Fishes of the deep demersal habitat at Ngazidja (Grand Comoro) Island, Western Indian Ocean
- Authors: Heemstra, P C , Hissmann, K , Fricke, H
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7128 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010638
- Description: Underwater observations of the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae Smith, 1939, from a research submersible provided opportunities to study the deep demersal fish fauna at the Comoro Islands. The demersal habitat in depths of 150–400 m at the volcanic island of Ngazidja is low in fish diversity and biomass, compared with the shallow-water coral reef habitat of Ngazidja or the deep demersal habitats of other localities in the Indo-Pacific region. The resident deep demersal fish fauna at Ngazidja is dominated by the coelacanth, an ancient predator that is specially adapted for this low-energy environment. Other large fish predators are scarce in this environment, because of the heavy fishing pressure from local fishermen. Eighty-nine fish taxa (including 65 recognizable species) were recorded from videotapes, photographs, visual observations, fishermen’s catches and ancillary attempts to sample the fish fauna with baited fish traps, gill nets, and hook and line. Although no coelacanth feeding events were seen, seven fish species are known from coelacanth stomach contents, and 64 other fish species in this habitat are considered potential prey of this dominant predator.
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Fishes of the deep demersal habitat at Ngazidja (Grand Comoro) Island, Western Indian Ocean
- Authors: Heemstra, P C , Hissmann, K , Fricke, H
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:7158 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011885
- Description: Underwater observations of the coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae Smith, 1939, from a research submersible provided opportunities to study the deep demersal fish fauna at the Comoro Islands. The demersal habitat in depths of 150–400 m at the volcanic island of Ngazidja is low in fish diversity and biomass, compared with the shallow-water coral reef habitat of Ngazidja or the deep demersal habitats of other localities in the Indo-Pacific region. The resident deep demersal fish fauna at Ngazidja is dominated by the coelacanth, an ancient predator that is specially adapted for this low-energy environment. Other large fish predators are scarce in this environment, because of the heavy fishing pressure from local fishermen. Eighty-nine fish taxa (including 65 recognizable species) were recorded from videotapes, photographs, visual observations, fishermen’s catches and ancillary attempts to sample the fish fauna with baited fish traps, gill nets, and hook and line. Although no coelacanth feeding events were seen, seven fish species are known from coelacanth stomach contents, and 64 other fish species in this habitat are considered potential prey of this dominant predator.
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Fuelwood harvesting and selection in Valley Thicket, South Africa
- Authors: Pote, J , Shackleton, Charlie M , Cocks, Michelle L , Lubke, Roy
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6531 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005972
- Description: The Thicket Biome is the second smallest biome in South Africa, and is renowned for its high biodiversity. Yet, less than 5% of the biome is in formal conservation areas. Much of the currently intact thicket outside protected areas is threatened by land transformation to commercial agriculture or heavy use by rural communities. There is limited understanding of the ecological structure and function of thicket communities and their response to these human pressures. This paper reports on a study to characterize the woody communities in Valley Thicket and Thornveld surrounding a rural village. We also examined the demand and selection for specific woody species. There was a marked selection for key species for different uses, including fuelwood, construction timber, and cultural stacks. There was also strong selection for specific size classes of stem, especially those between 16–45 cm circumference. The density, biomass and species richness of woody species was reduced close to the village, and increased with distance away from human settlement. A similar trend was found for the basal area of preferred species, but not for the basal area of all species. The strong selectivity for both species and size class means that the anthropogenic impacts are not uniform within the woody strata, leading to marked changes in community structure and floristics at a local scale.
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Learning (dis)advantage in matriculation language classrooms
- Authors: Prinsloo, Jeanne
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:529 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008479
- Description: During the first decade of democracy in South Africa formal education has been characterised by sweeping policy shifts and consequent curriculum revision. In many instances, curricular revisions are criticised for failing to effect desired or anticipated changes. In this chapter the focus is on the language curriculum and the associated practices, or what I refer to as the literacy practices that have become naturalised over decades and persist in the present. The argument that is presented here contends that to enable effective change, it is essential to understand better what has historically constituted literacy practices and to recognise their social, cultural and economic implications.
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Media in the service of citizens
- Authors: Banda, Fackson
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Conference paper
- Identifier: vital:6321 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008547
- Description: This lecture looks at the role of the media in promoting an enhanced citizenship, locating the debate within the discourse of development and freedom. It identifies threats to what can be characterised as a 'media-citizens compact', such as media over-commercialisation. It concludes that public-service media are cardinal to the enjoyment of citizenship rights and freedoms.
