82 research outputs found
Establishment of savings and credit scheme, Mwembemadafu, Ukonga - Ilala
No full textSavings and credit schemes have proved in many developing countries to contribute in poverty alleviation. It is against this background, this project aimed at raising awareness among community members (especially women) on some aspects of savings and credit. Problem tree analysis was used to come up with community needs; a questionnaire was used to collect information to further assess the importance and participation of the community also the sustainability of savings and credit scheme. The project addressed the importance of savings and credit schemes at community level. The outcomes expected from the project are; some community members would have acquired knowledge on savings; and consequently established a savings and credit scheme. After several days (three weeks; one day in each week) of awareness creation, the Mwembemadafu street community involving 59 people (7 men and 52 women) decided to establish a savings and credit scheme. The project has taken period of sixteen months from the time of commencement to the current state whereby there are still some activities yet to be completed. Savings and credit schemes provide access to financial service to common people enabling them to meet their goals and improve their economic and social conditions; and can easily be made sustainable relying on their members. (Author abstract)Mushi, O. C. (2007). Establishment of savings and credit scheme, Mwembemadafu, Ukonga Ilala. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen
Factors affecting growth and expansion of women's microenterprises : the case of Rosella Women group in Dodoma Municipality
No full textThe project on factors affecting growth and expansion of women micro-enterprises involved Rosella Women Group based in Dodoma town. The group is engaged in the cultivation of rosella flowers, drying and processing the flower into juice and jam for sell. The main objective of the project was to find out why the group's enterprise was not growing and expanding since it was started 9 years ago and then recommend appropriate measures to facilitate growth and expansion of the women's enterprise which was necessary to improve their livelihood. The research findings revealed that the group was unable to expand their enterprise due to the following problems and constraints: (i) Lack of capital; (ii) Lack of appropriate technology for rosella flower drying and wine processing; (iii) Inability to access financial support and markets outside Dodoma Region; (iv) Inadequate land for increased production of raw material; and (v) Lack of business skills. This situation had a negative impact on the incomes of the group which remained low throughout the project life. It was also found that the group could not access financial support from potential donors because it was not registered as an NGO.
This being the case, it was recommended to assist the group to register itself as an NGO and write a proposal for funding to be submitted to potential donors. The financial assistance to the group would be used to secure solar drier machines, wine processing plant and for training of the group members on business development skills. The total financial assistance required is Tshs 30,500,000/= (US $ 23,462). (Author abstract)Mushi, C. J. (2007). Factors affecting growth and expansion of women's microenterprises: the case of Rosella Women group in Dodoma Municipality. Retrieved from http://academicarchive.snhu.eduMaster of Science (M.S.)School of Community Economic Developmen
Estetyka sprzeciwu: twórczość Osamu Tezuki wobec disneyowskiego paradygmatu animacji
No full textThe article offers an analysis of the work of Osamu Tezuka and the Mushi Production studio in the context of their opposition to the aesthetic and narrative strategies characteristic of Walt Disney’s animation. The starting point is a comparison of the dominant mid-20th century animation paradigms in the United States and Japan. The author examines the aesthetic, ideological, and thematic differences between classical Disney animation and Mushi’s productions, with a particular focus on the Animerama trilogy as a work of distinctly countercultural and transgressive character. The article also explores the ways in which Tezuka’s films depict the body and sexuality — elements that challenge the Western model of family-friendly animation, stripped of indecency and saturated with moral lessons. This study contributes to the broader discourse on cultural differences in approaches to the medium of animation.Artykuł stanowi analizę twórczości Osamu Tezuki oraz studia Mushi Production w kontekście sprzeciwu wobec estetycznych i narracyjnych strategii charakterystycznych dla animacji Walta Disneya. Punktem wyjścia jest porównanie dominujących w połowie XX wieku paradygmatów animacji w Stanach Zjednoczonych i Japonii. Autorka podejmuje analizę estetycznych, ideologicznych i tematycznych różnic pomiędzy klasyczną animacją Disneya a produkcjami Mushi, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem trylogii Animerama jako dzieła o wyraźnie kontrkulturowym i transgresyjnym charakterze. Artykuł bada również sposoby przedstawiania ciała i seksualności w filmach Tezuki – elementów, które stoją w opozycji do zachodniego modelu animacji przyjaznej rodzinie, pozbawionej nieprzyzwoitości i przesyconej morałami. Niniejsze opracowanie wpisuje się w szerszy dyskurs dotyczący kulturowych różnic w podejściu do medium animacji
Potential for Audience Participation in Concerts Using Experimental Musical Instruments: Case of a Concert at a Child Development Support and After-school Day Service Center
