Digital Commons Network^™

Restricting Pesticides On A Traditional Crop: The Example Of Khat (Catha Edulis) And The Njuri Ncheke Of Meru, Kenya, James S. Krueger, Daniel M. Mutyambai

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Rampant increase and diversification of synthetic pesticides poses health, environmental, and livelihood risks especially to smallholder farmers who dominate agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa. Legal mechanisms for regulating pesticides, although important, have not fully addressed the dangers of ecological services disruptions due to accumulation of different pesticides over time. Legal mechanisms also are not well suited to developing countries because of weak monitoring and enforcement capacity. Understanding the role of other accountability mechanisms in farming, driven by norm leaders in the community, is thus of paramount importance. We investigated the effectiveness of a traditional accountability mechanism, i.e., local councils of elders …

Mineral Fertilizer Use In Land-Scarce Conditions: Case Of Rwanda, Josaphat Rusisiro Mugabo, Eric Tollens, Jonas Nwankwo Chianu, Bernard Vanlauwe

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

This study was undertaken to investigate the use of mineral fertilizer by smallholder farmers in order to understand the set of factors influencing the decisions of smallholder farmers to use fertilizers in land-scarce conditions. Using descriptive analysis and the Cragg's double-hurdle model, the study identified and analyzed factors that determine smallholder farmer adoption of mineral fertilizers and those that affect the intensity of household mineral fertilizer use. From factors that only influence the decision of smallholder farmers to use mineral fertilizers, distance to fertilizer market and livestock affects it negatively; while farmer association membership, landholding per capita, access to extension …

Diversity Of Fall Armyworm, Spodoptera Frugiperda And Their Gut Bacterial Community In Kenya, Joseph Gichuhi, Subramanian Sevgan, Fathiya Khamis, Johnnie Van Den Berg, Hannalene Du Plessis, Sunday Ekesi, Jeremy K. Herren

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Background: The invasive fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (J.E. Smith) is a polyphagous pest that causes widespread damage particularly to maize and sorghum in Africa. The microbiome associated with S. frugiperda could play a role in the insects' success and adaptability. However, bacterial communities in S. frugiperda remain poorly studied. Methods: We investigated the composition, abundance and diversity of microbiomes associated with larval and adult specimens of S. frugiperda collected from four maize growing regions in Kenya through high throughput sequencing of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene. The population structure of S. frugiperda in Kenya was assessed through amplification of the …

Impact Of Integrated Fruit Fly Management Strategy On Food Security Among Smallholder Mango Farmers In Kenya, P. N. Nyang'au, B. W. Muriithi, J. M. Nzuma, P. Irungu, H. M. Gichungi, G. Diiro

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Adoption of agricultural innovations is perceived as a key avenue for poverty reduction and improved food and nutritional security in developing countries. The International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) has developed and implemented a set of Integrated Pest Management (IPM) strategies in several sub-Saharan African countries aimed at controlling mango infesting fruit flies (Bactrocera dorsalis). Although positive returns from the use of fruit fly IPM have already been documented, the impact of these technologies on food security is not well understood. This study evaluated the impact of the IPM strategy on food security with the help of a …

Gendered Analysis Of The Demand For Poultry Feed In Kenya, John Njenga Macharia, Gracious Malton Diiro, John Rono Busienei, Kimpei Munei, Hippolyte D. Affognon, Sunday Ekesi, Beatrice Muriithi, Dorothy Nakimbugwe, Chrysantus Mbi Tanga, Komi K.M. Fiaboe

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

This paper uses a translog cost function approach to study the farm-level demand for poultry feed in Kenya. The study estimates the demand elasticities of the three common types of poultry feed; mixed feed, grain, and leafy vegetables. The estimated model was used to obtain estimates of Marshallian demand elasticities for poultry feed in Kenya for male-headed and female-headed households. The elasticities reported can be used by researchers and policy analysts to evaluate policy effects of changes in feed demand quantities within the livestock economy in Kenya. Moreover, these parameters can provide more reliable estimates of the total change in …

