List of Titles

Quick View

Selecting medicinal plants for cultivation at Nqabara on the Eastern Cape Wild Coast, South Africa

- Keirungi, J, Fabricius, Christo

Authors: Keirungi, J , Fabricius, Christo
Date: 2005
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6637 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006862
Description: [From introduction:] The intensive harvesting of medicinal plants for commercial trade in South Africa poses a threat to many species. Cultivation has therefore been considered as an alternative to collection in the wild. This paper aims to assess the feasibility of cultivating medicinal plants in the Nqabara Administrative Area on South Africa's Wild Coast. A combination of participatory and formal research methods was used to collect data on the importance of medicinal plants, collection localities, market prices, the time spent collecting plants and their ease of cultivation. The values attached to medicinal plants were mainly dependent on their market prices. Four of the five Nqabara traditional healers interviewed cultivated these plants in their home gardens, but many medicinal products were obtained in indigenous forests from the bark of large trees, which were unsuitable for cultivation. Collectors said that the proximity of forests to their homesteads and the richness of forests in medicinal plants influenced their selection of harvesting localities. There was no correlation between time spent collecting species and their market prices. These prices were, however, positively correlated with the species' perceived healing properties. Users acknowledged that harvesting had an adverse effect on large trees, are eager to cultivate them and are taking action to conserve indigenous forests. Community-based enterprises should focus on species that are easy to cultivate and have a high demand, such as Stangeria eriopus, Acalypha glabrata and Behnia reticulata but not Araujia sericifera, which is exotic and abundant. The main barriers to commercial cultivation are availability of suitable land, water, lack of start-up capital, and access to markets and to seeds. Cultivation of medicinal plants could contribute to the economic empowerment of women in rural areas.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2005

Quick View

Shifting the priority from giving voice to listening: journalism new

- Garman, Anthea, Malila, Vanessa

Authors: Garman, Anthea , Malila, Vanessa
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: vital:38355 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC175773
Description: If, as the critics have argued, the South African media prioritise the voices of elite, middleclass South Africans, then the majority of South Africans are certainly invisible in the mainstream media. Kate Lacey argues that "listening is at the heart of what it means to be in the world, to be active, to be political" (2013: 163), and as such more than just providing a 'voice' for citizens, the media needs to be engaged in active listening to allow audiences to feel 'heard'. Servaes and Malikhao argue that people are 'voiceless' not because they have nothing to say, but because "nobody cares to listen to them" (2005: 91).
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2015

Quick View

Subjective well-being in Africa

- Botha, Ferdi, Snowball, Jeanette D

Authors: Botha, Ferdi , Snowball, Jeanette D
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: article , text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61084 , vital:27946
Description: Research on quality of life and subjective well-being (SWB) has witnessed a remarkable growth over the past four decades or so. Since Easterlin’s (1974) seminal contribution on the relationship between happiness and income, thousands of studies have followed that examine the intricacies of subjective well-being (for reviews, see Frey and Stutzer, 2002; Dolan et al., 2008; MacKerron, 2012). These studies have uncovered some very important aspects of individual well-being and have pointed to the fact that money or income is not always (as is often assumed) the most important determinant of SWB.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2015

Quick View

Swansea & Brecon Guild : prelude, the Bevan family, and the first and anniversary peals

- Lewis, Colin A

Authors: Lewis, Colin A
Date: 2013
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6193 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013420 , http://www.ringingworld.co.uk
Description: [From Conclusion] The Swansea & Brecon Guild owes its foundation largely to the interest of the first Bishop of the Diocese: Edward Bevan, in bells, ringers and ringing. The first peal for the Guild was rung at Talgarth by members of that tower, conducted by Louis Griffiths. The anniversary peal was also rung at Talgarth and consisted of the methods and variations that were probably rung in the original peal. , Colin Lewis was Professor of Geography at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa from 1989 until his retirement at the end of 2007. In 1990, with the strong support of the incumbent Vice-Chancellor, Dr Derek Henderson, he instigated the Certificate in Change Ringing (Church Bell Ringing) in the Rhodes University Department of Music and Musicology - the first such course to be offered in Africa. Since that date he has lectured in the basic theory, and taught the practice of change ringing. He is the Ringing Master of the Cathedral of St Michael and St George, Grahamstown, South Africa.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2013

