Revisiting cellulase production and redefining current strategies based on major challenges
- Kuhad, Ramesh Chander, Deswal, Deepa, Sharma, Sonia, Bhattacharya, Abhishek, Jain, Kavish Kumar, Kaur, Amandeep, Pletschke, Brett I, Singh, Ajay, Karp, Matti
- Authors: Kuhad, Ramesh Chander , Deswal, Deepa , Sharma, Sonia , Bhattacharya, Abhishek , Jain, Kavish Kumar , Kaur, Amandeep , Pletschke, Brett I , Singh, Ajay , Karp, Matti
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66142 , vital:28909 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.10.132
- Description: publisher version , Lignocellulosic biomass has been considered as an important and sustainable source of renewable energy. Cellulose constitutes the major component of the lignocellulosic biomass and also offers maximum recalcitrance towards its fullest utilization. The enzymatic breakdown of cellulose is achieved through cellulases. Diverse forms of microbes including fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes and yeast are known to produce cellulases that have found extensive application in various industries. Due to the current global political unrest over oil prices and the threat of global warming following combustion of fossil fuels, the paradigm of research is now focused on biofuel production from plant biomass. Conventional approaches have not been economically feasible for meeting the demands of the industry. This review provides an update regarding the status of present microbial cellulase production technologies and research with special reference to solid state fermentation and different molecular techniques such as mutagenesis, metabolic engineering and heterologous gene expression of cellulases from different microbial domains with improved catalytic and stability properties. Metagenomic and genomic studies for mining of novel cellulase genes in addition to screening of culturable strains using conventional methods have been advanced. In addition the bottlenecks associated with cellulase production and how the future research needs to be directed to provide a comprehensive technology for the production of cellulases with novel traits for application at an industrial level without economic constraints are discussed.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Kuhad, Ramesh Chander , Deswal, Deepa , Sharma, Sonia , Bhattacharya, Abhishek , Jain, Kavish Kumar , Kaur, Amandeep , Pletschke, Brett I , Singh, Ajay , Karp, Matti
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/66142 , vital:28909 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.10.132
- Description: publisher version , Lignocellulosic biomass has been considered as an important and sustainable source of renewable energy. Cellulose constitutes the major component of the lignocellulosic biomass and also offers maximum recalcitrance towards its fullest utilization. The enzymatic breakdown of cellulose is achieved through cellulases. Diverse forms of microbes including fungi, bacteria, actinomycetes and yeast are known to produce cellulases that have found extensive application in various industries. Due to the current global political unrest over oil prices and the threat of global warming following combustion of fossil fuels, the paradigm of research is now focused on biofuel production from plant biomass. Conventional approaches have not been economically feasible for meeting the demands of the industry. This review provides an update regarding the status of present microbial cellulase production technologies and research with special reference to solid state fermentation and different molecular techniques such as mutagenesis, metabolic engineering and heterologous gene expression of cellulases from different microbial domains with improved catalytic and stability properties. Metagenomic and genomic studies for mining of novel cellulase genes in addition to screening of culturable strains using conventional methods have been advanced. In addition the bottlenecks associated with cellulase production and how the future research needs to be directed to provide a comprehensive technology for the production of cellulases with novel traits for application at an industrial level without economic constraints are discussed.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2016
'Tell us a new story': a proposal for the transformatory potential of collective memory projects
- Authors: Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:38046 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/${Handle} , vital:38046 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Inkblots and their indices: rethreading perception in the work of Igshaan Adams
- Authors: Ball, Jennifer
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147293 , vital:38612 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC176316
- Description: Igshaan Adams is a young artist from Cape Town, working in multimedia and performance. In his practice, Adams brings ways of seeing and also ways of being into consideration through meditations on objects, dreams, Sufism, family relationships and the changeability of self-hood through perception of these phenomena. This paper engages with Adams' affinity with objects, their agency and biography,and considers how his sensitive interventions alter their materiality, shifting the ways in which they can be seen. The ways in which Adams' family relationships play out in the processes of making his sculptural works, and also in his performances, are then elucidated and related to his ongoing processes of self-enquiry. Furthermore, I consider Adams' latest body of work, a critical enquiry into the variable meanings of Rorschach inkblots. Adams reflects on the grounds for inkblot testing and, in so doing, tests and measures the nature of looking, perceiving and projecting.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Ball, Jennifer
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147293 , vital:38612 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC176316
