Western Democratic Research Articles

Knowledge, attitudes and practices toward female genital schistosomiasis among community women and healthcare professionals in Kimpese region, Democratic Republic of Congo.

Chronic infection with Schistosoma haematobium causes female genital schistosomiasis (FGS), which leads to diverse lesions in the female genital tract and several complications, including infertility and a higher risk for HIV transmission. This study aims to understand the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward FGS and associated factors among women and health professionals in the schistosomiasis endemic focus of Kimpese, western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In January 2022, two semi-quantitative questionnaires were administered to 201 randomly selected community women in Kifua II village, and to purposely selected health professionals (20 nurses and 41 doctors) from Kimpese Health Zone. KAP statements were coded using Likert scale, summarized as frequencies and percentages, and assessed for internal reliability using Cronbach's alpha. Associations between the socio-demographic characteristics of respondents and the KAP variables were assessed using Pearson chi-square (χ2) test, Cramer's V (φ) and gamma (γ) coefficients. Overall, respondents had high knowledge of schistosomiasis in general but low FGS-specific knowledge (91% versus 45%). Misconceptions concerned the disease transmission, with 30.3% of women and 25% of the nurses believing that FGS is transmitted by drinking untreated water, while 26.8% of the doctors mentioned sexual contact as a mode of FGS transmission. Negative attitudes included considering FGS not a very serious disease (34.8%), feeling uncomfortable during gynaecological examination (35.3%), difficulties avoiding risky water contact (72.1%) and open defecation/urination (41.3%), not intending to share FGS status with their husbands (38.3%) and loved ones (63.6%), and believing that husbands would leave them if they were infertile (31.8%). Regarding practices, 77.6% of women engaged daily in activities involving contact with water. Practices of health professionals were hampered by the lack of equipment and specialized knowledge for FGS diagnosis with only 57% of healthcare workers having a microscope in their facilities. Women's KAPs varied by age, education, marital status, occupation and monthly income. This study highlights insufficient knowledge, existing negative attitudes, at risk practices towards FGS by women, and limitations of FGS management by health professionals. These findings can help for tailored health education and WASH strategies, and call for health professional's capacities reinforcement.

New data on the clupeoids of lakes Mai-Ndombe and Tumba, western Democratic Republic of the Congo, using an integrated approach combining morphology and barcoding

Morphological and molecular comparisons of clupeoid fishes in lakes Tumba and Mai-Ndombe in the Congo Basin revealed that a large-sized form of a common species in Lake Mai-Ndombe had not been distinguished from the small-sized endemic Mai-Ndombe dwarf sprat Nannothrissa stewarti Poll & Roberts, 1976 in ecological studies. The large-sized form differs from the Mai-Ndombe dwarf sprat in several morphological characters and resembles the smalltoothed pellonula Pellonula leonensis Boulenger, 1916, but in barcoding analysis appears more closely related to the bluntnosed sawtooth pellonuline Potamothrissa obtusirostris (Boulenger, 1909). This large-sized form is probably a species new to science but will remain undescribed for now, and is here referred to as Pellonulinae sp. BIG. A slender clupeoid, also from Lake Mai-Ndombe, has recently been referred to as the Lake Tumba dwarf sprat Nannothrissa parva (Regan, 1917), which would be the first record of this species from that lake. Specimens of a slender clupeoid collected from Lake Mai-Ndombe for this study were identified as the losera fangtooth pellonuline Odaxothrissa losera Boulenger, 1899. This is the first confirmed occurrence of this species in Lake Mai-Ndombe, whereas the presence of N. parva could not be confirmed. The phylogenetic analysis strongly supports the genus Nannothrissa as currently delimited, here barcoded for the first time, but also confirms the previously reported mismatch between morphological classification and molecular data in this group. We further note that the Mai-Ndombe dwarf sprat attains a larger size than the maximum size noted in the original description in 1976, and it is suggested that an intense beach-seine fishery that utilises mosquito nets might have led to a population decline followed by decreased intraspecific competition, enhancing individual growth. For the same reason, Pellonulinae sp. BIG might have been less common previously and so remained undetected until now.

