A physiological study on a commercial reef fish to quantify the relationship between exploitation and climate change resilience
- Authors: Duncan, Murray Ian
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Chrysoblephus laticeps -- Climatic factors , Chrysoblephus laticeps -- Physiology , Sparidae -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Reef fishes -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Fish populations -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Fish populations -- Measurement , Fish populations -- Monitoring , Fisheries -- South Africa -- Environmental aspects , Ocean temperature -- Physiological effect -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/76541 , vital:30599
- Description: The persistence of harvested fish populations in the Anthropocene will be determined, above all, by how they respond to the interacting effects of climate change and fisheries exploitation. Predicting how populations will respond to both these threats is essential for any adaptive and sustainable management strategy. The response of fish populations to climate change is underpinned by physiological rates and tolerances, and emerging evidence suggests there may be physiological-based selection in capture fisheries. By quantifying important physiological rates of a model species, the endemic seabream, Chrysoblephus laticeps, across ecologically relevant thermal gradients and from populations subjected to varying intensities of commercial exploitation, this thesis aimed to 1) provide the first physiologically grounded climate resilience assessment for a South African linefish species, and 2) elucidate whether exploitation can drive populations to less physiologically resilient states in response to climate change. To identify physiologically limiting sea temperatures and to determine if exploitation alters physiological trait distributions, an intermittent flow respirometry experiment was used to test the metabolic response of spatially protected and exploited populations of C. laticeps to acute thermal variability. Exploited populations showed reduced metabolic phenotype diversity, fewer high-performance aerobic scope phenotypes, and a significantly lower aerobic scope curve across all test temperatures. Although both populations maintained a relatively high aerobic scope across a wide thermal range, their metabolic rates were compromised when extreme cold events were simulated (8 °C), suggesting that predicted future increases in upwelling frequency and intensity may be the primary limiting factor in a more thermally variable future ocean. The increment widths of annuli in the otoliths of C. laticeps from contemporary and historic collections were measured, as a proxy for the annual growth rate of exploited and protected populations. Hierarchical mixed models were used to partition growth variation within and among individuals and ascribe growth to intrinsic and extrinsic effects. The best model for the protected population indicated that the growth response of C. laticeps was poorer during years characterised by a high cumulative upwelling intensity, and better during years characterised by higher mean autumn sea surface temperatures. The exploited population growth chronology was too short to identify an extrinsic growth driver. The growth results again highlight the role of thermal variability in modulating the response of C. laticeps to its ambient environment and indicate that the predicted increases in upwelling frequency and intensity may constrain future growth rates of this species. A metabolic index (ϕ), representing the ratio of O2 supply to demand at various temperatures and oxygen concentrations, was estimated for exploited and protected populations of C. laticeps and used to predict future distribution responses. There was no difference in the laboratory calibrations of ϕ between populations, and all data was subsequently combined into a single piecewise (12 °C) calibrated ϕ model. To predict the distribution of C. laticeps, ϕ was projected across a high-resolution ocean model of the South African coastal zone, and a species distribution model implemented using the random forest algorithm and C. laticeps occurrence points. The future distribution of C. laticeps was estimated by predicting trained models across ocean model projections up to 2100. The best predictor of C. laticeps’ current distribution was minimum monthly ϕ and future predictions indicated only a slight range contraction on either edge of C. laticeps’ distribution by 2100. In order to provide policy makers, currently developing climate change management frameworks for South Africa’s ocean, with a usable output, the results of all research chapters were combined into a marine spatial model. The spatial model identified areas where C. laticeps is predicted to be resilient to climate change in terms of physiology, growth and distribution responses, which can then be prioritised for adaptation measures, such as spatial protection from exploitation. While these results are specific to C. laticeps, the methodology developed to identify areas of climate resilience has broad applications across taxa. From a global perspective, perhaps the most salient points to consider from this case study are the evidence of selective exploitation on physiological traits and the importance of environmental variability, rather than long-term mean climate changes, in affecting organism performance. These ideas are congruent with the current paradigm shift in how we think of the ocean, selective fisheries, and how they relate to organism climate resilience.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Duncan, Murray Ian
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Chrysoblephus laticeps -- Climatic factors , Chrysoblephus laticeps -- Physiology , Sparidae -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Reef fishes -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Fish populations -- South Africa -- Climatic factors , Fish populations -- Measurement , Fish populations -- Monitoring , Fisheries -- South Africa -- Environmental aspects , Ocean temperature -- Physiological effect -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/76541 , vital:30599
- Description: The persistence of harvested fish populations in the Anthropocene will be determined, above all, by how they respond to the interacting effects of climate change and fisheries exploitation. Predicting how populations will respond to both these threats is essential for any adaptive and sustainable management strategy. The response of fish populations to climate change is underpinned by physiological rates and tolerances, and emerging evidence suggests there may be physiological-based selection in capture fisheries. By quantifying important physiological rates of a model species, the endemic seabream, Chrysoblephus laticeps, across ecologically relevant thermal gradients and from populations subjected to varying intensities of commercial exploitation, this thesis aimed to 1) provide the first physiologically grounded climate resilience assessment for a South African linefish species, and 2) elucidate whether exploitation can drive populations to less physiologically resilient states in response to climate change. To identify physiologically limiting sea temperatures and to determine if exploitation alters physiological trait distributions, an intermittent flow respirometry experiment was used to test the metabolic response of spatially protected and exploited populations of C. laticeps to acute thermal variability. Exploited populations showed reduced metabolic phenotype diversity, fewer high-performance aerobic scope phenotypes, and a significantly lower aerobic scope curve across all test temperatures. Although both populations maintained a relatively high aerobic scope across a wide thermal range, their metabolic rates were compromised when extreme cold events were simulated (8 °C), suggesting that predicted future increases in upwelling frequency and intensity may be the primary limiting factor in a more thermally variable future ocean. The increment widths of annuli in the otoliths of C. laticeps from contemporary and historic collections were measured, as a proxy for the annual growth rate of exploited and protected populations. Hierarchical mixed models were used to partition growth variation within and among individuals and ascribe growth to intrinsic and extrinsic effects. The best model for the protected population indicated that the growth response of C. laticeps was poorer during years characterised by a high cumulative upwelling intensity, and better during years characterised by higher mean autumn sea surface temperatures. The exploited population growth chronology was too short to identify an extrinsic growth driver. The growth results again highlight the role of thermal variability in modulating the response of C. laticeps to its ambient environment and indicate that the predicted increases in upwelling frequency and intensity may constrain future growth rates of this species. A metabolic index (ϕ), representing the ratio of O2 supply to demand at various temperatures and oxygen concentrations, was estimated for exploited and protected populations of C. laticeps and used to predict future distribution responses. There was no difference in the laboratory calibrations of ϕ between populations, and all data was subsequently combined into a single piecewise (12 °C) calibrated ϕ model. To predict the distribution of C. laticeps, ϕ was projected across a high-resolution ocean model of the South African coastal zone, and a species distribution model implemented using the random forest algorithm and C. laticeps occurrence points. The future distribution of C. laticeps was estimated by predicting trained models across ocean model projections up to 2100. The best predictor of C. laticeps’ current distribution was minimum monthly ϕ and future predictions indicated only a slight range contraction on either edge of C. laticeps’ distribution by 2100. In order to provide policy makers, currently developing climate change management frameworks for South Africa’s ocean, with a usable output, the results of all research chapters were combined into a marine spatial model. The spatial model identified areas where C. laticeps is predicted to be resilient to climate change in terms of physiology, growth and distribution responses, which can then be prioritised for adaptation measures, such as spatial protection from exploitation. While these results are specific to C. laticeps, the methodology developed to identify areas of climate resilience has broad applications across taxa. From a global perspective, perhaps the most salient points to consider from this case study are the evidence of selective exploitation on physiological traits and the importance of environmental variability, rather than long-term mean climate changes, in affecting organism performance. These ideas are congruent with the current paradigm shift in how we think of the ocean, selective fisheries, and how they relate to organism climate resilience.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A social realist account of constraints and enablements navigated by South African students during the four year professional accounting programme at Rhodes University, South Africa
- Authors: Myers, Lyndrianne Peta
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Students , Accounting -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Finance -- South Africa , Higher education and state -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93800 , vital:30946
- Description: This dissertation is an analysis of the enablements and constraints navigated by 43 students from different academic years within the Department of Accounting, Rhodes University, in their pursuit of obtaining the postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (DipAcc) qualification. Passing this diploma year entitles students to become Trainee Accountants, which is one of the requirements for their ultimate goal of becoming a chartered accountant. In the course of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted for this study, students from across the four years of the professional degree programme, shared what had helped or hindered them on their journeys to and through Rhodes University, and within the Department of Accounting at this university. Focus group discussions were then held with academics from the department, where the student participants’ experiences were shared. The responses of the members of the focus groups confirmed many of the student participants’ experiences as did interviews with representatives from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). These representatives also spoke about students’ experiences at other campuses. To determine how localised the student participants’ experiences were, selected individuals from a number of other Departments or Schools of Accounting at SAICA-accredited institutions in South Africa were also interviewed. SAICA representatives also discussed the ‘pervasive skills’ which trainee accountants are expected to acquire. The perspectives from these different groups, have provided validation of the student research participants’ experiences. Critical Realism and Social Realism were used as theoretical underpinnings while Social Realism, Bernstein’s Pedagogic Device, Legitimation Code Theory and New Literacies Theory were used as explanatory theories. Using these theories, the participants’ experiences were analysed and could be understood in a different way. This dissertation reveals how this unequal privileging of individuals as a result of the existing structures is perpetuated at university level. It is the poorer students from under-resourced schools who generally struggle with the language and the practices and ways of being required for success at university. Student participants’ experiences of constraint and enablement arose primarily in the areas of the finances required for tuition and living expenses while at university; having English as a language of learning; and difficulties experienced with taking advantage of the learning opportunities within the department. Research participants also spoke about their experiences of transformation in terms of both student protests, and a mentoring programme which assisted them in gaining access to the practises and ways of being required for the discipline. In so doing they were inducted into the discipline’s community of practice. This dissertation has assisted in providing an understanding of what has helped and what has hindered students at Rhodes University, on their journeys towards obtaining the Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting qualification. It has also provided insight into the mechanisms which lie behind these experiences. This study will provide practitioners and policy-makers with the opportunity to be better informed about students’ struggles, to contemplate their interactions with students and to identify, remove or reduce unnecessarily burdensome hurdles. Equally and perhaps more importantly, this study and the work which emerges as a result of this research, will provide students with tools to assist them in their academic journeys, to manage essential hurdles, and to eliminate or avoid unnecessary hurdles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Myers, Lyndrianne Peta
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Rhodes University -- Students , Accounting -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- Finance -- South Africa , Higher education and state -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93800 , vital:30946
- Description: This dissertation is an analysis of the enablements and constraints navigated by 43 students from different academic years within the Department of Accounting, Rhodes University, in their pursuit of obtaining the postgraduate Diploma in Accounting (DipAcc) qualification. Passing this diploma year entitles students to become Trainee Accountants, which is one of the requirements for their ultimate goal of becoming a chartered accountant. In the course of semi-structured, face-to-face interviews conducted for this study, students from across the four years of the professional degree programme, shared what had helped or hindered them on their journeys to and through Rhodes University, and within the Department of Accounting at this university. Focus group discussions were then held with academics from the department, where the student participants’ experiences were shared. The responses of the members of the focus groups confirmed many of the student participants’ experiences as did interviews with representatives from the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). These representatives also spoke about students’ experiences at other campuses. To determine how localised the student participants’ experiences were, selected individuals from a number of other Departments or Schools of Accounting at SAICA-accredited institutions in South Africa were also interviewed. SAICA representatives also discussed the ‘pervasive skills’ which trainee accountants are expected to acquire. The perspectives from these different groups, have provided validation of the student research participants’ experiences. Critical Realism and Social Realism were used as theoretical underpinnings while Social Realism, Bernstein’s Pedagogic Device, Legitimation Code Theory and New Literacies Theory were used as explanatory theories. Using these theories, the participants’ experiences were analysed and could be understood in a different way. This dissertation reveals how this unequal privileging of individuals as a result of the existing structures is perpetuated at university level. It is the poorer students from under-resourced schools who generally struggle with the language and the practices and ways of being required for success at university. Student participants’ experiences of constraint and enablement arose primarily in the areas of the finances required for tuition and living expenses while at university; having English as a language of learning; and difficulties experienced with taking advantage of the learning opportunities within the department. Research participants also spoke about their experiences of transformation in terms of both student protests, and a mentoring programme which assisted them in gaining access to the practises and ways of being required for the discipline. In so doing they were inducted into the discipline’s community of practice. This dissertation has assisted in providing an understanding of what has helped and what has hindered students at Rhodes University, on their journeys towards obtaining the Postgraduate Diploma in Accounting qualification. It has also provided insight into the mechanisms which lie behind these experiences. This study will provide practitioners and policy-makers with the opportunity to be better informed about students’ struggles, to contemplate their interactions with students and to identify, remove or reduce unnecessarily burdensome hurdles. Equally and perhaps more importantly, this study and the work which emerges as a result of this research, will provide students with tools to assist them in their academic journeys, to manage essential hurdles, and to eliminate or avoid unnecessary hurdles.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
A sociological understanding of urban governance and social accountability: the case of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe
- Authors: Sivalo, Delta Mbonisi