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Methinks he doth protest too much - recovering unjustified payments made under duress and protest
- Authors: Glover, Graham B
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/70744 , vital:29724 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC55014
- Description: The private law doctrine of duress, although mostly discussed in the context of the law of contract in South Africa, is also relevant in the law of unjustified enrichment. Where an unjustified payment or transfer of some kind has been induced by duress, in a situation where there is no contractual relationship between the parties, the aggrieved party will be entitled to reclaim the payment or transfer. The principles of enrichment law will apply in such cases.
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"My novel, Hill of Fools"
- Authors: Peteni, R L , Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:7038 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007376 , http://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC47869
- Description: preprint , R.L. Peteni - 'There is a tendency in human beings to pay no heed to events in small remote areas. They would rather concern themselves only with those events which make headlines, with political upheavals and industrial conflicts centred in large metropolitan regions. Yet there is always drama and human conflict in the humblest rural village. In selecting a pastoral theme and small fictitious villages in an obscure corner of Keiskammahoek as the setting of the novel, I had an ironic intention. Themes illustrated in these obscure villages would, I believed, have more universal application than they would if I had selected a larger centre, identifiable personages and known political trends. I did not want anybody to sit back, complacent, feeling that the spotlight was on Lennox Sebe’s Ciskei alone, or Kaiser Matanzima’s Transkei, or John Vorster’s apartheid South Africa. The spotlight is on the Ciskei, yes, on Transkei, on South Africa, on any other country where public life and personal relationships are bedevilled by tribalism or racialism or any form of sectionalism.
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Politics, latent and overt, in Hill of Fools
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7064 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007430
- Description: [From the text]: R. L. Peteni’s novel Hill of Fools (1976) is a work that benefits greatly when Collingwood’s maxim is observed. The author’s family history and the circumstances surrounding the book’s publication add a dimension of political and social meaning which its surface deliberately occludes. Perhaps more importantly, while the story can readily be enjoyed, the quality of sensibility behind the work is not readily accessed without understanding some of the socio-political background.
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Transforming teachers' conceptions of teaching and learning in a post graduate certificate in higher education and training course: the practice of higher education
- Authors: Quinn, Lynn , Vorster, Jo-Anne E
- Date: 2004
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123465 , vital:35440 , https://doi.org/10.4314/sajhe.v18i1.25449
- Description: The changing context of higher education and the challenges this presents to lecturers has led to the introduction of accredited professional development courses for academics in some institutions. Many lecturers in higher education are finding that teaching the way they were taught and using the traditional lecture format is no longer always appropriate. If graduates are to function effectively in today's world, lecturers need to create teaching and learning contexts which promote their ability for life-long learning. Research shows that in order to achieve this, students need to be actively engaged in the learning process. This may require shifts in the way lecturers perceive their role. A central theme of the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education and Training (PGCHET) course discussed in this article is that of the critically reflective practitioner. From the research conducted it is clear that encouraging lecturers to reflect on their practices, to examine the epistemologies underpinning their disciplines along with what that means for teaching and learning, and then presenting them with a range of theoretical frameworks can lead to their developing or changing their conceptions of teaching. However, for the course developers it is also important to understand the factors that may militate against participants implementing new ideas and developing their practice.
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Waging war : discourses of HIV/AIDS in South African media
- Authors: Connelly, Mark , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6255 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007873
- Description: This paper explores a discourse of war against HIV/AIDS evident in the Daily Dispatch, a South African daily newspaper, from 1985 to 2000, and discusses the implications of this in terms of the way in which HIV/AIDS is constructed. The discursive framework of the war depends, fundamentally, on the personification of HIV/AIDS, in which agency is accorded to the virus, and which allows for its construction as the enemy. The war discourse positions different groups of subjects (the diseased body, the commanders, the experts, the ordinary citizens) in relations of power. The diseased body, which is the point of transmission, the polluter or infector, is cast as the 'Other', as a dark and threatening force. This takes on racialised overtones. The government takes on the role of commander, directing the war through policy and intervention strategies. Opposition to government is couched in a struggle discourse that dove-tails with the overall framework of war. Medical and scientific understandings pre-dominate in the investigative practices and expert commentary on the war, with alternative voices (such as those of people living with HIV/AIDS) being silenced. The ordinary citizen is incited to take on prevention and caring roles with a strong gendered overlay.