- Description: Igshaan Adams is a young artist from Cape Town, working in multimedia and performance. In his practice, Adams brings ways of seeing and also ways of being into consideration through meditations on objects, dreams, Sufism, family relationships and the changeability of self-hood through perception of these phenomena. This paper engages with Adams' affinity with objects, their agency and biography,and considers how his sensitive interventions alter their materiality, shifting the ways in which they can be seen. The ways in which Adams' family relationships play out in the processes of making his sculptural works, and also in his performances, are then elucidated and related to his ongoing processes of self-enquiry. Furthermore, I consider Adams' latest body of work, a critical enquiry into the variable meanings of Rorschach inkblots. Adams reflects on the grounds for inkblot testing and, in so doing, tests and measures the nature of looking, perceiving and projecting.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Making rules to live by: Was the proposed regulatory regime for invasive species reasonable? Perceptions of the South African trout industry
- Marire, Juniours, Snowball, Jeanette D, Fraser, Gavin C G
- Authors: Marire, Juniours , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68566 , vital:29285 , http://2015.essa.org.za/fullpaper/essa_2938.pdf
- Description: Publisher version , Despite considerable economic impact of trout-based aquaculture and recreational fishing, the Department of Environmental Affairs has been focusing almost entirely on ecological criteria in deciding the regulatory regime for trout. We examined whether the proposed regulatory regime for alien and invasive species that was published by the Department of Environmental Affairs in 2014 for public comment was reasonable. The analysis produced factors that might matter in the design of reasonable institutional arrangements that impose a reasonable regulatory burden on economic sectors utilising invasive species. We conducted factor analysis using an online survey that we conducted between May and July 2014. We obtained four clusters of factors: participatory policymaking, people-centeredness, credible scientific evidence for listing species as invasive and contextualisation of international evidence. We then utilised the factors in a logistic regression framework to assess their influence on the probability of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable. The likelihood of a trout sector player perceiving the regulations to be reasonable was 1.2%. We found that a one standard deviation increase in the “credibility of scientific evidence” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 1645%. A one standard deviation increase in “participation” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 410%. A one standard deviation increase in “people-centeredness” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 600%. Lastly, a one standard deviation increase in the variable “contextualising international evidence” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 415%. This research demonstrates that properly addressing the socioeconomic aspects of new policies in addition to ecological criteria makes it far more likely that stakeholders will regard them as reasonable, even if the new policies impose increased regulatory transaction cost burden on users or reduced access to a resource.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Marire, Juniours , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68566 , vital:29285 , http://2015.essa.org.za/fullpaper/essa_2938.pdf
- Description: Publisher version , Despite considerable economic impact of trout-based aquaculture and recreational fishing, the Department of Environmental Affairs has been focusing almost entirely on ecological criteria in deciding the regulatory regime for trout. We examined whether the proposed regulatory regime for alien and invasive species that was published by the Department of Environmental Affairs in 2014 for public comment was reasonable. The analysis produced factors that might matter in the design of reasonable institutional arrangements that impose a reasonable regulatory burden on economic sectors utilising invasive species. We conducted factor analysis using an online survey that we conducted between May and July 2014. We obtained four clusters of factors: participatory policymaking, people-centeredness, credible scientific evidence for listing species as invasive and contextualisation of international evidence. We then utilised the factors in a logistic regression framework to assess their influence on the probability of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable. The likelihood of a trout sector player perceiving the regulations to be reasonable was 1.2%. We found that a one standard deviation increase in the “credibility of scientific evidence” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 1645%. A one standard deviation increase in “participation” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 410%. A one standard deviation increase in “people-centeredness” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 600%. Lastly, a one standard deviation increase in the variable “contextualising international evidence” increased the odds of perceiving the regulations to be reasonable by 415%. This research demonstrates that properly addressing the socioeconomic aspects of new policies in addition to ecological criteria makes it far more likely that stakeholders will regard them as reasonable, even if the new policies impose increased regulatory transaction cost burden on users or reduced access to a resource.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Perceptions of the natural environment from a rural African perspective: a case of Cylondropuntia fulgida var. fulgida in Gwanda district, Zimbabwe
- Dube, Nqobizitha, Snowball, Jeanette D, Fraser, Gavin C G
- Authors: Dube, Nqobizitha , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68578 , vital:29289 , http://2015.essa.org.za/fullpaper/essa_2994.pdf