Get PDFThis study investigates the possibility of a new form of participative concert based on the concept of “musicking.” It involves the active participation of the audience, interactions between musicians and the audience or between audience members, and the effect of an experimental musical instrument created by the author to stimulate interactions in the audience. The concept of musicking(Small 2011) focuses on how people interact with music and how they form social and cultural contexts by interacting with music, things, and one another. The author believes that this concept can help develop a new model of participative concerts(Kusaka et al.2023). The study examines a case in which the author and a pianist played “Mushi no Koe,” a collective song approved by the Ministry of Education, as well as Serori Haruhata’s arrangement “Mushi no Koe Hakurankai,” in a 45-minute concert held at a child development support and after school day facility in T city, Tokyo, on October 7, 2023. This case shows diverse musical expressions of the audience that were stimulated by interactions with music or with others. The use of the experimental musical instrument helped students express themselves in scenarios in musicians’ playing which musicians found it challenging to express their specific intentions through words and actions. The experimental musical instrument could be played by only two members of the audience at a time. Future research should consider ways to promote the dynamics and diversity of audience performances and enable simultaneous interaction between several members of the audience.departmental bulletin pape
Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Academic Texts: A Potential Strategy in Addressing Challenges of Cross-border Provision of Higher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
Get PDFUsing discourse from written texts representing information about New Information Communication Technologies (NICTs) in distance education (DE) in Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) the author shows how texts/discourse may be used to marginalize people who have systematically been made powerless. Awareness of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the ability to use it as an emancipatory tool are represented as techniques that may be employed to uncover marginalization and exploitation. Texts, including academic texts, are represented as avenues for colonizing minds as explored by CDA scholars such as Fairclough (1995), Van Djik (1993) and Kress (1989). Such colonization translates into other forms of colonization, which are the root causes of exploitation, marginalization, and subordination. The author provides practical examples of written text extracts, analyses the extracts using CDA and critically interprets the texts to show how CDA may be employed as a means to decolonize minds of peoples in Sub-Saharan Africa. CDA is represented to have the potency to open up for critical conceptualization of the real world as presented in written texts which influence how people live and act. In the context of this paper discourse is considered a social practice that influences other forms of social practices. Taking from Van Djik’s (1993) position, the stated influence is grounded on discourse as a symbolic practice that embodies the social environment that shapes “public mind”, “social cognition” ( p. 257) and the social actions that ensue from such minds and cognition. Furthermore, the author bases her prepositions on Fairclough’s (2004) perception of discourse as a tool that can be used to control the selection of certain structural possibilities and the exclusion of others and the retention of the selections in particular areas of social life
Health and survival of young children in southern Tanzania.
Get PDFWith a view to developing health systems strategies to improve reach to high-risk groups, we present information on health and survival from household and health facility perspectives in five districts of southern Tanzania. We documented availability of health workers, vaccines, drugs, supplies and services essential for child health through a survey of all health facilities in the area. We did a representative cluster sample survey of 21,600 households using a modular questionnaire including household assets, birth histories, and antenatal care in currently pregnant women. In a subsample of households we asked about health of all children under two years, including breastfeeding, mosquito net use, vaccination, vitamin A, and care-seeking for recent illness, and measured haemoglobin and malaria parasitaemia. In the health facility survey, a prescriber or nurse was present on the day of the survey in about 40% of 114 dispensaries. Less than half of health facilities had all seven 'essential oral treatments', and water was available in only 22%. In the household survey, antenatal attendance (88%) and DPT-HepB3 vaccine coverage in children (81%) were high. Neonatal and infant mortality were 43.2 and 76.4 per 1000 live births respectively. Infant mortality was 40% higher for teenage mothers than older women (RR 1.4, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1 - 1.7), and 20% higher for mothers with no formal education than those who had been to school (RR 1.2, CI 1.0 - 1.4). The benefits of education on survival were apparently restricted to post-neonatal infants. There was no evidence of inequality in infant mortality by socio-economic status. Vaccine coverage, net use, anaemia and parasitaemia were inequitable: the least poor had a consistent advantage over children from the poorest families. Infant mortality was higher in families living over 5 km from their nearest health facility compared to those living closer (RR 1.25, CI 1.0 - 1.5): 75% of households live within this distance. Relatively short distances to health facilities, high antenatal and vaccine coverage show that peripheral health facilities have huge potential to make a difference to health and survival at household level in rural Tanzania, even with current human resources
Measuring Access and Practice: Designing a Survey Methodology for the Hygiene, Sanitation and Water Sector
Get PDFAccess to safe water and sanitary means of excreta disposal are essential elements of
human development and poverty alleviation. It is estimated that one in four people in
the developing world lacks access to water while over half the population has no
access to sanitation. From the Alma-Ata declaration in 1978 to the recent Millennium
Development Goals, efforts to improve this situation have been hampered by the lack
of meaningful indicators to measure hygiene, sanitation and water coverage and
establish progress towards the goals and targets set out by the international
community.
