Futures studies for the southern African region : ‘from Africa’ not ‘on Africa’
- Fox, Roddy C, Rowntree, Kate M, Kaskinen, J
- Authors: Fox, Roddy C , Rowntree, Kate M , Kaskinen, J
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6668 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006685
- Description: Futures studies is well established in the Nordic region and its history can be readily charted, but in Africa it barely exists in an institutional form and its evolution and impact is little known or understood. The first two sections of our paper briefly examine the history of futures studies, spending most attention on the African experience. We go on to show that the Higher Education landscape in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is very different to that in the Nordic region. Recent futures reports present forecasts and scenarios that show a differentiated Higher Education landscape in the SADC; there are few Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and even the most optimistic forecasts show that the region as a whole will not meet the international enrollment norm of 30% by 2050. The last part of the paper examines our experience of collaboration with Finland and its well developed linkages between state and Universities. One outcome of three years of collaboration from 2007 to 2009 between two SANORD members, the Finland Futures Research Centre (now a part of the University of Turku) and Rhodes University, was a proposal to develop a multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional futures studies program intended to help Africa find its own voice in futures studies. The final part of our presentation reflects on the unsuccessful experiences that we have had to date in finding funding. We conclude by asking whether our experience can be seen as highlighting some of the challenges SANORD may be positioned to overcome if the SADC region’s HEIs are to achieve the Knowledge Village scenario and begin to match their Nordic counterparts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Fox, Roddy C , Rowntree, Kate M , Kaskinen, J
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6668 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006685
- Description: Futures studies is well established in the Nordic region and its history can be readily charted, but in Africa it barely exists in an institutional form and its evolution and impact is little known or understood. The first two sections of our paper briefly examine the history of futures studies, spending most attention on the African experience. We go on to show that the Higher Education landscape in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region is very different to that in the Nordic region. Recent futures reports present forecasts and scenarios that show a differentiated Higher Education landscape in the SADC; there are few Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and even the most optimistic forecasts show that the region as a whole will not meet the international enrollment norm of 30% by 2050. The last part of the paper examines our experience of collaboration with Finland and its well developed linkages between state and Universities. One outcome of three years of collaboration from 2007 to 2009 between two SANORD members, the Finland Futures Research Centre (now a part of the University of Turku) and Rhodes University, was a proposal to develop a multi-disciplinary, inter-institutional futures studies program intended to help Africa find its own voice in futures studies. The final part of our presentation reflects on the unsuccessful experiences that we have had to date in finding funding. We conclude by asking whether our experience can be seen as highlighting some of the challenges SANORD may be positioned to overcome if the SADC region’s HEIs are to achieve the Knowledge Village scenario and begin to match their Nordic counterparts.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
M 87 at metre wavelengths: the LOFAR picture
- Smirnov, Oleg M, De Gasperin, F, Orrú, E, Murgia, M, Merloni, A, Falcke, H, Beck, R, Beswick, R, Bîrzan, L, Bonafede, A, Brüggen, M
- Authors: Smirnov, Oleg M , De Gasperin, F , Orrú, E , Murgia, M , Merloni, A , Falcke, H , Beck, R , Beswick, R , Bîrzan, L , Bonafede, A , Brüggen, M
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: radiation mechanisms: non-thermal, galaxies: active, galaxies: individual: M 87, galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo, galaxies: jets, radio continuum: galaxies
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6821 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004434