- Description: Publisher version , Community environmental perceptions are instrumental in environmental management programmes given that perspectives govern human-environment relations. Despite numerous studies on environmental perceptions, little is known about how the rural poor particularly in Africa conceptualize, live with, and respond to pressing environmental issues facing them. As such, this paper uses the case of an invasive alien plant (IAP) (Cylindropuntia fulgida var. fulgida (Cff)) in a rural community (Gwanda district, Zimbabwe) to unveil the conceptualisation of the natural environment from a rural African perspective. This paper discloses the environmental worldview of the community and explains the formulation of the attitudes by the local households towards species in the environment. The study uses two horizontal dimensions of environmental attitudes formulation (New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale and Kellet’s (1996) classification of environmental values). Data was collected using a questionnaire survey, group discussions and key informant interviews. A sample of 156 individuals comprised the study respondents. Results showed the residents of rural Gwanda district to hold both a conservation and utilisation conviction (syncretic view) towards the environment. However, utilisation outweighs conservation. Furthermore, older residents are more inclined to conservation in comparison to the youth. The study also divulged that the origin of a species in the natural environment was insignificant to the host community. However, the livelihood effects that species had (regardless of origins) were the major determinants of attitudes developed towards it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Dube, Nqobizitha , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68578 , vital:29289 , http://2015.essa.org.za/fullpaper/essa_2994.pdf
- Description: Publisher version , Community environmental perceptions are instrumental in environmental management programmes given that perspectives govern human-environment relations. Despite numerous studies on environmental perceptions, little is known about how the rural poor particularly in Africa conceptualize, live with, and respond to pressing environmental issues facing them. As such, this paper uses the case of an invasive alien plant (IAP) (Cylindropuntia fulgida var. fulgida (Cff)) in a rural community (Gwanda district, Zimbabwe) to unveil the conceptualisation of the natural environment from a rural African perspective. This paper discloses the environmental worldview of the community and explains the formulation of the attitudes by the local households towards species in the environment. The study uses two horizontal dimensions of environmental attitudes formulation (New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale and Kellet’s (1996) classification of environmental values). Data was collected using a questionnaire survey, group discussions and key informant interviews. A sample of 156 individuals comprised the study respondents. Results showed the residents of rural Gwanda district to hold both a conservation and utilisation conviction (syncretic view) towards the environment. However, utilisation outweighs conservation. Furthermore, older residents are more inclined to conservation in comparison to the youth. The study also divulged that the origin of a species in the natural environment was insignificant to the host community. However, the livelihood effects that species had (regardless of origins) were the major determinants of attitudes developed towards it.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Unfulfilled promises: the implementation of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act in South Africa
- Mwambene, Lea, Kruuse, Helen
- Authors: Mwambene, Lea , Kruuse, Helen
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/129175 , vital:36227 , DOI:10.1093/lawfam/ebv009
- Description: The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 1998 (the Act) regulates all matters in relation to customary marriages in South Africa. The Act was specifically enacted to recognize customary marriages as valid, but was also passed to address gender inequality by regulating various customary marriage aspects, the most important being registration and proprietary consequences. This article reflects on the findings of a qualitative study on the registration and proprietary consequences of customary marriages conducted in two rural sites in the Eastern Cape (the former Ciskei and Transkei) and one urban site in the Western Cape (Khayelitsha). These findings show two important issues. First, that access to resources upon death of a spouse or divorce is often premised on successful registration of the marriage, which seldom occurs. Secondly, that the continued patriarchal nature of customary marriages stands in the way of realizing gender equality, particularly in relation to the proprietary consequences of a marriage. As a result, we make possible recommendations of how the Act’s objectives can be met.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Mwambene, Lea , Kruuse, Helen
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/129175 , vital:36227 , DOI:10.1093/lawfam/ebv009
- Description: The Recognition of Customary Marriages Act 1998 (the Act) regulates all matters in relation to customary marriages in South Africa. The Act was specifically enacted to recognize customary marriages as valid, but was also passed to address gender inequality by regulating various customary marriage aspects, the most important being registration and proprietary consequences. This article reflects on the findings of a qualitative study on the registration and proprietary consequences of customary marriages conducted in two rural sites in the Eastern Cape (the former Ciskei and Transkei) and one urban site in the Western Cape (Khayelitsha). These findings show two important issues. First, that access to resources upon death of a spouse or divorce is often premised on successful registration of the marriage, which seldom occurs. Secondly, that the continued patriarchal nature of customary marriages stands in the way of realizing gender equality, particularly in relation to the proprietary consequences of a marriage. As a result, we make possible recommendations of how the Act’s objectives can be met.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
White privilege and institutional culture at South African higher education institutions:
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142097 , vital:38049 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142097 , vital:38049 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
- Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Advantages of using development models of the carrion beetles Thanatophilus micans (Fabricius) and T. mutilatus (Castelneau)(Coleoptera Silphidae) for estimating minimum post mortem intervals, verified with case data
- Ridgeway, Jaryd A, Midgley, John M, Collett, Isabel J, Villet, Martin H
- Authors: Ridgeway, Jaryd A , Midgley, John M , Collett, Isabel J , Villet, Martin H
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441737 , vital:73911 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-013-0865-0
- Description: Some beetles are as useful as blow flies for estimating the minimum post mortem interval (PMImin) or time since death. Examples include Thanatophilus micans (Fabricius) and Thanatophilus mutilatus (Castelneau), two geographically and ecologically overlapping African beetles. Molecular means of identifying these species, descriptions of their natural history, thermal summation models for the development of each species, and a case in which T. micans was recovered are presented. These beetles colonise bodies soon after death, their development spans more time than that of flies, and they may be little affected by maggot-generated heat. From an experimental perspective, they can be reared individually, which allows the identification of sick individuals and has analytical advantages relative to fly larvae that must be reared in groups. Estimating minimum post mortem intervals for both species using the case data strongly suggests that developmental models parameterised for one species should not be used to make forensic estimates for closely related species for which no specific model is available and emphasises the need for correct identifications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Ridgeway, Jaryd A , Midgley, John M , Collett, Isabel J , Villet, Martin H
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441737 , vital:73911 , https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-013-0865-0
- Description: Some beetles are as useful as blow flies for estimating the minimum post mortem interval (PMImin) or time since death. Examples include Thanatophilus micans (Fabricius) and Thanatophilus mutilatus (Castelneau), two geographically and ecologically overlapping African beetles. Molecular means of identifying these species, descriptions of their natural history, thermal summation models for the development of each species, and a case in which T. micans was recovered are presented. These beetles colonise bodies soon after death, their development spans more time than that of flies, and they may be little affected by maggot-generated heat. From an experimental perspective, they can be reared individually, which allows the identification of sick individuals and has analytical advantages relative to fly larvae that must be reared in groups. Estimating minimum post mortem intervals for both species using the case data strongly suggests that developmental models parameterised for one species should not be used to make forensic estimates for closely related species for which no specific model is available and emphasises the need for correct identifications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Rhodes University Council imbizo
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2013-06-12
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:7939 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016490
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013-06-12
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2013-06-12
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:7939 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016490
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013-06-12
Rhodes University VC's forum
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2013-03-14
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:7937 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016488
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013-03-14
- Authors: Badat, Saleem
- Date: 2013-03-14
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:7937 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016488
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013-03-14
A proposed schema for the conditions of creativity in fine art studio practice
- Authors: Belluigi, Dina Z
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64641 , vital:28584 , http://www.ijea.org/v14n19/index.html
- Description: Drawing from creativity and art research, this paper proposes a schema for the conditions for creativity in fine art studio practice. Discussion focuses on how the triad of creative person, artmaking process, and artwork is constructed, and the situating of this creative triad within an enabling environment, which on a structural level includes the curriculum, and on a cultural and agential level involves teaching and learning relationships. An emphasis in placed on affective concerns, particularly the role of uncertainty as an important part of the art student’s learning experience.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Belluigi, Dina Z
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64641 , vital:28584 , http://www.ijea.org/v14n19/index.html
- Description: Drawing from creativity and art research, this paper proposes a schema for the conditions for creativity in fine art studio practice. Discussion focuses on how the triad of creative person, artmaking process, and artwork is constructed, and the situating of this creative triad within an enabling environment, which on a structural level includes the curriculum, and on a cultural and agential level involves teaching and learning relationships. An emphasis in placed on affective concerns, particularly the role of uncertainty as an important part of the art student’s learning experience.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
An APPRAISAL analysis of the language of real estate advertisements
- Beangstrom, Tracy, Adendorff, Ralph D
- Authors: Beangstrom, Tracy , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/469326 , vital:77232 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2013.837608
