Reasons to Learn French

Motivations to Learn French There are a wide range of motivations to get familiar with an unknown dialect all in all and French specifically. Lets start with the general. Why Learn a Foreign Language? Correspondence A conspicuous motivation to get familiar with another dialect is to have the option to speak with the individuals who talk it. This incorporates both the individuals you meet when going just as individuals in your locale. Your outing to another nation will be extraordinarily upgraded in both simplicity of correspondence and kind disposition on the off chance that you communicate in the language. Communicating in anothers language shows regard for that culture, and individuals in each nation incline toward it when voyagers put forth an attempt to communicate in the neighborhood language, regardless of whether everything you can say in it is hi and please. Likewise, learning another dialect can likewise assist you with communicating with nearby foreigner populaces at home. Social Understanding Communicating in another dialect causes you to become acquainted with others and their way of life, as language and culture go connected at the hip. Since language at the same time characterizes and is characterized by our general surroundings, learning another dialect opens ones brain to new thoughts and better approaches for taking a gander at the world. For instance, the way that numerous dialects have more than one interpretation of you demonstrates that these dialects (and the way of life that talk them) place a more prominent accentuation on recognizing crowds than does English. French recognizes tu (natural) and vous (formal/plural), while Spanish has five words that demonstrate one of four classifications: natural/particular (tã º or vos, contingent upon the nation), natural/plural (vosotros), formal/solitary (Ud) and formal/plural (Uds). In the interim, Arabic recognizes nta (manly solitary), nti (female particular), and ntuma (plural). Conversely, English uses you for manly, ladylike, recognizable, formal, solitary, and plural. The way that these dialects have such various perspectives on shows social contrasts between the individuals who talk them: French and Spanish spotlight on nature versus convention, while Arabic underlines sexual orientation. This is only one case of a significant number of the semantic and social contrasts between dialects. Likewise, when you communicate in another dialect, you can appreciate writing, film, and music in the first language. It is amazingly hard for an interpretation to be an ideal reproduction of the first; the most ideal approach to comprehend what the writer implied is to peruse what the writer composed. Business and Careers Communicating in more than one language is an expertise which will build your attractiveness. Schools and businesses will in general incline toward applicants who talk at least one unknown dialects. Despite the fact that English is generally spoken in a great part of the world, the truth of the matter is that the worldwide economy relies upon correspondence. When managing France, for instance, somebody who communicates in French will have a conspicuous bit of leeway over somebody who doesnt. Language Enhancement Learning another dialect can assist you with understanding your own. Numerous dialects have added to the advancement of English, so learning those will show you where words and even linguistic structures are from, and enlarge your jargon for sure. Additionally, in figuring out how another dialect contrasts from your own, you will build your comprehension of your language. For some individuals, language is inborn we realize how to state something, however we dont essentially know why we state it that way. Learning another dialect can change that.Each resulting language you study will be, in certain regards, somewhat simpler, on the grounds that youve effectively figured out how to get familiar with another dialect. Also, if the dialects are connected, for example, French and Spanish, German and Dutch, or Arabic and Hebrew, some of what youve effectively realized will apply to the new dialect too, making the new dialect that a lot simpler. Grades As long periods of unknown dialect study increment, math and verbal SAT scores increment. Youngsters who study an unknown dialect regularly have higher state administered test scores in math, perusing, and language expressions. Unknown dialect study can assist with expanding critical thinking abilities, memory, and self-restraint. Why Learn French? In the event that you are a local English speaker, probably the best motivation to learn French is to assist