Quick View

Teenage pregnancy

- Macleod, Catriona I

Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
Date: 2013
Language: English
Type: Text
Identifier: vital:6301 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015906
Description: In a book on preventing early pregnancy and poor reproductive outcomes in developing countries, the World Health Organisation (2011) declares that ‘adolescent pregnancy’ contributes to maternal, perinatal and infant mortality, and to a vicious cycle of poverty and ill-health. This statement reflects the common public assumption that ‘teenage pregnancy’ represents an individual, social, health, educational and financial risk that requires remediation. This kind of public perception is spurred by media coverage in which young girls with large protruding stomachs are etched in profile and stories of calamity are told (e.g. Time (21 June 2005) magazine). And yet the very notion of 'teenage pregnancy' is a relatively recent one. Depending on the country one talks about, it has been around since between the 1960s and 1980s. In the United States, for example, the rise of ‘teenage pregnancy’ as a social problem was associated with a shift in gendered power relations. Prior to the late 1960s the morally loaded concepts of 'unwed mother' and 'illegitimate child' were used to describe young women who conceived. For the most part, young pregnant women were excluded from society, with the accompanying shame around the lack of proper conjugal arrangements. The use of the term 'teenage pregnancy' removed the implied moral judgment and replaced it with seeming scientific neutrality. Young pregnant women now became publicly visible and thus the object of scientific scrutiny (Arney & Bergen, 1984).
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2013

Quick View

Temperature dependence of optically stimulated luminescence of α-Al2O3: C, Mg

- Kalita, Jitumani M, Chithambo, Makaiko L

Authors: Kalita, Jitumani M , Chithambo, Makaiko L
Date: 2017
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115708 , vital:34217 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.radmeas.2017.08.009
Description: Thermal assistance and thermal quenching are two independently acting thermodynamic phenomena that simultaneously affect the stimulation of luminescence. We have studied thermal assistance to luminescence optically stimulated from α-Al2O3:C,Mg. Since thermal assistance causes only a minor change in the luminescence intensity, measurements were made after the sample had been pre-exposed to stimulating light to reduce its intensity significantly, that is, in the slow component of its decay curve. The luminescence intensity was monitored as a function of measurement temperature between 30 and 130 °C. The intensity goes through a peak at 60 °C due to competing effects of thermal assistance and thermal quenching. The initial increase of intensity is attributed to dominant thermal assistance whereas the subsequent decrease of intensity is ascribed to dominant thermal quenching. The activation energy for thermal assistance was calculated for the main electron trap of an un-annealed sample as 0.324 ± 0.020 eV and in a sample annealed at 900 °C as 0.416 ± 0.028 eV. Implications of such differences in the value of the activation energy for thermal assistance are considered.
Full Text: false
Date Issued: 2017

Quick View

The crystal and molecular structure of the bis(4-N, N1-dimethylaminopyridine) solvate of disalicylicacidatobis(nitrotodioxouranium)(VI)

- Nassimbeni, L R, Rodgers, Allen L, Haigh, John M

Authors: Nassimbeni, L R , Rodgers, Allen L , Haigh, John M
Date: 1976
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6415 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006526
Description: The structure of the title compound [(C7H4NO8U)(C7H11N2)]2 has been determined by Patterson and Fourier methods from single crystal X-ray diffraction data collected on a four-circle diffractometer. Full-matrix least-squares refinement yielded a final conventional R of 0.041 for 2189 reflections. The complex crystallizes in the space group P with a = 11.004(5), b = 9.981(5), c = 9.928(5) Å, α = 119.6(3), β = 107.7(3), γ = 81.9(3)°, Dm = 2.17, Dc = 2.173g cm−3. The structure is dimeric. The uranium atoms are eight-coordinate and are bridged via centrosymmetrically related carboxylic oxygen atoms. The nitrate group is bidentate and the average U---O (ligand) distance is 2.463 Å. Hydrogen bonding of the type N---HO links two dimethyl-aminopyridine molecules to the dimer.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 1976

Quick View

The diet of Cape clawless otters at two sites along the Bloukrans River, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