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Radiocarbon dates and the Late Quaternary palaeogeography of the Province of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Lewis, Colin A
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6693 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006728
- Description: A total of 193 dates are listed from the Eastern Cape. Middle Stone Age hunter-gatherers existed in the Drakensberg prior to the rigours of cold climatic conditions after ca. 22,000 BP. These uplands were reoccupied under more favourable climatic conditions after ca. 12,600 BP but were apparently abandoned between ca. 6000 BP and 3000 BP. Hunter-gatherer occupation throughout the Holocene is indicated at lower altitudes, with in-migration of pastoralists ca. 1800 BP in the Fish River area, and with Iron Age farmers entering coastal districts and adjacent river valleys from ca. 1400 BP. Sand dunes accumulated in the Holocene adjacent to the Indian Ocean. Flood plain development in the early Holocene was succeeded by incision of rivers in the later Holocene. Flood plain deposition began again in the Southern Drakensberg ca. 1000 BP. Palynological studies evidence marked climatic oscillations around the Late Glacial/Holocene boundary, with apparent stability at high altitude subsequent to 2700 BP.
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South Africa's `Rainbow People', national pride and optimism: a trend study
- Authors: Dickow, H , Moller, Valerie
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:7114 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010747
- Description: Since the first democratic elections of 1994, South Africans are popularly known as the ‘rainbow people'. The paper reports the acceptance of the rainbow as political symbol of unity among the diverse people of South Africa at three times: Immediately after the 1994 elections, two years later in 1996, and five years later in 1999 after the second general elections. The database for the study are responses to items placed with a syndicated national survey conducted countrywide. The public discourse on the rainbow is reviewed through personal interviews with a panel of 25 elites contacted in the run-up to the second general elections. The researchers revisit conclusions based on the earlier results (Møller, Dickow and Harris, 1999). The third round of research finds that the appeal of the rainbow as political symbol has waned but is still inclusive of all groups in society. Projections of national pride have shifted from the rainbow as symbol of unity and reconciliation to other icons of achievement such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme and prowess in sport. Support for the political symbolism of the rainbow is positively associated with happiness, life satisfaction and optimism. Lack of a focus of national pride is associated with pessimism. Results support the conclusion reached earlier that belief in the `rainbow nation' ideal boosts optimism and promotes happiness during South Africa's transition to a stable democracy, thereby preventing alienation among the losers under the new political dispensation. Linkages between acceptance of the rainbow symbol, subjective well-being and optimism are discussed in the light of the socio-political changes which have taken place in South Africa since democracy.
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The evaluation of pharmaceutical pictograms in a low-literate South African population
- Authors: Dowse, Roslind , Ehlers, Martina S
- Date: 2001
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6362 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006058
- Description: An inability to read and understand written medication instructions may be a major contributory factor to non-compliance in certain patient populations, particularly in countries with a high illiteracy rate such as South Africa. Twenty three pictograms from the USP-DI and a corresponding set of 23 locally developed, culturally sensitive pictograms for conveying medication instructions were evaluated in 46 Xhosa respondents who had attended school for a maximum of 7 years. Respondents were tested for their interpretation of all 46 pictograms at the first interview and again 3 weeks later. The correct meaning of each pictogram was explained at the end of the first interview. Preference for either the Local or USP pictograms was determined. At the follow-up interview, 20 of the Local pictograms complied with the ANSI criterion of ≥85% comprehension, compared with 11 of the USP pictograms. Respondents indicated an overwhelming preference for the Local pictograms.
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Women’s Leadership in COSATU: Research Report, March 1999
- Authors: Orr, Liesl
- Date: 1999-03
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , pamphlet
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/112470 , vital:33585
- Description: The aim of this paper is to provide updated figures on women’s representation in leadership structures in COSATU. These figures enable the federation to review progress and to set targets for women’s leadership, as resolved in the 1997 COSATU Congress. The paper provides the most recent statistics (for 1998) on women’s leadership in COSATU at regional and national level. The intention of this report was to focus on collecting the actual figures and is therefore confined to a more quantitative (statistical) reflection on women’s leadership. It will be valuable to embark on further research that examines the qualitative aspects, in other words, women’s experiences of leadership.
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Women Leadership in COSATU
- Authors: NALEDI
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: NALEDI
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151370 , vital:39059
- Description: The aim of this paper is to provide updated figures on women’s representation in leadership structures in COSATU. These figures enable the federation to review progress and to set targets for women’s leadership, as resolved in the 1997 COSATU Congress. The paper provides the most recent statistics (for 1998) on women’s leadership in COSATU at regional and national level. The intention of this report was to focus on collecting the actual figures and is therefore confined to a more quantitative (statistical) reflection on women’s leadership. It will be valuable to embark on further research that examines the qualitative aspects, in other words, women’s experiences of leadership.