you with understanding your language. Albeit English is a Germanic language, French has enormously affected it. French is the biggest benefactor of outside words in English. Except if your English jargon is a lot higher than average,â learning Frenchâ will significantly increment the quantity of English words you know. French is communicated in as a local language in excess of two dozen nations on five mainlands. Contingent upon your sources, French is either the eleventh or the thirteenth most normal local language on the planet, with 72 to 79 million local speakers and another 190 million optional speakers. French is the second most normally showed second language on the planet (after English), making it a genuine chance that communicating in French will prove to be useful for all intents and purposes anyplace you travel. French in Business In 2003, the United States was Frances driving speculator, representing 25% of the new openings made in France from outside venture. There are 2,400 US organizations in France creating 240,000 employments. American organizations with workplaces in France incorporate IBM, Microsoft, Mattel, Dow Chemical, SaraLee, Ford, Coca-Cola, ATT, Motorola, Johnson  Johnson, Ford, and Hewlett Packard. France is the second driving speculator in the United States: in excess of 3,000 French organizations have auxiliaries in the US and create about 700,000 occupations, including Mack Trucks, Zenith, RCA-Thomson, Bic, and Dannon. French in the United States French is the third most habitually spokenâ non-Englishâ language in US homes and the second most usually showed unknown dialect in the United States (after Spanish). French in the World French is an official working language in handfuls ofâ international associations, including the United Nations, the International Olympic Committee, and the International Red Cross. French is the most widely used language of culture, including craftsmanship, food, move, and style. France has won more Nobel Prizes for writing than some other nation on the planet and is one of the top makers of global movies. French is the second most as often as possible utilized language on the web. French is positioned as the second most powerful language on the planet. Gracious, and one other thing-Spanish isâ notâ easier than French! Sources Confirmations Testing Program of the College Board. France in the U.S. Franco-American Business Ties Rock Solid, News from Franceâ vol 04.06, May 19, 2004. Rhodes, N. C., Branaman, L. E. Unknown dialect guidance in the United States: A national study of basic and auxiliary schools. Community for Applied Linguistics and Delta Systems, 1999. Summer Institute for Linguistics Ethnologue Survey, 1999. US Census, Ten Languages Most Frequently Spoken at Home Other than English and Spanish: 2000, figure 3. Weber, George. The Worlds 10 Most Influential Languages, Language Today, Vol. 2, Dec 1997.

Family characteristics of Order sphenisciformes-penguins Research Paper

Family attributes of Order sphenisciformes-penguins - Research Paper Example The creator utilizes practical and similar investigations in understanding the adjustment practices and other charming highlights of the goliath penguin. The article stayed fundamental in clarifying morphological qualities of specific types of penguins. Jadwiszczak, Piotr, and Sandra D. Chapman. The Earliest Fossil Record Of A Medium-Sized Penguin. Polish Polar Research 32.3 (2011): 269-277. Scholarly Search Premier. Web. 29 Nov. 2014. Jadwiszczak and Sandra, 2011 spotlights on remaking highlights of fair measured penguins utilizing soonest fossil records. Near investigation of the fossils uncovers the inferable highlights of average estimated penguins and their roots. The article was fundamental in understanding the inborn developmental highlights of moderate estimated penguins. Ksepka, Daniel T., et al. Advancement Of The Brain And Sensory Organs In Sphenisciformes: New Data From The Stem Penguin Paraptenodytes Antarcticus. Zoological Journal Of The Linnean Society 166.1 (2012): 202-219. Scholastic Search Premier. Web. 29 Nov. 2014. Ksepka et al., 2012, conducts an investigation planned for investigating the intrinsic neuroanatomical advancement among penguins. The creators utilize produced virtual endocasts in understanding the anatomical highlights of surviving penguin species. The examinations discover that there exists maintenance of different qualities related with trip in spite of advancement. There additionally exist information reflecting level of advancement in neuroanatomical highlights of penguins. The article is basic in understanding transformative attributes among penguins.

