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A re-evaluation of morphological differences in the Karoo Thrush Turdus smithi–Olive Thrush Turdus olivaceus species complex

- Wilson, J W, Symes, C T, Brown, M, Bonnevie, Bo T, De Swardt, D H, Hanmer, D

Authors: Wilson, J W , Symes, C T , Brown, M , Bonnevie, Bo T , De Swardt, D H , Hanmer, D
Date: 2009
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/447680 , vital:74666 , https://doi.org/10.2989/OSTRICH.2009.80.3.7.970
Description: There is confusion in the literature concerning the taxonomic status of the Turdus smithi—T. olivaceus species complex. Here we attempt to clarify morphological differences within this complex. In addition, we attempt to clarify identification of the respective taxa. Although mean measurements of morphometric features differed significantly between species and subspecies, these features are not useful in separating species or subspecies due to considerable overlap in measurements. Furthermore, there were often larger differences between subspecies of T. olivaceus (particularly the geographically isolated T. o. swynnertoni) than between T. olivaceus and T. smithi. We therefore suggest that further work investigates the elevation of T. o. swynnertoni to full species status. Plumage characteristics proved more useful in separating T. olivaceus and T. smithi in the field, except in regions where the distributions overlap (potential hybridisation zones). We highlight the importance of clarifying the delineation of separate species particularly with respect to bird census data (e.g. Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2) and studies related to these species.
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Date Issued: 2009

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A tetrapod fauna from within the Devonian Antarctic Circle

- Gess, Robert W, Ahlberg, Per Erik Ahlberg

Authors: Gess, Robert W , Ahlberg, Per Erik Ahlberg
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/72690 , vital:30100 , https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq1645 , https://www.sciencemag.org/content/360/6393/1120/suppl/DC1
Description: Until now, all known fossils of tetrapods (limbed vertebrates with digits) and near-tetrapods (such as Elpistostege, Tiktaalik, and Panderichthys) from the Devonian period have come from localities in tropical to subtropical paleolatitudes. Most are from Laurussia, a continent incorporating Europe, Greenland, and North America, with only one body fossil and one footprint locality from Australia representing the southern supercontinent Gondwana. Here we describe two previously unknown tetrapods from the Late Devonian (late Famennian) Gondwana locality of Waterloo Farm in South Africa, then located within the Antarctic Circle, which demonstrate that Devonian tetrapods were not restricted to warm environments and suggest that they may have been global in distribution.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Apis florea in Jordan: source of the founder population

- Haddad, N, Fuchs, S, Hepburn, H Randall, Radloff, Sarah E

Authors: Haddad, N , Fuchs, S , Hepburn, H Randall , Radloff, Sarah E
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6844 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011047
Description: A recent isolated population of Apis florea has been reported from Aqaba in Jordan at the Red Sea, consisting of numerous colonies within a still limited range which apparently is expanding. This region is about 1500 km apart from its next occurrences in Sudan where it had been introduced and first detected in 1985 and about 2000 km apart from its next natural occurrences in Iran and Oman. These bees apparently have been imported by human transport, most likely by ship. This new location thus represents a major jump in the progression of the species still to fill a wide area of possible locations offering adequate living conditions. Here we attempt to track the possible origin of this new population by morphometric methods. This analysis indicated closest relation to A. florea from Oman, thus being the most likely source of this population.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Augmenting an e-Commerce service for Marginalized Communities: A Rewards Based Marketing Approach