- Description: Context.M 87 is a giant elliptical galaxy located in the centre of the Virgo cluster, which harbours a supermassive black hole of mass 6.4 × 109 M⊙, whose activity is responsible for the extended (80 kpc) radio lobes that surround the galaxy. The energy generated by matter falling onto the central black hole is ejected and transferred to the intra-cluster medium via a relativistic jet and morphologically complex systems of buoyant bubbles, which rise towards the edges of the extended halo. Aims. To place constraints on past activity cycles of the active nucleus, images of M 87 were produced at low radio frequencies never explored before at these high spatial resolution and dynamic range. To disentangle different synchrotron models and place constraints on source magnetic field, age and energetics, we also performed a detailed spectral analysis of M 87 extended radio-halo. Methods. We present the first observations made with the new Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) of M 87 at frequencies down to 20 MHz. Three observations were conducted, at 15−30 MHz, 30−77 MHz and 116−162 MHz. We used these observations together with archival data to produce a low-frequency spectral index map and to perform a spectral analysis in the wide frequency range 30 MHz–10 GHz. Results. We do not find any sign of new extended emissions; on the contrary the source appears well confined by the high pressure of the intra-cluster medium. A continuous injection of relativistic electrons is the model that best fits our data, and provides a scenario in which the lobes are still supplied by fresh relativistic particles from the active galactic nuclei. We suggest that the discrepancy between the low-frequency radio-spectral slope in the core and in the halo implies a strong adiabatic expansion of the plasma as soon as it leaves the core area. The extended halo has an equipartition magnetic field strength of ≃10 μG, which increases to ≃13 μG in the zones where the particle flows are more active. The continuous injection model for synchrotron ageing provides an age for the halo of ≃40 Myr, which in turn provides a jet kinetic power of 6−10 × 1044 erg s-1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Smirnov, Oleg M , De Gasperin, F , Orrú, E , Murgia, M , Merloni, A , Falcke, H , Beck, R , Beswick, R , Bîrzan, L , Bonafede, A , Brüggen, M
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: radiation mechanisms: non-thermal, galaxies: active, galaxies: individual: M 87, galaxies: clusters: individual: Virgo, galaxies: jets, radio continuum: galaxies
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6821 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004434
- Description: Context.M 87 is a giant elliptical galaxy located in the centre of the Virgo cluster, which harbours a supermassive black hole of mass 6.4 × 109 M⊙, whose activity is responsible for the extended (80 kpc) radio lobes that surround the galaxy. The energy generated by matter falling onto the central black hole is ejected and transferred to the intra-cluster medium via a relativistic jet and morphologically complex systems of buoyant bubbles, which rise towards the edges of the extended halo. Aims. To place constraints on past activity cycles of the active nucleus, images of M 87 were produced at low radio frequencies never explored before at these high spatial resolution and dynamic range. To disentangle different synchrotron models and place constraints on source magnetic field, age and energetics, we also performed a detailed spectral analysis of M 87 extended radio-halo. Methods. We present the first observations made with the new Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) of M 87 at frequencies down to 20 MHz. Three observations were conducted, at 15−30 MHz, 30−77 MHz and 116−162 MHz. We used these observations together with archival data to produce a low-frequency spectral index map and to perform a spectral analysis in the wide frequency range 30 MHz–10 GHz. Results. We do not find any sign of new extended emissions; on the contrary the source appears well confined by the high pressure of the intra-cluster medium. A continuous injection of relativistic electrons is the model that best fits our data, and provides a scenario in which the lobes are still supplied by fresh relativistic particles from the active galactic nuclei. We suggest that the discrepancy between the low-frequency radio-spectral slope in the core and in the halo implies a strong adiabatic expansion of the plasma as soon as it leaves the core area. The extended halo has an equipartition magnetic field strength of ≃10 μG, which increases to ≃13 μG in the zones where the particle flows are more active. The continuous injection model for synchrotron ageing provides an age for the halo of ≃40 Myr, which in turn provides a jet kinetic power of 6−10 × 1044 erg s-1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Technauriture: Multimedia Research and Documentation of African Oral Performance
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175223 , vital:42554 , ISBN 9783643901309
- Description: This paper seeks to assess the contribution of technology to the preservation and popularizing of oral performance in Southern Africa. An example will be provided which looks at the oral poetry, izibongo, produced by Xhosa oral poet Bongani Sitole (both in book and technological form). It will trace this poetry from the moment it was orally produced, through to the technologising and publication of this poetry in book form and on a website. A number of websites will also be analysed. The initial part of the paper provides a contextual analysis of selected poetry. This genre will also be compared (in terms of technological influence) with more contemporary Southern African performers such as the story-teller, Gcina Mhlophe as well as Lebo Mashile and Botsotso, spoken word artists and the oral poet Zolani Mkiva. The latter part of the article concentrates on issues related to technology and its relationship to the oral and written word.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Kaschula, Russell H