Global competition study of Accor Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5500 words

Worldwide rivalry investigation of Accor - Essay Example The pace of development inside the lodgings and inns industry has been portrayed as a for the most part encouraging one (Accor, 2013). As showed in figure 1, from 2009, the industry has recorded increment in industry esteem. The recorded development in any case, Hospitality Net (2012) deplored that the general development has been immersed around not very many contenders. This implies until an individual organization inside the business performs remarkably well, it would end up inside a developing industry yet won't generally be a piece of this development. This is the explanation it is critical and applicable that the flow investigate be attempted with the point of breaking down the key intensity of Accor. The determination of Accor is likewise of intrigue since it is considered as one of the main supporters of the industry’s development (Accor, 2013). It is along these lines imperative to consider the organization in order to discover manners by which the organization can keep up its current serious situation inside the business. Accor is headquartered in Paris and an individual from the Paris stock trade with a working ticker of AC. Because of its key financials, Accor is viewed as a significant worldwide lodging administrator (Hotelier News, 2014). Among the 92 nations where Accor works, Europe is its biggest market with almost 3,576 inns and 461,719 rooms in Europe alone (MarketLine, 2014). The objective markets of Accor have been generally impacted by its two significant fragments which are lodgings and different organizations. Under the inn section, there are focuses with extravagance, upscale, mid-scale, and economy target markets. Most definitely, there are target markets for corporate offices and club (MarketLine, 2014). Table 1 gives the key financials of the organization from 2009 to 2013. At the point when the key financials of Accor is graphically spoken to, it is conceivable to get the genuine drive of why it is significant for the task to be completed. This is on the grounds that the chart in

Global Conflict Likelihood

The world is changing quickly and the progressions are probably going to prompt a worldwide clash later on. The total populace is expanding at a disturbing rate particularly in the creating scene. The high populace needs more assets to meet their fundamental needs yet the assets are rare. Along these lines, individuals need to scramble for the rare assets. In the long run clashes emerge as individuals attempt to get a bit of the resources.Advertising We will compose a custom exposition test on Global Conflict Likelihood explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More The poor will get into savagery as they attempt to get assets from the rich. The significant levels of destitution will keep on expanding with the social imbalance that is common in numerous nations. Similarly as Karl Marx asked the proletarians will organize an uprising and topple the industrialist class. In this manner, the probability of future worldwide clash is high. Globalization will likewise prompt clashes later on. The pattern has brought nations closer through exchange, business and correspondence and simultaneously the world is self-destructing. The world has gotten one and with it patriotism is vanishing as individuals become worldwide residents along these lines it will be hard to recognize individuals as indicated by culture or religion. The American culture has spread over the globe quickly through movies and TV programs. The loss of a personality will make an issue as certain nations attempt to oppose becoming mixed up in the bigger world and keep up their character or maintain a strategic distance from impacts from different nations. This will prompt little wars that will set clans against clans as individuals look to redraw limits in a world that has gotten expanding borderless. In different universes old contentions that existed will be reestablished. The conflict of civic establishments will likewise prompt clashes later on. Civic establishments are at the most elevated s orts of collection and offer things like language, religion and customs among others. Individuals use civic establishments to characterize personalities and after some time the characters experience redefinition. Today the world has become a worldwide town because of the improved communications between individuals from various human advancements. Thus, the cooperations have prompted an expansion in human progress awareness. Individuals are increasingly mindful of their human advancement similitudes and contrasts. The mindfulness will revive the hostilities that existed between the human advancements previously and each will try to become dominant.Advertising Looking for exposition on worldwide relations? We should check whether we can support you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Eventually wars may breakout between civic establishments as they battle to keep up their personality and maintain a strategic distance from mastery by the