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Zimbabwe -- Politics and government -- 1980- , Municipal government -- Zimbabwe -- Harare , Municipal government -- Sociological aspects-- Zimbabwe -- Harare , Municipal government -- Citizen participation -- Zimbabwe -- Harare
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71515 , vital:29860
- Description: This thesis seeks to understand the ways in which urban governance and urban-based civic participation interact with each other in contemporary Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on the factors influencing and shaping social accountability and effective citizen involvement in urban governance processes. This main objective is pursued with specific reference to Bulawayo, which is one of two metropolitan centres in Zimbabwe. The focus is specifically on questions around social accountability, citizen participation and centralised urban governance. In this regard, it is important to recognise that social accountability and urban governance need to be understood in the context of their inherent relationship and how these both shape and determine each other. In this respect, there is need to probe the foundations that shape the lived experiences of communities, through social accountability and urban governance, and how these pattern development and social change. Zimbabwe for over a decade now has gone through a series of economic and political crises which have impacted detrimentally on urban governance. With the economy in free-fall, local authorities have had to pursue a range of strategies to sustain themselves. These socio-economic conditions have forced a change in relations between the state, cities and citizens. Many studies have examined this regarding the politics of contestation between the ruling party (ZANU-PF), the state, and the main opposition party (MDC) in urban governance in Zimbabwe. However, this study zeros in on social accountability and how it is shaped by the prevailing socio-economic and political environment in Zimbabwe. At the same time, the lived experiences of communities vary and this variance influences and affects social accountability interventions and outcomes in cities like Bulawayo. Importantly, the thesis offers a longitudinal study which can map the contextual factors affecting and influencing social accountability in Bulawayo over time. Though recognising the debilitating effects of centralised urban governance on social accountability, the thesis also raises questions about the shifting, and often tenuous, relationship between the city and the central state, on one hand, and the city and its citizens on the other. In doing so, it considers the role of citizens, institutions and actors in responding to the impacts of urban governance and social accountability. In pursuing this thesis, a range of mainly qualitative research methods were used, including key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observation and use of documents. In the end, the thesis offers a nuanced analysis of the everyday complexities and challenges for social accountability in urban Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and thereby contributes to theorising social accountability and urban governance in Africa more broadly.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Sivalo, Delta Mbonisi
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Zimbabwe -- Politics and government -- 1980- , Municipal government -- Zimbabwe -- Harare , Municipal government -- Sociological aspects-- Zimbabwe -- Harare , Municipal government -- Citizen participation -- Zimbabwe -- Harare
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71515 , vital:29860
- Description: This thesis seeks to understand the ways in which urban governance and urban-based civic participation interact with each other in contemporary Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on the factors influencing and shaping social accountability and effective citizen involvement in urban governance processes. This main objective is pursued with specific reference to Bulawayo, which is one of two metropolitan centres in Zimbabwe. The focus is specifically on questions around social accountability, citizen participation and centralised urban governance. In this regard, it is important to recognise that social accountability and urban governance need to be understood in the context of their inherent relationship and how these both shape and determine each other. In this respect, there is need to probe the foundations that shape the lived experiences of communities, through social accountability and urban governance, and how these pattern development and social change. Zimbabwe for over a decade now has gone through a series of economic and political crises which have impacted detrimentally on urban governance. With the economy in free-fall, local authorities have had to pursue a range of strategies to sustain themselves. These socio-economic conditions have forced a change in relations between the state, cities and citizens. Many studies have examined this regarding the politics of contestation between the ruling party (ZANU-PF), the state, and the main opposition party (MDC) in urban governance in Zimbabwe. However, this study zeros in on social accountability and how it is shaped by the prevailing socio-economic and political environment in Zimbabwe. At the same time, the lived experiences of communities vary and this variance influences and affects social accountability interventions and outcomes in cities like Bulawayo. Importantly, the thesis offers a longitudinal study which can map the contextual factors affecting and influencing social accountability in Bulawayo over time. Though recognising the debilitating effects of centralised urban governance on social accountability, the thesis also raises questions about the shifting, and often tenuous, relationship between the city and the central state, on one hand, and the city and its citizens on the other. In doing so, it considers the role of citizens, institutions and actors in responding to the impacts of urban governance and social accountability. In pursuing this thesis, a range of mainly qualitative research methods were used, including key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observation and use of documents. In the end, the thesis offers a nuanced analysis of the everyday complexities and challenges for social accountability in urban Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and thereby contributes to theorising social accountability and urban governance in Africa more broadly.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Aiding the education agenda? the role of non-governmental organisations in learner performance and retention in Joza, Grahamstown, South Africa
- Authors: Nomsenge, Sinazo Onela
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Non-governmental organizations , Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Joza Youth Hub (Makhanda) , Upstart Youth Development Project (Makhanda) , Village Scribe Association (Makhanda) , Ikamba Youth (Makhanda) , Access Music Project(Makhanda)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/76468 , vital:30568
- Description: This thesis describes the network of complexities that characterise the world and work of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). It examines the ways in which organisations navigate different internal, sectoral and contextual intricacies while operating under the command of their chosen developmental mandates. This description is drawn from a sociological analysis of the internal workings of education NGOs, their external affiliations as well as the negotiations which underpin their operations and survival. Collectively, the careful illustration of these underpinnings outlines both the role that NGOs play in the performance and retention of learners in the Grahamstown-east township of Joza and also their position in the town’s basic education sector. Private and non-governmental interveners have, particularly from the closing decades of the 20th century, been conceptually and operationally deployed as panaceas of the socio-economic scarcities which continue to pervade much of the ‘developing’ world. Their involvement in the socio-economic missions of populations living in the Global South has grown both laterally and in the depth of how development is understood and defined, carried out and also measured. NGOs, as widely acclaimed institutional arms of global development imperatives, therefore assume prominent positions in framing policy and implementation models, prescribing performance benchmarks and pronouncing non-compliance. Likewise, education NGOs have obtained normative prescription status in global education policy and practice largely on the back of the Education for All (EFA) objectives, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the neo-liberal logics which have championed state retreat in favour of private sector ascendance in globalised development. This, in conjunction with the persistent struggles of educational transformation in the Global South, has given NGOs little trouble in legitimising their prominent presence in education and other sectors of socio-economic relief in these parts of the world. Little illusion remains however, in many commentary circles, of the role of NGOs in advancing development ideals, the honesty of their altruistic intents, their ideological leanings as well as their efficacy in carrying out their mandates. As such, the logics which have been used to dethrone developing state structures in order to expand the space for private intervention along with the prevailing and deepening markers of educational underperformance, have been central features of the criticisms levelled against NGOs. This thesis intervenes in these ongoing reflections by describing the role of NGOs in educational outcomes, particularly learner performance and retention in Joza. This analysis demonstrates the organisational, sector-level and broader community forces which influence not only the form which non-state interventions take on and the daily preoccupations of their carriers but broadly, the position they occupy in the town’s overall educational profile. By way of locating NGOs within Grahamstown’s educational landscape, this thesis first demonstrates, the conflicted nature of NGO operations from an international, sectoral, national, local and organisational level. The discussion then illustrates how the preoccupations of NGOs are scattered between the different communities which they occupy within these levels. Their reliance on these players demands that organisations be tactical in guarding both their survival and, at times, the conflicting allegiances which grant them different forms of legitimacy. Internal struggles which characterise this imbalance of forces results in a trade-off which often favours organisational preservation mechanisms over systemic educational overhaul. As such, while non-state interveners can be lauded for extending educational support to those who would otherwise not have such, the gains of NGO intervention are often absorbed by internal urgencies for organisational legitimacy and preservation. This, in a context which possesses a unique set of socio-economic and educational deficits that require, at the very least, radical and unbridled mediation, means that pre-existing inequalities in educational inputs and outcomes along with the resultant inequities in youth socio-economic prospects, can find refuge in the very sector whose support and intervention is sought out and justified for such. This thesis lays out the nuances of these tensions and contradictions and offers this case as a point of reference for further considerations of the persistent markers of underperformance which characterise developing communities that enjoy high concentrations of non-state educational intervention.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Nomsenge, Sinazo Onela
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Non-governmental organizations , Non-governmental organizations -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Joza Youth Hub (Makhanda) , Upstart Youth Development Project (Makhanda) , Village Scribe Association (Makhanda) , Ikamba Youth (Makhanda) , Access Music Project(Makhanda)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/76468 , vital:30568
- Description: This thesis describes the network of complexities that characterise the world and work of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). It examines the ways in which organisations navigate different internal, sectoral and contextual intricacies while operating under the command of their chosen developmental mandates. This description is drawn from a sociological analysis of the internal workings of education NGOs, their external affiliations as well as the negotiations which underpin their operations and survival. Collectively, the careful illustration of these underpinnings outlines both the role that NGOs play in the performance and retention of learners in the Grahamstown-east township of Joza and also their position in the town’s basic education sector. Private and non-governmental interveners have, particularly from the closing decades of the 20th century, been conceptually and operationally deployed as panaceas of the socio-economic scarcities which continue to pervade much of the ‘developing’ world. Their involvement in the socio-economic missions of populations living in the Global South has grown both laterally and in the depth of how development is understood and defined, carried out and also measured. NGOs, as widely acclaimed institutional arms of global development imperatives, therefore assume prominent positions in framing policy and implementation models, prescribing performance benchmarks and pronouncing non-compliance. Likewise, education NGOs have obtained normative prescription status in global education policy and practice largely on the back of the Education for All (EFA) objectives, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the neo-liberal logics which have championed state retreat in favour of private sector ascendance in globalised development. This, in conjunction with the persistent struggles of educational transformation in the Global South, has given NGOs little trouble in legitimising their prominent presence in education and other sectors of socio-economic relief in these parts of the world. Little illusion remains however, in many commentary circles, of the role of NGOs in advancing development ideals, the honesty of their altruistic intents, their ideological leanings as well as their efficacy in carrying out their mandates. As such, the logics which have been used to dethrone developing state structures in order to expand the space for private intervention along with the prevailing and deepening markers of educational underperformance, have been central features of the criticisms levelled against NGOs. This thesis intervenes in these ongoing reflections by describing the role of NGOs in educational outcomes, particularly learner performance and retention in Joza. This analysis demonstrates the organisational, sector-level and broader community forces which influence not only the form which non-state interventions take on and the daily preoccupations of their carriers but broadly, the position they occupy in the town’s overall educational profile. By way of locating NGOs within Grahamstown’s educational landscape, this thesis first demonstrates, the conflicted nature of NGO operations from an international, sectoral, national, local and organisational level. The discussion then illustrates how the preoccupations of NGOs are scattered between the different communities which they occupy within these levels. Their reliance on these players demands that organisations be tactical in guarding both their survival and, at times, the conflicting allegiances which grant them different forms of legitimacy. Internal struggles which characterise this imbalance of forces results in a trade-off which often favours organisational preservation mechanisms over systemic educational overhaul. As such, while non-state interveners can be lauded for extending educational support to those who would otherwise not have such, the gains of NGO intervention are often absorbed by internal urgencies for organisational legitimacy and preservation. This, in a context which possesses a unique set of socio-economic and educational deficits that require, at the very least, radical and unbridled mediation, means that pre-existing inequalities in educational inputs and outcomes along with the resultant inequities in youth socio-economic prospects, can find refuge in the very sector whose support and intervention is sought out and justified for such. This thesis lays out the nuances of these tensions and contradictions and offers this case as a point of reference for further considerations of the persistent markers of underperformance which characterise developing communities that enjoy high concentrations of non-state educational intervention.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
An analysis of the availability of and access to credit from the formal financial sector and the performance of SMEs
- Authors: Asah, Francis Tangwo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Small business -- South Africa -- Finance , Microfinance -- South Africa , South Africa -- Economic conditions -- 1991-
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115138 , vital:34081
