Women in Kenya remain disadvantaged, with opportunities for educational, social, and economic advancement inferior to those of men. Women are underrepresented in modern sector wage employment, political and judicial decision making, and all major public service appointments. Numerous social, economic, and cultural barriers limit womens participation in these areas. But womens underrepresentation in education is a primary factor. The benefits of womens education to women and to society in general are immense. In the workplace, education increases skills needed for job entry, improves chances of vertical mobility, and enhances overall labor market productivity. It also has positive consequences at home, including improved health, increased child survival rates, reduced fertility rates, lower infant mortality rates, and better protection against HIV and AIDS (Tembon and Fort 2008). Education of women and girls is therefore not only a moral and human rights issue, but also an economic and development issue. Given the significant benefits of womens education, equity in education is essential to improving circumstances for all Kenyans. As the leading provider of education, the government should acknowledge that compensatory mechanisms may be required to level the playing field for disadvantaged girls, and it should adopt an approach that uses these mechanisms. Making education equitable means adopting policies and initiatives that support equal provisions across genders. Female Education in Kenya Education in Kenya has four basic levels: preschool (ages 4-6), primary (ages 7-14), secondary (ages 15-18), and tertiary. Since attaining political independence from Great Britain in 1963, the Kenyan government has emphasized educations importance to economic development. It has also increased the number of schools at all levels, from about six thousand primary and 150 secondary schools in 1963 to almost twenty thousand primary and four thousand secondary schools in 2004. As a result, the student population has increased substantially, with over 700 percent growth at the primary level and almost 3,000 percent growth at the secondary level (Ministry of Education 2007). But this total expansion in education hides disparities by gender and region.
INTRODUCTION Fat deposition of pigs is of economic importance because of market incentives for lean pork production and decreased feeding costs. It is crucial to investigate and characterize new candidate genes and QTL relevant to pig fat deposit traits. To date, several quantitative trait loci (QTL) significantly affecting 10th-rib, average backfat thickness and other production traits have been mapped on SSC7 (Wang et al., 1998; Nagamine et al., 2003). Peroxisomal [[DELTA].sup.3],[[DELTA].sup.2]-enoyl-CoA isomerase (PECI) was located near the boundary of the quantitative trait loci (QTL) region. [[DELTA].sup.3],[[DELTA].sup.2]-enoyl-CoA isomerase (Ecilp) is unique because its activity is necessary for [beta]-oxidation of all unsaturated fatty acids (Geisbrecht et al., 1999). The series of enzyme-catalyzed reactions required for degradation of fatty acids are evolutionarily conserved and accomplished primarily through the p-oxidation pathway. In peroxisomes, ECI was predicted to be a dominant enzyme for 3-cis 3[right arrow]2-trans and 3-trans 3[right arrow]2-trans isomerizations of long-chain intermediates (Zhang et al., 2002). Fatty acid [beta]-oxidation in mammals is considerably more complicated, primarily due to the existence of overlapping but distinct fatty acid poxidation pathways. Mammalian peroxisomes contain at least three fatty acyl-CoA oxidases, both L-specific and D-specific 2-enoyl-CoA hydratase/3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase multifunctional proteins, and at least two thiolases, all of which are encoded by different genes (Palosaari et al., 1990a, 1991; Geisbrecht et al., 1998; Gurvitz et al., 1998; Geisbrecht et al., 1999; Partanen et al., 2004). When the ECI was completely excised in the mouse, it extensively perturbed the metabolism of unsaturated fatty acids, especially for short interval starvation and the fatty acid pattern of complex phospholipids was strongly altered (Palosaari et al., 1990b; Janssen et al., 2002). The PECI gene can be encoded by ECI1 and it is required for growth of saccharomyces cerevisiae on unsaturated fatty acids (Gurvitz et al., 1998). It can be concluded that the PECI gene may play an important role during the metabolic processing of unsaturated fatty acids. Deposition of fat by animals in their bodies is associated with the metabolism of fatty acids, and more research would contribute to understanding of porcine fat deposition. Genomic DNA was isolated from blood of mature Tongcheng pigs (Hubei province, China) by phenol/chloroform extraction. RNA was extracted from muscle tissue of adult Tongcheng pigs and adult Swedish Landrace with TRIzol reagent kit (Life Technologies, Grand Island, NE, USA). RACE (the rapid amplification of cDNA ends) was performed according to the instructions of the SMARTTM RACE cDNA Amplification Kit (Clontech Inc, Palo Alto, CA, USA). The PCR products of RACE were purified with the Wizard PCR Preps DNA Purification System (Promega, Madison, WI, USA). ORF were found by the program SeqMan (DNA star, Madison, WI, USA) and the amino acid sequences were deduced with Primer5.0 (Primer Premier5.0, Premier, Canada). Using the pGEM T-easy vector, DNase I (RNase-free) and M-MLV reverse transcriptase from TaKaRa Dalian (Dalian, China), primers were synthesized (Table 1) and PCR products were sequenced by AuGCT Biotechnology (Bejing, China).
INTRODUCTION Pork is a popular meat consumed by non-muslim Singaporeans with about 87,000 tonnes being consumed per year (Kanagalingam, 2005). Currently, Singapore imports its pork from several countries, but Australian and Indonesian pork is consumed most widely due to its ready availability at supermarkets and wet markets. Fresh pork is obtained from pigs raised in Indonesia but slaughtered at Singapore abattoirs, while chilled pork is mainly imported from Australia and is widely known as “Air Pork”. Singaporean consumers are aware of the origin of pork from packaging labels. Results of a recent survey showed that Singapore consumers associate non-Indonesian pork with the presence of an unpleasant mutton-like off-flavour (Leong et al., 2008). One possible cause of off-flavours in pork is by the oxidation of lipids, leading to the formation of aldehydes and short-chain fatty acids (Reindl and Stan, 1982; Devol, et al., 1988). The rate and extent of lipid oxidation depends on a number of factors, the most important being the level of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in muscle (Allen and Foegeding, 1981). Pork contains high levels of unsaturated fatty acids relative to ruminant meat (Enser et al., 1996) and is more susceptible to oxidative deterioration of lipids and myoglobin. Feeding of PUFAs to pigs can improve the nutritional quality of pork, but may also increase the susceptibility to oxidation (Sheard et al., 2000; Kouba et al., 2003; Morel et al., 2006). There have been many reports of PUFA-rich feeds leading to increased lipid oxidation and thus off-flavour in pork (Houben and Krol, 1980; Warnants et al., 1998; Roman et al., 1995; Overland et al., 1996; Leskanich et al., 1997; Wood et al., 2003). There have also been examples of off-flavours in pork arising from the direct transfer of aroma components from feed to meat, including several reports on how feeding of fish oil and high fat fish meal to finisher pigs has caused “fishy” and other off-flavours in pork products (Kjos et al., 1999; Lauridsen et al., 1999; Maw et al., 2001; Jaturasitha et al., 2002). The current paper compares sensory assessments of the flavour of pork from the legs of pigs finished in New Zealand on three diets (Morel et al., 2008) using Singaporean panelists. The objective was to determine the extent to which dietary feed treatments received by the New Zealand pigs influenced the sensory properties of pork using trained and untrained Singaporean panels. Results of sensory analyses of pork from the loins of the same New Zealand pigs using New Zealand panelists were reported by Janz et al. (2008).
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