Comparative Analysis of Political Participation in Chinese and Western Democratic Theories

Political participation is the core of modern democratic politics and the standard and measure of political development, an enduring classic issue in political science, and plays an important role in national governance. On the basis of reviewing the views on political participation in Chinese and western democratic theories, this paper will make a comparative analysis of the connotation of political participation in Chinese and western democratic theories by using literature research and comparative analysis, and explore the essential characteristics and similarities and differences of political participation in Chinese and western democratic theories. Finally, future trends of political participation theory research in China and the West is prospected, with a view to providing reference for further study of political participation theory.

The Western Democratic Model Facing African Political Cultures

Is there a contradiction between the socio-cultural requirements of the western democratic system and African social structures? To answer this question, this study aims to demonstrate that there are no fundamental contradictions between Africans and Westerners in terms of the democratic values to be promoted. Each people must be able to build its own model. In the first part, the study demonstrates the unsuccessful transposition of the Western democratic model to Africa. The cause is to be found in African practice, which reveals an institutional and legal duality that favors the cohabitation of legitimacies that come from the ballot box and those that do not, whose status differs and whose relationship with each other is confused and likely to provoke conflicts. This means that African democracy functions according to the Western colonial model, even if African social structures still function at the local level. The second part emphasizes the building of a true democracy through culture, whose value is recognized in the norms, institutions, rites and customs of a people. This promotion of positive African values and traditions suggests borrowing from the West only what is compatible with the deep nature of African civilization. This wise and realistic mix needs the unconditional support of the international community. We live in a time of struggle for values. All peoples, even those who were dominated, are trying to propose their values that they consider better.

COVID-19 outbreak and rural household food security in the Western Democratic Republic of the Congo

Although global assessments of the initial impacts of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have focused on income, jobs, and health conditions, this study constitutes one of the first studies that assessed the impact of COVID-19 on food security in DRC and established the short-term implications of the COVID-19 outbreak on rural households’ food security in DRC. In addition, the study recommendations contributed to shaping government interventions toward the pandemic in the Country. The study used data from four western provinces of the country on 1339 households. Our results show that 80 % of households experienced an increase in food prices, 61 % a noticeable decrease in the availability of food, and 54 % a decrease in their dietary diversity. Due to changes in food availability, dietary diversity, and food accessibility imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak, >70 % of households experienced either a decrease in the consumption of meat, milk, fish, and cereals or an increase in their consumption of traditional vegetables. In addition, COVID-19 significantly affected food security dimensions in larger households, households with a greater number of members aged 35 years and above, households headed by women, households where members participate in associations or cooperatives, households that depend on crop sales as the major source of income, and in poorer households. These findings highlight the significant implications of the COVID-19 outbreak on household food security in western DRC and underscore the need for emergency interventions to strengthen the resilience of rural people and accelerate their recovery and other long-term measures toward sustainable and inclusive development.

Contribution of ‘human induced fires’ to forest and savanna land conversion dynamics in the Luki Biosphere Reserve landscape, western Democratic Republic of Congo

ABSTRACT Human-induced fire is one of the most important determinants of forest cover and change in tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Yet its impact on forest cover and forest cover change remains unclear, as fires in Africa generally do not spread over very large area. This is particularly the case in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a region of the world that is still poorly investigated. Here, we propose to study the effect of human-induced fire on land use and land cover change in a protected area of the DRC, i.e. the Luki Biosphere Reserve (LBR). We investigate tree cover changes in and around the reserve between 2002 and 2019 using Landsat 7 ETM+, Landsat 8 OLI/TIRS and MODIS MCD12Q1 images and quantify human induced fires using MODIS MCD64A1 images. The study combines land use and land cover (LULC) change detection analysis of four images, two acquired in 2002 and two acquired in 2019, with multi-temporal assessment of annual burnt area acquired between 2002 and 2019 from MODIS MCD64A1 to assess the role of fire in LULC changes and the sensitivity of different LULC types to fire. The results show a dynamic conversion of primary forest to secondary forest over about 16% of the area, the evolution of savanna to secondary forest over 9.6% (Landsat image) and the replacement of secondary forest by savanna over 8.1% (MODIS image) of the total area of Luki Reserve. Of the total area undergoing land use change, 34.1% (Landsat image) and 35.7% (MODIS image) were caused by fire, which however did not cause a significant LULC change. For the LULC types that experienced fire events, the least stable type was primary forest, which had the lowest stability rate (34.2% and 23% for Landsat and MODIS image analysis, respectively) compared to others. This result illustrates the importance of fire as a driver of primary forest loss and degradation in the region. Despite the high exposure of savannas to fire events, they were not significantly destabilized by fire (stability rates of 86.3 and 97% for Landsat and MODIS analysis, respectively). Future analyses should focus on discriminating between different fire types to better understand the complex relationship between fire and ecosystem conditions.