- Description: As a developing nation, South Africa faces a high rate of poverty, high levels of inequality in terms of income and a high rate of unemployment. It is officially estimated that about 27.2% of the economically active population are unemployed. SMEs are expected to be an important vehicle to address the challenges of job creation, sustainable economic growth, equitable distribution of income and the overall stimulation of economic development. SMEs in South Africa constitute 99% of all businesses, contributing to employment, income inequality and poverty alleviation (Statistic South Africa, 2018). However, despite the remarkable contribution of SMEs to the economy of South Africa, the failure rate of SMEs (at 75%) is the highest of all the efficiency-driven economies sampled by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). The World Bank affirm that the availability of and access to credit from the formal financial sector is the primary cause of the high failure rate of SMEs. Contemporary literature advance that the future survival and performance of SMEs in South Africa is pegged onto the amount of financial capital available to address their capital needs. Thus, this study sought to analyse the availability of and access to credit from the formal financial sector and the performance of SMEs from the supply and demand-side. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a sequential exploratory mixed method research design, located in the pragmatic research paradigm, was used in a two phased approach. The qualitative data collection and analysis in Phase 1 informed the quantitative data collection and analysis Phase 2. In Phase 1, in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 credit and 8 business managers representing the sampling unit of selected formal financial institutions. The qualitative data collected was analysed using the five-steps process of content analysis as illustrated by Terre Blanche et al. (2006:322-326). The main findings with regard to factors that impact on the willingness of the formal financial sector to provide credit to SMEs were collateral, annual business turnover, audited financial records, relationship with the bank, credit profile, nature of the business, economic climate, ethics, nationality, government policy, management team, valid Identity Document/permit, equity contribution, entrepreneurship education, product quality, and business intelligence. Assessing credit applications from SMEs, risk assessment, inspection of financial records, proper documentation and background checks were the different tasks performed by credit and business managers. In addition, the main challenges faced by the formal financial sector in assessing and approving credit in favour of SMEs included the following: lack of investment capital; lack of collateral; lack of proper financial records; poor managerial knowledge; poor business plan; lack of industrial knowledge; and poor legal and credit laws. Lastly, contrary to the notion that formal financial institutions are not interested in investing in SMEs, on average, 70% of SMEs that applied for credit received such credit. In Phase 2, a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from formal sector owner/managers of SMEs in the city of Johannesburg. Of the 702 questionnaires distributed, 300 were returned and useable. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 24). A test for normality was performed using Shapiro–Wilks test. Reliability was tested using the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. Exploratory factor analysis tested the validity of factors that prevent formal financial sector from granting credit to SMEs while Binary logistic regression was used to infer on the hypotheses. Spearman’s Rho correlation analysis was used to determine whether there was any significant relationship with factors that influence access to credit and SMEs performance. The main findings revealed that access to bank finance was the only challenge that showed a significant correlation with performance. In addition, the study revealed that the South African Identity Document and collateral were the most important factors considered when applying for credit from formal financial institutions. With regard to the reasons why formal financial institutions may refuse to grant credit to SMEs, it was revealed that there was no significant positive relationship between lack of business networking and access to credit from the formal financial sector to SMEs. Conversely, the study also revealed a significant positive relationship between collateral, business information, managerial competency, business intelligence, business ethics, entrepreneurship education, legal system and macro-economy and access to credit from the formal financial sector to SMEs. Thus, it was established that there is a significant positive relationship between access to credit from the formal financial sector and the performance of SMEs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Asah, Francis Tangwo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Small business -- South Africa -- Finance , Microfinance -- South Africa , South Africa -- Economic conditions -- 1991-
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/115138 , vital:34081
- Description: As a developing nation, South Africa faces a high rate of poverty, high levels of inequality in terms of income and a high rate of unemployment. It is officially estimated that about 27.2% of the economically active population are unemployed. SMEs are expected to be an important vehicle to address the challenges of job creation, sustainable economic growth, equitable distribution of income and the overall stimulation of economic development. SMEs in South Africa constitute 99% of all businesses, contributing to employment, income inequality and poverty alleviation (Statistic South Africa, 2018). However, despite the remarkable contribution of SMEs to the economy of South Africa, the failure rate of SMEs (at 75%) is the highest of all the efficiency-driven economies sampled by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM). The World Bank affirm that the availability of and access to credit from the formal financial sector is the primary cause of the high failure rate of SMEs. Contemporary literature advance that the future survival and performance of SMEs in South Africa is pegged onto the amount of financial capital available to address their capital needs. Thus, this study sought to analyse the availability of and access to credit from the formal financial sector and the performance of SMEs from the supply and demand-side. In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a sequential exploratory mixed method research design, located in the pragmatic research paradigm, was used in a two phased approach. The qualitative data collection and analysis in Phase 1 informed the quantitative data collection and analysis Phase 2. In Phase 1, in-depth face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted with 8 credit and 8 business managers representing the sampling unit of selected formal financial institutions. The qualitative data collected was analysed using the five-steps process of content analysis as illustrated by Terre Blanche et al. (2006:322-326). The main findings with regard to factors that impact on the willingness of the formal financial sector to provide credit to SMEs were collateral, annual business turnover, audited financial records, relationship with the bank, credit profile, nature of the business, economic climate, ethics, nationality, government policy, management team, valid Identity Document/permit, equity contribution, entrepreneurship education, product quality, and business intelligence. Assessing credit applications from SMEs, risk assessment, inspection of financial records, proper documentation and background checks were the different tasks performed by credit and business managers. In addition, the main challenges faced by the formal financial sector in assessing and approving credit in favour of SMEs included the following: lack of investment capital; lack of collateral; lack of proper financial records; poor managerial knowledge; poor business plan; lack of industrial knowledge; and poor legal and credit laws. Lastly, contrary to the notion that formal financial institutions are not interested in investing in SMEs, on average, 70% of SMEs that applied for credit received such credit. In Phase 2, a self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from formal sector owner/managers of SMEs in the city of Johannesburg. Of the 702 questionnaires distributed, 300 were returned and useable. Data was analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (version 24). A test for normality was performed using Shapiro–Wilks test. Reliability was tested using the Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. Exploratory factor analysis tested the validity of factors that prevent formal financial sector from granting credit to SMEs while Binary logistic regression was used to infer on the hypotheses. Spearman’s Rho correlation analysis was used to determine whether there was any significant relationship with factors that influence access to credit and SMEs performance. The main findings revealed that access to bank finance was the only challenge that showed a significant correlation with performance. In addition, the study revealed that the South African Identity Document and collateral were the most important factors considered when applying for credit from formal financial institutions. With regard to the reasons why formal financial institutions may refuse to grant credit to SMEs, it was revealed that there was no significant positive relationship between lack of business networking and access to credit from the formal financial sector to SMEs. Conversely, the study also revealed a significant positive relationship between collateral, business information, managerial competency, business intelligence, business ethics, entrepreneurship education, legal system and macro-economy and access to credit from the formal financial sector to SMEs. Thus, it was established that there is a significant positive relationship between access to credit from the formal financial sector and the performance of SMEs.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
An investigation into the performance of smallholder irrigation schemes in Limpopo Province, South Africa: success factors, typologies and implications for development
- Denison, Jonathan Anthony Noel
- Authors: Denison, Jonathan Anthony Noel
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Irrigation projects -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Farms, Small -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Land use -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Water-supply -- South Africa -- Limpopo
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92317 , vital:30709
- Description: The research aimed to determine the factors that contribute to the success or failure of smallholder irrigation schemes in the Limpopo Province. It focussed on public-schemes where farmers share the water system Limpopo Province has more than half of the smallholder irrigation schemes in the country with an equipped area of approximately 28 000 ha. The main aims of the research were to identify key factors that explain performance and to develop a contemporary irrigation scheme typology. The research intended to provide a better perspective on how to focus investments across the multiple thematic areas that are associated with sustained and profitable irrigation farming activity. A survey of 102 irrigation schemes was conducted, comprising 82% of the population of schemes greater than 20 ha in Limpopo Province. The quantitative survey complemented prior in-depth qualitative research undertaken on Limpopo schemes. Data was consolidated into five performance indicators and 13 characteristic factors that impact performance. Schemes were viewed as technical and socio-biological systems where performance was determined by the dynamic interaction of multiple factors. The analysis was done in a complex systems framework using correlation, cluster and principle component analysis. It was postulated that over-arching concepts of productivity, profitability and manageability would explain why schemes succeed or fail. The schemes were found to be relatively very small in size with three quarters (74.8%) of them falling in the 50 to 250 ha size range, and only 11 schemes larger than 250 ha. Average plot sizes were 1.34 ha with a wide range between 0.18 and 16.25 ha. There were 65 operational schemes (equivalent to 63.7%), and 37 had failed (equivalent to 36.3%). Using a criterion for success of greater than 50% cropping intensity (to align with other studies and below which schemes can be considered to have failed), the success rate of the Limpopo schemes was 58%. The result was similar to the rest of South Africa and the same as the average rate for SADC identified in other studies using the same criterion. The schemes exhibited a mixed production purpose on average, with a significant market emphasis indicating these schemes have largely evolved from ‘food schemes’ to partly market-farming. Main crops grown were summer-maize and winter fresh-vegetables and cropping intensities on operational schemes ranged widely from 10% to 175%, with an average of 94%. Failure was associated with three dominant factors: energy type; infrastructure condition; and water resource constraints. The first two factors showed that manageability of technology was important. There is strong empirical evidence that pumped smallholder schemes are vulnerable in their physical form, prone to functional and financial failure, live much shorter lives, and perform no better than gravity-canal schemes. Out of the 37 schemes that failed, 34 (91.8%) were pumped. Pumped schemes tend to collapse suddenly while young and exhibit lower cut-off thresholds in productivity that, when crossed, trigger collapse. They also have much lower resilience to factors such as water stress or low farm-profitability. Pumped schemes need higher levels farm sophistication, market-oriented farming, and operational capability to keep the pumping pressure up. Water resource constraints were widespread, considerably more so on gravity schemes. Commercialising farmers were inhibited by lack of access to knowledge. Success was associated with numerous factors, but two findings stand out; the performance of gravity systems and the prevalence of land-exchange activity; the latter enabled by institutional flexibility and reflecting a process of ‘bricolage’ at play. Increased plot size was associated with increased commercialisation and, when larger than 1.8 ha, only commercialised farming was pursued. Market proximity seemed to play a role in increased longevity and to market access in commercialisation. These findings highlighted the importance of productivity and profitability in explaining success. Gravity schemes performed much more strongly in terms of longevity (nearly four times longer-lived) and similarly to pumped schemes in terms of cropping intensity. This was achieved under much greater water stress and with considerably worse infrastructure condition. Water efficiency was determined to be high on half of the schemes that were using short-furrow irrigation; equivalent, in a basin perspective, to drip irrigation. Two of the three top performing schemes (>150% intensity) were old gravity schemes. Farmers on approximately 75% of Limpopo smallholder schemes are currently engaging in land exchange transactions in a highly insecure and un-formalised institutional setup. Land exchange prevalence longer than two years was moderately associated with cropping intensity and strongly associated with commercialisation. This result has three important implications. First, it suggests that more land is utilised on the schemes when there is vibrant land-leasing activity. Secondly, schemes with a higher prevalence of long-term leasing seem to have a strong tendency to be more commercialised. Thirdly, the duration of the lease is significant, as neither single-season, nor annual leases yielded any positive associations, while those exchanges that were two years or longer, were associated with increased performance. These findings highlight the potential for longer-term land-exchange interventions to address the widespread low land utilisation on smallholder schemes, and to catalyse more commercially-oriented farming. An irrigation scheme typology was derived from the cluster analysis and was aligned to a contemporary irrigation farming typology. The key descriptors included technology type, purpose of farming and scheme management type. By matching scheme type to the farmer typology (or typologies), strategic decisions regarding technology choices for infrastructure, land, and water institutional interventions can be better informed. All schemes demand attention to the multiple factors required to achieve performance, not least water-tenure security, irrigation management organisational development, and infrastructure modernisation. Complexity was demonstrated by the finding that multiple factors contribute to success, and that there are many dimensions that change independently and have a cascading effect through the system in ways that are difficult to predict. Agricultural systems support to achieve productivity and profitability are essential for success. The research findings lead to the recommendation that, in addition, strategic planners must also consider the implications of the dominant factors of water-technology choices so that these are manageable, and the dynamics of farm-size change based on land exchange processes, in order to harness new opportunities to maximise irrigation scheme performance in future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Denison, Jonathan Anthony Noel
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Irrigation projects -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Farms, Small -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Land use -- South Africa -- Limpopo , Water-supply -- South Africa -- Limpopo
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92317 , vital:30709
- Description: The research aimed to determine the factors that contribute to the success or failure of smallholder irrigation schemes in the Limpopo Province. It focussed on public-schemes where farmers share the water system Limpopo Province has more than half of the smallholder irrigation schemes in the country with an equipped area of approximately 28 000 ha. The main aims of the research were to identify key factors that explain performance and to develop a contemporary irrigation scheme typology. The research intended to provide a better perspective on how to focus investments across the multiple thematic areas that are associated with sustained and profitable irrigation farming activity. A survey of 102 irrigation schemes was conducted, comprising 82% of the population of schemes greater than 20 ha in Limpopo Province. The quantitative survey complemented prior in-depth qualitative research undertaken on Limpopo schemes. Data was consolidated into five performance indicators and 13 characteristic factors that impact performance. Schemes were viewed as technical and socio-biological systems where performance was determined by the dynamic interaction of multiple factors. The analysis was done in a complex systems framework using correlation, cluster and principle component analysis. It was postulated that over-arching concepts of productivity, profitability and manageability would explain why schemes succeed or fail. The schemes were found to be relatively very small in size with three quarters (74.8%) of them falling in the 50 to 250 ha size range, and only 11 schemes larger than 250 ha. Average plot sizes were 1.34 ha with a wide range between 0.18 and 16.25 ha. There were 65 operational schemes (equivalent to 63.7%), and 37 had failed (equivalent to 36.3%). Using a criterion for success of greater than 50% cropping intensity (to align with other studies and below which schemes can be considered to have failed), the success rate of the Limpopo schemes was 58%. The result was similar to the rest of South Africa and the same as the average rate for SADC identified in other studies using the same criterion. The schemes exhibited a mixed production purpose on average, with a significant market emphasis indicating these schemes have largely evolved from ‘food schemes’ to partly market-farming. Main crops grown were summer-maize and winter fresh-vegetables and cropping intensities on operational schemes ranged widely from 10% to 175%, with an average of 94%. Failure was associated with three dominant factors: energy type; infrastructure condition; and water resource constraints. The first two factors showed that manageability of technology was important. There is strong empirical evidence that pumped smallholder schemes are vulnerable in their physical form, prone to functional and financial failure, live much shorter lives, and perform no better than gravity-canal schemes. Out of the 37 schemes that failed, 34 (91.8%) were pumped. Pumped schemes tend to collapse suddenly while young and exhibit lower cut-off thresholds in productivity that, when crossed, trigger collapse. They also have much lower resilience to factors such as water stress or low farm-profitability. Pumped schemes need higher levels farm sophistication, market-oriented farming, and operational capability to keep the pumping pressure up. Water resource constraints were widespread, considerably more so on gravity schemes. Commercialising farmers were inhibited by lack of access to knowledge. Success was associated with numerous factors, but two findings stand out; the performance