This thesis aims to determine if measuring prevalence of access to water~ sanitation
and the practice of hygienic behaviour in hous~hold surveys can be.improved. With
no indicators available in current international' laws and targets, various aspects of
access and practice were examined to design indicators for field-testing. By using
- existing data sets, the research established that there is a high geographic clustering of
the measures of interest, which results in large design effects (deff) and rates of
homogeneity (roh) in cluster surveys. Based on the calculated roh optimum numbers
ofcluster and sample size were calculated for the field trials. This requires
introducing survey costs in the sample size calculations. The high clustering of water
and sanitation indicator require large sample sizes, resulting in large amounts of data
which organisations in the four field trials in Kosovo, South Africa, Kenya and Laos
found difficult to handle. Practical problems in the implementation of the survey
method resulted in non-sampling errors and could cause reluctance in adoption the
methodology. The research improved water and sanitation indicators but found that
for individual behaviour such as hygiene the household is not a suitable sampling unit.
It also showed that observation among interviewers have to be better standardised to
reduce the inter-surveyor.variation. Representative sampling is the current bottleneck
in the development of such a survey method. Current method requires a good
understanding of sampling theory as well as reliable sample frames, which are rarely
available to implementing organisations. Alternative sampling methods are
suggested, and recommendations are made for the further development ofthe survey
method designed in this research, which to date may be too complex for widespread
use
Makna Idiomatikal Idiom Pada Manga One Piece Vol. 91 Karya Eiichiro Oda
Get PDFThis study aims to describe the meaning of idioms in the manga One Piece Vol. 91 which is one of the popular manga with a high frequency of idioms. The method used in this research is descriptive analysis method. The results of this study found 13 idioms which is ki ga tsuku means "sober" or "conscious", hara no mushi means "stomach sound", akke ni torareru means "very surprised", ki ni suru means "worried", mi o hiku means "retreat", ude ni oboe ga aru means "confident", ki ga aru means "interested", sumi ni okenai means "great", mentsu ga tatsu means "maintain reputation" , te o dasu means "fighting", uma no hone means "someone whose identity is unknown", kuchi ni suru means "saying", and hedo ga deru means "fed up". The author hopes that further research can examine idioms in grammatical terms
Abstract B39: A pilot study to establish procedures for DNA and RNA isolation from African esophageal tumor specimens
No full textAbstract
Objective: We propose to utilize tumor biospecimens from patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (ESCC) to identify possible genetic, molecular, and infectious determinants of this high-incidence disease in East Africa. However, laboratory technologies in East Africa are not available to support DNA and RNA extraction and genome and transcriptome sequencing from patient specimens. In preparation for establishment of a biorepository for African ESCC specimens, we compared different fixation and preservation media for transportability over long distances and success in preserving the genetic integrity and expression profiles of ESCC.
Methods: Patients with a suspected diagnosis of ESCC at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were identified and consented prior to endoscopic evaluations. For patients with endoscopic findings consistent with ESCC, tumor biopsies were obtained and stored using two different fixation and preservation media: PAXgene® Tissue Container (n=2) and RNAlater® (n=2). All specimens were shipped at room temperature from Dar es Salaam to San Francisco. DNA and RNA quantity was measured by nanodrop method and DNA was further confirmed by picogreen method, yielding measures of total DNA and RNA acquired (ug). DNA quality was measured as percent of total DNA degradation to between 200-1000 bp. RNA quality measure was determined by bioanalyzer output measure RNA Integrity Number (RIN).
