African Conditions Research Articles

Marine sedimentary biomarker reconstructions of eastern African Plio-Pleistocene climate and Indian Ocean conditions

Marine sedimentary biomarker reconstructions of eastern African Plio-Pleistocene climate and Indian Ocean conditions

Exploring the Bioactive Potential of Moroccan Lemon Grass (Cymbopogon citratus L.): Investigations on Molecular Weight Distribution and Antioxidant and Antimicrobial Potentials.

Research on lemon grass (Cymbopogon citratus L.) revealed a variety of active molecules and examined their biological characteristics. However, most of these studies were conducted on wild varieties, while cultivated plants were addressed less. This study aimed to characterize the biomolecules and biological activities of lemon grass growing under North African conditions in Morocco. Phenolic compound profiles of aqueous (AE), ethanol (EE), and methanol (ME) extracts and their fractions were obtained with steric exclusion chromatography on Sephadex G50 gel and identified by LC-MS/MS. Then, total polyphenols (TPC), flavonoids (TFC), and antioxidant activities (FRAP: scavenging value and TAC: Total Antioxidant Capacity) of the fraction were evaluated, as well as the antimicrobial activity. The obtained results showed that the ME contained eight major compounds (i.e., apigenine-7-O-rutinoside and myricitine-3-O-rutinoside). The AE showed the presence of five molecules (i.e., kaempferol-3-O-glucuronide), while EE showed the presence of three molecules (i.e., quercetine-3-O-rutinoside). Regarding the chemical characterization, the highest value of total phenolic content (TPC) was obtained in AE (25) (4.60 ± 0.29 mg/g), and the highest value of total flavonoid content (TFC) was obtained in ME (29) (0.7 ± 0.08 mg/g). Concerning the antioxidant activity, the highest FRAP was obtained in ME (29) (97.89%), and the highest total antioxidant capacity (TAC) was obtained in ME (29) (89.89%). Correlation between FRAP, TPC, and TFC was noted only in fractions of AE and ME. All tested extracts of C. citratus and their fractions showed a significant antimicrobial effect. The lowest minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) was recorded for ME against E. coli. Extracts' biological activities and their fractions were governed by their active molecules. These data are new and clarify a novel aspect of bioactive molecules in the extracts of cultivated C. citratus. Equally, throughout this research, we clarified the relationship between identified molecules and their biological properties, including antioxidant and anti-microbial activities, which is new for the study area. This study is suggested as a reference for comparative studies and other assays of other biological activities for the study plant.

Integrating Biochar with Solar Drip Irrigation Technology for Smallholder Vegetable Farming in South-eastern Ghana Yields Profitable Returns

Ghana's agricultural sector faces significant challenges, characterized by low productivity and a heavy reliance on unpredictable rainfall and outdated farming practices, with limited use of modern agricultural inputs. This research investigates the potential profitability of integrating biochar and solar drip irrigation technologies for smallholder vegetable farming in Ghana, a country with sub-Saharan African agricultural conditions. The study employs gross margin and net farm income approaches to estimate profitability, providing a robust financial analysis of the proposed agricultural innovations. The results reveal a substantial mean gross margin of GHȼ35,021.25 and a net farm income of GHȼ48,786.50 per ha across the study area during the dry season from 2017-2020. These findings underscore the economic viability of biochar and solar drip irrigation, demonstrating significant financial benefits for smallholder farmers. The study concludes that adopting these technologies can markedly enhance agricultural productivity and profitability. It is recommended that smallholder farmers adopt biochar and solar drip irrigation to improve their farming outcomes, thereby contributing to sustainable agricultural development in the region.

Viability of an Open-Loop Heat Pump Drying System in South African Climatic Conditions

Drying agricultural produce consumes a considerable amount of energy. As an energy-efficient system, a heat pump can improve the energy efficiency of the drying process and hence reduce the energy consumption, especially in South Africa, where both sub-tropical and temperate weather conditions dominate. The objective of this research is to experimentally investigate the impacts of weather conditions on the operational conditions and thermal performance of an open-loop air-source heat pump drying system. The experimental investigation was conducted in a climate chamber where the climate conditions were simulated from −10 °C to 20 °C with an interval of 10 °C for the typical temperature range of the harvesting season in South Africa. The findings indicate that ambient temperatures have a significant impact on both the operating conditions and thermal performance of an open-loop heat pump system; the change in ambient temperatures from −10 °C to 20 °C leads to a 141.6% improvement in the suction pressure, a 214.2% increase in the discharge pressure, and 30.1% increase in the compression ratio, as well as a consequent increase of 130.6% in the refrigerant mass flow rate (from 0.0067 to 0.0155 kg/s), resulting in a corresponding increase in the coefficient of performance (COP) of the heat pump drying system by about 42.1%. Therefore, this study suggests that, while using an open-loop air-source heat pump drying system utilising R134a refrigerant is feasible in South Africa, it may be practically limited to regions with warm climates or during warmer seasons.