Drivers of Routine and Outbreak Vaccination Uptake in the Western Democratic Republic of Congo: An Exploratory Study in Ten Health Zones.

We performed a cross-sectional survey on vaccination-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) among randomly selected parents of <5 years-old children, elderly populations (aged ≥ 55 years), and health care workers (HCWs) in 10 health zones from 4 provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Questionnaires targeted both routine (BCG, measles, polio) and outbreak-related (cholera, Ebola, COVID-19) vaccinations. In total, 2751 participants were included, 1165 parents, 1040 elderly, and 546 HCWs. In general, KAP expressed were supportive of vaccination uptake, although concerns regarding side effects and feelings of being insufficiently informed were more prevalent among parents and the elderly. Vaccine acceptance was lower for outbreak vaccinations (57%) than for routine vaccinations (90%). HCWs expressed the highest vaccine acceptance. Problems with the vaccine supply chain were reported by 20% of respondents. Despite a high level of positive KAP towards vaccination, parents and the elderly expressed a need to be better informed and had concerns regarding vaccine side-effects. A high acceptance for routine vaccinations was reported by participants, but somewhat less for outbreak vaccinations. In conclusion, HCWs in the communities could play a key role in the increased uptake of routine vaccinations and in optimizing uptake during outbreaks, provided that the supply chain is functioning well.

Review: West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire, by Kevin Waite

The past decade has seen a major shift in the historiography of slavery. Thoroughly demolishing a century of Lost Cause revisionism, recent works by Walter Johnson, Edward Baptist, Sven Beckert and others have argued that southern slavery in the nineteenth century was no relic of a pre-modern age and was instead inextricably linked to the emerging global capitalist order. Southern elites are recast from reactionary states’ rights zealots to savvy nationalists tilting U.S. federal policy to their economic advantage. In his first book, Kevin Waite adds to this literature by shifting focus to the Far West, arguing for the existence of an expansionist continental South dedicated to international trade and maintaining various forms of unfree labor. Waite contends that the sway of pro-slavery politics extended to the Pacific coast, challenging the notion that the American West was somehow united against slavery.Waite breaks from earlier historians by urging readers to look beyond Bleeding Kansas for explanations on how westward expansion contributed to sectional dissolution. Instead, he adds a new region, the Desert South, to the historical framework of “many Souths.” Comprising Southern California, New Mexico, and Utah, the Desert South was a site where southern support for chattel slavery merged with local desires to preserve other forms of race-based coerced labor, including captive Native labor and lifelong debt peonage. Waite insists that southern lawmakers’ push for federal transportation projects (designed to link the South with Asian markets) merged with pro-slavery separatist movements in the West to hasten the arrival of the Civil War. Despite vain attempts to secure a southern railroad route and the political blunder of southern secession, the collaboration between southern and western politicians later achieved a remarkable postbellum revival.Waite’s scope is unusually ambitious for a debut. He begins by demonstrating how antebellum southern politicians utilized their influence within the federal government and exploited patronage networks in the favor of the planter class. Section two shifts focus to the West, examining local office holders who adapted pro-slavery politics to their own regional contexts. For instance, California Democrats sought to overturn the state’s free-soil constitution, New Mexico legislators passed an 1859 slave code, and Utah legalized slavery in 1852. Section three posits the Desert South as a theater of the Civil War where various separatist plots stoked a popular backlash, leading to the rise of the once floundering Republican Party in the West. The section ends with western Democrats’ postwar comeback, as white solidarity against the region’s diverse population of Natives, Chinese Immigrants, African Americans, and Hispanos—combined with antipathy towards an expanding federal government—helped fueled the demise of Reconstruction on a national level.Waite is a writer of unusual clarity, and his book is an accessible contribution to the new slavery historiography as well as the growing literature addressing linkages between free and unfree labor systems in the West. None of the information he provides is necessarily new, but he consistently reads his source material in fresh ways. Similarly, elements of his argument will be familiar to readers of earlier works by such historians as Richard White and David M. Potter, but no writer has so forcefully elucidated why the slave South cast such a long shadow in the Far West.