of gravity systems and the prevalence of land-exchange activity; the latter enabled by institutional flexibility and reflecting a process of ‘bricolage’ at play. Increased plot size was associated with increased commercialisation and, when larger than 1.8 ha, only commercialised farming was pursued. Market proximity seemed to play a role in increased longevity and to market access in commercialisation. These findings highlighted the importance of productivity and profitability in explaining success. Gravity schemes performed much more strongly in terms of longevity (nearly four times longer-lived) and similarly to pumped schemes in terms of cropping intensity. This was achieved under much greater water stress and with considerably worse infrastructure condition. Water efficiency was determined to be high on half of the schemes that were using short-furrow irrigation; equivalent, in a basin perspective, to drip irrigation. Two of the three top performing schemes (>150% intensity) were old gravity schemes. Farmers on approximately 75% of Limpopo smallholder schemes are currently engaging in land exchange transactions in a highly insecure and un-formalised institutional setup. Land exchange prevalence longer than two years was moderately associated with cropping intensity and strongly associated with commercialisation. This result has three important implications. First, it suggests that more land is utilised on the schemes when there is vibrant land-leasing activity. Secondly, schemes with a higher prevalence of long-term leasing seem to have a strong tendency to be more commercialised. Thirdly, the duration of the lease is significant, as neither single-season, nor annual leases yielded any positive associations, while those exchanges that were two years or longer, were associated with increased performance. These findings highlight the potential for longer-term land-exchange interventions to address the widespread low land utilisation on smallholder schemes, and to catalyse more commercially-oriented farming. An irrigation scheme typology was derived from the cluster analysis and was aligned to a contemporary irrigation farming typology. The key descriptors included technology type, purpose of farming and scheme management type. By matching scheme type to the farmer typology (or typologies), strategic decisions regarding technology choices for infrastructure, land, and water institutional interventions can be better informed. All schemes demand attention to the multiple factors required to achieve performance, not least water-tenure security, irrigation management organisational development, and infrastructure modernisation. Complexity was demonstrated by the finding that multiple factors contribute to success, and that there are many dimensions that change independently and have a cascading effect through the system in ways that are difficult to predict. Agricultural systems support to achieve productivity and profitability are essential for success. The research findings lead to the recommendation that, in addition, strategic planners must also consider the implications of the dominant factors of water-technology choices so that these are manageable, and the dynamics of farm-size change based on land exchange processes, in order to harness new opportunities to maximise irrigation scheme performance in future.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Application of computational methods in elucidating the isomerization step in the biosynthesis of coumarins
- Authors: Tshiwawa, Tendamudzimu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Coumarins , Isomerization , Biosynthesis , Organic compounds -- Synthesis , Cinnamic acid
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67646 , vital:29124
- Description: The identity of the enzyme(s) responsible for the biosynthetic transformation of cinnamic acid derivatives to important, naturally occurring coumarins has yet to be established. This study constitutes a high-level theoretical analysis of the possibility that a recently reported molecular mechanism of the synthesis of coumarins from Baylis-Hillman adducts, may provide a viable model for three critical phases in the biosynthetic pathway Particular attention has been given to the first of these phases: i) E→Z isomerisation of the cinnamic acid precursor; ii) Cyclisation (lactonisation) to the hemi-acetal intermediate; and ii) Dehydration to afford the coumarin derivative. In order to accomplish this analysis, an enzyme capable, theoretically, of effecting this E→Z isomerisation required identification, and its potential involvement in the transformation mechanism explored. Combined Molecular Mechanics and high-level Quantum Mechanical/DFT calculations were used to access complementary models of appropriate complexes and relevant processes within the enzyme active sites of a range of eleven Chalcone Isomerase (CHI) enzyme candidates, the structures of which were downloaded from the Protein Data Bank. Detailed B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) calculations have provided pictures of the relative populations of conformations within the ensemble of conformations available at normal temperatures. Conformations of several protonation states of cinnamic acid derivatives have been studied in this way, and the results obtained showed that coupled protonation and deprotonation of (E)-o-coumaric acid provides a viable approach to achieve the E→Z isomerization. In silico docking of the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) optimized (E)-o-coumaric acid derivatives in the active sites of each of the candidate CHI enzymes (CHI) revealed that (E)-o-coumaric acid fits well within the active sites of Medicago Sativa CHI crystallographic structures with 1FM8 showing best potential for not only accommodating (E)-o-coumaric acid , but also providing appropriate protein active site residues to effect the simultaneous protonation and deprotonation of the substrate , two residues being optimally placed to facilitate these critical processes. Further exploration of the chemical properties and qualities of selected CHI enzymes, undertaken using High Throughput Virtual Screening (HTVS), confirmed 1FM8 as a viable choice for further studies of the enzyme-catalysed E→Z isomerization of (E)-o-coumaric acid. A molecular dynamics study, performed to further evaluate the evolution of (E)-o-coumaric acid in the CHI active site over time, showed that the ligand in the 1FM8 active site is not only stable, but also that the desired protein-ligand interactions persist throughout the simulation period to facilitate the E→Z isomerization. An integrated molecular orbital and molecular mechanics (ONIOM) study of the 1FM8-(E)-o-coumaric acid complex, involving the direct protonation and deprotonation of the ligand by protein residues; has provided a plausible mechanism for the E → Z isomerization of (E)-o-coumaric acid within the 1FM8 active site; a transition state complex (with an activation energy of ca. 50 kCal.mol-1) has been located and its connection with both the (E)- and (Z)-o-coumaric acid isomer has been confirmed by Intrinsic Reaction Coordinate (IRC) calculations. More realistic models of the 1FM8-(E)-o-coumaric acid complex, with the inclusion of water solvent molecules, have been obtained at both the QM/MM and adaptive QM/MM levels which simulate the dynamic active site at the QM level. The results indicate that the simultaneous protonation and deprotonation of (E)-o-coumaric acid within the CHI enzyme is a water-mediated process – a conclusion consistent with similar reported processes. Visual inspection of the 1FM8-(Z)-o-coumaric acid complex reveals both the necessary orientation of the phenolic and carboxylic acid moieties of the (Z)-o-coumaric acid and the presence of appropriate, proximal active site residues with the potential to permit catalysis of the subsequent lactonisation and dehydration steps required to generate coumarin.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Tshiwawa, Tendamudzimu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Coumarins , Isomerization , Biosynthesis , Organic compounds -- Synthesis , Cinnamic acid
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67646 , vital:29124
- Description: The identity of the enzyme(s) responsible for the biosynthetic transformation of cinnamic acid derivatives to important, naturally occurring coumarins has yet to be established. This study constitutes a high-level theoretical analysis of the possibility that a recently reported molecular mechanism of the synthesis of coumarins from Baylis-Hillman adducts, may provide a viable model for three critical phases in the biosynthetic pathway Particular attention has been given to the first of these phases: i) E→Z isomerisation of the cinnamic acid precursor; ii) Cyclisation (lactonisation) to the hemi-acetal intermediate; and ii) Dehydration to afford the coumarin derivative. In order to accomplish this analysis, an enzyme capable, theoretically, of effecting this E→Z isomerisation required identification, and its potential involvement in the transformation mechanism explored. Combined Molecular Mechanics and high-level Quantum Mechanical/DFT calculations were used to access complementary models of appropriate complexes and relevant processes within the enzyme active sites of a range of eleven Chalcone Isomerase (CHI) enzyme candidates, the structures of which were downloaded from the Protein Data Bank. Detailed B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) calculations have provided pictures of the relative populations of conformations within the ensemble of conformations available at normal temperatures. Conformations of several protonation states of cinnamic acid derivatives have been studied in this way, and the results obtained showed that coupled protonation and deprotonation of (E)-o-coumaric acid provides a viable approach to achieve the E→Z isomerization. In silico docking of the B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) optimized (E)-o-coumaric acid derivatives in the active sites of each of the candidate CHI enzymes (CHI) revealed that (E)-o-coumaric acid fits well within the active sites of Medicago Sativa CHI crystallographic structures with 1FM8 showing best potential for not only accommodating (E)-o-coumaric acid , but also providing appropriate protein active site residues to effect the simultaneous protonation and deprotonation of the substrate , two residues being optimally placed to facilitate these critical processes. Further exploration of the chemical properties and qualities of selected CHI enzymes, undertaken using High Throughput Virtual Screening (HTVS), confirmed 1FM8 as a viable choice for further studies of the enzyme-catalysed E→Z isomerization of (E)-o-coumaric acid. A molecular dynamics study, performed to further evaluate the evolution of (E)-o-coumaric acid in the CHI active site over time, showed that the ligand in the 1FM8 active site is not only stable, but also that the desired protein-ligand interactions persist throughout the simulation period to facilitate the E→Z isomerization. An integrated molecular orbital and molecular mechanics (ONIOM) study of the 1FM8-(E)-o-coumaric acid complex, involving the direct protonation and deprotonation of the ligand by protein residues; has provided a plausible mechanism for the E → Z isomerization of (E)-o-coumaric acid within the 1FM8 active site; a transition state complex (with an activation energy of ca. 50 kCal.mol-1) has been located and its connection with both the (E)- and (Z)-o-coumaric acid isomer has been confirmed by Intrinsic Reaction Coordinate (IRC) calculations. More realistic models of the 1FM8-(E)-o-coumaric acid complex, with the inclusion of water solvent molecules, have been obtained at both the QM/MM and adaptive QM/MM levels which simulate the dynamic active site at the QM level. The results indicate that the simultaneous protonation and deprotonation of (E)-o-coumaric acid within the CHI enzyme is a water-mediated process – a conclusion consistent with similar reported processes. Visual inspection of the 1FM8-(Z)-o-coumaric acid complex reveals both the necessary orientation of the phenolic and carboxylic acid moieties of the (Z)-o-coumaric acid and the presence of appropriate, proximal active site residues with the potential to permit catalysis of the subsequent lactonisation and dehydration steps required to generate coumarin.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Bolvedere: a scalable network flow threat analysis system
- Authors: Herbert, Alan
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Bolvedere (Computer network analysis system) , Computer networks -- Scalability , Computer networks -- Measurement , Computer networks -- Security measures , Telecommunication -- Traffic -- Measurement
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71557 , vital:29873
- Description: Since the advent of the Internet, and its public availability in the late 90’s, there have been significant advancements to network technologies and thus a significant increase of the bandwidth available to network users, both human and automated. Although this growth is of great value to network users, it has led to an increase in malicious network-based activities and it is theorized that, as more services become available on the Internet, the volume of such activities will continue to grow. Because of this, there is a need to monitor, comprehend, discern, understand and (where needed) respond to events on networks worldwide. Although this line of thought is simple in its reasoning, undertaking such a task is no small feat. Full packet analysis is a method of network surveillance that seeks out specific characteristics within network traffic that may tell of malicious activity or anomalies in regular network usage. It is carried out within firewalls and implemented through packet classification. In the context of the networks that make up the Internet, this form of packet analysis has become infeasible, as the volume of traffic introduced onto these networks every day is so large that there are simply not enough processing resources to perform such a task on every packet in real time. One could combat this problem by performing post-incident forensics; archiving packets and processing them later. However, as one cannot process all incoming packets, the archive will eventually run out of space. Full packet analysis is also hindered by the fact that some existing, commonly-used solutions are designed around a single host and single thread of execution, an outdated approach that is far slower than necessary on current computing technology. This research explores the conceptual design and implementation of a scalable network traffic analysis system named Bolvedere. Analysis performed by Bolvedere simply asks whether the existence of a connection, coupled with its associated metadata, is enough to conclude something meaningful about that connection. This idea draws away from the traditional processing of every single byte in every single packet monitored on a network link (Deep Packet Inspection) through the concept of working with connection flows. Bolvedere performs its work by leveraging the NetFlow version 9 and IPFIX protocols, but is not limited to these. It is implemented using a modular approach that allows for either complete execution of the system on a single host or the horizontal scaling out of subsystems on multiple hosts. The use of multiple hosts is achieved through the implementation of Zero Message Queue (ZMQ). This allows for Bolvedre to horizontally scale out, which results in an increase in processing resources and thus an increase in analysis throughput. This is due to ease of interprocess communications provided by ZMQ. Many underlying mechanisms in Bolvedere have been automated. This is intended to make the system more userfriendly, as the user need only tell Bolvedere what information they wish to analyse, and the system will then rebuild itself in order to achieve this required task. Bolvedere has also been hardware-accelerated through the use of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies, which more than doubled the total throughput of the system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Herbert, Alan
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Bolvedere (Computer network analysis system) , Computer networks -- Scalability , Computer networks -- Measurement , Computer networks -- Security measures , Telecommunication -- Traffic -- Measurement
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/71557 , vital:29873
- Description: Since the advent of the Internet, and its public availability in the late 90’s, there have been significant advancements to network technologies and thus a significant increase of the bandwidth available to network users, both human and automated. Although this growth is of great value to network users, it has led to an increase in malicious network-based activities and it is theorized that, as more services become available on the Internet, the volume of such activities will continue to grow. Because of this, there is a need to monitor, comprehend, discern, understand and (where needed) respond to events on networks worldwide. Although this line of thought is simple in its reasoning, undertaking such a task is no small feat. Full packet analysis is a method of network surveillance that seeks out specific characteristics within network traffic that may tell of malicious activity or anomalies in regular network usage. It is carried out within firewalls and implemented through packet classification. In the context of the networks that make up the Internet, this form of packet analysis has become infeasible, as the volume of traffic introduced onto these networks every day is so large that there are simply not enough processing resources to perform such a task on every packet in real time. One could combat this problem by performing post-incident forensics; archiving packets and processing them later. However, as one cannot process all incoming packets, the archive will eventually run out of space. Full packet analysis is also hindered by the fact that some existing, commonly-used solutions are designed around a single host and single thread of execution, an outdated approach that is far slower than necessary on current computing technology. This research explores the conceptual design and implementation of a scalable network traffic analysis system named Bolvedere. Analysis performed by Bolvedere simply asks whether the existence of a connection, coupled with its associated metadata, is enough to conclude something meaningful about that connection. This idea draws away from the traditional processing of every single byte in every single packet monitored on a network link (Deep Packet Inspection) through the concept of working with connection flows. Bolvedere performs its work by leveraging the NetFlow version 9 and IPFIX protocols, but is not limited to these. It is implemented using a modular approach that allows for either complete execution of the system on a single host or the horizontal scaling out of subsystems on multiple hosts. The use of multiple hosts is achieved through the implementation of Zero Message Queue (ZMQ). This allows for Bolvedre to horizontally scale out, which results in an increase in processing resources and thus an increase in analysis throughput. This is due to ease of interprocess communications provided by ZMQ. Many underlying mechanisms in Bolvedere have been automated. This is intended to make the system more userfriendly, as the user need only tell Bolvedere what information they wish to analyse, and the system will then rebuild itself in order to achieve this required task. Bolvedere has also been hardware-accelerated through the use of Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) technologies, which more than doubled the total throughput of the system.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Boundary-crossing learning in agricultural learning systems: formative interventions for water and seed provision in southern Africa