Gaps in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of syphilis: a review of reported cases, South Africa, January 2020-June 2022.

Congenital syphilis (CS) is preventable through timely antenatal care (ANC), syphilis screening and treatment among pregnant women. Robust CS surveillance can identify gaps in this prevention cascade. We reviewed CS cases reported to the South African notifiable medical conditions surveillance system (NMCSS) from January 2020 to June 2022. CS cases are reported using a case notification form (CNF) containing limited infant demographic and clinical characteristics. During January 2020-June 2022, healthcare workers supplemented CNFs with a case investigation form (CIF) containing maternal and infant testing and treatment information. We describe CS cases with/without a matching CIF and gaps in the CS prevention cascade among those with clinical information. During January 2020-June 2022, 938 CS cases were reported to the NMCSS with a median age of 1 day (interquartile range: 0-5). Nine percent were diagnosed based on clinical signs and symptoms only. During January 2020-June 2022, 667 CIFs were reported with 51% (343) successfully matched to a CNF. Only 57% of mothers of infants with a matching CIF had an ANC booking visit (entry into ANC). Overall, 87% of mothers were tested for syphilis increasing to 98% among mothers with an ANC booking visit. Median time between first syphilis test and delivery was 16 days overall increasing to 82 days among mothers with an ANC booking visit. Only 37% of CS cases had accompanying clinical information to support evaluation of the prevention cascade. Mothers with an ANC booking visit had increased syphilis screening and time before delivery to allow for adequate treatment.

Testing Whether Protective Parenting is a Causal Mediator of Intervention Effects on Decreased Delinquency Using a Randomized Prevention Trial

Protective parenting practices, including parental monitoring and establishing nurturing and supportive rules, are thought to affect the risk of children’s involvement in delinquency. However, there has yet to be any direct test of this hypothesis using experimental data designed to test causality better. Data from 346 Black couples with an 11-year-old child were assigned randomly to Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF) intervention or control condition. Results from traditional mediation models, causal mediation analysis, and the complier analysis indicated that the intervention had a significant indirect effect on youth delinquent behaviors and that effects on protective parenting mediated this effect. The results demonstrated that ProSAAF, which is designed to promote family communication, is effective in deterring delinquent behaviors among Black Americans who reside in resource-scarce communities by enhancing parenting practices.

The Eugenic Underpinnings of Apartheid South Africa, and its Influence on the South African School System

Abstract In Apartheid South Africa, eugenic notions formed an underlying justification for the superiority of the white race over Africans, through the works of international eugenicists like Galton and Pearson, and locally through prominent South African eugenicist H. B. Fantham. These ideas are expressed and elaborated upon in Emevwo Biakalo's essay ‘Categories of Cross-Cultural Cognition and the African Condition’. His work serves particularly to highlight that the mind and cognitive processes of Africans were considered very different from their white counterparts, and thus they would require different approaches to education. I demonstrate here how these views served as part of the underlying justification for Apartheid in South Africa, particularly in Hendrik Frensch Verwoerd's insistence on creating separate and distinct educational systems for different races. This eugenic legacy is still visible in South Africa's radically unequal education system to this day.

Evolving An African Postcolonial Condition: Cultural Property Restitution, Cinematic Independence, Globalized NGO Compassion, and Grappling with an Elite Corruption Complex

The empire-building phase of the European powers in Africa, which spanned several centuries, had its climax at the infamous Berlin Conference of 1884–1885, where the colonizers carved up and allocated the African continent among themselves as their respective colonial projects. They would subsequently invade virtually all of the continent based on this arbitrary partitioning—which, among other things, created Africa’s colonial condition. Mention must be made of the fact that uncountable numbers of artworks and artefacts were looted by the invaders from various parts of Africa during those invasions and the de facto occupations that ensued. These looted treasures were scattered all over Europe and elsewhere in museums and private collections, where they currently remain largely unaccounted for.

