ABSTRACT The aim of this research was to establish whether Mursik, a Kenyan traditional fermented milk product, contained Exopolysaccharides (EPS) and EPS producing Lactic acid Bacteria (LAB). It also sought to establish the optimum conditions for their production in Mursik. Samples of Mursik were collected from 39 randomly selected homesteads in Njoro District, Nakuru County, Kenya, and transported to Egerton University for analysis. Their EPS levels were determined by isolating them and qu...
ABSTRACT Tea is one of the most popular non-alcoholic beverages worlwide, and a leading foreign exchange earner and source of livelihood to over three million people in Kenya. Tea growing areas in Kenya often experience drought periods which cause accumulated soil water deficits. Tea plants respond to water deficit through poorly understood physiological, cellular/biochemical and molecular processes. Development of tea cultivars adapted to waterdeficit stress greatly relies on an understandi...
ABSTRACT Late stage Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) is manifested by brain degeneration following infection by Trypanasoma brucei rhodensiense and Trypanasoma brucei gambiense parasites. This stage can only be treated with melarsoprol (Mel B) which inadvertently induces Post Treatment Reactive Encephalopathy (PTRE) and a mortality of 5% among HAT infected patients. This is an unacceptable mortality for a modern human drug. Investigations were conducted to establish the protective role of...
ABSTRACT Coprophilous fungi are abundant species found in dung of most wild animals, and an easily available and abundant tool for studying and monitoring ecosystem changes. The focus of this study was to characterize two genera of coprophilous fungi, Pilobolus and Ascobolus. These fungi are important in decomposing and recycling of nutrients from animal waste. Ascobolus fungi are important in genetic studies and have been identified as a source of enzymes and antibiotics. Pilobolus fungi pl...
ABSTRACT Agrochemicals have been used extensively all over the world for improved food security, industrial development, and poverty reduction. In Western Kenya, herbicides are used to clear weeds in sugarcane growing plantations. Uncontrolled and unregulated use of these herbicides results in contamination of both soils and the associated drainage systems. Their use may have adverse effects such as disruption of microbial, animal and plant diversity in addition to serious effects to human h...
ABSTRACT Mycotoxin and Brucella abortus contamination of milk along the dairy value chain is of public health concern and contributes to food insecurity. Animal feeds that are contaminated with mycotoxin causing fungi pass the contaminationtion to the milk. Inhygienic handling of milk can lead to Brucella contamination of milk. This study aimed at determining the on-farm risk factors associated with Mycotoxins and B. abortus occurrence and their prevalence on smallholder farms at rural and p...
ABSTRACT Shortage of capital is a major constraint in the development of microenterprises (MEs) among entrepreneurs who are members of self-help groups (SHGs) in Butere, Mumias, Matungu and Khwisero Sub-Counties of Kakamega County. Shortage of capital is occasioned by inability of entrepreneurs in the informal sector to access credit from mainstream financial institutions. Thus, a number of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in the study area provide credit to members of SHGs operating MEs so ...
ABSTRACT Mangrove forests are among the most threatened ecosystems on earth. Some of these forests transverse national boundaries complicating their management due to differences in governance structures between countries. In order to improve the management of transboundary mangroves and associated biodiversity, regular monitoring of status and conditions of these forests is essential. The aim of the study was to create a better understanding of transboundary mangrove cover/ change and the c...
ABSTRACT Flower farms play an important role in the horticulture industry which contributes about 10% of agricultural produce in Kenya. They create employment, earn foreign exchange through exports and improve infrastructure in the world. Despite these achievements agro-chemicals used in these farms to increase production pose a great danger to the health of the farm workers and the surrounding environment. The broad objective of this study was to perform an assessment of factors affecting l...
ABSTRACT Emerging scientific data from pharmacological and physiological studies continue to show that tea has beneficial effects on human health by boosting immunity. In vitro studies have shown that flavonoids help immune response by acting as anti-cancer, anti-viral and antibacterial agents. In this study, different types of commercial tea samples were assayed for their phenolic composition, antioxidant activity and their effect on chronic inflammation induced by Trypanosoma brucei brucei...
ABSTRACT Mosquitoes transmit devastating diseases that kill millions of people each year. The adverse effects on human health, well being and high economic losses inflicted by mosquitoes, the malaria vector, is an important stimulant for the search for new, safe and effective mosquito larvicides. The pool of natural products is an important source of such larvicidal metabolites. Fungi have extensive secondary metabolites at their disposal, and some could be active against the mosquito larvae...
ABSTRACT Cassava (Manihot esculenta Cranzt) is an important food security crop for resource poor rural communities particularly in Africa. Little is however known about variability of critical root nutritional, biochemical quality traits and molecular diversity of Kenyan cassava germplasm. This led to a study whose objective was to determine the nutritional quality traits of different genotypes of cassava cultivated in the central Rift Valley region of Kenya and to identify genetic constitut...
ABSTRACT Milk production in Kenya is dominated by smallholder dairy farmers who are faced with challenges on feeding dairy cows. This is generally due to inadequate and low quality feeds and high cost of inputs. Thus, utilization of inexpensive nutrient dense feed supplement such as liquid brewer’s yeast (LBY) is inevitable. However, LBY is rarely used due to its short shelf life and lack of technical information on effect on milk quality. This study was performed to investigate the approp...
ABSTRACT Manifolds are generalization of curves and surfaces to arbitrary higher dimensions. They are of many kinds, one of them being topological manifolds. The main feature common to manifolds is that every point of the space is in one to one correspondence with a point in another space. Hausdorff manifolds have been developed on infinite dimensional spaces such as Banach spaces and Fréchet spaces. Topological properties of non-Hausdorff manifolds have been studied and the notion of compa...
ABSTRACT Aflatoxin contamination is a major problem affecting cereal producers worldwide. Aspergillus species, which are known to produce these toxins, colonize cereals in the field, during post-harvest period through to storage. This study sought to establish variation in: (i) fungal species in maize and soil, (ii) their morphological diversity, (iii) the distribution of toxigenic Aspergillus species as well as, (iv) the seasonal variations of aflatoxins and (v) the predominant toxin type i...