ТЕОРІЯ ДЕМОКРАТИЧНОГО МИРУ ЗА УМОВ КРИЗИ ПОСТБІПОЛЯРНОЇ СИСТЕМИ МІЖНАРОДНИХ ВІДНОСИН

The article analyzes the problem of democratic peace. After World War I, Woodrow Wilson declared that the world must be made safe for democracy. It is believed that democratic countries are not at war with each other. The experience of the First World War showed that democratic leaders think in terms of honor, victory, and national pride. The people are often agitated by demagogues, so they can approve an unnecessary and unprofitable war. The authors showed that the thesis that the global spread of democracy can be a universal insurance against large-scale armed conflicts is controversial. The informational and psychological opposition of Western democrats to authoritarian regimes has become the mainstream of modern international relations. As a result of this fact, a hybrid world conflict takes place in the format of sanctions, expulsion of diplomats, special information operations. The purpose of the article is to highlight the problem of the realism of the theory of democratic peace under the conditions of the crisis of the post-bipolar system of international relations. Under a democratic political regime, power is given to an entity elected by the people, who must return it to the people after the end of their term in power. Any information about the activities of the government discredits it. Representative democracy requires that the leader's decisions are subject to careful scrutiny, that the leaders tell the truth and are ready to bear responsibility for the decisions made. Incompetence undermines the essence of representative democracy. The ailment of democratic states is the reduction of the effectiveness of governments. Attempts to implement the theory of democratic peace in practice tend to fail. The reasons for this are not only in the famous irony of history, which cancels out the titanic efforts of social engineers and directs them in the opposite direction, but also in the impossibility of spreading a uniform form of political system on a global scale. The Chinese project will restore a bipolar system in which the USA will play the role of the USSR. In the coming years, the Chinese project will collide with the American one.

The spread of cholera in western Democratic Republic of the Congo is not unidirectional from East\u2013West: a spatiotemporal analysis, 1973\u20132018

BackgroundCholera outbreaks in western Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are thought to be primarily the result of westward spread of cases from the Great Lakes Region. However, other patterns of spatial spread in this part of the country should not be excluded. The aim of this study was to explore alternative routes of spatial spread in western DRC.MethodsA literature review was conducted to reconstruct major outbreak expansions of cholera in western DRC since its introduction in 1973. We also collected data on cholera cases reported at the health zone (HZ) scale by the national surveillance system during 2000–2018. Based on data from routine disease surveillance, we identified two subperiods (week 45, 2012–week 42, 2013 and week 40, 2017–week 52, 2018) for which the retrospective space–time permutation scan statistic was implemented to detect spatiotemporal clusters of cholera cases and then to infer the spread patterns in western DRC other than that described in the literature.ResultsBeyond westward and cross-border spread in the West Congo Basin from the Great Lakes Region, other dynamics of cholera epidemic propagation were observed from neighboring countries, such as Angola, to non-endemic provinces of southwestern DRC. Space–time clustering analyses sequentially detected clusters of cholera cases from southwestern DRC to the northern provinces, demonstrating a downstream-to-upstream spread along the Congo River.ConclusionsThe spread of cholera in western DRC is not one-sided. There are other patterns of spatial spread, including a propagation from downstream to upstream areas along the Congo River, to be considered as preferential trajectories of cholera in western DRC.