- Description: This article focuses on the linguistic choices made by estate agencies in their advertisements of houses, and how these choices compare across two competing agencies in Grahamstown, South Africa – Remax Frontier and Pam Golding Properties. Using Martin and White's (2005) APPRAISAL system, it investigates the interpersonal relationships set up between each agency and their prospective buyers, and how these relationships are affected by differences in the price of houses. Eighty advertisements (differing in prices from above and below R1.2 million) are analysed and discussed in terms of Attitude, Graduation and Engagement, capturing the ways in which each estate agency manipulates linguistic choice patterns according to the monetary value they perceive their potential customers to possess. These choice patterns also indicate a move towards possible adjustments that can be made to Martin and White's (2005) original framework, in order to analyse more nuanced meanings than is currently the case and qualities (both within the buyer as well as pertaining to the properties) which the customers are likely to be vulnerable to.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Beangstrom, Tracy , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/469326 , vital:77232 , https://doi.org/10.2989/16073614.2013.837608
- Description: This article focuses on the linguistic choices made by estate agencies in their advertisements of houses, and how these choices compare across two competing agencies in Grahamstown, South Africa – Remax Frontier and Pam Golding Properties. Using Martin and White's (2005) APPRAISAL system, it investigates the interpersonal relationships set up between each agency and their prospective buyers, and how these relationships are affected by differences in the price of houses. Eighty advertisements (differing in prices from above and below R1.2 million) are analysed and discussed in terms of Attitude, Graduation and Engagement, capturing the ways in which each estate agency manipulates linguistic choice patterns according to the monetary value they perceive their potential customers to possess. These choice patterns also indicate a move towards possible adjustments that can be made to Martin and White's (2005) original framework, in order to analyse more nuanced meanings than is currently the case and qualities (both within the buyer as well as pertaining to the properties) which the customers are likely to be vulnerable to.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Is Fairtrade in commercial farms justifiable?: its impact on commercial and small-scale producers in South Africa
- Jari, Bridget, Snowball, Jeanette D, Fraser, Gavin C G
- Authors: Jari, Bridget , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69408 , vital:29519 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03031853.2013.847036
- Description: Fairtrade initially was limited to improving the lives of small-scale and peasant farmers, but later on it embraced commercial farmers, which attracted criticism. While there are a number of justifications for the Fairtrade organization's decision, there are authors who feel that meaningful “fair trade” cannot be achieved with the inclusion of commercial farms. This paper investigates the impact of Fairtrade on commercial farms and small-scale farmer cooperatives in South Africa. Fairtrade on South African commercial farms embraces a number of policy concerns related to land reform, BEE and sustainable development. The results of the study show that when commercial farms are included in the Fairtrade model, communities in which these farmers live benefit from developmental projects. In addition, in some instances, farm workers gain shares in the commercial farms, and benefit from the farm owners’ knowledge and capital.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Jari, Bridget , Snowball, Jeanette D , Fraser, Gavin C G
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/69408 , vital:29519 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03031853.2013.847036
- Description: Fairtrade initially was limited to improving the lives of small-scale and peasant farmers, but later on it embraced commercial farmers, which attracted criticism. While there are a number of justifications for the Fairtrade organization's decision, there are authors who feel that meaningful “fair trade” cannot be achieved with the inclusion of commercial farms. This paper investigates the impact of Fairtrade on commercial farms and small-scale farmer cooperatives in South Africa. Fairtrade on South African commercial farms embraces a number of policy concerns related to land reform, BEE and sustainable development. The results of the study show that when commercial farms are included in the Fairtrade model, communities in which these farmers live benefit from developmental projects. In addition, in some instances, farm workers gain shares in the commercial farms, and benefit from the farm owners’ knowledge and capital.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Observables in a lattice Universe : the cosmological fitting problem
- Bruneton, J-P, Larena, Julien
- Authors: Bruneton, J-P , Larena, Julien
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6790 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006943
- Description: We explore observables in a lattice Universe described by a recently found solution to Einstein field equations. This solution models a regular lattice of evenly distributed objects of equal masses. This inhomogeneous solution is perturbative, and, up to second order in a small parameter, it expands at a rate exactly equal to the one expected in a dust dominated Friedmann-Lema^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model with the equivalent, smoothed, energy density. Therefore, the kinematics of both cosmologies are identical up to the order of perturbation studied. Looking at the behaviour of the redshift and angular distance, we find a condition on the compactness of the objects at the centre of each cell under which corrections to the FLRW observables remain small, i.e. of order of a few percents at most. Nevertheless, we show that, if this condition is violated, i.e. if the objects are too compact, our perturbative scheme breaks down as far as the calculations of observables are concerned, even though the kinematics of the lattice remains identical to its FLRW counter-part (at the perturbative order considered). This may be an indication of an actual fitting problem, i.e. a situation in which the FLRW model obtained from lightcone observables does not correspond to the FLRW model obtained by smoothing the spatial distribution of matter. Fully non-perturbative treatments of the observables will be necessary to answer that question.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Bruneton, J-P , Larena, Julien
