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The plasmids in gut microbiomes have the potential to contribute to the microbiome community, as well as human health and physiology. Nevertheless, this niche remains poorly explored. In general, most microbiome studies focus on urban-industrialized groups, but here, we studied semi-isolated groups from South America and Africa, which would represent a link between ancestral and modern human groups. Based on open metagenomic data, we characterized the set of plasmids, including their genes and functions, from the gut microbiome of the Hadza, Matses, Tunapuco, and Yanomami, semi-isolated groups with a hunter, gather or subsistence lifestyle. Unique plasmid clusters and gene functions for each human group were identified. Moreover, a dozen plasmid clusters circulating in other niches worldwide are shared by these distinct groups. In addition, novel and unique plasmids harboring resistance (encompassing six antibiotic classes and multiple metals) and virulence (as type VI secretion systems) genes were identified. Functional analysis revealed pathways commonly associated with urban-industrialized groups, such as lipopolysaccharide biosynthesis that was characterized in the Hadza gut plasmids. These results demonstrate the richness of plasmids in semi-isolated human groups' gut microbiome, which represents an important source of information with biotechnological/pharmaceutical potential, but also on the spread of resistance/virulence genes to semi-isolated groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: COVID-19 has challenged health services throughout the world in terms of hospital capacity and put staff and vulnerable populations at risk of infection. In the face of these challenges, many health providers have implemented remote patient monitoring (RPM) of COVID-19 patients in their own homes. However systematic reviews of the literature on these implementations have revealed wide variations in how RPM is implemented; along with variations in particulars of RPM reported on, making comparison and evaluation difficult. A review of reported items is warranted to develop a framework of key items to enhance reporting consistency. The aims of this review of remote monitoring for COVID-19 patients are twofold: (1) to facilitate comparison between RPM implementations by tabulating information and values under common domains. (2) to develop a reporting framework to enhance reporting consistency., Method: A review of the literature for RPM for COVID-19 patients was conducted following PRISMA guidelines. The Medline database was searched for articles published between 2020 to February 2023 and studies reporting on items with sufficient detail to compare one with another were included. Relevant data was extracted and synthesized by the lead author. Quality appraisal was not conducted as the the articles considered were evaluated as informational reports of clinical implementations rather than as studies designed to answer a research question., Results: From 305 studies retrieved, 23 studies were included in the review: fourteen from the US, two from the UK and one each from Africa, Ireland, China, the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Italy. Sixteen generally reported items were identified, shown with the percentage of studies reporting in brackets: Reporting Period (82%), Rationale (100%), Patients (100%), Medical Team (91%) Provider / Infrastructure (91%), Communications Platform (100%), Patient Equipment (100%), Training (48%), Markers (96%), Frequency of prompt / Input (96%),Thresholds (82%), Discharge (61%), Enrolled (96%), Alerts/Escalated (78%), Patient acceptance (43%), and Patient Adherence (52%). Whilst some studies reported on patient training and acceptance, just one reported on staff training and none on staff acceptance., Conclusions: Variations in reported items were found. Pending the establishment of a robust set of reporting guidelines, we propose a reporting framework consisting of eighteen reporting items under the following four domains: Context, Technology, Process and Metrics., (© 2023. BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature.)

