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Effect of lactic acid fermentation on the nutritional quality and consumer acceptability of African nightshade
Get PDFThis research article was published Wiley Online Library, 2022African nightshade (ANS) is among many underexploited and neglected indigenous vegetables. This study assessed the effect of lactic acid fermentation (LAF) on nutritional and sensory quality in Solanum villosum (Sv) and Solanum scabrum (Ss). Spontaneously fermented (SF) and controlled fermented (CF) conditions using Lactobacillus plantarum LP90 and Leuconostoc mesenteroides LM58 were employed for 15 days and 120 h. From the fermented pickles, relish products were prepared using cooking oil and a variety of spices. The relish products were subjected to a consumer acceptability test. Results show a significant drop in pH to <3.5, increasing titratable acidity (TTA) to around 0.6 after 120 h and 15 days of CF and SF, respectively. LAF resulted in a 2.6–5 and 1.6–4.8-fold significant rise in β-carotene in pickles and their relish products. All pickles and relish products exhibited a significant decrease (p < .05) in vitamin C by 88.33%–95.90%. LAF significantly reduced total phenolic (26%– 43%) and Chlorophyll (16.45%–39.25%). On the other hand, LAF showed improvement in minerals content (P, Ca, Fe, and Zn) and reduction of tannin (76.27%–92.88%) and oxalate (77.33%–90%) levels. LAF relish products were highly preferred by the consumers, with S. villosum controlled fermented relish (SvCFR) leading. All fermented relishes were stable at ambient (27°C) and refrigeration (4°C) temperatures after 6 months of storage. Generally, LAF is an effective method for ANS preservation, with improved nutritional quality and safety. LAF can therefore be recommended to small-scale farmers, processors, and households for ANS preservation. Ultimately, this method enhances the nutrition and sensory quality, safety, and livelihood
Characterization of Farmer’s knowledge and management practices of papaya mealybug Paracoccus magnatus (Hemiptera: Pseudococcidae) in Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was published by Elsevier in 2022Papaya mealybug (PMB) is a serious insect pest for papaya production in Sub-Saharan Africa, limiting production potential in farming communities. We did a household survey to evaluate the Characteristics of farmers' knowledge, challenges, and current (PMB) control practices in four papaya growing regions of Tanzania namely, Tanga, Dodoma, Pwani, and Katavi involving 100 papaya farmers. The study found that 96% of farmers reported PMB, as a major challenge in papaya production. Very few (0.8%) of the farmers were knowledgeable on insect pest identification. Chemical pesticides were the only option for PMB control, and 43.0% of farmers were able to access and apply. We also found that 36.4% of the farmers were aware of the adverse effects of chemical pesticides. Furthermore, the study observed that 0.3% of farmers use botanical pesticides. Additionally, the study observed that 44.1% of farmers use control measures against PMB, the remaining 55.9% did not practice any control measure, thus leading to low papaya yields observed in the study regions. Our findings provide insights to farmers into the use of plant-based pesticides, mainly plant essential oils, and its benefits that may promote farmers' attitudes towards increasing papaya yield and reducing chemical pesticide use to avoid pest resistance
A case-control study on the driving factors of childhood brain volume loss: What pediatricians must explore
Get PDFThis research article was published by PLOS ONE in 2022Background
The brain volume loss also known as brain atrophy is increasingly observed among children in the course of performing neuroimaging using CT scan and MRI brains. While severe forms of brain volume loss are frequently associated with neurocognitive changes due to effects on thought processing speed, reasoning and memory of children that eventually alter their general personality, most clinicians embark themselves in managing the neurological manifestations of brain atrophy in childhood and less is known regarding the offending factors responsible for developing pre-senile brain atrophy. It was therefore the goal of this study to explore the factors that drive the occurrence of childhood brain volume under the guidance of brain CT scan quantitative evaluation.
Methods
This study was a case-control study involving 168 subjects with brain atrophy who were compared with 168 age and gender matched control subjects with normal brains on CT scan under the age of 18 years. All the children with brain CT scan were subjected to an intense review of their birth and medical history including laboratory investigation reports.