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Women Leadership in COSATU
- Authors: NALEDI
- Date: 1999
- Subjects: NALEDI
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151630 , vital:39155
- Description: The aim of this paper is to provide updated figures on women's representation in leadership structures in COSATU. These figures enable the federation to review progress and to set targets for women’s leadership, as resolved in the 1997 COSATU Congress. The paper provides the most recent statistics (for 1998) on women’s leadership in COSATU at regional and national level. The intention of this report was to focus on collecting the actual figures and is therefore confined to a more quantitative (statistical) reflection on women’s leadership. It will be valuable to embark on further research that examines the qualitative aspects, in other words, women’s experiences of leadership.
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The end of apartheid and the organisation of work in manufacturing plants in South Africa's Eastern Cape Province
- Authors: Smith, M R , Wood, G T
- Date: 1998
- Language: English
- Type: text , Article
- Identifier: vital:6319 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011313
- Description: The election of 1994 radically changed the environment within which management chose its labour control policies. Prior to the change of government in 1994 plant practices were shaped by the fact of substantial protection against foreign competition, widespread illiteracy, and a set of laws and policies that offered few protections for individual workers or organised labour. Since the change in government the political and legal environment has substantially changed. In this paper we report on management practices before and after the political changes in South Africa in a set of plants in a part of the country where many of the current difficulties of the South African economy exist in a fairly extreme form.
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Epic into Romance: The Tempest 4.1 and Virgil's Aeneid
- Authors: Wright, Laurence
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/455641 , vital:75445 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/AJA1011582X_95
- Description: At the conclusion of the betrothal masque for Ferdinand and Miranda, during the dance of the nymphs and reapers, Prospero calls out to the performing spirits," Well done, A void. No more." He has forgotten, as he tells us," that foul conspiracyl Of the beast Caliban and his confed-erates! Against my life"(4.1. 139-41). The entire spectacle vanishes into nothingness. Miranda and Ferdinand are taken aback. Miranda says she's never seen her father in such a state before. Prospero pretends that Ferdinand is alarmed, not by Prospero's own state of emotional disarray, but by the collapse of the masque. And he turns to Ferdinand and launches into what must be one of the three or four best-known speeches in Shakespeare: Be cheerful, sir; Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits, and Are melted into air, into thin air, And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, And, like this insub-stantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep.(4.1. 148-158).
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George Webb Hardy's the Black Peril and the social meaning of ‘Black Peril’ in early twentieth-century South Africa
- Authors: Cornwell, Gareth D N
- Date: 1996
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: vital:6116 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004240 , https://doi.org/10.1080/03057079608708504
- Description: preprint , The 'Black Peril' — the threatened rape of white women by black men — was an important factor in the moral economy underpinning colonial debate about the 'Native Question' in early twentieth-century South Africa. This essay gives sympathetic consideration to studies which have attempted to link the recurrence of Black Peril panics with specific disturbances in the economy or body politic, before offering symptomatic readings of two pieces of writing by George Webb Hardy, the article 'The Black Peril' (1904) and the novel The Black Peril (1912). These readings suggest that the rape threat was essentially a rationalization of white men's fear of sexual competition from black men. The imagery of purity and contagion, in terms of which the 'endogamous imperative' is typically represented in such texts, suggests that the idea of caste may usefully be invoked in attempts to explain the seemingly irrational public hysteria surrounding the Black Peril phenomenon.
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Nicknames as sex-role stereotypes
- Authors: De Klerk, Vivian A , Bosch, Agnes Barbara
- Date: 1996
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6134 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011586
- Description: Nicknames are powerful indicators of attitudes towards gender categories and because of their transient and optional nature, it has been argued that they are more likely to show a closer relationship to ongoing trends in the culture and society than other more fixed parts of the language E. B. Phillips (1990) ["Nicknames and Sex Role Stereotypes," Sex Roles, Vol. 23, pp. 281-289]. This study reports on a survey of nickname usage among a group of South African adolescents from mixed socioeconomic backgrounds (approximately 25% other than white) in an attempt to explicate gender-linked trends in frequency of occurrence, usage and attitudes to such special names. It reveals that conventions regarding nickname coinage and usage are intimately connected to the gender of bearers and users, and that more males have nicknames and coin them than females; it also shows significant sex-linked differences in the linguistic sources and users of nicknames, and reveals a greater tendency for female nicknames to function as indicators of affection rather than for humorous or critical effect. It could be argued that these trends could be linked to the nurturing and nurtured role of females in society, and to the differences in social power generally between males and females.
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