Form And Content Of Poetry Of Restive Regions: A Critique Of Select Collection Of Poems From The Boko Haram And Bandits’ Occupied Northern States

Modern African poetry is characterized by shifts in both its form and preoccupation. It began with a call for self-governance in an amateurish language. Then came the Soyinkas (the disillusioned poets), whose poems are crafted in a rather difficult style that suggests colonial hang-ups. A major turnaround came in the 1980s when the Osundares’, criticizing the Soyinkas for their untold difficulty, provided a staple, known as the Alter-Native tradition. It seeks to address African conditions using African allusions. They, unlike the largely Greco-Roman, Euro-centric and Biblical form of the Soyinkas, provide an enative alternative. Both Othman and Okpanachi, (then lecturers in the far North-Eastern Nigerian University of Maiduguri) belong to the latter and they write amid the terrific Boko Haram insurgency that threatened to extinct the region. This paper seeks to uncover their style in exposing some of the most horrific acts of both the Boko haram and the herdsmen’s unleashed terror on innocent souls. The paper, harping on the postcolonial discourses of the Palestinian Said, Caribbean Fanon, Indian Bhabha, and Nigerian Chinweizu, looks at the factors and motives behind the assailants’ missions as presented in the collections. It shows how they reveal the misgivings of the current African democracy as embedded in evil acts. These Poets seem to unravel the brazen incompetency of the modern African democratic governments, citing Nigeria as an example. The paper also offers a critique of some other collections of poems from northern Nigerian authors. From 1999 to the mid-2000, the region was ravaged by Boko Haram mayhem. And by 2015 to date, it has been faced with a series of terror activities that range from banditry, and cattle rustling to kidnapping. The region is absolved in fear of terror everywhere. Thus the paper also attempts to critique some of the accounts contained in the poems.

Foregrounding African Ontology/Epistemology: A Reading of Deuteronomy 23:3 and Ruth 4:18–22 Considering the Nature of God

Deuteronomy 23:3, says: “No … Moabite may enter the assembly of the Lord”. This verse is motivated by a discriminatory tendency embedded in the ontology of the Deuteronomist. Interestingly, Deuteronomy 23:3 was used by Ezra-Nehemiah to discriminate against the “Moabites” during the Second Temple. Such ontology is countered by the author of Ruth in the narrative of Ruth during the Second Temple. This demonstrates an ontological “war” within the Bible itself. The primary contestation lies in whether God is exclusive or inclusive. This development necessitates a hermeneutics of suspicion. In the course of history, the “theology” of Deuteronomy has been used to grossly violate the human dignity of many God-fearing African people and many other people of the South for colonial purposes. To exacerbate the situation, there were persistent attempts from some quarters to universalise such a discriminatory biblical perspective. This would feed into the centre–periphery arrangement, with the centre feeding the periphery with such hermeneutics. For this reason, African scholars are implored to be very vigilant against ardent pressures put on the biblical texts by ontological, epistemological, and contextual biases of interpretations. Accordingly, Andrew Mbuvi identifies African Biblical Hermeneutics perfectly when he says it seeks to undo “the very construct of the ‘centre-periphery’ binary by allowing the possibility of multiple centres”). Kenneth Ngwa, thus, rightly asserts that African Biblical Hermeneutics considers African epistemologies and conditions “to be invaluable and legitimate contexts and resources in biblical interpretation”), drinking from our own wells). In consequence, this paper intends to set a dialogue between Deuteronomy 23:3 and Ruth 4:18–22. This paper aims to examine the understanding of God behind these verses. This paper will then compare the two theologies with the African philosophical concept of God. Harnessing the African concept of Ubuntu, this paper will de-ideologise the two texts and thus will provide a recommendation concerning the two texts.

Nutritional and anti-nutritional compositional analysis of transgenic potatoes with late blight resistance.

Late blight, caused by the pathogen Phytophthora infestans, is a devastating disease affecting potato production globally, with adverse effects in Africa where limited access to fungicides exacerbates its impact. Outbreaks of late blight lead to reduced yields and substantial economic losses to potato farmers and agricultural systems. The development of resistant potato varieties, tailored to African agroecological conditions, offers a viable solution in mitigating the devastating effects of late blight on potato cultivation. Leading to this study, two consumer-preferred varieties, Victoria and Shangi, with high susceptibility to late blight were targeted for conferring late blight resistance through genetic engineering. This was achieved by inserting R genes from wild relatives of potato displaying resistance to the disease. The intended effect of conferring resistance to the late blight disease has been consistently observed over twenty experimental field trials spanning 8years at three locations in Uganda and Kenya. In this study, we assessed whether the genetic transformation has led to any significant unintended effects on the nutritional and anti-nutritional composition of potato tubers compared to the non-transgenic controls grown under the same agroecological conditions. The compositional assessments were conducted on commercial-size potato tubers harvested from regulatory trials at three locations in Uganda and Kenya. Statistical analysis was conducted using two-way analysis of variance comparing transgenic and non-transgenic samples. Overall, the results showed that the transgenic and non-transgenic samples exhibited similar levels of nutritional and antinutritional components. Variations detected in the levels of the analysed components fell within the expected ranges as documented in existing literature and potato composition databases. Thus, we conclude that there are no biologically significant differences in the nutritional and anti-nutritional composition of transgenic and non-transgenic potato tubers engineered for resistance to late blight.