- Authors: Pesanayi, Victor Tichaona
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Agriultural extension work -- Africa, Southern , Agriultural colleges -- Africa, Southern , Farmers -- Education -- Africa, Southern , Agriculture and state -- Africa, Southern , Sustainable agriculture -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94067 , vital:30997
- Description: This research was conducted in the Amathole rural district of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, and in Zvishavane and Zhombe rural districts of the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe over a period of four years. In the first two years of this period I was involved in co-engaged boundary-crossing expansive learning processes with research participants from agricultural education (agricultural college lecturers, principals and university lecturers), extension services (extension officers, advisors and workers), small-scale farmers and a local economic development (LED) agency as agricultural learning activity systems. The latter was applicable only to the South African nested case while the rest applied to both country nested cases. The study focusses on the boundary-crossing learning of sustainable agricultural water relevant for small-scale farming contexts under rain-fed and climate constrained conditions with specific attention to rainwater harvesting and conservation and climate-adaptive seed. The study employed cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and developmental work research methodology developed by Yrjö Engeström and his colleagues at the Centre for Researching Activity Development and Learning (CRADLE) at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The study was guided by three objectives. The first objective was to find out how the different groups represented across the activity systems listed above learn together to mediate and communicate sustainable agricultural water and seed saving. To address this objective I conducted focus groups and interviews with key informants, made observations and analysed documents. The second objective was to explore and document the socio-ecological histories of rainwater harvesting and conservation, locally-adaptive seed systems and associated value chains, and socio-cultural histories of agricultural learning systems in the context of small-scale farming using historical and ethnographic research techniques. The third objective was to understand how learning, curriculum innovation and mediation tools for agricultural extension education and farmer training that can expand learning of rainwater harvesting and conservation sustainable practices for improved local agricultural water and climate-adaptive non-formal seed systems in agricultural education and small-scale farmer activity systems could be co-generated. This third objective constituted the boundary-crossing expansive learning that emerged from change laboratory workshops carefully designed to explore the common water for food object across the different but related activity systems. The study reveals historically-persisting tensions and contradictions in the work of agricultural college lecturers, small-scale farmers and extension workers that limit their ability to work together relationally leaving them operating in isolated ‘silos’. The industrially-driven agricultural college curriculum promoting conventional irrigated agriculture conflicted with the college’s objective of producing extension workers who will work with resource-poor small-scale farmers in rain-fed farming systems. This conflict was aggravated by the work of extension workers who had little to no knowledge regarding how to support small-scale farmers facing persistent drought and consequent crop failure due to poor and erratic rainfall. At the same time extension services promoting genetically modified (GMO) seed in South Africa were in conflict with some small-scale farmers’ demands for seed that was adapted to their changing climate and their ability to operate independently with access to and ownership of land. This study shows that the work of agricultural colleges and extension services often defeats its intended structural objectives due to historically-constituted power relations around knowledge. This study has demonstrated the effectiveness of co-generative formative interventions in boundary-crossing scenarios in learning network contexts for expansion of activity in farming communities, agricultural colleges and extension services, with emphasis of transformed activity towards engaging a collective object of rainwater harvesting and conservation for more sustainable agriculture and poverty alleviation. The study shows that diverse combinations of change practice courses, change laboratories, demonstration sites and media engagements as mediation processes in the context of learning networks strengthened the possibility for boundary-crossing expansive learning across activity systems of agricultural college lecturers, smallholder farmers, extension workers and local economic development agency facilitators. Three of the five mediation processes emerged out of the formative intervention processes in both the South African and Zimbabwean case studies while two were not realised in the Zimbabwean case study, namely the change practice course and media engagements, due to different formative intervention conditions, inadequate time and resources. Boundary-crossing was enabled by a variety of actions including understanding and identifying with the context of the other (i.e. developing empathy) as a result of change laboratory workshops that also ensured confrontation with relational contradictions. The study concludes that it is possible for historically-constituted contradictions around water for food to be resolved when participants from different agricultural learning systems co-engage as equals in boundary-crossing change laboratory fora mediated by appropriate tools and processes. The study contributes to innovation in agricultural learning systems in southern Africa, in particular to means of engaging across boundaries of previously largely disconnected activity systems in ways that benefit smallholder farmers who have previously been marginalised from mainstream agricultural learning systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Pesanayi, Victor Tichaona
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Agriultural extension work -- Africa, Southern , Agriultural colleges -- Africa, Southern , Farmers -- Education -- Africa, Southern , Agriculture and state -- Africa, Southern , Sustainable agriculture -- Africa, Southern
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/94067 , vital:30997
- Description: This research was conducted in the Amathole rural district of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, and in Zvishavane and Zhombe rural districts of the Midlands Province of Zimbabwe over a period of four years. In the first two years of this period I was involved in co-engaged boundary-crossing expansive learning processes with research participants from agricultural education (agricultural college lecturers, principals and university lecturers), extension services (extension officers, advisors and workers), small-scale farmers and a local economic development (LED) agency as agricultural learning activity systems. The latter was applicable only to the South African nested case while the rest applied to both country nested cases. The study focusses on the boundary-crossing learning of sustainable agricultural water relevant for small-scale farming contexts under rain-fed and climate constrained conditions with specific attention to rainwater harvesting and conservation and climate-adaptive seed. The study employed cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT) and developmental work research methodology developed by Yrjö Engeström and his colleagues at the Centre for Researching Activity Development and Learning (CRADLE) at the University of Helsinki in Finland. The study was guided by three objectives. The first objective was to find out how the different groups represented across the activity systems listed above learn together to mediate and communicate sustainable agricultural water and seed saving. To address this objective I conducted focus groups and interviews with key informants, made observations and analysed documents. The second objective was to explore and document the socio-ecological histories of rainwater harvesting and conservation, locally-adaptive seed systems and associated value chains, and socio-cultural histories of agricultural learning systems in the context of small-scale farming using historical and ethnographic research techniques. The third objective was to understand how learning, curriculum innovation and mediation tools for agricultural extension education and farmer training that can expand learning of rainwater harvesting and conservation sustainable practices for improved local agricultural water and climate-adaptive non-formal seed systems in agricultural education and small-scale farmer activity systems could be co-generated. This third objective constituted the boundary-crossing expansive learning that emerged from change laboratory workshops carefully designed to explore the common water for food object across the different but related activity systems. The study reveals historically-persisting tensions and contradictions in the work of agricultural college lecturers, small-scale farmers and extension workers that limit their ability to work together relationally leaving them operating in isolated ‘silos’. The industrially-driven agricultural college curriculum promoting conventional irrigated agriculture conflicted with the college’s objective of producing extension workers who will work with resource-poor small-scale farmers in rain-fed farming systems. This conflict was aggravated by the work of extension workers who had little to no knowledge regarding how to support small-scale farmers facing persistent drought and consequent crop failure due to poor and erratic rainfall. At the same time extension services promoting genetically modified (GMO) seed in South Africa were in conflict with some small-scale farmers’ demands for seed that was adapted to their changing climate and their ability to operate independently with access to and ownership of land. This study shows that the work of agricultural colleges and extension services often defeats its intended structural objectives due to historically-constituted power relations around knowledge. This study has demonstrated the effectiveness of co-generative formative interventions in boundary-crossing scenarios in learning network contexts for expansion of activity in farming communities, agricultural colleges and extension services, with emphasis of transformed activity towards engaging a collective object of rainwater harvesting and conservation for more sustainable agriculture and poverty alleviation. The study shows that diverse combinations of change practice courses, change laboratories, demonstration sites and media engagements as mediation processes in the context of learning networks strengthened the possibility for boundary-crossing expansive learning across activity systems of agricultural college lecturers, smallholder farmers, extension workers and local economic development agency facilitators. Three of the five mediation processes emerged out of the formative intervention processes in both the South African and Zimbabwean case studies while two were not realised in the Zimbabwean case study, namely the change practice course and media engagements, due to different formative intervention conditions, inadequate time and resources. Boundary-crossing was enabled by a variety of actions including understanding and identifying with the context of the other (i.e. developing empathy) as a result of change laboratory workshops that also ensured confrontation with relational contradictions. The study concludes that it is possible for historically-constituted contradictions around water for food to be resolved when participants from different agricultural learning systems co-engage as equals in boundary-crossing change laboratory fora mediated by appropriate tools and processes. The study contributes to innovation in agricultural learning systems in southern Africa, in particular to means of engaging across boundaries of previously largely disconnected activity systems in ways that benefit smallholder farmers who have previously been marginalised from mainstream agricultural learning systems.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Centralising a counter public: an ethnographic study of the interpretation of mainstream news media by young adults in Joza
- Authors: Ponono, Mvuzo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: African National Congress Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa Press and politics -- South Africa , South Africa -- Politics and government -- 21st century Zuma, Jacob -- Political and social views , Political corruption -- 21st century Elections -- South Africa Voting -- South Africa Misconduct in office -- South Africa Abuse of administrative power -- South Africa Young adults -- Political activity -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Young adults -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65033 , vital:28655
- Description: The 2014 national general elections were characterised by a cloud of scandal hanging over the ANC, and the ANC president Jacob Zuma. The biggest and darkest cloud was the Nkandla scandal. Owing to a reported R246 million spent by the state to refurbish his private home, the president stood accused of wasteful expenditure and financial irregularity. In a country reeling from the continued effects of apartheid, which include high unemployment and poverty, the scandal was a bombshell. According to a vocal and often adversarial mainstream media sphere, the ANC went into those elections with an albatross around its neck. The dominant thought was that the ruling party would suffer a heavy loss of votes. This outcome did not materialise. The ANC lost a marginal share of its previous vote. Mainstream media and civil society were confounded. What had happened? Why had poor black South Africans continued to vote for a party that was obviously in breach of the constitutional order? Against the mismatch between what was predicted or purported and the outcome, this study investigates how young people in the township of Joza, Grahamstown, interpreted one of the biggest political scandals in South Africa’s fledgling democracy. Using a combination of subaltern studies, counter public sphere and audience study, the research looks into the interpretation of a mainstream media scandal that was supposed to diminish the chances of the ANC retaining power, but, instead, barely dented its majority. Through a combination of interviews and participant observation, the study found that young people in the township of Joza demonstrated that they chose to ignore the messages about the corruption of the ANC. The data suggests that they did so, not because of overt racial solidarity, but due to the fact that in a context of high inequality, and continued limitations on economic emancipation, the party shone brightly as a vehicle for economic development. Overall, the study argues that the seemingly dubious undertaking to continue with the ANC is a calculated decision that makes sense when viewed within a given socio-economic context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Ponono, Mvuzo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: African National Congress Mass media -- Political aspects -- South Africa Press and politics -- South Africa , South Africa -- Politics and government -- 21st century Zuma, Jacob -- Political and social views , Political corruption -- 21st century Elections -- South Africa Voting -- South Africa Misconduct in office -- South Africa Abuse of administrative power -- South Africa Young adults -- Political activity -- South Africa -- Grahamstown Young adults -- Politics and government
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65033 , vital:28655
- Description: The 2014 national general elections were characterised by a cloud of scandal hanging over the ANC, and the ANC president Jacob Zuma. The biggest and darkest cloud was the Nkandla scandal. Owing to a reported R246 million spent by the state to refurbish his private home, the president stood accused of wasteful expenditure and financial irregularity. In a country reeling from the continued effects of apartheid, which include high unemployment and poverty, the scandal was a bombshell. According to a vocal and often adversarial mainstream media sphere, the ANC went into those elections with an albatross around its neck. The dominant thought was that the ruling party would suffer a heavy loss of votes. This outcome did not materialise. The ANC lost a marginal share of its previous vote. Mainstream media and civil society were confounded. What had happened? Why had poor black South Africans continued to vote for a party that was obviously in breach of the constitutional order? Against the mismatch between what was predicted or purported and the outcome, this study investigates how young people in the township of Joza, Grahamstown, interpreted one of the biggest political scandals in South Africa’s fledgling democracy. Using a combination of subaltern studies, counter public sphere and audience study, the research looks into the interpretation of a mainstream media scandal that was supposed to diminish the chances of the ANC retaining power, but, instead, barely dented its majority. Through a combination of interviews and participant observation, the study found that young people in the township of Joza demonstrated that they chose to ignore the messages about the corruption of the ANC. The data suggests that they did so, not because of overt racial solidarity, but due to the fact that in a context of high inequality, and continued limitations on economic emancipation, the party shone brightly as a vehicle for economic development. Overall, the study argues that the seemingly dubious undertaking to continue with the ANC is a calculated decision that makes sense when viewed within a given socio-economic context.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Charting freedom: inequality beliefs, preferences for redistribution, and distributive social policy in contemporary South Africa
- Authors: Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Economic policy South Africa -- Social policy , Democracy -- Economic conditions -- South Africa Race discrimination -- South Africa Poverty -- South Africa Equality -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64999 , vital:28644