Description of the development cycle ofAegocera rectilinea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae), a caterpillar consumed in western Democratic Republic of Congo

The edible caterpillarAegocera rectilinea Boisduval 1836, locally called Mikombidila, is collected from its wild habitat for consumption by people in the western region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Its production by farming would represent a valuable source of animal protein for local populations. Working toward this end, the present study examined the life cycle ofA. rectilinea, fed onBoerhavia diffusa L. leaves in an uncontrolled breeding room (26±2 °C, 77±6% relative humidity), starting with caterpillars previously harvested in Kinshasa, DRC. The fecundity of the females was 340.8 eggs on average, with an egg viability of 89.7%. Developmental phase durations of 19.8±1.6 and 12.5±1.9 days were observed for the larval and pupal stages, respectively. The mean total life-cycle duration, from egg to adult emergence, was 36.2±2.3 days, with a proportion of female of 0.785%. Adult longevity was 8.2±0.8 days for males and 8.0±2.0 days for females. The results of this study validate the interest forA. rectilinea rearing program to reduce food insecurity and protein deficiencies, particularly in western areas of the DRC.

The impact of geolocation uncertainty on GEDI tropical forest canopy height estimation and change monitoring

The Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) LiDAR provides new spaceborne vegetation canopy structural information including relative canopy height products defined with respect to 25 m diameter footprints. The GEDI geolocation requirement is that each 25 m footprint center is horizontally georeferenced to within 10 m (1σ), assuming normally distributed geolocation errors with a 0 m mean and a 10 m standard deviation. The impact of this geolocation uncertainty on the reliability of forest canopy height estimation is examined considering Airborne Laser scanner (ALS) and GEDI data acquired in 2014 and 2019 respectively. A total of 445 GEDI footprints acquired over 2000 ha of unforested and tropical secondary forest in the western Democratic Republic of the Congo with vegetation heights ranging from 1 m to 42 m are considered. Airborne true color 10 cm imagery and an ALS derived canopy height model are examined to contextualize the results. GEDI waveforms are simulated from the ALS data at the reported locations of the GEDI footprints and used to derivehˆ95,hˆ85,hˆ75relative heights that define the canopy height relative to the ground below which 95%, 85% and 75% of the simulated cumulative waveform energy is returned. A Monte Carlo simulation is undertaken, moving the centers of each GEDI footprint with 300 randomly generated position errors modelled using the GEDI geolocation uncertainty (0 m mean, 10 m standard deviation), and each time simulating the GEDI waveform from the ALS data. Relative heights are extracted from the 300 simulated GEDI waveforms and their variation, defined by the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the interquartile range (IQR) (75th - 25th percentiles), are quantified to provide insights into the impact of the GEDI geolocation uncertainty on forest canopy height retrieval. The IQR accounts for 50% of the variation in the forest canopy height due to GEDI geolocation uncertainty. High IQR values, greater than or comparable to the relative height derived from the ALS data at the GEDI reported footprint location are shown to occur where the footprint covered or was adjacent to spatially heterogeneous canopies, including canopies with small forest stands, holes in the vegetation canopy, and forest edges. This is a concern for the use of GEDI data acquired over these conditions which are prevalent in many forest systems. The impact of GEDI geolocation uncertainty on tropical forest change monitoring is demonstrated by comparing the GEDI h95 product footprint values (sensed in 2019) with simulated hˆ95 values derived from the ALS data (sensed in 2014) at the GEDI product reported footprint location and at the 300 shifted footprint locations. GEDI footprints where five-year canopy height changes, and not changes due to artefacts associated with the GEDI geolocation uncertainty or the GEDI simulator, are attributed conservatively. Differences among the six algorithm setting group GEDI h95 product relative height values are evident and influential on the change attribution. PlanetScope 3 m imagery sensed in 2019 are examined to provide qualitative evidence that support the efficacy of the approach for forest height reduction monitoring. The simulation approach described in this study provides a route to determine if forest canopy height change found by comparing multi-temporal data (for example, GEDI with previously collected ALS data or GEDI data) is significant relative to errors imposed by the GEDI geolocation. The treatment of change is simple, and recommendations for improvements to detect more subtle change are made. The study was undertaken using the Release 1.0 GEDI data and suggests, pending planned geolocation improvement, the need to accommodate for GEDI geolocation uncertainty, particularly over canopies that are spatially fragmented or that have heterogeneous three dimensional structure at scales comparable to the 25 m GEDI footprint dimension.

