Awareness of Breast Cancer and Its Early Detection Measures Among Female Students, Northern Ethiopia

Globally breast cancer is the most common of all cancers. Since risk reduction strategies cannot eliminate the majority of breast cancers, early detection remains the cornerstone of breast cancer control. This paper, therefore, attempts to assess the awareness of breast cancer and its early detection measures among female students in Mekelle University, Ethiopia. An institution based cross-sectional study was conducted on randomly selected female students. Multistage sampling technique was employed to select the participants. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used. Data analysis was carried out using SPSS version 16. In this study, 760 students participated making a response rate of 96 percent. Respondents with good knowledge score for risk factors, early detections measures and warning signs of breast cancer were 1.4 percent, 3.6 percent and 22.1 percent respectively. The majority 477 (62.8 percent) of participants practiced self-breast examination. In conclusion the participants had poor knowledge of risk factors, early detection measures and early warning signs of breast cancer.Therefore, the Ministry of health of Ethiopia together with its stalk holders should strengthen providing IEC targeting women to increase their awareness about breast cancer and its early detection measure

Dietary Diversity Practice and Associated Factors Among Infants and Young Children in Haramaya Town, Ethiopia

Optimum child feeding is crucial for growth, development, and better health in later life. Dietary diversity is a critical part of the feeding practices. However, there is limited evidence on dietary diversity practice in low-income countries, like Ethiopia. This study assessed dietary diversity practice and associated factors among mothers of infants and young children aged 6-23 months in Haramaya Town, Eastern Ethiopia. Community based cross-sectional study design was used and study participants were selected by simple random sampling. Data were collected using a pre-tested questionnaire by face-to-face interview. The collected data were entered to EpiData version 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 22.0 for analysis. Characteristics of the study participants were described by using frequencies, percentages, summary measures, and tables. Bi-variable and multi-variable analyses were used to identify the associated factors. Statistical significance was declared at p-value < 0.05. The study included 635 participants yielding to a response rate of 98.1%. The prevalence of dietary diversity practice was 25.2%. Mothers learned up to secondary level or above [(AOR=2.97, 95% CI: (1.26, 6.99)], mothers who had job [(AOR=3.21, 95% CI: (1.41, 7.29)], older children [(AOR=2.51, 95% CI: (1.45, 4.34)], male children [(AOR= 2.08, 95% CI: (1.29, 3.33)], healthy children [(AOR=2.65, 95% CI: 1.36, 5.16)] and richest households [(AOR=4.45, 95% CI: 1.94, 10.22)] were associated with dietary diversity practice. Generally, the dietary diversity practice was low. Therefore, attention should be given to mothers with no formal education and efforts should be done to improve the socioeconomic status of the households

Soil carbon and nitrogen erosion in forested catchments: Implications for erosion-induced terrestrial carbon sequestration

Lateral movement of organic matter (OM) due to erosion is now considered an important flux term in terrestrial carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) budgets, yet most published studies on the role of erosion focus on agricultural or grassland ecosystems. To date, little information is available on the rate and nature of OM eroded from forest ecosystems. We present annual sediment composition and yield, for water years 2005-2011, from eight catchments in the southern part of the Sierra Nevada, California. Sediment was compared to soil at three different landform positions from the source slopes to determine if there is selective transport of organic matter or different mineral particle size classes. Sediment export varied from 0.4 to 177 kg ha-1, while export of C in sediment was between 0.025 and 4.2 kg C ha-1 and export of N in sediment was between 0.001 and 0.04 kg N ha-1. Sediment yield and composition showed high interannual variation. In our study catchments, erosion laterally mobilized OM-rich litter material and topsoil, some of which enters streams owing to the catchment topography where steep slopes border stream channels. Annual lateral sediment export was positively and strongly correlated with stream discharge, while C and N concentrations were both negatively correlated with stream discharge; hence, C: N ratios were not strongly correlated to sediment yield. Our results suggest that stream discharge, more than sediment source, is a primary factor controlling the magnitude of C and N export from upland forest catchments. The OM-rich nature of eroded sediment raises important questions about the fate of the eroded OM. If a large fraction of the soil organic matter (SOM) eroded from forest ecosystems is lost during transport or after deposition, the contribution of forest ecosystems to the erosion-induced C sink is likely to be small (compared to croplands and grasslands)

The link between international remittances and private interhousehold transfers

The paper studies the link between international remittances and interhousehold transfers. Using a simple insurance model, it is shown that households transfer a large fraction of the remittance they receive from relatives abroad to other households. The effect of remittances on interhousehold transfers is empirically investigated using an urban household survey from Ethiopia. Consistent with the prediction of the model, remittance has a strong positive effect on the amount of transfer given, controlling for total household income and other covariates

Surface modification of polyester using chicken feather keratin hydrolysate to improve water absorbency and dye uptake

PET fiber has an intrinsic low hydrophilic character and an inactive surface which make it uncomfortable for wearing purpose. Moreover, it is difficult to colour polyester fabric other than disperse dyes. Therefore, surface modification of PET is very important to improve its absorbency and bring the possibility to dye polyester with anionic dyes by altering its surface characteristics. This research was focused on surface modification of polyester using chicken feather which involves serine as the most abundant amino acid with hydroxyl groups. The treated polyester fabric using 20ml/L concentration of chicken feather extract showed improved water drop absorbency from 45 into 3 seconds and the reactive dye uptake by 36 folds from 0.15 to 5.37 K/S values

Feed marketing in Ethiopia: results of rapid market appraisal

Despite the large livestock population in Ethiopia, the sector’s contribution at the micro or macro level is well below its potential due to various reasons, notably feed shortage and diseases, compounded by inefficiencies in the livestock input and output markets. Feed marketing studies are scarce in Ethiopia. This study is aimed at assessing the feed marketing system in Ethiopia to generate a general understanding of the feed supply and demand characteristics, feed marketing, feed prices, market places, market actors, and market institutions. The types of fodder supplied in the country differ from place to place depending on the type of crops grown as conditioned by the agro-climatic conditions. Buyers and sellers have various perceptions about the quality of the fodder supplied to the market. There are competing uses of crop residues and hay in Ethiopia. Crop residues and hay are transported in a variety of ways. Most of the crop residues are retailed in the open market. Hay is mostly sold in situ. Agro-industrial by-products from flour and edible oil mills, grind mills and local brewery are sold in all of the study areas. There are about 15 feed mixers and millers in the country as observed during the study period. However, only five of them are manufacturing purely for sale; others produce for own consumption and to sell surpluses. Feed prices are rising sharply. Available price data indicated that there are significant price differences between farm gate and wholesale prices of crop residues and hay. Among the crop residues teff straw is most expensive. Among agroindustrial by-products, linseed cake is most expensive, followed by cotton seed cake. Most of the feed trading is informal. Implications to improve the feed marketing system are drawn