In Africa, lack of awareness and low index of suspicion of rare diseases like dystrophinopathies, directly or indirectly, contributes to the increased morbidity and mortality. Therefore, even though the data on prevalence is limited, we need to have a high degree of suspicion in patients presenting with suggestive clinical features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The isolation, purification and accurate diagnosis of Pantoea and many other bacterial species that infect rice are essential for upstream studies. However, some isolates of Pantoea and other bacteria such as Sphingomonas have similar biochemical and morphological features on common culture media and are thus difficult to isolate selectively and accurately diagnose. We thus developed a semi-selective medium containing 65 g/l (65%) NaCl that allows growth of all Pantoea strains, but inhibits other microorganisms. It can be used to isolate and purify Pantoea spp. for preliminary diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on the mycotoxin contamination of rice in Africa is limited although the risk of contamination is high. In this study, domestic milled rice processed by actors using suboptimal methods was purchased and total fumonisin (FUM), zearalenone, and aflatoxin concentrations determined at 0, 90, and 180 days after storage. Three different climatic locations, Cotonou (Benin) in the Guinea savanna, Yaoundé (Cameroon) in the Tropical forest, and N'diaye (Senegal) in the Sahel, were selected as storage sites. Subsets of the samples collected from Glazoue (Benin), Ndop (Cameroon), and Dagana (Senegal) were stored in plastic woven bags under room conditions in the respective sites with or without calcium oxide (burnt scallop shell—BSS, 0.1% w/w) treatment. Multivariance analysis showed that FUM concentration was positively influenced by the duration of storage only while zearalenone concentration was negatively influenced by relative humidity and head rice but positively by impurities. Zearalenone concentration was also influenced by sample collection/storage location, processing type, and duration of storage. Aflatoxin concentration was influenced negatively by storage room temperature and head rice but positively by impurities and chalky grains. In addition, aflatoxin concentration was influenced by collection/storage location and processing type. BSS treatment followed by storage for 6 months had no effect on the concentration of the three assessed mycotoxins. Strategies to reduce the risk of mycotoxin contamination in study sites will include the improvement of physical rice quality through better pre‐ and postharvest practices and proper packaging of both treated rice and untreated rice in hermetic systems before marketing and storage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports research on the initial teacher training and continuing professional development of teachers in six African countries (Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda). The focus of the research was on the teaching of early reading and mathematics. The curriculum of both these areas was analysed in terms of (i) implementation by providers such as Colleges of Education, and (ii) impact in schools. The study found that there were many and deep gaps in the curriculum taught and consequently in teacher knowledge and skills in these two crucial subject areas. The paper sets out a series of recommendations for addressing this problem including an overall alternative approach to teacher education that emerges from the research findings as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SUMMARY Multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) and type III effector (T3E) repertoire mining were performed to gain new insights into the genetic relatedness of Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzae ( Xoo) and Xanthomonas oryzae pv. oryzicola ( Xoc), two major bacterial pathogens of rice. Based on a collection of 45 African and Asian strains, we first sequenced and analysed three housekeeping genes by MLSA, Bayesian clustering and a median-joining network approach. Second, we investigated the distribution of 32 T3E genes, which are known to be major virulence factors of plant pathogenic bacteria, in all selected strains, by polymerase chain reaction and dot-blot hybridization methods. The diversity observed within housekeeping genes, as well as within T3E repertoires, clearly showed that both pathogens belong to closely related, but distinct, phylogenetic groups. Interestingly, these evolutionary groups are differentiated according to the geographical origin of the strains, suggesting that populations of Xoo and Xoc might be endemic in Africa and Asia, and thus have evolved separately. We further revealed that T3E gene repertoires of both pathogens comprise core and variable gene suites that probably have distinct roles in pathogenicity and different evolutionary histories. In this study, we carried out a functional analysis of xopO, a differential T3E gene between Xoo and Xoc, to determine the involvement of this gene in tissue specificity. Altogether, our data contribute to a better understanding of the evolutionary history of Xoo and Xoc in Africa and Asia, and provide clues for functional studies aiming to understand the virulence, host and tissue specificity of both rice pathogens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined the influence of environmental factors on children's executive functioning (EF) performance. The present study examined the effects of a punitive vs. non-punitive school environment on West African children's EF skills. Tasks included a 'cool' (relatively non-affective) and 'hot' (relatively affective/motivational) version of three EF tasks: delay of gratification; gift delay; and dimensional change card sort. Children had more