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , book
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/175223 , vital:42554 , ISBN 9783643901309
- Description: This paper seeks to assess the contribution of technology to the preservation and popularizing of oral performance in Southern Africa. An example will be provided which looks at the oral poetry, izibongo, produced by Xhosa oral poet Bongani Sitole (both in book and technological form). It will trace this poetry from the moment it was orally produced, through to the technologising and publication of this poetry in book form and on a website. A number of websites will also be analysed. The initial part of the paper provides a contextual analysis of selected poetry. This genre will also be compared (in terms of technological influence) with more contemporary Southern African performers such as the story-teller, Gcina Mhlophe as well as Lebo Mashile and Botsotso, spoken word artists and the oral poet Zolani Mkiva. The latter part of the article concentrates on issues related to technology and its relationship to the oral and written word.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
The end of the road for the Roman rule of risk in sale?
- Authors: Glover, Graham B
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70550 , vital:29674 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC127052
- Description: The venerable Roman rule of risk in the law of sale – “perfecta emptione periculum est emptoris” – has always been a rule that has courted controversy, be it in the South African legal system or others where it has operated. In an excellent piece of analytical historical scholarship titled “Perfecta emptione periculum est emptoris: Why all the fuss?” Van den Bergh argued in 2008 that, despite all the ink that has been spent on critiquing the rule in the thousands of years that have passed since its genesis, the rule has endured, and there are indeed reasons (partly practical and partly policy-related) that have justified its resilience. In this article I do not wish to dispute her carefully researched historiographical conclusions. Rather, I wish to suggest that circumstances may now have changed. The agent of this change is, not unexpectedly, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (the act). The act, simply stated, changes the rule of risk that applies to consumer sale contracts. The way in which the legislation does so will be discussed fully in part 4 of the article below. But what does this legislative shift mean for the common-law rule, bearing in mind that not all contracts are contracts that fall under the act? In the remainder of the article I shall discuss whether the time has come for the common-law rule to take its bow, particularly in the light of the criticism it has always faced, the clear and consistent statements of policy that emerge from the act and comparative modern sources about where risk should fall, and the interests of fairness and uniformity of treatment of the parties to a sale contract.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Glover, Graham B
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70550 , vital:29674 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC127052
- Description: The venerable Roman rule of risk in the law of sale – “perfecta emptione periculum est emptoris” – has always been a rule that has courted controversy, be it in the South African legal system or others where it has operated. In an excellent piece of analytical historical scholarship titled “Perfecta emptione periculum est emptoris: Why all the fuss?” Van den Bergh argued in 2008 that, despite all the ink that has been spent on critiquing the rule in the thousands of years that have passed since its genesis, the rule has endured, and there are indeed reasons (partly practical and partly policy-related) that have justified its resilience. In this article I do not wish to dispute her carefully researched historiographical conclusions. Rather, I wish to suggest that circumstances may now have changed. The agent of this change is, not unexpectedly, the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (the act). The act, simply stated, changes the rule of risk that applies to consumer sale contracts. The way in which the legislation does so will be discussed fully in part 4 of the article below. But what does this legislative shift mean for the common-law rule, bearing in mind that not all contracts are contracts that fall under the act? In the remainder of the article I shall discuss whether the time has come for the common-law rule to take its bow, particularly in the light of the criticism it has always faced, the clear and consistent statements of policy that emerge from the act and comparative modern sources about where risk should fall, and the interests of fairness and uniformity of treatment of the parties to a sale contract.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2012
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