Results: Specimens for our first 10 patients were analyzed. Average transit time of biopsy specimens in preservative at room temperature was 6.2 days (range 3.5-9.0). Tumor specimens preserved with PAXgene® yielded a mean of 7.7 ug total DNA and 8.6 ug total RNA. Tumor specimens preserved with RNAlater® yielded a mean 1.4 ug of DNA and 8.2 ug of RNA. DNA degradation products were 0% of total with PAXgene® versus 6% of total with RNAlater®. Specimens preserved with PAXgene® yielded a mean RIN of 4, while RNAlater® yielded a mean RIN of 9. DNA and RNA quality were not associated with length of time at room temperature, up to a maximum of 9 days.
Conclusion: Tissue preserved using the PAXgene® Tissue Container yielded higher DNA quantity and quality than tissue preserved in RNAlater®. RNA quantity was comparable for both mediums, but RNAlater® resulted in superior RNA quality versus PAXgene®. Both mediums allowed for flexible transport of specimens at room temperature and merit further inquiry into their potential as cost-effective methods to facilitate molecular analyses for geographically isolated diseases in Africa. Based upon our pilot data, each medium offers unique advantages. Our expanded study will continue to utilize both mediums to optimize isolation of both DNA and RNA. We will plan to present data for an enriched sample size.
Funding source: National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Administrative Supplement to Promote Cancer Prevention and Control Research in Low and Middle Income Countries, A119617, [CA-0082629].
Citation Format: Beatrice Paul Mushi, John Greer, Charles William Cahalane, II, Msiba Selekwa, Ali Mwanga, Larry Akoko, Elia Mmbaga, Eric Collisson, Katherine Van Loon. A pilot study to establish procedures for DNA and RNA isolation from African esophageal tumor specimens [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR International Conference: New Frontiers in Cancer Research; 2017 Jan 18-22; Cape Town, South Africa. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(22 Suppl):Abstract nr B39.</jats:p
Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry: a holistic approach to improve indigenous chicken production focusing on resilience to Newcastle disease
Get PDFSmall-scale poultry production in Africa plays a significant role in alleviating malnutrition and poverty in rural communities. Global climate change and infectious poultry disease such as Newcastle disease (ND) have had tremendous negative impact on poultry production and health due to limited biosecurity, cold chain, and inadequate extension service. Genetic selection for enhanced resistance to ND virus (NDV) offers a promising complementary approach to vaccination and biosecurity in addressing constraints in village production systems. The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry (GIP IL) has led an effort on the identification of genetic markers, genes and signalling pathways associated with enhanced resistance to NDV by conducting NDV challenging experiments in diverse inbred, commercial, and African indigenous chickens. The GIP IL developed a comprehensive genetic selection platform focusing on improved survival time and reduced virus shedding in the face of NDV infection and on enhanced growth rate and egg production. The programme applied the platform for genetic selection and breeding of indigenous chickens through velogenic NDV natural exposure trials. To improve our understanding of the epidemiology of NDV in Africa, we characterised circulating strains of the virus in Ghana and Tanzania and identified NDV risk factors among local chickens. These data contribute to a body of knowledge useful for guiding disease control efforts, informing vaccine strategies, enhancing biosecurity, and contributing to our overall understanding of NDV dynamics. To gauge the demand for genetically improved indigenous poultry lines, we undertook assessments of the poultry value chain and conducted choice experiments in Ghana and Tanzania, and the findings suggest that both ND enhanced resistance attribute and other productivity attributes of chicken such as egg production and body weight gain are important for a breeding programme.This article is published as Huaijun Zhou, Isabelle Baltenweck, Jack Dekkers, Rodrigo Gallardo, Boniface B. Kayang, Terra Kelly, Peter L. M. Msoffe, Amandus Muhairwa, James Mushi, Augustine Naazie, Hope R. Otsyina, Emily Ouma & Susan J. Lamont (2024) Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Genomics to Improve Poultry: a holistic approach to improve indigenous chicken production focusing on resilience to Newcastle disease, World's Poultry Science Journal, DOI: 10.1080/00439339.2024.2321350. © 2024 The Author(s).This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent
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