Results
Results showed significant and influential risk factors for brain atrophy in varying trends among children including age between 14-17(OR = 1.1), male gender (OR = 1.9), birth outside facility (OR = 0.99), immaturity (OR = 1.04), malnutrition (OR = 0.97), head trauma (OR = 1.02), maternal alcoholism (OR = 1.0), antiepileptic drugs & convulsive disorders (OR = 1.0), radiation injury (OR = 1.06), space occupying lesions and ICP (OR = 1.01) and birth injury/asphyxia (OR = 1.02).
Conclusions
Pathological reduction of brain volume in childhood exhibits a steady trend with the increase in pediatric age, with space occupying lesions & intracranial pressure being the most profound causes of brain atrophy
Characterization of Secondary Metabolites Responsible for the Resistance of Local Tomato Accessions to Whitefly (Bemisia tabaci, Gennadius 1889) Hemiptera in Tanzania
Get PDFThis research article was published by MDPI in 2022Plants have developed mechanisms to cope with stresses in their environments as they grow in diverse settings. Such means include releasing plant defense compounds upon attacks by pests or other stressors. Plants with these characteristics are essential as a plant germplasm source for breeding resistance against herbivores and insect pests. Therefore, this study aimed to screen germplasms for whitefly resistance and characterize the secondary metabolites responsible for this. Thirty local tomato accessions were screened for resistance against whiteflies (Bemisia tabaci Gennadius) in the screen house located at Tanzania Plant Health and Pesticides Authority (PTHPA) between January and April 2021. From this screening, seven local tomato cultivars: TZA3729, TZA5554, TZA5545, TZA5562, TZA5552, TZA3177 and TZA5157, showed resistance, and one accession (TZA5496) that showed susceptibility to whiteflies (negative control) and accession V1030462 that was a standard (positive control) were selected for the subsequent experiments. The experiment was conducted in July–October 2021 in the screen house at TPHPA and repeated in January–April 2022 using a completely randomized block design with three replications. From this experiment, three accessions: TZA3729, TZA5562 and TZA5157, showed resistance against whiteflies. However, accession TZA3729 was more resistant than TZA5562 and TZA5157 when compared to the resistant accession V1030462. Therefore, these accessions were further screened for secondary metabolites responsible for resistance against herbivores and insect pests—in this case, whiteflies. The GS-MS methanol extract results showed accession TZA3729 to possess a wide array of secondary plant metabolites responsible for plant self-defenses, such as diterpenes, Tetraterpenes, alkaloids, carotenoids and fatty acid esters. Therefore, the study recommends accession TZA3729 as a source of tomato plant germplasm for breeding tomatoes resistant to whiteflies
IoMT BASED POSTOPERATIVE PATIENT MONITORING VITAL SIGNS USING WIRELESS BODY SENSOR IN BURUNDI: A CASE STUDY OF VAN NORMAN CLINIQUE
Get PDFA Project Report Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Award
the Degree of Master of Science in Embedded and Mobile Systems of The Nelson
Mandela African Institution of Science and TechnologyThe Internet of Things (IoT) in healthcare plays a vital role to increase the efficacity in health
care monitoring. Vital signals are crucial part of monitoring a patient's health status in the
hospital for early diagnosis of delayed recovery, asses wellbeing of the patient and prevent
misdiagnosis. During the postoperative period, vital signs must be checked more frequently
than they would be for other patients. Patients are placed in a high dependency unit, and vital
signs have to be checked every 4 hours, or 6 hours depending on the severity of the procedure
done. A comprehensive and integrated health-care paradigm is provided, allowing for remote
health monitoring of postoperative patients to diary collect vital sign parameters and send to
the caretakers using Internet of Medical Thing. This enables a nurse, doctor, junior doctor, or
consultant to screen patients remotely and take action when there is a need. Wireless body
sensors play a vital role in healthcare, this project uses them to monitor remotely a patient in
the hospital, connecting to the ESP32 microcontroller with WiFi integrated on it to display
remotely the vital signs on a mobile phone, local computer also in the cloud. The objective of
this project was to develop a smart IoMT-based monitoring system that can detect and monitor
postoperative patient vital signs such as body temperature, heart rate, oxygen saturation, and
respiration rate in real time, as well as send live data to the doctor in charge via mobile
application and analyze data using ThingSpeak
In The Quest for Semi-Industrialized and Middle-Income Economy: Strategies for Agricultural-Based Industrialization through Co-operatives in Tanzania
Get PDFThis research articles was published in Journal of Language, Technology & Entrepreneurship Volume. 13 No. 1 2022Promoting the industrial sector has been among the key development strategies in most
developing countries including Tanzania. The government recognizes co-operatives as key
development partners in the current move towards a middle income and semi-industrialized
status. This calls for sorting out clearly how co-operatives can engage in the industrialization
process. This paper aims to share experiences on practical and theoretical strategies regarding
how best co-operatives can engage directly and indirectly in the industrialization process in
Tanzania. The authors adapted a systematic literature review approach in this paper. Content
analysis was used to analyse collected qualitative data from reviewed works. Secondary data
were also collected from various studies including Government reports to cement discussions.