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6790 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006943
- Description: We explore observables in a lattice Universe described by a recently found solution to Einstein field equations. This solution models a regular lattice of evenly distributed objects of equal masses. This inhomogeneous solution is perturbative, and, up to second order in a small parameter, it expands at a rate exactly equal to the one expected in a dust dominated Friedmann-Lema^itre-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) model with the equivalent, smoothed, energy density. Therefore, the kinematics of both cosmologies are identical up to the order of perturbation studied. Looking at the behaviour of the redshift and angular distance, we find a condition on the compactness of the objects at the centre of each cell under which corrections to the FLRW observables remain small, i.e. of order of a few percents at most. Nevertheless, we show that, if this condition is violated, i.e. if the objects are too compact, our perturbative scheme breaks down as far as the calculations of observables are concerned, even though the kinematics of the lattice remains identical to its FLRW counter-part (at the perturbative order considered). This may be an indication of an actual fitting problem, i.e. a situation in which the FLRW model obtained from lightcone observables does not correspond to the FLRW model obtained by smoothing the spatial distribution of matter. Fully non-perturbative treatments of the observables will be necessary to answer that question.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Exploring relationship between value-and life-orientation and job satisfaction:
- Louw, Lynette, Mayer, Claude-Hélène, Baxter, Jeremy
- Authors: Louw, Lynette , Mayer, Claude-Hélène , Baxter, Jeremy
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142782 , vital:38116 , DOI: 10.4102/ac.v12i1.131
- Description: The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between value- and life-orientation and job satisfaction, as well as determining the influence of gender, age and cultural group within the selected South African organisational context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Louw, Lynette , Mayer, Claude-Hélène , Baxter, Jeremy
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142782 , vital:38116 , DOI: 10.4102/ac.v12i1.131
- Description: The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between value- and life-orientation and job satisfaction, as well as determining the influence of gender, age and cultural group within the selected South African organisational context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Intercultural Communication and Vocational Language Learning in South Africa: Law and Healthcare
- Kaschula, Russell H, Maseko, Pamela
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Maseko, Pamela
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175234 , vital:42555 , ISBN 9781405162722 , DOI:10.1002/9781118247273
- Description: The Constitution (1996) of the Republic of South Africa recognizes eleven of South Africa’s most spoken languages as official languages of the country. Of the eleven languages, nine are indigenous African languages and are spoken by about 80% of the total population. The other two, English and Afrikaans, were the only official languages of the pre-democratic regime and are spoken by the remainder of the population. However, when it comes to vocational training at institutions of higher learning, the common trend in South Africa in terms of linguistic composition is in reverse. About 80% of the total student population have English or Afrikaans as their home language, whilst the minority are speakers of indigenous African languages. This is reflected in language practices in the majority of institutions of higher learning where English and Afrikaans are the most common media of instruction.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H , Maseko, Pamela
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175234 , vital:42555 , ISBN 9781405162722 , DOI:10.1002/9781118247273
- Description: The Constitution (1996) of the Republic of South Africa recognizes eleven of South Africa’s most spoken languages as official languages of the country. Of the eleven languages, nine are indigenous African languages and are spoken by about 80% of the total population. The other two, English and Afrikaans, were the only official languages of the pre-democratic regime and are spoken by the remainder of the population. However, when it comes to vocational training at institutions of higher learning, the common trend in South Africa in terms of linguistic composition is in reverse. About 80% of the total student population have English or Afrikaans as their home language, whilst the minority are speakers of indigenous African languages. This is reflected in language practices in the majority of institutions of higher learning where English and Afrikaans are the most common media of instruction.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Political agency in South African shack settlements
- Authors: Pithouse, Richard, 1970-
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6194 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008580
