The use of experimental design for the development of a capillary zone electrophoresis method for the quantitation of captopril
- Authors: Mukozhiwa, S Y , Khamanga, Sandile M , Walker, Roderick B
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/183828 , vital:44073 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1691/ph.2017.7071"
- Description: A capillary zone electrophoresis (CZE) method for the quantitation of captopril (CPT) using UV detection was developed. Influence of electrolyte concentration and system variables on electrophoretic separation was evaluated and a central composite design (CCD) was used to optimize the method. Variables investigated were pH, molarity, applied voltage and capillary length. The influence of sodium metabisulphite on the stability of test solutions was also investigated. The use of sodium metabisulphite prevented degradation of CPT over 24 hours. A fused uncoated silica capillary of 67.5cm total and 57.5 cm effective length was used for analysis. The applied voltage and capillary length affected the migration time of CPT significantly. A 20 mM phosphate buffer adjusted to pH 7.0 was used as running buffer and an applied voltage of 23.90 kV was suitable to effect a separation. The optimized electrophoretic conditions produced sharp, well-resolved peaks for CPT and sodium metabisulphite. Linear regression analysis of the response for CPT standards revealed the method was linear (R2 = 0.9995) over the range 5-70 μg/mL. The limits of quantitation and detection were 5 and 1.5 μg/mL. A simple, rapid and reliable CZE method has been developed and successfully applied to the analysis of commercially available CPT products.
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Understanding spatial variation in the drivers of nature-based tourism and their influence on the sustainability of private land conservation
- Authors: Baum, Julia , Cumming, Graeme S , de Vos, Alta
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/416481 , vital:71352 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.05.005"
- Description: Protected areas connect socio-economic and ecological systems through their provision of ecosystem goods and services. Analysis of ecosystem services allows the expression of ecological benefits in economic terms. However, cultural services, such as recreation opportunities, have proved difficult to quantify. An important challenge for the analysis of cultural services is to understand the geography of service provision in relation to both human and ecological system elements. We used data on visitation rates and measures of context, content, connectivity, and location for 64 private land conservation areas (PLCAs) to better understand geographic influences on cultural service provision. Visitation to PLCAs was influenced by a combination of ecological and socio-economic drivers. Variance partitioning analysis showed that ecology explained the largest proportion of overall variation in visitation rates (26%), followed by location (22%). In tests using generalized linear mixed models, individual factors that significantly explained visitation rates included the number of mammal species, the number of Big 5-species (ecological variables), the number of facilities provided (infrastructure) and average accommodation charges (affordability). Our analysis has important implications for the economic sustainability of PLCAs and more generally for understanding the relevance of spatial variation for analyses of cultural services.
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Voices of the hungry: A qualitative measure of household food access and food insecurity in South Africa
- Authors: Chakona, Gamuchirai , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/398443 , vital:69412 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40066-017-0149-x"
- Description: South Africa is rated a food secure nation, but large numbers of households within the country have inadequate access to nutrient-rich diverse foods. The study sought to investigate households’ physical and economic access and availability of food, in relation to local context which influences households’ access to and ability to grow food which may affect the dietary quality. We sought to understand self-reported healthy diets, food insecurity from the perspective of people who experienced it, barriers to household food security and perceptions and feelings on food access as well as strategies households use to cope with food shortages and their perceptions on improving household food security.
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West African arthropods hold promise as biological control agents for an invasive tree in the Pacific Islands
- Authors: Paterson, Iain D , Paynter, Quentin , Neser, Stefan , Akpabey, Felix J , Compton, Stephen G , Orapa, W
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/407119 , vital:70338 , xlink:href="https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC-639c91613"
- Description: African tulip tree, Spathodea campanulata Beauv. (Bignoniaceae), is a large tree of secondary forests, forest edges and savannas that is indigenous to Central and West Africa (Bidgood 1994). It has been widely utilised as an ornamental plant due to its beautiful flowers, fast growth and relative ease of cultivation, as a shade tree in parks and coffee plantations, and as a living fencepost (Francis 1990). Naturalisation has often followed cultivation of the plant, which is now established outside of the native range in Africa (Hedberg et al. 2006), the Caribbean (Francis 1990; Labrada and Medina 2009) and many Pacific islands (Meyer 2004), including Hawaii, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga,Vanuatu and Tahiti (Lowe et al. 2000; Dovey et al. 2004; Labrada and Medina 2009). On some of these islands it has become a destructive weed, invading indigenous forests and having a severe impact on agricultural production (Labrada and Medina 2009; Larrue et al. 2014). This has resulted in African tulip tree being recognised as one of the 100 worst alien invasive species worldwide, along with only 30 other terrestrial plants (Lowe et al. 2000).
