Public work contract laws on project delivery systems and their nexus with project efficiency: evidence from Ethiopia.

Time, money, and quality are the three basic criteria for measuring construction project efficiency. The Ethiopian construction sector in general and public work projects, in particular, are believed to suffer from inefficiencies despite their quantitative growth in recent years. Previous researches have made attempts to explore factors determining the efficiency of the sector such as the low capacity of contractors (both financial and equipment, shortage of skilled human resource on technical, managerial, and entrepreneurial skills, etc…), the poor performances of the supply chain, inflation in the economy and so on. However, process and system-based challenges of the sector resulting from the existing legal frameworks governing the sector such as the modes of delivery of projects (modes of contracting) have not been a subject of extensive study. In this study, doctrinal and non-doctrinal legal research methods are employed to explore project delivery system(s) recognized in Ethiopia's public work contract laws and appraise their efficiency in terms of ensuring prompt completion of public construction projects. The doctrinal aspect of the research exposed that, despite an implied recognition of Design-Build (DB) and its variant forms of project delivery system, the country's public work contract laws set up Design-Bid-Build (DBB) as a default mode of contracting. Besides, the result from a survey questionnaire of 158 respondents which was computed by using Research Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) to generate the Relative Importance Index (RII) of each mode of contracting corroborated by primary data derived from the completion and status report of 40 road and 9 building projects, shows that even though construction project time overrun (delay) often happens in both routes of contracting, the magnitude of such inefficiency is greater in public projects of DBB than DB delivery mode.

Enforcement of legal remedies against construction projects time overrun in Ethiopia: A critical appraisal.

Construction time overrun is one of the common inefficiencies of public construction projects in Ethiopia. Laws and standard construction contracts stipulate different legal remedies against project time overrun. This paper is meant to unravel these legal remedies and their application to construction project time overrun in public construction projects in Ethiopia. To this end, the magnitude of time overrun, its common causes, and the practical implementation of legal remedies against it is exposed through literature review, primary data obtained from 18 roads and 10 public building projects, and interviews of 10 key informants. The result showed, although time is not the essence of construction contract in international standard conditions of contracts, it is a fundamental obligation the breach of which would give rise to termination of the contract under the laws and standard conditions of contracts applicable to public works in Ethiopia. However, the paper established that the practical implantation of these legal remedies against time overrun in public construction projects is very erratic although time overrun is a rampant challenge of the construction industry of the country in general and public construction projects in particular.

Recombinant Rv3261 protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis induces apoptosis through a mitochondrion-dependent pathway in macrophages and inhibits intracellular bacterial growth.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an intracellular pathogen known to persist in host cells. The apoptotic response of macrophages serves as a defense mechanism to inhibit the growth of intracellular bacteria, the failure of which can favor the spread of the pathogen to new cells. However, the mycobacterial components that regulate cell death and the related underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated protein Rv3261, isolated from an Mtb culture filtrate, for its apoptotic potential using multidimensional fractionation. Rv3261 was found to induce macrophage apoptosis through the caspase-3/-9-dependent pathway. Furthermore, the ROS-dependent JNK activation pathway was found to be critical in Rv3261-mediated apoptosis. Rv3261 inhibited the growth of intracellular Mtb, which was significantly abrogated by pre-treatment with the ROS scavenger N-acetylcysteine (NAC), suggesting that Rv3261-mediated apoptosis may act as a host defense response. These findings suggest that Rv3261 is involved in the apoptotic modulation of Mtb-infected macrophages.

Toxicological study of the butanol fractionated root extract of Asparagus africanus Lam., on some blood parameter and histopathology of liver and kidney in mice.

BACKGROUND: The butanol fractionated root extract of Asparagus africanus Lam., a traditional herb widely used to treat various ailments were analyzed for the presence of potential toxicity after single (acute) and repeated (subchronic) dose oral administration in adult swiss albino mice using gavages. METHODS: For the acute study, butanol fractionated extract of the plant was administered in single doses of 1000, 3000 and 5000 mg/kg body weight. In the sub-chronic dose study, the extract was administered at doses of 300 and 600 mg/kg body weight/day for 42 days. Selected hematological and biochemical parameters of the blood followed by histopathological analysis were investigated after 42 days of daily administrations. The results were expressed as M ± SE, and differences at P < 0.05 was considered significant. One way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and least significant difference tests were employed to check the significant differences between the various parameters of the experimental groups. RESULTS: In the acute study, the extract did not caused dose-dependent general behavioral adverse effects, body weight change and mortality. The single dose toxicity studies therefore showed that the butanol fraction of the extract has high safety profile when given orally. After 42 days of daily dosing, in the sub-chronic study, no clinically significant changes were observed for hematological and biochemical parameters. Except an occasional small number of focal mononuclear lymphocytic cells infiltrations around the central and portal triad of the liver of a few mice, the histopathological parameters do not show significant change. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that, the butanol fractionated extract from A. africanus at the given dose does not show significant toxicity. The presence of focal inflammation on the liver of a few mice may be associated to the presence of flavonoid glycoside in the butanol fractionated extract.