Livestock Feed Marketing in Ethiopia： Challenges and Opportunities for Livestock Development

This paper presents the feed marketing systems of Ethiopia in terms of feed demand and supply, feed quality issues, feed prices and price trends based on qualitative data generated through rapid market appraisal methodology. The results indicate that, the demand for roughages, agro-industrial by-products （AIBP） and compound feeds is showing increasing trend. The use of feed from commercial sources is, however, very limited due to shortage of feed supply and inefficient marketing system. The AIBP mainly from flour and grind mills, oil processing plants and breweries are in short supply and directly marketed to user or through traders. Consequently, most of the exiting feed mixers/processing enterprises are operating under capacity estimated at about 20%-30%. The main marketed roughages, which are mainly cereal straws and baled hay, are also in short supply. Feed prices are increasing from time to time and mainly exacerbated by the increasing trend in export market of AIBP and double taxation in mixed rations. There is no any feed quality control or assurance mechanism in Ethiopia. Precaution needs to be taken in the area of taxation in order to avoid double taxation. Implications to improve the feed marketing systems and opportunities for livestock development are drawn.

Experimental Study on Impingement Processes of Fuel Sprays on Biomimetic Structured Surfaces

To improve the controllability of the wall-wetting process after the fuel spray-wall impingement in internal combustion engines,the methods of laser etching,chemical etching and surface free energy modification are used to prepare biomimetic structured surfaces with different wettability.The impingement processes of diesel and n-butanol sprays on the walls under different conditions are experimentally investigated.As the surface oleophilicity increases,the spreading radius of wall-impinging sprays decreases.At about 5 s after the fuel injections,the fuel spray droplets hit the walls for the first time,and the secondary breakup and rebound occur.The mixture concentrations of different fuels hitting the various walls reach the peak value.Under a higher surface temperature,the peak value of the mixture concentration is mainly related to the heat flux to the fuel droplets in different boiling regimes from the metal surfaces.The concentration of the air–fuel mixture in the near wall region increases with increasing surface oleophilicity,increasing wall temperature and decreasing ambient pressure.Compared with diesel,n-butanol presents a higher air–fuel mixture concentration in the near wall region.

To gel or not to gel：A prior prediction of gelation in solvent mixtures

The gelation behaviours of low molecular weight gelators 1,3：2,5：4.6-tris（3,4-dichlorobenzylidene）-Dmannitol（G1） and 2,4-（3.4-dichlorobenzylidene）-N-（3-aminopropyl）-D-gluconamide（G2） in 34 solvents have been studied.We found that sample dissolved at low concentrations may become a gel or precipitate at higher concentrations.The Hansen solubility parameters（HSPs） and a Teas plot were employed to correlate the gelation behaviours with solvent properties,but with no success if the concentration of the tests was not maintained constant.Instead,on the basis of the gelation results obtained for the G1 and G2 in single solvents,we studied the gelation behaviours of G1 and G2 in23 solvent mixtures and found that the tendency of a gelator to form a gel in mixed solvents is strongly correlated with its gelation behaviours in good solvents.If the gelation occurs in a good solvent at higher concentrations,it will take place as well in a mixed solvent（the good solvent plus a poor solvent） at a certain volume ratio.In contrast,if the gelator forms a precipitate in a good solvent at higher concentrations,no gelation is to be observed in the mixed solvents.A gelation rule for mixed solvents is thus proposed,which may facilitate decision making with regard to solvent selection for gel formation in the solvent mixtures in practical applications.

Effects of multiple but low pesticide loads on aquatic fungal communities colonizing leaf litter

In the first tier risk assessment（RA） of pesticides, risk for aquatic communities is estimated by using results from standard laboratory tests with algae, daphnids and fish for single pesticides such as herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides. However, fungi as key organisms for nutrient cycling in ecosystems as well as multiple pesticide applications are not considered in the RA. In this study, the effects of multiple low pesticide pulses using regulatory acceptable concentrations（RACs） on the dynamics of non-target aquatic fungi were investigated in a study using pond mesocosm. For that, fungi colonizing black alder（Alnus glutinosa） leaves were exposed to multiple, low pulses of 11 different pesticides over a period of 60 days using a real farmer＇s pesticide application protocol for apple cropping.Four pond mesocosms served as treatments and 4 as controls. The composition of fungal communities colonizing the litter material was analyzed using a molecular fingerprinting approach based on the terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism（t-RFLP） of the fungal Internal Transcribed Spacer（ITS） region of the ribonucleic acid（RNA） gene（s）. Our data indicated a clear fluctuation of fungal communities based on the degree of leaf litter degradation. However significant effects of the applied spraying sequence were not observed. Consequently also degradation rates of the litter material were not affected by the treatments. Our results indicate that the nutrient rich environment of the leaf litter material gave fungal communities the possibility to express genes that induce tolerance against the applied pesticides. Thus our data may not be transferred to other fresh water habitats with lower nutrient availability.