- Description: While the transition to democracy in South Africa extended civil and political rights and freedoms to all South Africans, there has been disagreement over the preferred nature and scope of social rights within post-apartheid society, reflecting debates over the trajectory of economic policy. Appreciable developmental gains have been made by the state over the last quarter-century, yet the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality persist, coupled with mounting popular discontent with the pace of transformation and political accountability. This has led to fundamental questions about social justice, restitution, and the kind of society we wish to promote. Appeals for a more inclusive, transformative social policy have also emerged, arguing that a wider vision of society is required involving multiple government responsibilities and informed by an ethic of equality and social solidarity. Against this background, in this thesis I study the views of the South African public towards economic inequality, general preferences for government-led redistribution, as well as support for social policies intended to promote racial and economic transformation. The research has been guided by several overarching questions: To what extent do South Africans share common general beliefs about material inequality? Does the public exhibit a preference for government redistribution in principle? And how unified or polarised are South Africans in their support for specific redress policies in the country? Responding to these questions has been achieved by drawing on unique, nationally representative data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), which has enabled me to chart social attitudes over a period of almost fifteen years between late 2003 and early 2017. Use has also been made of social citizenship as a guiding conceptual framework to understanding social policy predispositions and analysing attitudinal change. The results demonstrate that the public is united in its awareness of and deep concern about economic inequality. Since the early 2000s, a significant majority has consistently expressed the view that the income gap in the country is too large, articulated a strong preference for a more equitable social structure, and acknowledged the class and social tensions that economic inequality has produced. There is also a preference for a narrowing of earnings disparities, a more generous minimum wage, and regulatory limits on executive pay. While this suggests a desire for fair and legitimate remuneration, the analysis also reveals that South Africans are willing to tolerate fairly high levels of inequality. Nonetheless, these beliefs are generally interpreted as a desire for a more equitable and fair society. This preference for change is reflected in a fairly strong belief that government should assume responsibility for reducing material disparities. One’s social position, mobility history, awareness of inequality, political leaning and racial attitudes all have a bearing on how weak and strong this predisposition is, but the normative demand for political redistribution remains fairly widely shared irrespective of these individual traits. Greater polarisation is however evident with respect to redistributive social policy, especially measures designed to overcome historical racial injustice (affirmative action, sports quotas, and land reform). These intergroup differences converge considerably when referring to class-based policy measures. One surprising finding is the evidence that South Africa’s youngest generation, the so-called ‘Born Frees’, tend to adopt a similar predisposition to redress policy as older generations, thus confounding expectations of a post-apartheid value change. I conclude by arguing that there seems to be a firmer basis for a social compact about preferences for interventions designed to produce a more just society than is typically assumed. Intractably high levels of economic inequality during the country’s first quarter-century of democracy is resulting in a growing recognition of the need for a stronger policy emphasis on economic inequality in South Africa over coming decades if the vision enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution is to be realised. South Africans may not be able to fully agree about the specific elements that constitute a socially just response to economic inequality. Yet, the common identification of and concern with redressable injustice, coupled with a broad-based commitment to government redistribution and classbased social policies, could serve as a foundation on which to rekindle the solidaristic spirit of 1994 and forge progress towards a more equitable society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Roberts, Benjamin J
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: South Africa -- Economic conditions South Africa -- Economic policy South Africa -- Social policy , Democracy -- Economic conditions -- South Africa Race discrimination -- South Africa Poverty -- South Africa Equality -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64999 , vital:28644
- Description: While the transition to democracy in South Africa extended civil and political rights and freedoms to all South Africans, there has been disagreement over the preferred nature and scope of social rights within post-apartheid society, reflecting debates over the trajectory of economic policy. Appreciable developmental gains have been made by the state over the last quarter-century, yet the challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality persist, coupled with mounting popular discontent with the pace of transformation and political accountability. This has led to fundamental questions about social justice, restitution, and the kind of society we wish to promote. Appeals for a more inclusive, transformative social policy have also emerged, arguing that a wider vision of society is required involving multiple government responsibilities and informed by an ethic of equality and social solidarity. Against this background, in this thesis I study the views of the South African public towards economic inequality, general preferences for government-led redistribution, as well as support for social policies intended to promote racial and economic transformation. The research has been guided by several overarching questions: To what extent do South Africans share common general beliefs about material inequality? Does the public exhibit a preference for government redistribution in principle? And how unified or polarised are South Africans in their support for specific redress policies in the country? Responding to these questions has been achieved by drawing on unique, nationally representative data from the South African Social Attitudes Survey (SASAS), which has enabled me to chart social attitudes over a period of almost fifteen years between late 2003 and early 2017. Use has also been made of social citizenship as a guiding conceptual framework to understanding social policy predispositions and analysing attitudinal change. The results demonstrate that the public is united in its awareness of and deep concern about economic inequality. Since the early 2000s, a significant majority has consistently expressed the view that the income gap in the country is too large, articulated a strong preference for a more equitable social structure, and acknowledged the class and social tensions that economic inequality has produced. There is also a preference for a narrowing of earnings disparities, a more generous minimum wage, and regulatory limits on executive pay. While this suggests a desire for fair and legitimate remuneration, the analysis also reveals that South Africans are willing to tolerate fairly high levels of inequality. Nonetheless, these beliefs are generally interpreted as a desire for a more equitable and fair society. This preference for change is reflected in a fairly strong belief that government should assume responsibility for reducing material disparities. One’s social position, mobility history, awareness of inequality, political leaning and racial attitudes all have a bearing on how weak and strong this predisposition is, but the normative demand for political redistribution remains fairly widely shared irrespective of these individual traits. Greater polarisation is however evident with respect to redistributive social policy, especially measures designed to overcome historical racial injustice (affirmative action, sports quotas, and land reform). These intergroup differences converge considerably when referring to class-based policy measures. One surprising finding is the evidence that South Africa’s youngest generation, the so-called ‘Born Frees’, tend to adopt a similar predisposition to redress policy as older generations, thus confounding expectations of a post-apartheid value change. I conclude by arguing that there seems to be a firmer basis for a social compact about preferences for interventions designed to produce a more just society than is typically assumed. Intractably high levels of economic inequality during the country’s first quarter-century of democracy is resulting in a growing recognition of the need for a stronger policy emphasis on economic inequality in South Africa over coming decades if the vision enshrined in the Freedom Charter and the Constitution is to be realised. South Africans may not be able to fully agree about the specific elements that constitute a socially just response to economic inequality. Yet, the common identification of and concern with redressable injustice, coupled with a broad-based commitment to government redistribution and classbased social policies, could serve as a foundation on which to rekindle the solidaristic spirit of 1994 and forge progress towards a more equitable society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Civil society engagement with water governance at a local government scale in South Africa
- Weaver, Matthew James Thanduxolo
- Authors: Weaver, Matthew James Thanduxolo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Government accountability -- South Africa , Civil Society -- South Africa , Political participation -- South Africa , Local government -- South Africa , Water supply -- Management , Water resources development -- South Africa , Water quality management -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151316 , vital:39051
- Description: The South African state’s ideological commitment to a participatory approach to managing water resources and delivering services in a way that includes all stakeholders warrants critical analysis.Realising this ideological commitment has proved challenging, due largely to the complex historical, political, social, and environmental context of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in South Africa. The overarching aim of this study was to explore and expand the learning of civil societyparticipating in water governance processes at a local government scale. To address this aim a single, in-depth, four-year case study into civil society participation in water governance in the Makana Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was conducted between 2014 and 2018. The case study comprised two research phases. Both phases of the research were conducted using an adaptive transdisciplinary and participatory action research approach underpinned by General Complexity Theory. Located at the research-practice interface, the study sought to be transformative and advance both scientific research and societal goals. Qualitative research methods and inductive and deductive modes of inference were used to collect and analyse the data respectively. In the first phase of the study, a Communities of Practice theoretical framing was adopted to investigate the emergence, practice and learning of a civil society organisation (CSO), Water for Dignity (WfD), in response to household water service delivery issues in the municipality. This phase served to build an understanding of factors that enabled and constrained the practice of WfD in addressing local water service issues, and of their role as social learning agents in building water-related knowledge in their community. As participation with the first civil society organisation fragmented, the opportunity arose for local government, the National Department of Water and Sanitation and civil society to co-engage. This opened up the second phase of the research during which the role of a multi-stakeholder platform, the Makana Water Forum (MWF), in enabling democratic water governance was investigated. The MWF was South Africa’s first catchment management forum with an integrated water service and water resource management agenda. In this phase, the study drew on interventionist methodology, Change Laboratory, from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to 1) describe the historical development, composition and shared purpose of the MWF multi-activity system constellation; and to 2) guide participants through seven learning actions (expansive learning cycle) to identify, analyse, model and implement remedial actions to problematic aspects (contradictions) of the MWF practice. Participants of the Change Laboratory workshops built their individual and collective transformative agency (deliberate actions to transform a problematic situation) as they navigated the expansive learning process. The development of this agency was identified through a micro-analysis of agentive talk. The two phases served to advance the exploration of civil society participation from informal participation to address water issues, to formal participation in water governance processes at a local government scale. Findings from the first phase of the research revealed that dedicated and sustained support of partners with distributed expertise and the highly motivated core members of WfD enabled the practice and emergence of the civil society organisation. However, factors such as poor internal leadership, power dynamics between supporting partners, socio-economic constraints and a deeply embedded lack of agency were found to be key constraining factors to WfD’s practice. Findings revealed that learning at WfD team level occurred in four ways, through learning as belonging, learning as doing, learning as experiencing and learning as becoming. The WfD CSO was able to catalyse social learning related to personal water rights; and best practices for improving water quality and water conservation in their wider community of practice. Social learning was fostered mainly through structured citizen engagements offered by WfD. The research provides evidence that civil society organisations can play an important role in bridging water-related knowledge gaps and can foster active citizenship in South African communities. However, despite significant inputs of support and resources through the engaged transdisciplinary research process, the practice and learning outcomes of WfD had a marginal transformative impact on improving the citizen’s every-day water service experiences. Findings from the second phase of the study revealed the MWF to resemble a multi-activity system constellation with a multiple, partially overlapping. interests related to the management of water. The establishment, function and contradictions constraining the function of the MWF were influenced by past cycles of participatory water governance-related activity and practice at national and local scales. Through the Change Laboratory process, 25 contradictions were identified that appeared to constrain the ability of the MWF to enable inclusive and meaningful participatory water governance. Through a process of expansive learning, participants sought to overcome three sets of contradictions grouped as Problem Themes: lack of clear focus of the MWF; representation, representivity and nonattendance; and the MWF relationship with the Makana Local Municipality. Remedial actions modelled and those enacted have improved aspects of the function of the MWF (such as diversified modes of engagement and a more focussed agenda) but have only resulted in incremental shifts towards enabling improved participatory practice, most markedly in building a collaborative relationship and trust between the MWF members, municipal and government officials. The microanalysis of agentive talk revealed seven different expressions of transformative agency. Constraining socio-economic and political conditions and the limited capacity of the coordinating committee of the MWF hindered the development of transformative agency to the extent to which concrete actions were implemented. Findings further revealed that contextualising a Change Laboratory process within the adaptive cycle of a complex social-ecological system, and the particular opportunity context the system presents, could inform the enactment of agency and its potential impact on the transformation of the system. The intervention with the MWF was too short a process to clearly observe the effects of transformative actions on the sustainability of the Makana Local Municipality water system. However, long-chain transformative agency through the development of one-on-one engagements, learning journeys and a reflexive component to the MWF engagements could support transformative pathways to sustainability in the municipality and water management system. The study contributes in-depth insight into the key role of learning as a catalyst in transformative processes. Learning improves the collaborative and adaptive capacity of people, and therefore, water management institutions, to manage explicitly for the complexity inherent in “complex” socialecological systems. It provides empirical evidence as to what enables and constrains “real” participation and learning in grass-roots water governance processes in the context of a shifting national drive towards a more adaptive and developmental Integrated Water Resource Management approach. It further provides methodological contributions to 1) the application of the Change Laboratory method with multi-activity system constellations in developing world contexts and 2) value and limitations of extended and engaged transdisciplinary research. Lastly, it provides practical recommendations to the establishment and sustainable function of both community-based CSOs and multi-stakeholder platforms engaging in water governance processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Weaver, Matthew James Thanduxolo
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Government accountability -- South Africa , Civil Society -- South Africa , Political participation -- South Africa , Local government -- South Africa , Water supply -- Management , Water resources development -- South Africa , Water quality management -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/151316 , vital:39051