others. Civic establishments that are viewed as a danger will confront antagonistic vibe from the undermined ones consequently making enmity rather than harmony and fellowship. The ill will between the west and the Arab world will keep on existing. The purpose behind this is civic establishments call upon individuals and states with comparable points of view to hold hands and work together. An assault on one individual from a progress is taken as an assault all in all human progress. For instance America’s Iraq occupation has been taken as an assault on the Islam development and that is the reason we have strain between Arab countries and the west. The way that the western human advancement rules the world monetarily it is looks to control different angles, for example, weapon obtaining of different nations since it tries to secure its government assistance. A contention will emerge in light of the fact that the non-western nations feel they reserve an option to procure whichever weapons they regard fit for their security. For example Iran is at loggerheads with the west for its atomic improvement plan and it has promised to carry on regardless of the approvals. Besides, the Arab world has been hesitant to grasp globalization since it has been likened with Americanization. Religion has additionally been utilized to spread contempt against the west and the two human advancements will struggle later on because of their various belief systems except if something is done to evacuate the ill will between the two by helping them to comprehend each other and perhaps cooperate. At last, the world was more secure a quarter century back than it is currently because of the fore referenced difficulties confronting the world in the 21st century. A quarter century back, the total populace was lower yet with the present patterns in fruitfulness, rates particularly in the creating scene are high. The accessible assets can't support the populace with the test of a worldwide temperature alteration. Besides, numerous individuals are turning out to be radicalized by some strict affiliations and would not spare a moment to perpetrate wrongdoings for the sake of religion. Subsequently, with low degrees of wellbeing on the planet today, future worldwide clashes are inevitable.Advertising We will compose a custom exposition test on Global Conflict Likelihood explicitly for you for just $16.05 $11/page Learn More The world security is at a danger today. The danger of psychological oppression stays extraordinary in numerous nations over the world as gatherings try to execute or impart dread in others so as to satisfy their ideological or political objectives. For example, a few people have been caught conveying bombs in planes like the Nigerian man on an American plane. Quite recently a package conveying a bomb was incepted in Dubai in a plane from Yemen. Osama container Laden despite everything issues dangers and the last one was against Europe. The weakness on the planet today is additionall y advanced by globalization and headway in innovation. For instance, individuals can hack into security databases making nations powerless against assaults. Moreover, delicate data can be spreads over the world instantly through the World Wide Web. I have discovered that the more things change the more they continue as before. This is on the grounds that before, the world was unreliable and clashes prompted passings of numerous individuals in clashes, for example, the first and second world wars at that point came the time of cold war. Today, the world is interconnected and nations subject to each other in any case, this has not decreased the danger of contentions on the grounds that the nations are as yet fatigued of each other. All the more should be done to guarantee world harmony by tending to the reasons that are probably going to prompt future worldwide clashes. This exposition on Global Conflict Likelihood was composed and presented by client Clark B. to help you with your own investigations. You are allowed to utilize it for research and reference purposes so as to compose your own paper; be that as it may, you should refer to it likewise. You can give your paper here.

Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Film Review Example merican governmental issues seems, by all accounts, to be to a great extent stage oversaw by the well-to-do segments of the general public, in the peak it depicts a sound image of the American legislative issues, where the pioneers tune in to the voice of their soul and were the qualities like genuineness, reasonableness, family holding and equity figure out how to flourish over childishness and lie. 3. The exercise that this film will in general pass on is that basically the American governmental issues is esteem driven. The mechanics and the system of the American governmental issues and the open desires are with the end goal that they will in general push back the phony and the narrow minded. Despite the fact that at a shallow level, numerous a period it might appear that the special segments of the general public have a more noteworthy state in the political arrangement, in the end it is the solid propensity of honesty and uprightness that consistently has a last say. 1. Thank You for Smoking, a 2005 movie coordinated by Jason Rietman, is basically about the endeavors of a smooth and shrewd tobacco lobbyist Nick Naylor who utilizes his open talking aptitudes to win support in the kindness of smoking. The film delineates the ploys and plans depended on by Nick Naylor and his similarly invested companions to shape and impact the general population and political sentiment for the causes that happen to be essentially destructive to the general wellbeing. 