Comparative Study of the Weight Gain Performance of Two Tilapia Strains in Western Democratic Republic of Congo

AbstractTilapia is one of the main fish of livestock in Africa. However, despite the potential of exploitation that offers this fish breeding seems not yet mastered in sub-Saharan Africa. The West of the DRC specifically in the provinces of Congo-Central, Kwango and Kwilu, tilapia is the main species of livestock. To answer the question whether the low weight of tilapia in the West of the DRC was due to a genetic degeneration or simply the wrong system of breeding, we have introduced a new strain of tilapia that we compared with the strain local. Both strains were fed on basis of the internal are with a complement of 25 kg/ha of concentrated feed (18% PD) and 50 kg/ha of the droppings of chickens every 10 days. The average weight of 85,94 g; 150,18 g and 182,28 g were obtained with the local strain respectively at 3, 6 and 9 months. While with the introduced strain, the average weight of 83,34 g; 149,12 g and 218,22 g were observed. The ANOVA showed that the differences are significant. At the end of our investigation, it is clear that the very low weight of tilapia produced by peasant farmers in the West of the DRC are due to the use of inadequate nutritional practices. Nutrition is currently the limiting factor for performance of tilapia farming in the West of the DRC.

Cassava Root Necrosis Disease (CRND): A New Crop Disease Spreading in Western Democratic Republic of Congo and in Some Central African Countries

Cassava is consumed in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a staple food for the majority of the Congolese population. This crop is used in several forms: as fufu, chikwangue and pondu; cassava leaves are the most consumed vegetable in the country.&#x0D; &#x0D; In 2002, cassava root symptoms similar to cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) were reported for the first time in western DRC. PCR assays, using primers specific to Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV), failed to detect or identify any viral pathogens in diseased cassava samples from western DRC. Therefore, next generation sequencing (NGS) techniques were used as they are able to sequence full organism genomes and are widely used for the identification of pathogens responsible for new diseases. The main objective of this study was to identify the pathogens causing root necrosis in western DRC.&#x0D; &#x0D; Whatman&amp;reg;FTA&amp;trade; cards were used to collect 12 cassava leaf samples from plants with symptoms indicative of very severe root necrosis, as well as two asymptomatic samples. These 12 samples were sent to Australia at the University of Western Australia in Perth for next generation sequencing (NGS) using the Illumina HiSeq platform. &#x0D; &#x0D; Additional bioinformatics tools included Geneious, CLC workbench, ParaKraken and Kaijou software for short DNA sequences. No viruses (including CBSV) were found in any of the DRC samples. These preliminary results confirm all the previous negative results obtained using PCR and CBSV primers. However, NGS analyses did reveal the presence of a number of bacterial and fungal taxa. These will require further investigation and tests such as the Koch Postulates, to establish their specific pathogenic role in cassava.&#x0D; &#x0D; This is the first scientific evidence that no currently known virus is responsible for the disease which had been referred to previously as &amp;lsquo;CBSD-like disease&amp;rsquo;. Consequently, the disease found in DRC cassava samples has been designated &amp;lsquo;Cassava Root Necrosis Disease&amp;rsquo; or CRND.

Attempts to Identify Cassava Brown Streak Virus in Western Democratic Republic of Congo

Root necrosis similar to those of the cassava brown streak disease (CBSD) were observed on cassava in western provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR.Congo) in the early 2000&amp;rsquo;s. However molecular laboratory diagnosis were not able to detect any causative agent responsible for the attacks, hence, the disease related to these symptoms was named CBSD-like disease.&#x0D; &#x0D; In order to assess the distribution and the incidence of the CBSD-like disease, surveys were carried out in four western provinces, comprising, Kwango and Kwilu, Sud Ubangi, Kinshasa and Kongo Central. CBSD-like disease was observed in all surveyed provinces on the basis of root symptoms because foliar symptoms were different to those of the documented cases of CBSD in other parts of east Africa. CBSD-like disease incidence was high in Kongo Central and Sud Ubangi, exceeding an average of 50 %, but low in Kwango and Kwilu (32.8%) and in Kinshasa (19.1%). &#x0D; &#x0D; During the surveys, cassava leaf samples were collected for lab identification of the causal agent. PCR diagnosis was done on these samples using primers specific for the two known CBSVs. All samples tested negative with no amplification of DNA fragments of the correct size.&amp;nbsp; Thus, further analysis on the causative organism is needed using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) approaches. NGS approaches will help also to identify the causative organism in other Central Africa countries (Angola, Congo-Brazzaville and Gabon) where such cassava root necrosis have been reported or are suspected.