- Description: (From the introduction) In 2004 Mike Davis asked whether or not what he called 'the informal proletariat' could attain historical agency. The question posed by Davis sparked a largely speculative discussion in the radical edge of the metropolitan academy that often paid scant regard to the many careful studies dealing with the political agency of shack dwellers. The debate about the political capacities of the urban poor stretches back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose views on the matter are well known, and Mikhail Bakunin who sustained their objectification but inverted its logic to conclude that “in them and only in them [the lumpen-proletariat ], and not in the bourgeois strata of workers, are there crystallized the entire intelligence and power of the coming Social Revolution”. In Africa the rational discussion of this question begins with Frantz Fanon who,dying of leukaemia and dictating his words from a mattress on the floor of a flat in Tunis in 1961, insisted that “Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem.” One of the many ways in which he stretched the Marxism in the air at the time was to take the view that the lumpen-proletariat, as a sociological category, had no fixed political meaning. People who had been 'circling the cities' hoping, he said, 'to be let in', had sometimes offered their services to colonial oppression and had sometimes joined the revolution against colonialism. Moreover he argued that in the colonial context the urban poor, living outside of the “world of compartments”, did not only become a “gangrene eating into the heart of colonial domination” as an unintended consequence of a desire to survive, of a “biological decision to invade the enemy citadels”, but that some amongst these people would assume explicit political agency and that it is: “in the people of the shanty towns and in the lumpen-proletariat that the insurrection will find its urban spearhead.” In reaching this conclusion, and in insisting on this particular stretching of the dominant currents of the Marxism of the time, Fanon was sustaining a fidelity both to the actually existing politics that he had witnessed in various African countries as well as to his founding ethical axiom - to recognise “the open door of every consciousness.”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Pithouse, Richard, 1970-
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6194 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008580
- Description: (From the introduction) In 2004 Mike Davis asked whether or not what he called 'the informal proletariat' could attain historical agency. The question posed by Davis sparked a largely speculative discussion in the radical edge of the metropolitan academy that often paid scant regard to the many careful studies dealing with the political agency of shack dwellers. The debate about the political capacities of the urban poor stretches back to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, whose views on the matter are well known, and Mikhail Bakunin who sustained their objectification but inverted its logic to conclude that “in them and only in them [the lumpen-proletariat ], and not in the bourgeois strata of workers, are there crystallized the entire intelligence and power of the coming Social Revolution”. In Africa the rational discussion of this question begins with Frantz Fanon who,dying of leukaemia and dictating his words from a mattress on the floor of a flat in Tunis in 1961, insisted that “Marxist analysis should always be slightly stretched every time we have to do with the colonial problem.” One of the many ways in which he stretched the Marxism in the air at the time was to take the view that the lumpen-proletariat, as a sociological category, had no fixed political meaning. People who had been 'circling the cities' hoping, he said, 'to be let in', had sometimes offered their services to colonial oppression and had sometimes joined the revolution against colonialism. Moreover he argued that in the colonial context the urban poor, living outside of the “world of compartments”, did not only become a “gangrene eating into the heart of colonial domination” as an unintended consequence of a desire to survive, of a “biological decision to invade the enemy citadels”, but that some amongst these people would assume explicit political agency and that it is: “in the people of the shanty towns and in the lumpen-proletariat that the insurrection will find its urban spearhead.” In reaching this conclusion, and in insisting on this particular stretching of the dominant currents of the Marxism of the time, Fanon was sustaining a fidelity both to the actually existing politics that he had witnessed in various African countries as well as to his founding ethical axiom - to recognise “the open door of every consciousness.”
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Advances in entomological methods for death time estimation
- Villet, Martin H, Amendt, Jens
- Authors: Villet, Martin H , Amendt, Jens
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441722 , vital:73910 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-249-6_11
- Description: The development of entomological methods for estimating the time of death has been rapid in the last decade, and new methods are on the horizon. These developments are reviewed with specific reference to experimental design, established and new techniques, and mathematical modelling for forensic retrodiction. The techniques include the use of electron microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, cuticular hydrocarbon profiles, and real-time PCR to estimate the age of immature insects found on corpses, based on their stage of development. Near-infrared spectrograph and pteridine fluorescence techniques can be applied to this task on adult insects. The use of ecological succession in the carrion insect community is also introduced briefly. Finally, the creation and uses of standard techniques in forensic entomology is discussed. We recommend that two steps in this standardisation process are that physiological and ecological studies should be reported in physiological time wherever this is appropriate, and that the type of post-mortem interval being estimated should be stipulated more explicitly than is currently common.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Villet, Martin H , Amendt, Jens
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441722 , vital:73910 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-61779-249-6_11