2. The perspective on the American governmental issues as introduced in Thank You for Smoking hushes up negative and upsetting. In Thank You for Smoking the American governmental issues comes out as a political framework that is defenseless against being overseen and impacted by the individuals who are compelling, ground-breaking and deft general supposition directors. The American open is appeared as a clueless casualty to the plans of individuals who are not loath to lying and utilizing flawed rationale. 3. While State of the Union finishes in the triumph of the basic American qualities like trustworthiness, uprightness and equity, Thank You for Smoking will in general venture the triumph of the amazing and the corrupt over the ideal political qualities and

4 Ways to Tame Your Phone and Remain Productive

4 Ways to Tame Your Phone and Remain Productive When was the last time you spent a day without your phone? Half a day? Heck, even a couple of hours? If you’re anything like me, you probably can’t remember a time where you were purposefully without your phone. Our livesâ€"both personally and professionallyâ€"have become so controlled by the flow of communication that even a few minutes without our phones within reach has been shown to cause anxiety, physical signs of stress, and even depression in some users.   But despite their misgivings, our phones are also incredible tools for productivity, when used properly. Unfortunately, few of us do this. Instead of supporting us with the work we need to do, our phones become beacons for interruptions. You might be always on and available for important messages. But you’re also always on and available for stress-inducing Slack messages, aggravating emails, and a constant stream of busy work. So with our phones so firmly ingrained in our day-to-day, the question becomes: Can we still be productive, even with our devices around us 24/7?   It’s not how much you use your phone that’s a problem. It’s how often you impulsively check it. You probably know you should be looking at your phone less often. But it’s not entirely your fault that you can’t leave it alone. As humans, we’re driven to seek rewards of all sorts. And every time you look at your phone and see a little red dot next to an app or feel it buzz in your pocket, it sends a signal your brain just can’t ignore. You see, every time you get a notification from your phone it’s like pulling on a slot machine. Your brain doesn’t know whether it’s going to get an Instagram like, a new Twitter follower, a text from an old friend, or a spam email. And to be honest, it doesn’t matter. This kind of variable reward system is how we learn and build habits and it’s pretty much impossible to ignore. So what do you do? The easy answer is to say you’re going to turn off all notifications. Unfortunately, that doesn’t work either. According to Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to make habit-forming products, apps and tools on your phone have become so good at forming habits that they don’t even need notifications to steal your attention. We check our phones not just because something told us to. But because we’ve built habits that tell us to do it on our own.     It’s gotten so bad that researchers have found that even a silent phone near you causes increased anxiety, stress, and disruption to your focus. Instead of trying to go cold turkey and block the external triggers drawing us to our phones, we need to find ways to tame its constant pull and build a better relationship that puts us in control of when and how we use it. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:               Productive Task ManagementDiscover MeisterTask Step 1: Create distance between you and your phone to lessen your habit of “Checking in” One of the main issues we have with our phones is simply just how present they are in our lives. According to marketing firm dscout, we “touch” our phones 2617 per day. Meanwhile, Apple recently revealed that iPhone users unlock their phones around 80 times every 24 hours. When it comes to the work things that pull at our attentionâ€"email and instant messengers like Slackâ€"we found the average user checks in nearly every 7.5 minutes. Whichever number seems closest to your own usage, it’s clear we’ve built a habit of constantly needing to check in on our phones. The first step in taming your phone usage is to create friction to disrupt that habit. As Catherine Price, author of How to Break Up With Your Phone, explains: “We often try to jump in and start changing stuff without really taking the time that’s necessary to understand why we’re reaching for our phones, and how we feel when we are on our phones. And I think those are very powerful questions to ask.” One solution that Catherine suggests in her book is to create a moment of friction as you reach for your phone. To do this, she’s created custom lock screen wallpapers that ask “What for? Why now? What else?” Next, try to create more situations where you’re physically separated from your phone. Follow a recipe in a cookbook instead of on a website. Or simply place your phone in your bag instead of in your pocket. As Dr. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of The Distraction Addiction, explains: “Not carrying your phone right against your body but carrying it in your bag can help ease some of that sense that you always need… to have a little of your attention turned towards your phone.” Step 2: Remove immediate triggers from your home screen to stay on task The scope for our phones to go from helpful tools to destructive forces depends on what we see the moment we open them. Your home screen is a battle for your attention. And unfortunately, most of us are on the losing side. Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology, calls these “menus.” Every time you open your phone, you’re presented with a menu of options and paths to choose from. The problem is, these menus don’t tell the whole picture, but rather limit our options of what to do. Worse than that, when we give ourselves distracting menus, we’re more likely to lose focus and slip off down the rabbit hole.   “The ‘most empowering’ menu is different than the menu that has the most choices. But when we blindly surrender to the menus we’re given, it’s easy to lose track of the difference.” But unlike a restaurant where you go for specific dishes, we have full control over the menus we see on our phones. So ask yourself, what options do you want on your menu? Do you want social media, email, and games? Or notes, weather, and tools? “By shaping the menus we pick from, technology hijacks the way we perceive our choices and replaces them with new ones. But the closer we pay attention to the options we’re given, the more we’ll notice when they don’t actually align with our true needs.” To use your phone productively, you need to create the right menu. That means removing any distracting apps that will pull at your attention and bombard you with notifications. If you want to go to the extreme, you can even turn your phone greyscale to remove the color triggers from app icons. Step 3: Practice better phone hygiene to set standards around focus and attention How you use your phone doesn’t just affect you. It also signals to other people how they should use theirs as well. So if you want to tame your phone’s control over you, it’s going to have to be a group effort. According to the Harvard Business Review, managers who frequently send emails and check their phones during meetings are 2.2 times more likely to have direct reports who do the same thing. If you’re in a position of leadership at your company or just want to help the people around you spend less time on their phones, you need to be the source of change. Nir Eyal, author of Hooked, suggests creating something like a “digital hat rack.” With this approach, devices are left outside of meetings so you have more face-to-face interactions and are less likely to be distracted. And it’s not just in-person behaviors that should be changed. If you send emails out of hours, you can expect to receive them as well. But if you wait to respond during working hours, you can slowly change the culture around how often people are expected to be “on”.  This, of course, goes for Slack messages too. Step 4: Use a tool to help understand and control your actual usage Changing the way you use your phone means changing your behavior. And research has shown that to change the way we think and act, we need more than just willpower alone. Thankfully, there are plenty of tools you can use to either add friction to your phone usage  or track the time you spend on it for an accurate picture of just how much it’s impacting your workday. Here’s a few you might want to check out: Arianna Huffington’s Thrive App turns off notifications, calls, and texts except from people on your VIP list Siempo changes your interface to help you question why you’re using your phone RescueTime tracks the time you spend on your Android phone (and your desktop), giving you a super accurate view of how you’re using it and how much of your attention it takes Forest encourages you to stay away from your phone by growing virtual “trees” that die once you start using your phone. While these tools can help change your behavior, they aren’t standalone solutions. It’s always more important to understand why you’re letting your phone distract you, rather than rely on an external tool to try to solve your problems.   It’s all too easy to vilify our phones as the source of all our distractions. But the truth is that they’re fantastic tools that can actually help increase our productivity, giving us the flexibility to work when and how we want to, and capture creative ideas quickly and in the moment.   Instead of blaming our phones, we need to start blaming the bad phone usage habits we’ve built. By creating friction when we feel the desire to use our phone, removing triggers, and creating a better culture around phone use, we can start to use them on our terms. Not theirs. Productive Task ManagementDiscover MeisterTask