difficulties with the hot versions of the tasks than the cool versions, and older children outperformed younger children. After controlling for verbal ability (Peabody picture vocabulary test-third edition), a consistent pattern of interaction between school and grade level emerged. Overall, kindergarten children in the punitive school performed no differently than their counterparts in the non-punitive school. However, in grade 1, children in the punitive school performed significantly worse than their counterparts in the non-punitive school. These results point to the need to consider interactions among discipline style, age, and internalization processes of self-regulation to better understand environmental influences on EF development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The species Xanthomonas oryzae is comprised of two designated pathovars, both of which cause economically significant diseases of rice in Asia and Africa. Although X. oryzae is not considered endemic in the United States, an X. oryzae-like bacterium was isolated from U.S. rice and southern cutgrass in the late 1980s. The U.S. strains were weakly pathogenic and genetically distinct from characterized X. oryzae pathovars. In the current study, a draft genome sequence from two U.S. Xanthomonas strains revealed that the U.S. strains form a novel clade within the X. oryzae species, distinct from all strains known to cause significant yield loss. Comparative genome analysis revealed several putative gene clusters specific to the U.S. strains and supported previous reports that the U.S. strains lack transcriptional activator-like (TAL) effectors. In addition to phylogenetic and comparative analyses, the genome sequence was used for designing robust U.S. strain-specific primers, demonstrating the usefulness of a draft genome sequence in the rapid development of diagnostic tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews of the state of science education in Africa have often left out South Africa (Allotey, 1996), where modern science and formal science education are generally not considered as new phenomena. This has been made even more apparent in the last major review of research areas in South Africa (Malcolm & Alant, 2004) in which it was concluded that the main issue whose impact on science education needs to be investigated is HIV/AIDS. Granted, HIV/AIDS is indeed a very important issue in education throughout the world including Africa. However , the outcome in the review, may best be considered to have side-stepped the main issue contributing to the current level of science education in Africa, including perhaps parts of the Republic of South Africa. Taking a focus on Kenya, a prototype African country from the sub-Saharan region, discussions are presented with the aims of 1) explaining the current status of science and science education in Africa, and 2) presenting a blue print for successful science education relevant to any country in Africa. It is argued that the issue in effective science education in Kenya and Africa at large need to be about enhancement of science teacher effectiveness. This is possible by encouraging context-based approaches to teaching using revised science curricula at schools and science teacher education institutions as well as changes in general approaches to preparation of teachers for the primary and secondary levels. Areas of research to sustain these are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts on selected articles and reports about Africa which includes the integration of mobile learning into the education programmes in Nigeria, the implications of the behaviour of the students in higher education in Africa, and the extent of the use of internet among faculty members in Nigeria.

Countering the assumption that money acts as an agent of abstraction and‘disembedment’, anthropologists tend to draw money into analogies with other objects of exchange, downplaying its uniquely quantitative nature. This article seeks to disentangle the association, implicit in this tendency, of quantity with abstraction. Focusing on the peculiar character of money as a‘purely multiple’ object, the aim is to account for‘embeddedness’ without bracketing quantity: what does quantity look like when it is not viewed as an abstract denominator? The question is explored with reference to Ifá, an Afro-Cuban diviner cult that takes monetary transactions as a cosmological premise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking as a point of departure Fernandez's survey (1978), this review seeks to show how research on African Independent Churches (AICs) has been recon-figured by new approaches to the anthropology of Christianity in Africa, in general, and the recent salient popularity of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs) in particular. If the adjectives "African" and "Independent" were once employed as markers of authentic, indigenous interpretations of Christianity, these terms proved to be increasingly problematic to capture the rise, spread, and phenomenal appeal of PCCs in Africa. Identifying three discursive frames--Christianity and "traditional religion," Africa and "the wider world," religion and politics--which organize(d) research on AICs and PCCs in the course of the past 25 years, this chapter critically reviews discussions about "Africanization," globalization and modernity, and the role of religion in the public sphere in postcolonial African societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the second edition of the book "Philosophy From Africa," by comparing with the first edition and with other antologies in African philosophy. Existence and identity of African philosophy; Continents' historical, political, cultural and economic complexities; Denial of the historicity and contexualization of the African experience.