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Will the real custodian of natural resource management please stand up

- Shackleton, Charlie M

Authors: Shackleton, Charlie M
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6657 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007076
Description: South Africa is the custodian of an immense wealth of biodiversity resources, and is estimated to be the third most biodiverse country in the world. At the ecosystem level this biodiversity supports the production of goods and services used by us all; water, air, soil fertility, wood, food, etc. At a more local level the harvesting of numerous natural resources provides consumptive products for millions of poor South Africans, as well as income for equally significant numbers.Consumption of and trade in these resources is the very mainstay of their well-being, and crucial in preventing deeper poverty levels. For example, despite massive improvements in the provision of electricity, most rural and a significant proportion of urban South Africans continue to use fuelwood as a key energy source for cooking (e.g. 65% of electrified households in the urban areas of Makana municipality, and 92% of households in the rural areas of Bushbuckridge); approximately 75% of the population use medicinal plants for medicinal or cultural reasons; and millions of urban and rural households make use of wild edible herbs. With such high demand for these resources, it is not unsurprising that there are large and established trade networks spanning local, regional, national and, for some resources (e.g. specific medicinal plants, mopane worms), international boundaries. The total value of this trade is unknown, and unrecorded in local or national economic or GDP statistics. It certainly equates to billions of rands per year. The direct-use and trade values are substantial and provide a cost saving to the State. Where biodiversity resources are overused or exhausted, people have to purchase alternatives, which reduces their scarce cash resources, thereby increasing their likely dependency on State welfare grants.
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Date Issued: 2009

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A broad host range reporter plasmid for the analysis of divergent promoter regions

- Jiwaji, Meesbah, Matcher, Gwynneth F, Dorrington, Rosemary A

Authors: Jiwaji, Meesbah , Matcher, Gwynneth F , Dorrington, Rosemary A
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6476 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006164 , http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?pid=S0038-23532008000400013&script=sci_arttext
Description: Although many vectors exist for Escherichia coli and closely related species, there are few broad host range vectors that can be conjugated into a large variety of Gram-negative bacteria. We have constructed a broad host range vector, pMJ445, that facilitates the analysis of divergent promoters in Gram-negative bacteria. The vector was validated using two intergenic regions derived from gene clusters involved in hydantoin hydrolysis, from the environmental isolates Pseudomonas putida and Agrobacterium tumefaciens. The DNA sequences analysed were capable of activating expression of the reporter enzymes, β-glucuronidase and β-galactosidase, present on pMJ445, indicating the presence of divergent promoters in the sequences selected. In addition, we demonstrated that pMJ445 can be applied to gene regulation studies.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Designing a framework for animal identification

- Krijer, Hans, Foster, Gregory G, Bangay, Shaun D

Authors: Krijer, Hans , Foster, Gregory G , Bangay, Shaun D
Date: 2008
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432726 , vital:72895 , https://www.cs.ru.ac.za/research/g99k3906/hans.pdf
Description: The conventional methods of animal identification can be replaced with a semi-automatic image analysis tool, which distinguishes individuals based on their unique markings. A flexible framework for the analysis must encompass a combination of relevant features with interchangeable animal-specific modules. Developing a Java-ImageJ plug-in alleviates routine functionality, but enforces some degree of conformity. Zebra photographs are used as the initial data under consideration. De-interlacing, adaptive thresholding, smoothing and sharpening are identified as beneficial pre-processing steps. Binarisation and sequential thinning are discussed as essential processing stages. Pattern extraction and matching is based on vectors relative to a manually defined region of interest. Provision for enhancing the system to allow fully automatic processing must be made.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Dungamanzi/stirring waters: Tsonga and Shangaan art from southern Africa, Nessa Leibhammer (Ed.): book reviews