Mycotoxins A Hidden Poison in Foods - 2200 Words

Mycotoxins: A Hidden Poison in Foods (Research Proposal Sample) Content: Research Proposal- NutritionName:Instructor:Course:Date:Project TitleMycotoxins: A hidden poison in foodsBackground to the research issueMycotoxins are defined as poisonous chemical metabolites that are produced by filamentous fungi (Bennett Klich, 2003). Some of the mycotoxin compounds are found in grains and seeds hence can cause diseases, disorders and even death to oblivious consumers who include human beings and animals. Mycotoxins found in food have disastrous effects often leading to severe illness or chronic long-term conditions and immune deficiency (Wild Gong, 2010). When detected, mycotoxins cause heavy economic losses to stakeholders in the agricultural industry who include producers of food, processors, distributers and the consumers of the food.There are five groups of mycotoxins that are found in food and these include: deoxynivalenol or nivalenol, zearalenone, ochratoxin, fumonisins and aflatoxins (Murphy et al, 2006). Of major interest are aflatoxin s which are commonly found in grains such as maize and peanuts and fumonisins, both of which are common in tropical developing countries where they have a significant impact on human health.Mycotoxins are a cause of great concern because they occur in very small quantities which therefore make them easily undetectable in foodstuffs. They are therefore hidden poisons in food with very serious repercussions to human and animal health. Most of the discussion about mycotoxins revolves around the foods that are likely to be afflicted with the fungi, its chemistry, prevention measures but the idea of the fungi being a hidden poison in food is minimally discussed.With this background into the research issue, the main purpose of this research is to investigate how the food that human beings consume may be unknowingly poisoned and highlight the effects of the mycotoxins to human beings. The results of this research will try to identify ways of identifying mycotoxins in food to prevent illnes ses and deaths among human beings and animals.The research questionHow can mycotoxins be detected in food and what are the awareness and preventive measures which can be taken to minimize casualties that arise from the consumption of food containing mycotoxins?Justification for the proposed researchMycotoxins in food have fatal consequences to both human beings and animals. This is particularly devastating considering that they are lethal in very small quantities normally measures in parts per billion (ppb) or parts per million (ppm). Mycotoxins naturally cause immune deficiencies and protect the filamentous fungi from attack by other microorganisms. Toxicological effects of mycotoxins have been experimentally proven in laboratories using animals and they have yielded results that have raised a reason for concern among researchers.Aflatoxins which is a group of mycotoxins is a well identified cause of liver cancer in addition to jeopardizing immunity in laboratory and infected anima ls when ingested in large quantities. The toxins also compromise the metabolism of proteins and other micronutrients which are crucial for good health. According to Williams et al (2004), approximately 4.5 billion people living in developing countries are exposed to uncontrolled quantities of aflatoxin and other mycotoxins found in food. The disease burden is these countries which is more than 40% is further aggravated by the toxic effects of aflatoxin ingestion. The categorization of mycotoxins as a low priority risk factor for the increase in disease burden by the World Health Organization (WHO) makes it even more important to highlight the nutritional effects of the toxins on human and animal health.Current technology for the detection of mycotoxins includes the use of a variety of biosensors which have undergone a series of developments to become more accurate and sensitive. The current technologies identified by Maragos (2004) used to detect mycotoxins include the following: ev anescent wave technology, lateral flow devices, dipstick devices, fluorescence polarization, capillary electrophoretic immunoassays, microbead assays and time-resolved fluorescence. These technologies prove to be effective in laboratories and the challenge is therefore to make them competitive compared to other conventional techniques used in the field. The method used to detect mycotoxins is dependent on factors which include speed, accuracy, skills necessary and the cost of carrying out the method. Another challenge is to identify methods of detecting mycotoxins in a small scale and away from analytical laboratories.The gap in existing research concerning mycotoxins is the identification of mycotoxicosis as a hidden threat that has fatal