Smallholder Farmers' Knowledge And Willingness To Pay For Insect-Based Feeds In Kenya, Shaphan Y. Chia, John Macharia, Gracious M. Diiro, Menale Kassie, Sunday Ekesi, Joop J.A. Van Loon, Marcel Dicke, Chrysantus M. Tanga

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Edible insects are increasingly being considered as sustainable alternatives to fish and soybean meals in animal feed because of their high nutritional quality and environmental benefits. However, successful introduction of a new product to the market depends on the target user's acceptance. Thus, evaluating the potential demand of insect-based feeds would provide relevant information for policy development. The present study assessed farmers' knowledge on edible insects as feed, their acceptance of integrating insect meals in animal feeds and willingness to pay (WTP) for insect-based feed (IBF) using a contingent valuation method. A household survey was conducted among 957 randomly selected …

Wide-Area Invasive Species Propagation Mapping Is Possible Using Phenometric Trends, Tobias Landmann, Olena Dubovyk, Gohar Ghazaryan, Jackson Kimani, Elfatih M. Abdel-Rahman

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Invasive plant species in eastern Africa severely impede rangeland and cropland productivity with dire consequences for livelihoods of agro-pastoralist communities. We produced the first occurrence and spread map of invasive plant species (Prosopis: Prosopis juliflora and Parthenium: Parthenium hysterophorus) for western Somaliland (a region of eastern Africa) using vegetation productivity and phenology trends from 250 m MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) EVI (Enhanced Vegetation Index) time-series data (2001–2014). Binomial logistic regression models were created to predict the presence or absence of the invasive species from the MODIS EVI phenometrics and vegetation productivity trends. Model training pixels were extracted from a …

From Nineteenth Amendment To Era: Constitutional Amendments For Women's Equality, Tracy Thomas

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

No abstract provided.

A Rare Case Of Bleeding Epiphrenic Esophageal Diverticulum From Arteriovenous Malformations., Franklin L. Thelmo, Harvey Guttmann, Waqas Ullah, Ahmad Arslan, Eugen Brailoiu

Abington Jefferson Health Papers

Epiphrenic esophageal diverticula (EED) is a rare condition that usually presents with dysphagia in patients with a known motility disorder. In this article, we present a unique case of EED presenting with hemoptysis with clinical workup negative for any pulmonary pathology. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy revealed arteriovenous malformations within the EED successfully managed with argon plasma coagulation (APC), leading to a resolution of the patient's symptoms.

Proprotein Convertase Subtilisin/Kexin Type-9 (Pcsk-9) Inhibitors Induced Liver Injury - A Retrospective Analysis., Yousuf Zafar, Yasar Sattar, Waqas Ullah, Sohaib Roomi, Mamoon-Ur- Rashid, Muhammad Shayan Khan, Laura Schmidt

Abington Jefferson Health Papers

Background: Proprotein convertase subtilisin/Kexin type 9 (PCSK-9) inhibitors induced liver dysfunction in patients with or without previous liver injury, and this is not well discussed in the previous literature.

Methods: A total sample of 202 patients were retrospectively reviewed at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, from the year 2015 to 2018 based on predefined selection criteria. Inclusion criteria involved patients with dyslipidemia, with or without PCSK-9 inhibitors, liver function tests and lipid profile at baseline and at a mean of 6-month follow-up. The variables, including age, gender, and confounding factors like other medications (statin, oral antidiabetic, and antihypertensive) induced, …

Oligohydramnios: A Prospective Study Of Fetal, Neonatal And Maternal Outcomes In Low-Middle Income Countries, Lester Figueroa, Elizabeth M. Mcclure, Jonathan Swanson, Robert Nathan, Ana L. Garces, Janet L. Moore, Nancy Krebs, Michae Hambidge, Melissa Bauserman5, W. Akhtar