With notable examples, the discussion has centred itself on various strategies that co-operatives
can, directly and indirectly, engage in the industrialization process. The paper also describes the
mechanisms that may be used to finance the industrialization process through co-operative and
possible constraints to such investments. It can be concluded that there are direct and indirect
options that co-operatives may apply to enter into the industrialization process and in financing
the proces
Biological control interventions and botanical pesticides for insect pests of crops in sub-Saharan Africa: A mapping review
Get PDFA research article was submitted to Agroecology and Ecosystem Services Volume 6 - 2022Agricultural productivity can be increased sustainably in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) by reducing crop losses due to insect pest damage. As an alternative to environmentally-damaging chemical pesticides, biological control interventions and botanical pesticides show potential to achieve both high yields and profits. However, synthesized information of their performance and understanding of their adoption among smallholder farmers is limited. Here, 173 studies of biological control interventions and botanical pesticides of insect pests for 35 crops from 20 sub-Saharan countries from 2005 to 2021 were systematically reviewed. Drawing on published datasets, we found that cereals, particularly maize, were the most studied crop (59%). Research on botanical pesticides constituted 32% of the studies, followed by augmentation/introduction biocontrol (29%), and push-pull (21%). Studies evaluating the technical performance of biocontrol interventions dominated (73%), with a regional clustering of push-pull studies in Kenya. Few studies investigated each intervention on each crop type, across different farming contexts and scales, highlighting an urgent need for landscape-scale studies to elucidate land-use impacts on biocontrol effectiveness. Limited evidence also exists on the synergistic effects of biocontrol on multiple ecosystem services and on non-target/beneficial organisms. We found an absence of interdisciplinary studies that addressed the wider indirect benefits of not using chemical pesticides, the social-economic outcomes, and barriers to adoption by farmers, which we argue are necessary to identify pathways to greater adoption and to support policy advocacy of biocontrol interventions in SSA
Website Development: The Case of Agricultural Extension Providers in Tanzania
Get PDFA research article was published by International Journal of Advances in Scientific Research and Engineering (ijasre) Volume 8, Issue 2 February - 2022This study examined current practice in websites development among organizations in Tanzania that provide agricultural
extension services to smallholder farmers. Google search was used to get a list of respondent organizations. A questionnaire,
interviews, and a review of the websites owned by organizations under study were used to collect data. Other than websites, it was found that organizations use manual documents, physical visits, radios, SMSs, TVs, and social networks to disseminate
information to smallholder farmers. Websites development was either done in-house or outsourced and the focus was to have
websites that cater to the information needs of different stakeholders including smallholder farmers. Information on websites
included contacts, announcements, specific information for farmers, with some of the information not directly relating to
smallholder farmers. This led websites to contain lots of information which might affect the usability of those websites by
smallholder farmers hence not benefiting from the information contained. This was the case for all websites. Also, the involvement of smallholder farmers during website development was low. Websites for agricultural extension providers were developed either in-house or outsourced. The government-owned agency (e-GA), commercial companies, and staff were among developers for the websites. Communication between stakeholders during the development process was easier for in-house development as compared to when websites were developed outside. Websites developed were either internally maintained or maintained outside organizations, with internal maintenance being cheaper compared to when maintenances were done outside organizations. To develop quality websites from smallholder farmers’ point of view their involvement should be high and the websites and the contained information should be easier to access with minimal information. Also, websites should be professionally designed and developed to focus more on the provision of agricultural extension service
Cone Bioassays Provide Reproducible Bioefficacy Estimates with Different Anopheline Mosquitoes and Can Be Used for Quality Assurance of Pyrethroid Insecticide Treated Nets
Get PDFThis research article was published in the Research Square, 2022Background
Quality assurance (QA) of insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) delivered to malaria-endemic countries is conducted by measuring physiochemical
parameters, but not bioecacy against malaria mosquitoes. The cone bioassay provides a simple evaluation of ITN bioecacy and its
conditions and parameters are prescribed by the World Health Organization (WHO). This study explored utility of cone bioassays for pre-
delivery QA of pyrethroid ITNs in two test facilities using different mosquito species to test the assumption that cone bioassays are consistent
and reproducible across locations, mosquito strains, and laboratories.