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We’re talking about semantics here: Axiological condensation in the South African parliament
- Authors: Siebörger, Ian , Adendorff, Ralph D
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/385389 , vital:68015 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.24.2.03sie"
- Description: This article describes how procedural knowledge is produced in a meeting of the South African parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Transport, using concepts from Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Legitimation Code Theory (LCT). Members of this committee argue over whether or not to amend a draft committee report and in the process co-construct procedural norms for future committee meetings. Participants on both sides of the argument use axiological condensation, in which actions and ideas are associated with each other and charged with a particular moral or affective value ( Maton 2014 : 130) to portray their version of the procedure to be followed as morally superior to that of their opponents. They also use axiological rarefaction ( Maton 2014 : 130) to reinforce their positions by making apparent concessions to those on the other side of the argument. This is revealed through an analysis of the coupling of ideation and Appraisal ( Martin 2000 : 161) in the logogenetic unfolding of members’ talk, combined with elements of Interactional Sociolinguistics ( Gumperz 1982 ). The analysis suggests that axiological condensation and rarefaction in this meeting reflect competing visions of what it means to be ‘pro-democracy’ in post-apartheid South Africa.
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Women's and health workers’ Voices in open, inclusive communities and effective spaces (VOICES)
- Authors: Kuhlmann, Serbert , Gullo, Sara , Galavotti, Christine , Grant, Carolyn , Cavatore, Maria , Posnock, Samuel
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/281190 , vital:55700 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12209"
- Description: Given the growing popularity of the social accountability approach to governance, we developed and tested measures of governance outcomes to evaluate maternal and reproductive health social accountability interventions. We articulate a theory of change for how CARE's Community Score Card©, a social accountability approach, 1) empowers women, 2) empowers health workers and 3) creates expanded, inclusive and effective spaces for the two to interact. Our measures worked well in surveys of women and health workers. For women, eight of 13 scales had alphas ≥.70. For health workers, five of 11 scales were ≥.70; four were .60–.69. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to develop comprehensive measures of governance outcomes to evaluate a social accountability approach for maternal and reproductive health.
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Woody plant species richness, composition and structure in urban sacred sites, Grahamstown, South Africa
- Authors: De Lacy, Peter J G , Shackleton, Charlie M
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/180079 , vital:43307 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-017-0669-y"
- Description: Sacred sites are important not only for their traditional, spiritual or religious significance, but may also potentially be valuable for biodiversity conservation in human transformed landscapes. Yet, there has been little consideration of sacred sites in urban areas in this respect. Consequently, to better understand the ecosystem service and conservation value of urban sacred sites, inventories of their floral communities are needed. We examined the richness, composition and structure of the trees and shrubs in 35 urban churchyards and cemeteries in the City of Saints (Grahamstown). The combined area of urban sacred sites (38.7 ha) represented 2.2% of the city area and 13.6% of the public green space area. Species richness of woody plants was high, albeit dominated by non-native species. Levels of similarity among sites were low, indicating the effects of individual management regimens. There was no relationship between age of the site and measured attributes of the vegetation, nor were there any significant differences in vegetation among different religious denominations. However, the basal area and number of woody plants was significantly related to site size. These results indicate the significant heterogeneity of urban sacred sites as green spaces within the urban matrix. The significance of this heterogeneity in providing ecosystem services to users of sacred sites and the broader urban communities requires further investigation.
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‘If you choose to abort, you have acted as an instrument of Satan’: Zimbabwean health service Providers’ negative constructions of women presenting for post abortion care
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444200 , vital:74205 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9694-8"
- Description: Health service providers play a crucial role in providing post abortion care in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive and abortion is stigmatised. Research in countries where these factors apply has shown that health service providers can be barriers to women accessing post abortion services. Much of this research draws from attitude theory. In this paper, we utilise positioning theory to show how the ways in which Zimbabwean health service providers’ position women and themselves are rooted in cultural and social power relations. In light of recent efforts by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and foreign organisations to improve post abortion care, we explore the implications that these positionings have for post abortion care.
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