlink (4,425 satellites). In baseline scenarios over five years, we find a per subscriber carbon dioxide equivalent (CO$_2$eq) of 0.70$\pm$0.34 tonnes for Kuiper, 1.41$\pm$0.71 tonnes for OneWeb and 0.47$\pm$0.15 tonnes CO$_2$eq/subscriber for Starlink. However, in the worst-case emissions scenario these values increase to 3.02$\pm$1.48 tonnes for Kuiper, 1.7$\pm$0.71 tonnes for OneWeb and 1.04$\pm$0.33 tonnes CO$_2$eq/subscriber for Starlink, more than 31-91 times higher than equivalent terrestrial mobile broadband. Importantly, phase 2 constellations propose to increase the number of satellites by an order-of-magnitude higher, highlighting the pressing need to mitigate negative environmental impacts. Strategic choices in rocket design and fuel options can help to substantially mitigate negative sustainability impacts

Spatiotemporal dynamics of wild herbivore species richness and occupancy across a savannah rangeland:Implications for conservation

Private lands are critical for maintaining biodiversity beyond protected areas. Across Kenyan rangelands, wild herbivores frequently coexist with people and their livestock. Human population and livestock numbers are projected to increase dramatically over the coming decades. Therefore, a better understanding of wildlife-livestock interactions and their consequences for biodiversity conservation on private lands is needed. We used a Bayesian hierarchical, multi-species and multi-year occupancy model on aerial survey data of 15 wild-herbivore species, spanning 15 years (2001–2016) to investigate a) spatiotemporal trends in species occurrence and richness across a mosaic of properties with different land uses in Laikipia County, central Kenya; and b) the effects of distance to water, vegetation and livestock relative abundance on species occurrence and richness. Although mean herbivore species richness varied little over time, we observed high spatial variation in species occurrence across Laikipia, mainly driven by negative effects of high livestock relative abundance. As expected, ‘wildlife friendly’ properties had higher herbivore species richness than other areas. However, high variability suggests that some pastoral properties support rich herbivore communities. The area occupied by five species with global conservation concerns (reticulated giraffe, Grevy's zebra, Beisa Oryx, Defassa waterbuck and gerenuk) and for which Laikipia County is one of the last refuges was <50% across years. We conclude that ‘wildlife friendly’ properties remain crucial for conservation, although some pastoralist areas offer suitable habitats for wild herbivores. Effective management of stocking rates is critical for maintaining ecosystems able to sustain livestock and wildlife on private lands, ensuring protection for endangered species