Breeding pure and crossbreeds of European cattle breeds for milk production improvement under tropical climate conditions-a review.

The aim of this review was to present the breeding status of pure or crossbreeds of European cattle with African indigenous cattle in order to improve milk yield in African tropical conditions. As the African indigenous breeds are characterized by small size, low body weight (300-450 kg) and low production performances (less than 1000 kg per lactation), short lactation length (205-240 days), etc., the crossbreeding with pure European cattle was done in order to ameliorate production performances especially milk and beef production. As results, it was seen that F1 offspring improved output productions than their parents of tropical origin. Also, it was seen that F1 offspring showed disease and heat resistance than their parents of temperate climate origin. However, at different degrees of crossbreeding, it was seen that the offspring can demonstrate bad production performances than their parents and therefore, the crossbreeding has to respect a certain degree. Other consequences are that the crossbreeding of local and pure European cattle breeds has resulted in calving complications in African local cattle. In African indigenous cattle, the selection as an improvement tool was given less emphasis as a solution to improve output production. That is why, the implementation of a well-prepared selection programs could be practiced in African indigenous cattle in order to preserve African cattle genotypes, as they are endangered of extinction due to various crossbreeding with exotic cattle breeds.

Tidalectic Un/mapping and the Performance of African Diasporic Imagination in the Repertory of Katherine Dunham

This article foregrounds imagination to consider how African diasporic conditions converge with choreographic expression. The analysis “un/maps” dominant understandings of the choreographic process of mid-twentieth-century African American choreographer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham by expanding Kamau E. Brathwaite's (1993) concept of Tidalectics beyond the Caribbean to the wider African diaspora and a distinctly Caribbean comprehension of diasporic imagination. Utilizing datasets and visualizations created by the project, Dunham's Data: Katherine Dunham and Digital Methods for Dance Historical Inquiry, this article traces how the concept of Brazil is imagined and reimagined within Dunham's archive from 1937 to 1962. In doing so, it considers the complex positionality of Dunham as both a pioneering minoritized woman navigating the politics of race, gender, and financial precarity, and someone who yielded their imperial privilege as a US citizen through their career to bring nuance to Dunham's narrative as a canonical dance figure.

Child slave labour in Ghana and attempts to help. Autoethnographic perspective

The aim of the article is to draw attention to the process of helping and related responsibility in a foreign culture, in African conditions. The author presents reflections referring to her two-year stay in Ghana and direct work with children exploited for slave labour, their parents and social workers. The complex process of freeing children from slave labour is described from the organisational and legal perspective. The author discovers the complicated social and mental mechanics leading to child slave labour. With reference to her own experience, the author reveals the process of returning children to normal life and the process of reintegration while describing emerging threats. The author warns against irresponsible helping, at the same time suggesting the conditions that should be met to help wisely.

Kant’s Epistemological Model in Pluralistic Hypothesis: From an Interpretation of Religion in Africa

Here in this work, I tried to examined the nature of African traditional religion and explore the relative terms of its references on the concept of God; the definition and explanation of the concept of God as it pertains to the traditional cultures; the distinction between one’s religion’s tradition and another; and the explanation and analysis of the relationship between God and man on the other hand. My plight in this work is to draw an inference, a sort of examination of conscience in religion in certain ways that it appeals to African conditions to knowledge, and just as Kant elucidated in the Critique of Pure Reason. In doing this therefore, my objective is to find the real essence of religious pragmatism and traditionalism in African indigenous religion with reference to its point of reality in other religions. Thus, it is considerably under this panoply, that I envisioned the realism in Kant’s epistemological model to repudiate the reality of God in pluralistic hypothesis. So, the finding of this research supports the thesis that phenomena and their appearances are based upon the interpretations of reality. Things appear differently in our mind and our understanding differs.