- Description: The development of entomological methods for estimating the time of death has been rapid in the last decade, and new methods are on the horizon. These developments are reviewed with specific reference to experimental design, established and new techniques, and mathematical modelling for forensic retrodiction. The techniques include the use of electron microscopy, magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography, cuticular hydrocarbon profiles, and real-time PCR to estimate the age of immature insects found on corpses, based on their stage of development. Near-infrared spectrograph and pteridine fluorescence techniques can be applied to this task on adult insects. The use of ecological succession in the carrion insect community is also introduced briefly. Finally, the creation and uses of standard techniques in forensic entomology is discussed. We recommend that two steps in this standardisation process are that physiological and ecological studies should be reported in physiological time wherever this is appropriate, and that the type of post-mortem interval being estimated should be stipulated more explicitly than is currently common.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
A Game Theoretic Framework for Cooperative Benefits in South Africa’s land redistribution process: a case of Northern Kwa-Zulu Natal Sugarcane Farmland Transfers (No. 308-2016-5118)
- Mbatha, Cyril N, Antrobus, Geoffrey G
- Authors: Mbatha, Cyril N , Antrobus, Geoffrey G
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142958 , vital:38180 , https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/96156/
- Description: A good indicator of successful farm redistribution cases has to be the continuation of viable productivity rates in their post transfer periods. Continued productivity benefits all the stakeholders that are involved in the process. Unfortunately negative productivity levels have been reported in numerous South African land redistribution transfers in recent years. A game theoretic perspective is adopted to argue that cooperation among key stakeholders, which could be enforced through long term contracts between a land buyer, sellers and new owners, would lead to higher productivity levels and other benefits. Additional benefits would, for example, include market related prices paid by a buyer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Mbatha, Cyril N , Antrobus, Geoffrey G
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142958 , vital:38180 , https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/96156/
- Description: A good indicator of successful farm redistribution cases has to be the continuation of viable productivity rates in their post transfer periods. Continued productivity benefits all the stakeholders that are involved in the process. Unfortunately negative productivity levels have been reported in numerous South African land redistribution transfers in recent years. A game theoretic perspective is adopted to argue that cooperation among key stakeholders, which could be enforced through long term contracts between a land buyer, sellers and new owners, would lead to higher productivity levels and other benefits. Additional benefits would, for example, include market related prices paid by a buyer.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
Differing interpretations of reconciliation in South Africa: a discussion of the home for all campaign
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142454 , vital:38081 , DOI:10.1353/trn.2010.0000
- Description: The theme of reconciliation remains an important one in South African politics. The issue of reconciliation was recently highlighted by South African Human Rights Commission chairperson, Jody Kollapen. According to Kollapen, in South Africa we have a problematic narrow interpretation of reconciliation, one that presents reconciliation and transformation as being in opposition to one another. This paper explores some of the debates about reconciliation as a process and then relates these to the Home for All Campaign. This Campaign was aimed at encouraging white South Africans to acknowledge the injustices of the past and to commit themselves to healing divisions and reducing inequalities in contemporary South Africa. It conceived of reconciliation as a process in which the onus is on white South Africans to take the initiative in reconciling with black South Africans. The Campaign received much publicity and provoked debate but never managed to gain the support of a significant number of white South Africans. In this paper, I explore the reasons for the Campaign's failure to meet all of its objectives, relating this to contemporary South African discourse on reconciliation. I argue that the Campaign's interpretation of reconciliation was valuable and necessary and that it remains imperative in South Africa that white South Africans critically reflect upon past and present privileges and take the initiative in processes of inter-racial reconciliation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Matthews, Sally
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142454 , vital:38081 , DOI:10.1353/trn.2010.0000
- Description: The theme of reconciliation remains an important one in South African politics. The issue of reconciliation was recently highlighted by South African Human Rights Commission chairperson, Jody Kollapen. According to Kollapen, in South Africa we have a problematic narrow interpretation of reconciliation, one that presents reconciliation and transformation as being in opposition to one another. This paper explores some of the debates about reconciliation as a process and then relates these to the Home for All Campaign. This Campaign was aimed at encouraging white South Africans to acknowledge the injustices of the past and to commit themselves to healing divisions and reducing inequalities in contemporary South Africa. It conceived of reconciliation as a process in which the onus is on white South Africans to take the initiative in reconciling with black South Africans. The Campaign received much publicity and provoked debate but never managed to gain the support of a significant number of white South Africans. In this paper, I explore the reasons for the Campaign's failure to meet all of its objectives, relating this to contemporary South African discourse on reconciliation. I argue that the Campaign's interpretation of reconciliation was valuable and necessary and that it remains imperative in South Africa that white South Africans critically reflect upon past and present privileges and take the initiative in processes of inter-racial reconciliation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010