Methods
Double-blinded bioassays were conducted on unused pyrethroid ITNs of 4 brands (5 nets/brand, 5 subsamples/net) that had been delivered for
mass distribution in Papua New Guinea (PNG) having passed physiochemical testing of chemical content. Cone bioassays were performed on
adjacent net pieces following WHO guidelines at the PNG Institute of Medical Research (PNGIMR) using pyrethroid susceptible
Anopheles
farauti s.s. and at Ifakara Health Institute (IHI), Tanzania using pyrethroid susceptible
Anopheles gambiae s.s. Additionally, WHO tunnel tests
was conducted at IHI on ITNs that did not meet cone bioecacy thresholds. Results from IHI and PNGIMR were compared using Spearman’s
Rank, Bland Altman and Cohen’s kappa. A literature review on the utility of cone bioassays for unused pyrethroid ITNs testing was also
conducted.
Results
In cone bioassays, 13/20 nets (65%) met WHO bioecacy criteria at IHI and 8/20 (40%) at PNGIMR. All nets met WHO bioecacy criteria on
combined cone/tunnel tests. Results from IHI and PNGIMR correlated on 60-minute knockdown (rs=0.6,
p=0.002,n=20) and 24-hour mortality
(rs=0.9,
p<0.0001,n=20) but there was systematic bias between the results measured by Bland Altman. Of the 5 nets with discrepant result
between IHI and PNGIMR, three had condence intervals overlapping the 80% mortality threshold, with averages within 1-3% of the threshold.
The agreement between the results to predict ITN failure was good with kappa=0.79 (0.53-1.00) and 90% accuracy.
Conclusions
WHO cone is a reproducible means to measure pyrethroid ITN bioecacy using a combination of knockdown and mortality. In the absence of
an alternative tests, cone tests could be used to assess the availability of active ingredients at the surface of ITN (where mosquitoes encounter
it) as part of pre-delivery QA
Recent advances in thermochemical conversion of biomass into drop-in fuel:a review
Get PDFThis research article was published in Journals Scientific African Volume17,2022The global evolutional changes towards the use of renewable energy sources for trans-
portation purposes are on the increase in an attempt to mitigate the environmental haz-
ard and the proposed depletion associated with fossil fuel resources. Pyrolysis and hy-
drothermal processes of biomass conversion into renewable biofuels are resulted into the
production of biocrude with high oxygen content due to the presence of large amount of
oxygenates in biomass feedstocks. The presence of oxygen content in bio-oil causes cor-
rosion, low heating value, instability and high viscosity in bio-oil. These challenges have
necessitated the application of upgrading techniques such as catalytic hydrodeoxygenation
process among others. The presence of several oxygenated compounds made the mech-
anisms of bio-oil synthesis difficult and model bio-oil were reviewed to understand the
effects of process parameters and catalysts on aromatic selectivity and conversion. The se-
lectivity of aromatic hydrocarbons was affected by deactivation of catalysts’ active sites.
Coke formation has been identified as one of the common and notorious causes of cata-
lysts’ deactivation which is dependent on the nature of feedstock, conditions of operation
and the nature of catalyst. Therefore, the need to develop, evaluate a structurally and ther-
mally stable catalyst with high catalyst recovery and reusability are of importance in the
quest to depict hydrodeoxygenation process as an excellent technique for bio-oil upgrad-
ing