Department of Radiology

BACKGROUND:
Oligohydramnios is a condition of abnormally low amniotic fluid volume that has been associated with poor pregnancy outcomes. To date, the prevalence of this condition and its outcomes has not been well described in low and low-middle income countries (LMIC) where ultrasound use to diagnose this condition in pregnancy is limited. As part of a prospective trial of ultrasound at antenatal care in LMICs, we sought to evaluate the incidence of and the adverse maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes associated with oligohydramnios.
METHODS:
We included data in this report from all pregnant women in community settings in Guatemala, Pakistan, …

Felony Disenfranchisement & The Nineteenth Amendment, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

The Nineteenth Amendment and the history of the women’s suffrage movement can offer a compelling argument against felony disenfranchisement laws. These laws leave approximately six million citizens unable to vote, often for crimes wholly unrelated to the political process. They also increasingly threaten gains in female enfranchisement.

Today’s arguments in support of felony disenfranchisement laws bear striking similarities to the arguments of anti-suffragists more than a century earlier. Both suggest that a traditionally subordinated class of citizens is inherently incapable of bearing the responsibility that the right to vote entails, and that their votes are somehow less worthy than others. …

Janus-Faced Judging: How The Supreme Court Is Radically Weakening Stare Decisis, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

Drastic changes in Supreme Court doctrine require citizens to reorder their affairs rapidly, undermining their trust in the judiciary. Stare decisis has traditionally limited the pace of such change on the Court. It is a bulwark against wholesale jurisprudential reversals. But, in recent years, the stare decisis doctrine has come under threat.

With little public or scholarly notice, the Supreme Court has radically weakened stare decisis in two ways. First, the Court has reversed its long-standing view that a precedent, regardless of the quality of its reasoning, should stand unless there is some special, practical justification to overrule it. Recent …

Book Review, Strange Bedfellows: Marriage In The Age Of Women's Liberation, Tracy Thomas

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

No abstract provided.

Pandemic Surveillance - The New Predictive Policing, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

Now that the first wave of the coronavirus is behind us, what will the future bring? As governments reopen society following lengthy stay-at-home orders, they must strike a difficult balance. If the return to normalcy is too abrupt, infections could spike again in just a few months, creating a death toll as high as it might have been with no quarantine at all.1 An effective removal of quarantine orders, then, must ensure that the return to normalcy is appropriately paced. But how can we best plan to put our economy back together without jeopardizing public health?

Officials in New York …

App Permissions And The Third-Party Doctrine, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

Apple’s trademarked catchphrase “there’s an app for that”1 suggests that every app on a modern digital device is perfectly tailored to provide a specific, necessary convenience. Whether the user wants to check the weather, get updates on her favorite baseball team, find a coupon for her next purchase, or track her fitness and activity levels, she can use an app to fill gaps in her life that she may not have known existed. What the user might also not know, however, is that “permissions” either she or the phone’s operating system have granted to the app allow it to access …

Gobbledygook: Political Questions, Manageability, & Partisan Gerrymandering, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

In finding that extreme partisan gerrymandering is a nonjusticiable political question in Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court fixated upon the lack of judicially manageable standards to evaluate their constitutionality. The decision culminated in the Court’s recent reinforcement of that manageability focus in partisan gerrymandering cases, with Chief Justice Roberts even calling efforts to numerically calculate the extremity of such gerrymandering “sociological gobbledygook.”