Reassessment of historical sections from the Paleogene marine margin of the Congo Basin reveals an almost complete absence of Danian deposits

The early Paleogene is critical for understanding global biodiversity patterns in modern ecosystems. During this interval, Southern Hemisphere continents were largely characterized by isolation and faunal endemism following the breakup of Gondwana. Africa has been proposed as an important source area for the origin of several marine vertebrate groups but its Paleogene record is poorly sampled, especially from sub-Saharan Africa. To document the early Paleogene marine ecosystems of Central Africa, we revised the stratigraphic context of sedimentary deposits from three fossil-rich vertebrate localities: the Landana section in the Cabinda exclave (Angola), and the Manzadi and Bololo localities in western Democratic Republic of Congo. We provide more refined age constraints for these three localities based on invertebrate and vertebrate faunas, foraminiferal and dinoflagellate cyst assemblages, and carbon isotope records. We find an almost complete absence of Danian-aged rocks in the Landana section, contrary to prevailing interpretations over the last half a century (only the layer 1, at the base of the section, seems to be Danian). Refining the age of these Paleocene layers is crucial for analyzing fish evolution in a global framework, with implications for the early appearance of Scombridae (tunas and mackerels) and Tetraodontiformes (puffer fishes). The combination of vertebrate fossil records from Manzadi and Landana sections suggests important environmental changes around the K/Pg transition characterized by an important modification of the ichthyofauna. A small faunal shift may have occurred during the Selandian. More dramatic is the distinct decrease in overall richness that lasts from the Selandian to the Ypresian. The Lutetian of West Central Africa is characterized by the first appearance of numerous cartilaginous and bony fishes. Our analysis of the ichthyofauna moreover indicates two periods of faunal exchanges: one during the Paleocene, where Central Africa appears to have been a source for the European marine fauna, and another during the Eocene when Europe was the source of the Central Africa fauna. These data indicate that Central Africa has had connections with the Tethyian realm.

Effectiveness and challenges of participatory governance: the case of agricultural and rural management councils in the Western Democratic Republic of the Congo

Local management councils and multi-stakeholder forums are institutional arrangements used for policy dialogue, priority-setting and program monitoring but are rarely evaluated. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of 55 local-level Agricultural and Rural Management Councils (CARGs) in 23 randomly-selected territories in the western Democratic Republic of the Congo. These CARGs are similar to the farmers’ forums in Uganda and research-extension linkages committees in Ghana and Nigeria in terms of their multi-level structures that aggregate inputs from villages up to the provincial and national levels, and are similar to Uganda’s barazas at the sub-county level on participatory monitoring of programs and public service delivery. CARGs also play a major role in sharing innovations and providing advice to farmers by brokering knowledge and linking various experts and stakeholders, such as forming innovation platforms in various countries. However, CARGs are wider in the breadth of activities and are more generic in the thematic scope and coverage than other platforms. This paper identifies several problems and challenges in CARG implementation and the overall weaknesses in CARG formation. Our review suggests that only half of the surveyed CARGs achieved results consistent with at least one of their main goals, while the rest have not achieved any tangible outputs consistent with their objectives. Although the majority of stakeholders interviewed were aware of CARGs, only 33 % attended CARG meetings and perceived CARGs to be useful; and only 11 % reported having benefitted or knowing someone who had benefitted from CARGs. However, CARGs differ in performance and exhibit different financial capacity, coordination capacity, coordination commitment of its leaders, and representation of government officials, which are all significantly correlated to how well CARGs fulfill their objectives, link to other actors, and are perceived by stakeholders.