- Simbao, Ruth K

Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147358 , vital:38629 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC31053
Description: A woman known as Nkoma We Lwandle (Cow of the Ocean) and a man, Dunga Manzi (Stirring Waters), are remembered as the first Tsonga diviners. Trained by Nzunzu - a powerful water serpent - they were pulled into a lake for a few months and later emerged as influential healers. Such stories (like the one relayed by Dederen of a young girl, Nsatimuni, who also temporarily disappeared into a lake) represent 'death' and 'rebirth', reflecting Arnold van Gennep's (1909) well-known schema of rites de passage: séparation, marge, and agrégation. Separated from daily life, these characters sink into another world where people breathe in water like a foetus in the liquid depths of a womb, evoking impending new birth (p. 171).
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Date Issued: 2008

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Herbivory-induced reduction in photosynthetic productivity of water hyacinth, Eichhornia crassipes (Martius) Solms-Laubach (Pontederiaceae), is not directly related to reduction in photosynthetic leaf areas

- Ripley, Bradford S, deWet, L, Hill, Martin P

Authors: Ripley, Bradford S , deWet, L , Hill, Martin P
Date: 2008
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/451425 , vital:75048 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC32746
Description: The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether the reduced photosynthetic productivity of water hyacinth plants subject to N. eichhorniae adult feeding was simply the result of reduced leaf area, or if more complex mechanisms were involved.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Inauguration of Steve Bantu Biko Building

- Badat, Saleem

Authors: Badat, Saleem
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: text
Identifier: vital:7583 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006572
Description: From introduction: Institutional loyalty, especially in the case of a university, does not mean being uncritical and denying historical truths. The inauguration of the Stephen Bantu Biko Building is, therefore, a good occasion for “a critical appreciation of where we” as Rhodes University “come from”. Credit is due to the pioneers who 104 years ago created Rhodes; to those who, under difficult and financially trying conditions, steered its subsequent development; to those who oversaw its maturation from a University College under the auspices of the University of South Africa to a fully-fledged University in 1951, and to the subsequent generations that energetically toiled to produce the Rhodes University of today’s enviable reputation.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Not an astute political thinker or visionary

- Maylam, Paul

Authors: Maylam, Paul
Date: 2008
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/449993 , vital:74874 , https://www.scielo.org.za/pdf/hist/v53n1/19.pdf
Description: Colin Eglin served as member of parliament for thirty-three years (1958-1961, 1974- 2004), under seven prime ministers or presidents (from Strijdom to Mbeki), and under five different constitutions (the Union Constitution, the Republican, the Tricameral, the 1994 Interim, and the final 1996 Constitution). Moreover during his parliamentary career he belonged to no less than six political parties (the United Party, the Progressive Party, the Progressive Reform Party, the Progressive Federal Party, the Democratic Party, and the Democratic Alliance). This is not to suggest at all that Eglin was one of those party-hopping opportunists that have come to bedevil South African politics in recent years. Far from it – Eglin only once switched parties, being one of the original “Prog” MPs who left the decaying, ever more conservative United Party in 1959 and became one of the founding MPs of the Progressive Party. Thereafter all his changing party affiliations would result from mergers and realignments in parliamentary opposition politics – realignments that always kept the “Progs” at the core.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Sterols and sterolins in Hypoxis hemerocallidea (African potato)

- Nair, V D P, Kanfer, Isadore

Authors: Nair, V D P , Kanfer, Isadore
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6417 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006535
Description: Commercially available health supplements and herbal remedies containing sterols and sterolins, either from African potato (Hypoxis hemerocallidea) alone, or whether enriched with sterols and sterolins, are claimed to be efficacious in the treatment of a variety of ailments. Sterols and sterolins in African potato are purported to be the relevant constituents that are required for the therapeutic claims of such products. A patent describing the extraction of sterolins from African potato plant material has claimed that approximately 9 mg sterolins can be isolated from 100 g of an enriched aqueous African potato extract. Our analysis of African potato plant material and its sterol and sterolin content, when similarly prepared, shows that the measureable content of sterols and sterolins in African potato is far less than the amounts of these compounds that have been claimed to be necessary for therapeutic benefit. We conclude that therapeutic claims relating to sterol and sterolin content in African potato are unsubstantiated, in view of the extremely low content of such compounds that we have isolated from our plant material, and in products containing African potato, or extracts thereof.
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Date Issued: 2008

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