- Description: The South African state’s ideological commitment to a participatory approach to managing water resources and delivering services in a way that includes all stakeholders warrants critical analysis.Realising this ideological commitment has proved challenging, due largely to the complex historical, political, social, and environmental context of integrated water resource management (IWRM) in South Africa. The overarching aim of this study was to explore and expand the learning of civil societyparticipating in water governance processes at a local government scale. To address this aim a single, in-depth, four-year case study into civil society participation in water governance in the Makana Local Municipality in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa was conducted between 2014 and 2018. The case study comprised two research phases. Both phases of the research were conducted using an adaptive transdisciplinary and participatory action research approach underpinned by General Complexity Theory. Located at the research-practice interface, the study sought to be transformative and advance both scientific research and societal goals. Qualitative research methods and inductive and deductive modes of inference were used to collect and analyse the data respectively. In the first phase of the study, a Communities of Practice theoretical framing was adopted to investigate the emergence, practice and learning of a civil society organisation (CSO), Water for Dignity (WfD), in response to household water service delivery issues in the municipality. This phase served to build an understanding of factors that enabled and constrained the practice of WfD in addressing local water service issues, and of their role as social learning agents in building water-related knowledge in their community. As participation with the first civil society organisation fragmented, the opportunity arose for local government, the National Department of Water and Sanitation and civil society to co-engage. This opened up the second phase of the research during which the role of a multi-stakeholder platform, the Makana Water Forum (MWF), in enabling democratic water governance was investigated. The MWF was South Africa’s first catchment management forum with an integrated water service and water resource management agenda. In this phase, the study drew on interventionist methodology, Change Laboratory, from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to 1) describe the historical development, composition and shared purpose of the MWF multi-activity system constellation; and to 2) guide participants through seven learning actions (expansive learning cycle) to identify, analyse, model and implement remedial actions to problematic aspects (contradictions) of the MWF practice. Participants of the Change Laboratory workshops built their individual and collective transformative agency (deliberate actions to transform a problematic situation) as they navigated the expansive learning process. The development of this agency was identified through a micro-analysis of agentive talk. The two phases served to advance the exploration of civil society participation from informal participation to address water issues, to formal participation in water governance processes at a local government scale. Findings from the first phase of the research revealed that dedicated and sustained support of partners with distributed expertise and the highly motivated core members of WfD enabled the practice and emergence of the civil society organisation. However, factors such as poor internal leadership, power dynamics between supporting partners, socio-economic constraints and a deeply embedded lack of agency were found to be key constraining factors to WfD’s practice. Findings revealed that learning at WfD team level occurred in four ways, through learning as belonging, learning as doing, learning as experiencing and learning as becoming. The WfD CSO was able to catalyse social learning related to personal water rights; and best practices for improving water quality and water conservation in their wider community of practice. Social learning was fostered mainly through structured citizen engagements offered by WfD. The research provides evidence that civil society organisations can play an important role in bridging water-related knowledge gaps and can foster active citizenship in South African communities. However, despite significant inputs of support and resources through the engaged transdisciplinary research process, the practice and learning outcomes of WfD had a marginal transformative impact on improving the citizen’s every-day water service experiences. Findings from the second phase of the study revealed the MWF to resemble a multi-activity system constellation with a multiple, partially overlapping. interests related to the management of water. The establishment, function and contradictions constraining the function of the MWF were influenced by past cycles of participatory water governance-related activity and practice at national and local scales. Through the Change Laboratory process, 25 contradictions were identified that appeared to constrain the ability of the MWF to enable inclusive and meaningful participatory water governance. Through a process of expansive learning, participants sought to overcome three sets of contradictions grouped as Problem Themes: lack of clear focus of the MWF; representation, representivity and nonattendance; and the MWF relationship with the Makana Local Municipality. Remedial actions modelled and those enacted have improved aspects of the function of the MWF (such as diversified modes of engagement and a more focussed agenda) but have only resulted in incremental shifts towards enabling improved participatory practice, most markedly in building a collaborative relationship and trust between the MWF members, municipal and government officials. The microanalysis of agentive talk revealed seven different expressions of transformative agency. Constraining socio-economic and political conditions and the limited capacity of the coordinating committee of the MWF hindered the development of transformative agency to the extent to which concrete actions were implemented. Findings further revealed that contextualising a Change Laboratory process within the adaptive cycle of a complex social-ecological system, and the particular opportunity context the system presents, could inform the enactment of agency and its potential impact on the transformation of the system. The intervention with the MWF was too short a process to clearly observe the effects of transformative actions on the sustainability of the Makana Local Municipality water system. However, long-chain transformative agency through the development of one-on-one engagements, learning journeys and a reflexive component to the MWF engagements could support transformative pathways to sustainability in the municipality and water management system. The study contributes in-depth insight into the key role of learning as a catalyst in transformative processes. Learning improves the collaborative and adaptive capacity of people, and therefore, water management institutions, to manage explicitly for the complexity inherent in “complex” socialecological systems. It provides empirical evidence as to what enables and constrains “real” participation and learning in grass-roots water governance processes in the context of a shifting national drive towards a more adaptive and developmental Integrated Water Resource Management approach. It further provides methodological contributions to 1) the application of the Change Laboratory method with multi-activity system constellations in developing world contexts and 2) value and limitations of extended and engaged transdisciplinary research. Lastly, it provides practical recommendations to the establishment and sustainable function of both community-based CSOs and multi-stakeholder platforms engaging in water governance processes.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Conditions constraining and enabling research production in Historically Black Universities in South Africa
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Universities and colleges, Black -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Research -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- History , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- History , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/131527 , vital:36591
- Description: The South African higher education system has a highly uneven landscape emerging from its apartheid past. Institutions remain categorised along racial lines within categories known as ‘Historically Black’ and ‘Historically White’ institutions, or alternatively ‘Historically Disadvantaged’ and ‘Historically Advantaged’ universities. Alongside such categorisations, universities fall within three types, which arose from the restructuring of the higher education landscape post-apartheid through a series of mergers: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. This study which is part of a larger National Research Foundation-funded project looking at institutional differentiation in South Africa, sought to investigate the conditions enabling and constraining production of research in the Historically Black Universities (HBUs). By providing clarity as to the nature of truth and the concept of knowledge underpinning study, Critical Realism ensures that the study moves beyond the experiences and events captured in the data to the identification of causal mechanisms. Archer’s theory of Social Realism is used alongside Critical Realism, both as a meta-theory to provide an account of the social world and as a more substantive theory in the analysis of data. Social Realism entails understanding that the social world emerges in a complex interplay of powers in the domains of structure, culture and agency. Identifying the powers in each of these domains that enabled or constrained research development meant moving beyond suggesting simple causal relationships to ensure that I identified the complexities of the interplay of mechanisms. Data was collected from all seven institutions designated by the Department of Higher Education and Training as HBUs, by online survey, in depth interviews with academics and heads of research, and through the collection of a range of national and institutional documentation. Using analytical dualism, I endeavoured to identify some of the enablements and constraints at play. There were a number of areas of strength in research in the HBUs. There has also been a significant increase in research output over the last decade; however, the study also identified a number of mechanisms that constrained research productivity. The study found that while there were a number of mechanisms that appeared to have causal tendencies across all the institutions, there were a number of very specific institutional differences. There was very little consistency in understanding of the purpose of research as being key to what universities and academics do. The implication of this incoherence in the domain of culture (i.e. beliefs and discourses in Archer’s terms) is that various interventions in the structural domain intended to foster increased research output often had unintended consequences. Unless there are explicit discussions about how and why research is valuable to the institution and to the country there is unlikely to be sustained growth in output. In particular, the data analysis raises concerns about an instrumentalist understanding of research output in the domain of culture. This in part emerged from the lack of a historical culture of research and was found to be complimentary to managerialist discourses. Another key mechanism identified in the analysis was the use of direct incentives to drive research productivity. Such initiatives seemed to be complementary to a more instrumentalist understanding of the purpose of research and thereby to potentially constrain the likelihood of sustained research growth. While many of the participants were in favour of the use of research incentives, it was also evident that this was often problematic because it steered academics towards salami slicing, and other practices focused on quantity as opposed to quality research. Predatory publications, in particular, have emerged as a problem whereby the research does not get read or cited and so it fails to contribute to knowledge dissemination. Another constraint to research production was related to the increased casualisation of academic staff, which has exacerbated difficulties in attracting and retaining staff especially in rural areas. In South Africa, 56% of academics in universities are now hired on a contract basis which constrained the nurturing of an academic identity and the extent of commitment to the university and its particular academic project. In the HBUs, these employment conditions were exacerbated by increased teaching loads as a result of increased number of students (undergraduates and postgraduates) that have not been matched with similar increases in academic staff. There was a nascent discourse of social justice that focused on research as a core driver of knowledge production in some of the HBUs. This is potentially an area of strength for the HBUs especially emerging from their rural position as there was a complementary culture of social concerns. There was evidence that the nexus between research and community engagement could be a strong means of both strengthening institutional identity and increasing research productivity. But unless the nexus is clearly articulated, a systematic process of support is unlikely to emerge. Given the extent to which the rural positioning of HBUs has been acknowledged to constrain research engagement, this finding has a number of positive implications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Muthama, Evelyn
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Universities and colleges, Black -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- Research -- South Africa , Education, Higher -- South Africa , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- History , Black people -- Education -- South Africa -- History , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- History
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/131527 , vital:36591
- Description: The South African higher education system has a highly uneven landscape emerging from its apartheid past. Institutions remain categorised along racial lines within categories known as ‘Historically Black’ and ‘Historically White’ institutions, or alternatively ‘Historically Disadvantaged’ and ‘Historically Advantaged’ universities. Alongside such categorisations, universities fall within three types, which arose from the restructuring of the higher education landscape post-apartheid through a series of mergers: traditional universities, comprehensive universities, and universities of technology. This study which is part of a larger National Research Foundation-funded project looking at institutional differentiation in South Africa, sought to investigate the conditions enabling and constraining production of research in the Historically Black Universities (HBUs). By providing clarity as to the nature of truth and the concept of knowledge underpinning study, Critical Realism ensures that the study moves beyond the experiences and events captured in the data to the identification of causal mechanisms. Archer’s theory of Social Realism is used alongside Critical Realism, both as a meta-theory to provide an account of the social world and as a more substantive theory in the analysis of data. Social Realism entails understanding that the social world emerges in a complex interplay of powers in the domains of structure, culture and agency. Identifying the powers in each of these domains that enabled or constrained research development meant moving beyond suggesting simple causal relationships to ensure that I identified the complexities of the interplay of mechanisms. Data was collected from all seven institutions designated by the Department of Higher Education and Training as HBUs, by online survey, in depth interviews with academics and heads of research, and through the collection of a range of national and institutional documentation. Using analytical dualism, I endeavoured to identify some of the enablements and constraints at play. There were a number of areas of strength in research in the HBUs. There has also been a significant increase in research output over the last decade; however, the study also identified a number of mechanisms that constrained research productivity. The study found that while there were a number of mechanisms that appeared to have causal tendencies across all the institutions, there were a number of very specific institutional differences. There was very little consistency in understanding of the purpose of research as being key to what universities and academics do. The implication of this incoherence in the domain of culture (i.e. beliefs and discourses in Archer’s terms) is that various interventions in the structural domain intended to foster increased research output often had unintended consequences. Unless there are explicit discussions about how and why research is valuable to the institution and to the country there is unlikely to be sustained growth in output. In particular, the data analysis raises concerns about an instrumentalist understanding of research output in the domain of culture. This in part emerged from the lack of a historical culture of research and was found to be complimentary to managerialist discourses. Another key mechanism identified in the analysis was the use of direct incentives to drive research productivity. Such initiatives seemed to be complementary to a more instrumentalist understanding of the purpose of research and thereby to potentially constrain the likelihood of sustained research growth. While many of the participants were in favour of the use of research incentives, it was also evident that this was often problematic because it steered academics towards salami slicing, and other practices focused on quantity as opposed to quality research. Predatory publications, in particular, have emerged as a problem whereby the research does not get read or cited and so it fails to contribute to knowledge dissemination. Another constraint to research production was related to the increased casualisation of academic staff, which has exacerbated difficulties in attracting and retaining staff especially in rural areas. In South Africa, 56% of academics in universities are now hired on a contract basis which constrained the nurturing of an academic identity and the extent of commitment to the university and its particular academic project. In the HBUs, these employment conditions were exacerbated by increased teaching loads as a result of increased number of students (undergraduates and postgraduates) that have not been matched with similar increases in academic staff. There was a nascent discourse of social justice that focused on research as a core driver of knowledge production in some of the HBUs. This is potentially an area of strength for the HBUs especially emerging from their rural position as there was a complementary culture of social concerns. There was evidence that the nexus between research and community engagement could be a strong means of both strengthening institutional identity and increasing research productivity. But unless the nexus is clearly articulated, a systematic process of support is unlikely to emerge. Given the extent to which the rural positioning of HBUs has been acknowledged to constrain research engagement, this finding has a number of positive implications.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
CubiCal: a fast radio interferometric calibration suite exploiting complex optimisation
- Authors: Kenyon, Jonathan
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Interferometry , Radio astronomy , Python (Computer program language) , Square Kilometre Array (Project)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92341 , vital:30711