- Parker, Daniel M, Burchell, R K, Bernard, Ric T F

Authors: Parker, Daniel M , Burchell, R K , Bernard, Ric T F
Date: 2005
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6959 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012004
Description: The diet of Cape clawless otters was assessed at two sites along the Bloukrans River using faecal analysis. Spraints (n = 78) were collected during 2000 and 2001 and analysed using the relative frequency of occurrence and the reconstituted wet weight methods. Both methods found crab (Potamonautes perlatus) to be the most important component (>50%) of the diet. Frog, Xenopus and Rana spp., (11–42%) was the second most important component while fish (Micropteris salmoides) was relatively unimportant (<14%). Although the diet of Cape clawless otters in the Eastern Cape Province was similar to that reported elsewhere, the fact that they were preying on an alien invasive fish and not the indigenous endemic Sandelia bainsii is significant. The validity of faecal analysis methods is also discussed.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2005

Quick View

The effects of buffer molarity, agitation rate and mesh size on verapamil release from modified release mini-tablets using USP Apparatus 3

- Khamanga, Sandile M, Walker, Roderick B

Authors: Khamanga, Sandile M , Walker, Roderick B
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6386 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006307
Description: The effects of agitation rate, buffer molarity,and mesh size on the dissolution rate of verapamil hydrochloride from sustained release matrix tablets were studied using USP Apparatus 3. Eudragit® and Carbopol® were used as rate-retarding polymers in tablets prepared by wet granulation.The study was conducted to determine whether the drugs exhibit similar release characteristics when tested under the same dissolution conditions. It was found that the dissolution rate of verapamil hydrochloride was affected by the variables assessed in these studies.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2007

Quick View

The FAWU Research Unit

- Food and Allied Workers' Union

Authors: Food and Allied Workers' Union
Subjects: Uncatalogued
Language: English
Type: text , pamphlet
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/106408 , vital:32649
Description: The FAWU research unit has been operating in the Head Office since 1998. It has established a resource centre and has two people working in it at this time - Thandi Yoli and Viva Mtai. The unit was jointly conceived in 1996/97 by FAWU and the Labour Research Service (LRS). The relationship between the two organisations continues presently, and will last until the research unit is properly established and resourced within FAWU's head office. The LRS successfully applied for funding for the project in 1996/97 from the FNV-Holland. This money goes to paying the salaries and overhead costs incurred by the LRS for providing a senior researcher (Reza Daniels) to supervise and establish the research unit in FAWU. It is a three-year project and we are currently in the third year of the project. We are, however, going to apply for an extension of the project (to the FNV-Holland) so that it is completed by the end of the year 2000. The original aim of the project in 1996 was to assist FAWU to increase its bargaining capacity by developing a research unit that was targeted to producing sectoral reports that could assist the bargaining department. It was felt that FAWU lacked the research capacity to fully support its bargaining structures because of several factors.
Full Text:

Quick View

The general election in Lesotho, May 2002: adapting to MMP

- Fox, Roddy C, Southall, Roger J

Authors: Fox, Roddy C , Southall, Roger J
Date: 2004
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6680 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006673
Description: Voters in the small southern African kingdom of Lesotho went to the polls on 25 May 2002, in the third general election since the country returned to democracy following a long period of civilian dictatorship (1970–1986) and military rule (1986–1993). Voting in all Lesotho’s general elections has usually gone smoothly, yet in every case prior to 2002 the results have been challenged, with varying severity, by the losing parties (Weisfelder, 1999). This occurred most notably in 1970, when the ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) lost the election but overrode the result, and subsequently in 1998, when the BNP—then in opposition—was at the core of an alliance of electoral losers; in the months that followed, and with the quiet support of the security forces, the capital was so paralysed that the government called for external assistance to restore order. The result was military intervention by South Africa and Botswana (who acted on behalf of the Southern African Development Community, SADC), the restoration of power to the Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD), and an extended period when, backed by South African muscle, long overdue reforms of the military and police were implemented. These reforms were matched by negotiations between the parties about adopting a new electoral system. The outcome moved Lesotho away from the first-past-the-post system inherited from Britain at independence (which in 1993 and 1998 had resulted in highly imbalanced results favouring the winning party) towards a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system. Lesotho became the first country in Africa to adopt MMP at a time when discussion of electoral system change was becoming widespread throughout the continent. The issue in Lesotho in 2002 was not merely whether MMP would provide greater electoral legitimacy and political stability; subsequent events have provided a resounding ‘Yes’ (Elklit, 2002 and Southall, 2003). But there were questions about the practicality of the new system and whether voters would understand it. Was it possible to explain a new voting system to an electorate in one of Africa’s poorest countries? The main focus of this Note is to demonstrate that voters can adapt to electoral system change. Thus, it throws doubt on arguments that electoral reforms in Africa should be avoided due to a lack of sophistication among poor and largely uneducated voters. Electors in Lesotho appeared to have no great difficulty in understanding the broad principles of the new electoral system, even if the detailed mechanics of ‘mixed’ voting systems may have been beyond them.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2004