The branding of contemporary Chinese art and its politics

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine the branding of the Cynical Realist and Political Pop contemporary art movements in China. The trajectory this brand has taken over the past 25 years reveals some of the power discourses that operate within the international visual arts market and how these are constructed, distributed and consumed.Design/methodology/approach– A review of avant-garde art in China and its dissemination is undertaken through analysis of historical data and ethnographic data collected in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.Findings– The analysis exposes the ideological framework within which the art market operates and how this affects the art that is produced within it. In the case of Cynical Realism and Political Pop, the art was framed and packaged by the art world to reflect Western liberal political thinking in terms of personal expression thereby implicitly justifying Western democratic, capitalist values.Research limitations/implications– As an exploratory study, findings contribute to macro-marketing research by demonstrating how certain sociopolitical ideas develop and become naturalised through branding discourses in a market system.Practical implications– A socio-cultural branding approach to the art market provides a macro-perspective in terms of the limitations and barriers for artists in taking their work to market.Originality/value– While there have been various studies of branding in the art market, this study reveals the power discourses at work in the contemporary visual arts market in terms of the work that is promoted as “hot” by the art world. Branding here is shown to reflect politics by circulating and promoting certain sociocultural and political ideas.

Nest grouping patterns of bonobos (Pan paniscus) in relation to fruit availability in a forest-savannah mosaic.

A topic of major interest in socio-ecology is the comparison of chimpanzees and bonobos' grouping patterns. Numerous studies have highlighted the impact of social and environmental factors on the different evolution in group cohesion seen in these sister species. We are still lacking, however, key information about bonobo social traits across their habitat range, in order to make accurate inter-species comparisons. In this study we investigated bonobo social cohesiveness at nesting sites depending on fruit availability in the forest-savannah mosaic of western Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a bonobo habitat which has received little attention from researchers and is characterized by high food resource variation within years. We collected data on two bonobo communities. Nest counts at nesting sites were used as a proxy for night grouping patterns and were analysed with regard to fruit availability. We also modelled bonobo population density at the site in order to investigate yearly variation. We found that one community density varied across the three years of surveys, suggesting that this bonobo community has significant variability in use of its home range. This finding highlights the importance of forest connectivity, a likely prerequisite for the ability of bonobos to adapt their ranging patterns to fruit availability changes. We found no influence of overall fruit availability on bonobo cohesiveness. Only fruit availability at the nesting sites showed a positive influence, indicating that bonobos favour food ‘hot spots’ as sleeping sites. Our findings have confirmed the results obtained from previous studies carried out in the dense tropical forests of DRC. Nevertheless, in order to clarify the impact of environmental variability on bonobo social cohesiveness, we will need to make direct observations of the apes in the forest-savannah mosaic as well as make comparisons across the entirety of the bonobos' range using systematic methodology.

Assessment of the Capacity, Incentives, and Performance of Agricultural Extension Agents in Western Democratic Republic of Congo

Agricultural extension is critical for agricultural growth and food security, but making the extension system effective, demand driven, and responsive to the needs of a diverse set of producers remains a challenge. As part of the institutional reforms in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the extension system is being reviewed to identify strategies and practical actions to transform the system to better respond to the knowledge needs in a rapidly changing agriculture and food sector. This paper provides an in-depth review of the agricultural extension system of DRC including an analysis of its policies and legal framework, organization, and management; links to critical institutions; and capacity and incentive of different actors in the system. This review involved document analyses, interviews with key informants, and surveys of 107 extension organizations and 162 extension agents in 156 randomly selected villages in western DRC. This review suggests serious funding constraints, human resource management problems, no linkage and coordination within the extension system and with research and education systems, and a majority of underserved communities and farmers. This review also highlights a good opportunity given the huge human resources (more than 11,000 agents) deployed into the sectors and territories as part of the Ministry’s agricultural inspection system. However, their mandate is not clear and they currently focus on data collection (census) and checking what farmers do and limited in extension and advisory work. This review highlights the urgent need for human resource or civil service reform; public-sector commitment and funding; infrastructure rebuilding and skills upgrading in extension, education and training, and research organizations; and a unified policy or strategy with clear vision, mandate, targets, and performance-based incentive system.