Such belabored fears about manageability misread the questions in the political question doctrine. The doctrine requires the Justices to initially ask, as a normative matter, whether the judiciary should resolve the controversy in our constitutional system, …

More Than The Vote: The Nineteenth Amendment As Proxy For Gender Equality, Tracy Thomas

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

The original idea behind the Nineteenth Amendment was never just about the vote. Instead, the first women's rights movement 175 years ago, like the modern movement for the Equal Rights Amendment, sought comprehensive equality for women in all avenues of life. The constitutional text for women’s full equality and emancipation has changed over the centuries; first embodied in the grant of the vote as a proxy for structural change, and now incorporated into the demand for “equal rights.” Yet women have been consistent over time in understanding the radical idea that systems of governance, family, industry, and church need dismantling …

Suspicionless Witness Stops: The New Racial Profiling, Michael Gentithes

Con Law Center Articles and Publications

Young men of color in high-crime neighborhoods are surrounded by poverty and crime, yet distrustful of the police who frequently stop, frisk, and arrest them and their friends. Every encounter with the police carries the potential for a new arrest or worse, fostering a culture of fear and distrust of law enforcement. That culture exacerbates the problems facing the officers patrolling these neighborhoods as more crimes go unsolved because witnesses are unwilling to come forward.

In the past several decades, officers have responded by using a stop-and-frisk technique of dubious constitutionality to control crime. Despite its disastrous implications for the …

Migration Of The Communicants From Anglicanism To Pentecostalism In Nigeria, Samuel Ayotola Odubena

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Reframing And [Re]Presenting Evangelism In Oral Cultures : A Case Study Of The Harare West (Mumc) Vabvuwi Choir In Zimbabwe, Irene M. Kabete

ATS Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Leading The Charge To Implement Strategic Engagement Initiatives To Capture Enhanced Online Learning Opportunities, Peter O'Reilly

Publications

Presentation objectives:

• Making Online Courses Feel More Like In-Person Courses
• Discussion on Various Effective Engagement Activities
• Results of Engagement Activities Pilots
• Next Steps…

Implementing Welfare Science: Case Studies In Evidence-Based Zoo Management, Marisa Suzanne Spain

UNF Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Animal welfare science is a field that focuses on how we can improve the lives and well-being of animals in human care. Modern welfare science has moved away from simply preventing suffering and on to promoting positive welfare states, a concept that has been coined animal “wellness”. A process called evidence-based zoo management has been implemented in many zoos as a way to promote and ensure wellness. This is the idea that husbandry and housing standards should be evaluated and tested for their efficacy using data rather than relying on traditional best practices. In this manuscript we discuss an informal …

Accounting For The Local Field When Determining The Dielectric Loss Spectra Of Metals In The Region Of The Frequencies Of Volume, Surface And Localized Plasmon Oscillations, Tatiana Perova, Igor Shaganove, Kevin Berwick

Articles

The optical constant of bulk metal is used to determine the dispersion of the local field under one-dimensional (1D), two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) confinement. 3D confinement, expressed as ε mic 2 (ω3D), corresponds to the dielectric loss spectra of spherical particles with a diameter, d, much less than the wavelength of the beam used to measure the spectrum (d << λ). Excellent agreement with the results of Mie theory and experimental data for solid colloids within alkali halide crystals was observed. The function expressed as ε mic 2 (ω1D) allows the measurement of spectral micro-characteristics in the frequency range of the longitudinal collective motion of the free electrons. This corresponds to the spectrum of dielectric losses of bulk plasma oscillations. The function ε mic 2 (ω2D) describes the spectra of the dielectric losses of surface plasma oscillations in thin metal films. It is shown that the peak positions of ε mic 2 (ω3D), ε mic 2 (ω2D) and ε mic 2 (ω1D) spectra for simple metals, viz. alkali metals as well as Al, Be, Mg, Ga, In, Sn and Si, are in agreement with experimental results from electron-energy-loss spectroscopy and various optical techniques.