Quick View

The human skin-blanching assay for in vitro topical corticosteroid assessment. I. Reproducibility of the assay

- Haigh, John M, Meyer, Eric, Smith, Eric W, Kanfer, Isadore

Authors: Haigh, John M , Meyer, Eric , Smith, Eric W , Kanfer, Isadore
Date: 1997
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6381 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006299
Description: The human skin blanching (vasoconstriction) assay for the assessment of topical corticosteroids has been in use for over 30 years, the intensity of the drug-induced blanching being assessed subjectively by eye. Both arms of several male and female volunteers are used for product application and more than one observer is used to estimate the degree of induced blanching. There are, therefore, numerous variables which are inherent in the assay procedure. This investigation consisted of three identical trials performed at 8-week intervals, utilising the same 18 volunteers and the same three observers in an attempt to address the question of reproducibility of the assay. From the results obtained it is clear that the assay methodology is capable of consistently distinguishing, on a rank order basis, between preparations which show similar blanching (chemically-equivalent formulations). The similarity of the results for the three individual trials gives considerable confidence to results produced using this methodology. An experiment designed to test the reproducibility of the blanching scores showed that the observers are capable of producing identical results even though visual observation is highly subjective.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 1997

Quick View

The impact of illustrated side effect information on understanding and sustained retention of antiretroviral side effect knowledge:

- Browne, Sara H, Barford, Kirsty-Lee, Ramela, Thato, Dowse, Roslind

Authors: Browne, Sara H , Barford, Kirsty-Lee , Ramela, Thato , Dowse, Roslind
Date: 2019
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/156341 , vital:39980 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2018.05.012
Description: Prompt management of side effects is critical to supporting adherence to antiretroviral (ARV) medication. This study examines the impact of presenting side effect information using simple text combined with pictograms on sustained knowledge of ARV side effects over three months. Previously designed side effect pictograms, combined with simple text, were incorporated into a side effects panel within an ARV information leaflet. In a randomised controlled study, 116 limited literacy HIV patients taking ARVs were randomly allocated to either control (standard care) or intervention groups (standard care plus illustrated information). Side effect knowledge was assessed at baseline, and intervention patients received the illustrated leaflet. Knowledge was re-tested at one and three months. Interpretation of side effect pictograms was evaluated at one month.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2019

Quick View

The impact of illustrated side effect information on understanding and sustained retention of antiretroviral side effect knowledge:

- Scheihing, Konstantin W, Tanner, Jane, Weaver, Matthew, Schöniger, Matthias

Authors: Scheihing, Konstantin W , Tanner, Jane , Weaver, Matthew , Schöniger, Matthias
Date: 2020
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/156389 , vital:39985 , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jup.2020.101043
Description: About 7.5 million South Africans access gratuitous drinking water via communal taps provided by municipalities under a free basic water policy. Supplying running water for free to low-income communities is essential but can result in water wastage due to a potential indifference of non-paying end-consumers. The consequence is a loss of municipal water and financial resources. We outline a new strategy that rewards low-income communities for reducing water wastage. The incentive strategy promotes water conservation and community development and decreases recurring water-related public expenses. The concept is funded by a percentage of municipal cost savings yielded from the respective water conservation.
Full Text:
Date Issued: 2020

Showing items 181 - 200 of 227