effects on the health of human beings and animals. The technologies that exist to detect mycotoxins and the fungi which cause them are expensive and are confined to analytical laboratories which are few in number. The task is to develop innovative technologies which require less labour and which are more accessible due to reduced costs. The current technologies are still unable to enable the simultaneous detection of multiple mycotoxins from the same sample. This is because the different groups of mycotoxins are made up of different chemical compositions and physical properties which is also a challenge to researchers.The preliminary literature review section that follows looks at previous researcherà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬s work concerning the sources, chemistry, diseases and preventive measures for mycotoxins.Preliminary literature reviewSources of mycotoxinsMycotoxins are produced following the growth of fungi which mostly occurs in crops and agricultural products. However the toxins are not formed on all the crops since there are factors which facilitate the process. These include the level of exposure to infestation by fungi, the appropriateness of fungal substrate, climate, moisture content of crops and exposure to damage by pests and insects. The fungi which cause the production of mycotoxins in crops and seeds are divided into three categories: storage fungi, field fungi which attack plants and advanced deterioration fungi which attack seeds that have already been damaged and have high moisture content. Examples of storage fungi are Aspergillius flavus and Aspergillius parasiticus, those of field fungi are Fusarium tricinctum, Fusarium moniliforme, Fusarium roseus and Fusarium nivale while examples of advanced deterioration fungi include Aspergillius clavatus, Aspergillius fumigatus, Mucor, Absidia, Chaetomium, Rhizopus and Scopulariopsis (Magan Olsen, 2004).Chemistry of mycotoxinsMycotoxins vary greatly in terms of chemical structures. One of the earliest mycotoxins to be identified, ergotism, is grouped as indole alkaloids which are found on the heads of plants of the grass species such as wheat. The alkaloids are produced from a system of tetracyclic ergoline ring. There are four major Aflatoxins which are B1, B2, G1 and G2 of which Aflatoxin B1, is naturally carcinogenic. Aflatoxins are derived from difuranocoumarin which are generated by polyketides by Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus. Aflatoxin consumed by cows transforms the aflatoxin B1 into hydroxulated aflatoxin M1. Fumonisins are produced through the synthesis of an amino acid known as alanine through the process of condensation. The most abundant fumonisin is fumonisin B1. Trichothecenes have a common structure of 12, 13-epoxytrichothene and an olefinic bond which has different substitutions depending on different chains. These are further classified into two groups, macrocylic or nonmacrocylic depending on the ester or ester-ether bridge between C-4 and C-15. Type A of nonmacrocylic has a hydrogen side chain on the 8th carbon position while type B contains a ketone. Zearalenone is another mycotoxin which is made up of resorcylic acid lactone or lactene, a C-1 and C-2 double bond and a C-6 ketone (Murphy et al, 2006).Foods infected by fungi that potentially deliver toxinsThe foods that are prone to infection by filamentous fungi which cause mycotoxins generally consist of seeds and grains. However, fruits and vegetables are mostly affected by the fungi Rhizopus and Mucor. Seeds containing oil such as soya, maize, sunflower, groundnuts cotton seed cake and tree nuts are mostly affected by Aspergillus parasiticus, Aspergillus flavus and aflatoxins. Other foods and seeds that can be affected by mycotoxin causing fungi include coffee, rice, sweet potatoes, rice, sorghum and figs. Cows that feed on contaminated food are also known to produce milk contaminated with aflatoxin. The fusarium species of mycotoxins are known to attack plants such as corn, grasses and legumes and tomatoes.Diseases and disorders related to poisoning from mycotoxinsMycotoxins are known to cause various diseases in human beings and animals when food infected by filamentous fungi is ingested. Most of the mycotoxins ha ve been identified as being carcinogenic in humans and they also cause immune deficiency. In animals, mycotoxins are known to cause complications in the reproductive system of pigs, cancer in laboratory animals, equine eucoencephalomalacia which is a serious disease in horses and adverse effects in chickens.The major outbreaks of mycotoxins include the death of thousands of people in the UCSSR during the 1940s due to alimentary toxic aleukia, stachybotryotoxicosis which claimed the lives of thousands of cattle and horses in the same country in the 1930s and 100,000 turkeys that died in England due to aflatoxicosis (Semple et al, 2011). More recent outbreaks as documented by Schmale and Munkvold (2009) include the death of more than 75 dogs in the United States following the consumption of dog food that contained aflatoxins. Several other dogs in their hundreds suffered liver damage due to expo...