Covid-19: A Simple Curve Approximation Tool, Jane Courtney

Articles

In the current COVID-19 pandemic, much focus is put on ‘flattening the curve’. This ‘curve’ refers to the cases versus time graph, which shows the rise of a disease to its peak before descending. The aim in a pandemic is to flatten this curve by reducing the peak and spreading out the timeline. However, the models used to predict this curve are often not clearly outlined, no model parameters are given, and models are not tested against real data. This lack of detail makes it difficult to recreate the curve from these models. What is much needed is a simple …

Performance Investigation Of Peak Shrinking And Interpolating The Papr Reduction Technique For Lte-Advance And 5g Signals, Somayeh Mohammady, Ronan Farrell, David Malone, John Dooley

Articles

Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has become an indispensable part of waveform generation in wideband digital communication since its first appearance in digital audio broadcasting (DAB) in Europe in 1980s, and it is indeed in use. As has been seen, the OFDM based waveforms work well with time division duplex operation in new radio (NR) systems in 5G systems, supporting delay-sensitive applications, high spectral efficiency, massive multiple input multiple output (MIMO) compatibility, and ever-larger bandwidth signals, which has demonstrated successful commercial implementation for 5G downlinks and uplinks up to 256-QAM modulation schemes. However, the OFDM waveforms suffer from high peak …

Self-Similar Pcosecond Pulse Compression For Supercontinuum Generation At Mid-Infrared Wavelength In Silicon Strip Waveguides, Yujun Cheng, Jinhui Yuan, Chao Mei, Feng Li, Zhe Kang, Binbin Yan, Xian Zhou, Qiang Wu, Kuiru Wang, Xinzhu Sang, Keping Long, Chongxiu Yu, Gerald Farrell

Articles

Self-similar pulse compression has important application in highly coherent supercontinuum (SC) generation. In this paper, we numerically present the mid-infrared self-similar picosecond pulse compression in a tapered suspended silicon strip waveguide, which is designed with exponentially decreasing dispersion profile along the direction of propagation. When the variation of the Kerr nonlinear coefficient ��(z), linear and nonlinear losses, higher-order nonlinearity, and higher-order dispersion are taken into consideration, the simulation result shows that a 1 ps input pulse centered at wavelength 2.8 μm could be self-similarly compressed to 47.06 fs in a 3.9-cm waveguide taper, along with a compression factor ��c of …

Applications Of Artificial Intelligence To Cryptography, Jonathan Blackledge, Napo Mosola

Articles

This paper considers some recent advances in the field of Cryptography using Artificial Intelligence (AI). It specifically considers the applications of Machine Learning (ML) and Evolutionary Computing (EC) to analyze and encrypt data. A short overview is given on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and the principles of Deep Learning using Deep ANNs. In this context, the paper considers: (i) the implementation of EC and ANNs for generating unique and unclonable ciphers; (ii) ML strategies for detecting the genuine randomness (or otherwise) of finite binary strings for applications in Cryptanalysis. The aim of the paper is to provide an overview on …

A Conceptual Model To Explain Dark Matter And Dark Energy, Jonathan Blackledge

Articles

t This paper considers a conceptual model that attempts to explain ‘Dark Matter’ and ‘Dark Energy’. The model is based on considering a gravitational field to be the result of a mass (a Higgs field) scattering pre-existing cosmic background space-time waves or ‘Uber-waves’. The term ‘Uber’ is used to denote an outstanding or supreme example of a particular kind of gravitational wave with cosmic-scale wavelengths that are far in excess of those associated with the gravitational waves generated by accelerating masses. Such waves are taken to be the very lowest frequency components associated with the spectrum of space-time waves generated …

Reformulating The Binary Masking Approach Of Adress As Soft Masking, Ruairí De Fréin

Articles

Binary masking forms the basis for a number of source separation approaches that havebeen successfully applied to the problem of de-mixing music sources from a stereo recording.A well-known problem with binary masking is that, when music sources overlap in the time-frequencydomain, only one of the overlapping sources can be assigned the energy in a particulartime-frequency bin. To overcome this problem, we reformulate the classical pan-pot source separationproblem for music sources as a non-negative quadratic program. This reformulation gives rise toan algorithm, called Redress, which extends the popular Adress algorithm. It works by definingan azimuth trajectory for each source based on …