Troubled West African Childhood and Child Soldiering in Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah is not Obliged

Ahmadou Kourouma’s Francophone West African novel Allah n’est pas oblige (2000) may be reckoned as the earliest denouncement of child soldiering practice. The text came on French literary scene in 2000. Its English translation by Frank Wynne appeared in 2006 and the novel became known to the English world. Since its publication, the novel has garnered much attention from the literary scholars. Kourouma’s text describes the disastrous coming-of-age of Birahima who receives uneven development due to unhealthy African conditions. The present analysis of Kourouma’s text seeks to understand the stunted psychological, moral and social growth of Birahima in war conditions. His process of formation (actually deformation) can render the course of the development of the child soldiers in Africa. It can be said that Birahima’s character is affected by unfavourable familial, social and political conditions of West Africa. This leads him towards his moral aberration, and he has to become a child soldier. Being drug addicted, he kills many innocent people.

Managing Ethnic Conflicts: A Critical Analysis of the Orthodox Solutions and the Specificity of the African Situation

Africa’s ethnic conflicts and crises have embedded in them catastrophic consequences and effects, especially with particular regard to the loss of lives and properties and the disruptions of governmental and political arrangements. The discourse in which the conflicts are embedded is further enveloped in all kinds of proposals such as outright dismemberment of some of the existing political and administrative units, the implementation of political reforms, and fundamental restructuring of the entire social settings in favour of accommodation of the minorities in particular. Against the backdrop that these conflicts and crises require management as a way of averting the aforementioned consequences, the article seeks to undertake a critical evaluation of the existing ethnic management models, theories and solutions in extant literature within the context of the prevailing African circumstances and conditions. Its central goal is to determine the extent to which these solutions and the contained technicalities in which they are expressed can indeed provide the much-needed frameworks for permanent political stabilities in the continent. The qualitative methodology seeks to question the existing assumptions in which these ethnic solutions are defined and their theoretical properties further amplified. With the additional use of critical analytical tools, the article finally seeks the re-formulations and refinements of the ethnic solutions as being referred to in extant literature. The findings revolve around the inappropriateness and lack of applicability of some of the embedded concepts and solutions to the perennial crises as a result of the lack of focus on the uniqueness in which the crises remain defined. The conclusion is hence that the solutions to the crises in the continent should not be wholly generalistic but rather situated within the local peculiarities of the divergent political systems of Africa.

Adaptability patterns of cherry genotypes to diverse South African growing conditions

Adaptability patterns of cherry genotypes to diverse South African growing conditions

The impacts of artificial light at night in Africa: Prospects for a research agenda

Artificial light at night (ALAN) has increasingly been recognised as one of the world’s most pernicious global change drivers that can negatively impact both human and environmental health. However, when compared to work elsewhere, the dearth of research into the mapping, expansion trajectories and consequences of ALAN in Africa is a surprising oversight by its research community. Here, we outline the scope of ALAN research and elucidate key areas in which the African research community could usefully accelerate work in this field. These areas particularly relate to how African conditions present underappreciated caveats to the quantification of ALAN, that the continent experiences unique challenges associated with ALAN, and that these also pose scientific opportunities to understanding its health and environmental impacts. As Africa is still relatively free from the high levels of ALAN found elsewhere, exciting possibilities exist to shape the continent’s developmental trajectories to mitigate ALAN impacts and help ensure the prosperity of its people and environment. Significance: We show that the African research community can usefully accelerate work into understudied aspects of ALAN, which demonstrably impacts human and environmental health. Africa presents a unique, and in places challenging, research environment to advance understanding of this global change driver.

Immobile Cabmen and Single-track Railroads: Images of Stasis and Redundancy in August Wilson’s Jitney and Two Trains Running

ABSTRACT August Wilson’s celebrated ten-play cycle in which he focuses on the African American condition during the twentieth century has been hailed for the way the playwright grapples with issues of history and identity. This paper adopts aspects of the New Mobilities Paradigm (NMP) as it carries forward the theme of alienation, confusion and despair in Wilson’s plays. It argues that Jitney and Two Trains Running deploy highly deceptive cause-to-effect linear plot structures in order to present African American characters who are caught-up or trapped in desultory predicaments of confinement in ways that echo tropes of memory, journeying, hope and despair. The two plays present interesting nuances and contradictions of tropes of journeying and entrapment as well as progression and stagnation, which are paradoxically connected to acts of self-assertion. This occurs in ways that are highly reminiscent of the modernist style of absurdism. Our choice of the two plays is informed by the way in which the play titles reference technologized forms of mobility and communication as they also echo African American memory, travel and the journey motif in ways that are reminiscent of the underground railroad and the promise of freedom, even as Wilson decries a palpable lack of movement, growth and social progress that has historically characterized the African American experience during the course of the twentieth century.