- Jere, Norbert R, Thinyane, Mamello, Terzoli, Alfredo

Authors: Jere, Norbert R , Thinyane, Mamello , Terzoli, Alfredo
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428463 , vital:72513 , https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Alfredo-Terzoli/publication/228968666_Augmenting_an_e-Com-merce_service_for_Marginalized_Communities_A_Rewards_Based_Marketing_Approach/links/09e4151344c1f615f7000000/Augmenting-an-e-Commerce-service-for-Marginalized-Communities-A-Rewards-Based-Marketing-Approach.pdf
Description: Information and Communication technologies (ICTs) have been widely deployed in developmental programmes and this has lead to the crea-tion of a new field–ICT for development (ICT4D). Many e-Commerce platforms now exist in many rural areas in developing countries. ICT4D allows Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) in rural areas to increase sales and gain the market share on the global market. Howev-er, many of these ICT4D projects in marginalized areas fail as a result of lacking the required resources to support ICTs. SMMEs in rural areas face problems in marketing their products on the global market. There-fore, ensuring sustainability of such systems in marginalized areas is important. This paper explains an e-Marketing strategy through a re-ward based negotiation application, aimed at improving the existing e-Commerce platform. The e-Commerce platform has been deployed for the Dwesa community. Dwesa is a rural area in the Eastern Cape prov-ince of South Africa.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Drought, change and resilience in South Africa's arid and semi-arid rangelands

- Vetter, Susan M

Authors: Vetter, Susan M
Date: 2009
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6557 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006017
Description: Droughts can have serious ecological and economic consequences and will pose an increasing challenge to rangeiand users as the global climate is changing. Finding ways to reduce ecological and economic impacts of drought should thus be a major research thrust. Resilience, defined as the amount of perturbation a social or ecological system can absorb without shifting to a qualitatively different state, has emerged as a prominent concept in ecosystem ecology and more recently as a conceptual framework for understanding and managing complex social-ecological systems. This paper discusses the application and relevance of resilience to understanding and managing ecosystem change, and enhancing the capacity of land users to adapt to droughts. Drought can trigger vegetation change and factors such as grazing management can influence the likelihood of such transitions. Drought can cause differential mortality of perennial plants and this could provide an opportunity for rangeland restoration by opening up establishment sites for desirable species. The capacity of land users to cope with drought is influenced by the resilience of their agro-ecosystems, the diversity of livelihood options, access to resources and institutional support. By these criteria, current agricultural development approaches in South Africa, particularly in communal rangelands and areas of land reform, are unlikely to enhance land users' resilience to drought and other perturbations.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Louise Bethlehem. Skin Tight Apartheid Literary Culture and its Aftermath: Review

- Wylie, Dan

Authors: Wylie, Dan
Date: 2009
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/458132 , vital:75718 , https://tinyurl.com/226m5t3e
Description: Louise Bethlehem, South African-born but now tenured at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has to be one of the sharpest intelligences working in Southern African literary studies today. This slender book is characteristically scintillating, dense with metatextual theory, and shot through with anger. It is a text upon metatexts: a series of coruscating snapshots of four or so key moments of literary critical discourse that emerged from the South African 'lit-crit' establishment during the apartheid years, and one following it (the TRC). It pretends neither to be a survey of the discipline, nor--somewhat disdainfully--to be supported by an empirical layering of evidence. Rather, it explores how the discursive structures and rhetoric of chosen literary critical texts have failed to enact the liberation to which they lay claim.
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Date Issued: 2009

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Simulating crowd phenomena in african markets

- Tasse, Flora P, Glass, Kevin R, Bangay, Shaun D

Authors: Tasse, Flora P , Glass, Kevin R , Bangay, Shaun D
Date: 2009
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433285 , vital:72959 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1503454.1503463
Description: Crowd simulation is an important feature in the computer graphics field. Typical implementations simulate battle scenes, emergency situations, safety issues or add content to virtual environments. The problem stated in this paper falls in the last category. We present a crowd simulation behavioural model which allows us to simulate identified phenomena in popular local African markets such as narrow street flows and crowd formation around street performances. We propose a three-tier architecture model enable to produce intentions, perform path planning and control movement. We demonstrate that this approach produces the desired behaviour associated with crowds in an African market, which includes navigation, flow formation and circle creation.
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Date Issued: 2009

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