- Description: The advent of the Square Kilometre Array and its precursors marks the start of an exciting era for radio interferometry. However, with new instruments producing unprecedented quantities of data, many existing calibration algorithms and implementations will be hard-pressed to keep up. Fortunately, it has recently been shown that the radio interferometric calibration problem can be expressed concisely using the ideas of complex optimisation. The resulting framework exposes properties of the calibration problem which can be exploited to accelerate traditional non-linear least squares algorithms. We extend the existing work on the topic by considering the more general problem of calibrating a Jones chain: the product of several unknown gain terms. We also derive specialised solvers for performing phase-only, delay and pointing error calibration. In doing so, we devise a method for determining update rules for arbitrary, real-valued parametrisations of a complex gain. The solvers are implemented in an optimised Python package called CubiCal. CubiCal makes use of Cython to generate fast C and C++ routines for performing computationally demanding tasks whilst leveraging multiprocessing and shared memory to take advantage of modern, parallel hardware. The package is fully compatible with the measurement set, the most common format for interferometer data, and is well integrated with Montblanc - a third party package which implements optimised model visibility prediction. CubiCal's calibration routines are applied successfully to both simulated and real data for the field surrounding source 3C147. These tests include direction-independent and direction dependent calibration, as well as tests of the specialised solvers. Finally, we conduct extensive performance benchmarks and verify that CubiCal convincingly outperforms its most comparable competitor.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Kenyon, Jonathan
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Interferometry , Radio astronomy , Python (Computer program language) , Square Kilometre Array (Project)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92341 , vital:30711
- Description: The advent of the Square Kilometre Array and its precursors marks the start of an exciting era for radio interferometry. However, with new instruments producing unprecedented quantities of data, many existing calibration algorithms and implementations will be hard-pressed to keep up. Fortunately, it has recently been shown that the radio interferometric calibration problem can be expressed concisely using the ideas of complex optimisation. The resulting framework exposes properties of the calibration problem which can be exploited to accelerate traditional non-linear least squares algorithms. We extend the existing work on the topic by considering the more general problem of calibrating a Jones chain: the product of several unknown gain terms. We also derive specialised solvers for performing phase-only, delay and pointing error calibration. In doing so, we devise a method for determining update rules for arbitrary, real-valued parametrisations of a complex gain. The solvers are implemented in an optimised Python package called CubiCal. CubiCal makes use of Cython to generate fast C and C++ routines for performing computationally demanding tasks whilst leveraging multiprocessing and shared memory to take advantage of modern, parallel hardware. The package is fully compatible with the measurement set, the most common format for interferometer data, and is well integrated with Montblanc - a third party package which implements optimised model visibility prediction. CubiCal's calibration routines are applied successfully to both simulated and real data for the field surrounding source 3C147. These tests include direction-independent and direction dependent calibration, as well as tests of the specialised solvers. Finally, we conduct extensive performance benchmarks and verify that CubiCal convincingly outperforms its most comparable competitor.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Design and fabrication of components of dye sensitised solar cells
- Authors: Msane, Gugu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Dye-sensitized solar cells
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/117106 , vital:34478
- Description: In recent decades there has been increasing global concern about the sustainability of our use of fossil fuels, which has led to increased interest in carbon–free sustainable renewable sources such as solar energy. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are a cheap and clean technology that harnesses solar energy efficiently and convert it to electrical energy. A DSSC consists of a transparent working electrode coated with a dye-sensitized mesoporous film of nanocrystalline particles of semiconductor e.g. TiO2, an electrolyte containing a suitable redox couple and a platinized counter electrode. All the components of the DSSCs play vital roles in controlling the performance of the cell. The synergy of these components of the cells also needs to be investigated to optimise their interaction and create efficient and stable DSSCs. The information gathered from this investigation can give insight on how to improve the efficiencies of DSSCs. In this research study the semiconductor, transparent conducting layer and sensitizer were designed, optimized one at a time and their effect on the overall efficiency of the DSSCs studied. In this way it was easy to observe the effect of the individual components on the efficiency of the DSSCs. The conventional DSSCs usually use TiO2 as a semiconductor. In this research TiO2 was doped with cerium (Ce) to enhance its optical properties by reducing the band gap. A series of Ce-doped TiO2 with Ce content ranging from 0.1 to 1 mol % were successfully synthesized by an acid catalyzed sol-gel method, and their performance as the photoanodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was investigated. Ce doping resulted in a red shift in the absorption of the TiO2 indicating narrowing of the band gap. The band gap first narrowed with increase in concentration of dopant up until 0.9 % dopant concentration. After this optimum doping concentration the band gap widened again. DFT calculations showed that Ce doping introduces Ce4f impurity states located just below the conduction band resulting in band gap narrowing. Ce content (0.9%) doped TiO2 photoanodes improved the performance of DSSCs with a conversion efficiency of 2.11% compared to 0,21% for the one with a pure TiO2 under 1 sun, AM1.5. Graphitised/TiO2 nanocomposites were also used a semiconductor to slow down recombination of electrons and holes in the cells. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was used to deposit graphitised/TiO2 nanocomposites onto an FTO electrode for application as photoelectrode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). An enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.25% was observed for the 0.5 wt% graphene oxide/TiO2 (GO/TiO2) based DSSC which was higher than that of the conversion efficiency of pure TiO2 nanoparticles (i.e. 0.52%). Graphene oxide led to high migration of photoinduced electrons to the conduction band of the collection electrode and inhibition of charge carriers recombination resulting in enhanced photoconversion efficiency. A GO content above 0.5 % resulted in a reduced transparency leading to a decrease in the PCE. 0.5 wt % GO/0.9 Ce–TiO2 Ce based DSSC showed a slightly enhanced efficiency of 2.45%. 0.5 rGO/TiO2 based DSSCs had a high efficiency than 0.5 rGO/TiO2 due to improved conductivity of rGO nanosheets and suppressed recombination of charge carriers. To cut down DSSC production costs a silver wire network transparent conducting polyethylene electrodes was fabricated and used as an indium tin oxide (ITO) alternative substrates in DSSCs. The transmittance of the AgNW network was 82 % which is comparable to ITO substrates. Titanium oxide (TiO2) films on the AgWN/PET substrates were obtained using the electrophoresis method. These substrates were sensitised and used to fabricate a dye sensitised solar cell. From the measured current–voltage or I-V characteristic under AM1.5 illumination of the formed DSSC using AgWN substrates, an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.377 V, a short circuit current (ISC) of 0.0067 mA and a fill factor (FF) 25.7 % with an efficiency of 0.00862 % were obtained from a cell of 0.075 cm2 working area. The stability of the cell improved when a room temperature ionic liquid electrolyte was used. Gold nanofiber transparent electrodes were also prepared by the electrospinning techniques and used as an alternative to indium tin oxides substrates. Transparent conducting gold nanofiber (AuNF) transparent conducting electrodes were fabricated by using a low–cost electrospinning process and used as photoelectrodes for DSSCs. TiO2 was deposited on these electrodes by using an electrospray method. DSSC using AuNF as transparent electrodes had a power efficiency of 0.52%, compared to devices made with FTO electrodes (1.48%). DSSCs. Versatile dyes with increased spectral response, stability and suppressed recombination of holes and electrons were synthesised and used as a sensitizers for DSSCs. The boron dipyrrin (BODIPY) chromophore was combined with a carboxy coumarin moiety to create donor–acceptor (dyad) system dyes. Regenerative dyad dyes were formed through covalently linking a porphyrin chromophore to a manganese(II) ion through bridging ligands. These chromophores and also porphyrin and BODIPY dyes were used as sensitisers for DSSCs. The regenerative dye based DSSCs showed a photoconversion efficiency of 4.09% which was higher than the efficiency of the parent porphyrin (2.57%). The enhanced efficiency was attributed to the manganese bypridine cluster in the ZnTPP–Mn bpy supramolecule which acted as an electron donor to the photo-oxidized porphyrin continuously regenerating the porphyrin and preventing its decay.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Msane, Gugu
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Dye-sensitized solar cells
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/117106 , vital:34478
- Description: In recent decades there has been increasing global concern about the sustainability of our use of fossil fuels, which has led to increased interest in carbon–free sustainable renewable sources such as solar energy. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are a cheap and clean technology that harnesses solar energy efficiently and convert it to electrical energy. A DSSC consists of a transparent working electrode coated with a dye-sensitized mesoporous film of nanocrystalline particles of semiconductor e.g. TiO2, an electrolyte containing a suitable redox couple and a platinized counter electrode. All the components of the DSSCs play vital roles in controlling the performance of the cell. The synergy of these components of the cells also needs to be investigated to optimise their interaction and create efficient and stable DSSCs. The information gathered from this investigation can give insight on how to improve the efficiencies of DSSCs. In this research study the semiconductor, transparent conducting layer and sensitizer were designed, optimized one at a time and their effect on the overall efficiency of the DSSCs studied. In this way it was easy to observe the effect of the individual components on the efficiency of the DSSCs. The conventional DSSCs usually use TiO2 as a semiconductor. In this research TiO2 was doped with cerium (Ce) to enhance its optical properties by reducing the band gap. A series of Ce-doped TiO2 with Ce content ranging from 0.1 to 1 mol % were successfully synthesized by an acid catalyzed sol-gel method, and their performance as the photoanodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) was investigated. Ce doping resulted in a red shift in the absorption of the TiO2 indicating narrowing of the band gap. The band gap first narrowed with increase in concentration of dopant up until 0.9 % dopant concentration. After this optimum doping concentration the band gap widened again. DFT calculations showed that Ce doping introduces Ce4f impurity states located just below the conduction band resulting in band gap narrowing. Ce content (0.9%) doped TiO2 photoanodes improved the performance of DSSCs with a conversion efficiency of 2.11% compared to 0,21% for the one with a pure TiO2 under 1 sun, AM1.5. Graphitised/TiO2 nanocomposites were also used a semiconductor to slow down recombination of electrons and holes in the cells. Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) was used to deposit graphitised/TiO2 nanocomposites onto an FTO electrode for application as photoelectrode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). An enhanced power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 2.25% was observed for the 0.5 wt% graphene oxide/TiO2 (GO/TiO2) based DSSC which was higher than that of the conversion efficiency of pure TiO2 nanoparticles (i.e. 0.52%). Graphene oxide led to high migration of photoinduced electrons to the conduction band of the collection electrode and inhibition of charge carriers recombination resulting in enhanced photoconversion efficiency. A GO content above 0.5 % resulted in a reduced transparency leading to a decrease in the PCE. 0.5 wt % GO/0.9 Ce–TiO2 Ce based DSSC showed a slightly enhanced efficiency of 2.45%. 0.5 rGO/TiO2 based DSSCs had a high efficiency than 0.5 rGO/TiO2 due to improved conductivity of rGO nanosheets and suppressed recombination of charge carriers. To cut down DSSC production costs a silver wire network transparent conducting polyethylene electrodes was fabricated and used as an indium tin oxide (ITO) alternative substrates in DSSCs. The transmittance of the AgNW network was 82 % which is comparable to ITO substrates. Titanium oxide (TiO2) films on the AgWN/PET substrates were obtained using the electrophoresis method. These substrates were sensitised and used to fabricate a dye sensitised solar cell. From the measured current–voltage or I-V characteristic under AM1.5 illumination of the formed DSSC using AgWN substrates, an open circuit voltage (VOC) of 0.377 V, a short circuit current (ISC) of 0.0067 mA and a fill factor (FF) 25.7 % with an efficiency of 0.00862 % were obtained from a cell of 0.075 cm2 working area. The stability of the cell improved when a room temperature ionic liquid electrolyte was used. Gold nanofiber transparent electrodes were also prepared by the electrospinning techniques and used as an alternative to indium tin oxides substrates. Transparent conducting gold nanofiber (AuNF) transparent conducting electrodes were fabricated by using a low–cost electrospinning process and used as photoelectrodes for DSSCs. TiO2 was deposited on these electrodes by using an electrospray method. DSSC using AuNF as transparent electrodes had a power efficiency of 0.52%, compared to devices made with FTO electrodes (1.48%). DSSCs. Versatile dyes with increased spectral response, stability and suppressed recombination of holes and electrons were synthesised and used as a sensitizers for DSSCs. The boron dipyrrin (BODIPY) chromophore was combined with a carboxy coumarin moiety to create donor–acceptor (dyad) system dyes. Regenerative dyad dyes were formed through covalently linking a porphyrin chromophore to a manganese(II) ion through bridging ligands. These chromophores and also porphyrin and BODIPY dyes were used as sensitisers for DSSCs. The regenerative dye based DSSCs showed a photoconversion efficiency of 4.09% which was higher than the efficiency of the parent porphyrin (2.57%). The enhanced efficiency was attributed to the manganese bypridine cluster in the ZnTPP–Mn bpy supramolecule which acted as an electron donor to the photo-oxidized porphyrin continuously regenerating the porphyrin and preventing its decay.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Digital colonialism: South Africa’s education transformation in the shadow of Silicon Valley
- Authors: Kwet, Michael
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Operation Phakisa Education (South Africa) , Educational technology -- South Africa , Internet in education -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa , Technological innovations -- South Africa , Technological literacy -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Open source software -- South Africa , Electronic surveillance -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Privacy, Right of -- South Africa , Business and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93767 , vital:30936
- Description: This dissertation investigates the social implications of technology choices for the emerging education transformation of the South African basic education sector. In October 2015, then President Jacob Zuma launched Operation Phakisa Education (OPE), an initiative designed behind closed doors to fast-track digital education into all South African public schools. This study identifies and analyses policy choices and perspectives regarding the technology considered and deployed for the national education rollout. It documents the OPE proposal, and examines how e-education policy choices relate to humanitarian objectives. Theoretically, this study draws upon libertarian socialist theory (anarchism) to examine the sociology of education technology policy. Using anarchist theory, it assesses the perspective, aims, and choices of e-education policy at the national level. It also draws on the Free Software philosophy for society as articulated by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen. Finally, it compares classic colonialism with global power in the digital era, and posits a theory of digital colonialism. Synthesizing anarchism and the Free Software philosophy into a single theoretical framework – placed into the context of colonial relations – it is the first work to apply anarchist sociological theory to education technology policy, and the first doctoral study on digital colonialism. For its methodology, this dissertation utilizes two qualitative methods: document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Interview subjects include high-level e-education policymakers and administrators in government, key stakeholders, and experts at the intersection of technology innovation and human rights. These methods were used to both identify and interrogate e-education policy as it relates to the humanitarian objectives of education policy at the national level. The findings demonstrate that South African education policy is beholden to largely United States-based corporations and models for e-education. The study found that the types of technologies for consideration in education are rooted in surveillance capitalism, which is spreading across the world. It contends that current e-education policy choices will entrench the power and exploitation of US state-corporate power in South African education, economy, and society. It argues that an alternative set of choices, People’s Technology for People’s Power, is consistent with the spirit of South African technology policy, and should be chosen for South African schools in order to counter the power of foreign power and resist surveillance capitalism. This dissertation is the first publication to document and analyze what the new government education policy is about and how it relates to equality and human rights. It argues that present South African e-education policy constitutes a new form of digitally-driven technocratic neoliberalism which ultimately favors ruling class interests in the United States and South Africa. It also argues that OPE violates South Africa’s Free and Open Source policy and the spirit of democracy outlined in the Phakisa methodology and the Batho Pele principles. This study found that OPE replicates the latest trends in e-education implementation popular in Silicon Valley. Tech multinationals are providing both the products and models for use in South Africa. The dissertation concludes that US technological and conceptual dominance in South African education constitutes digital colonialism. It emphasizes the need for public inclusion in the policy process, and proposes alternative policies and technologies for e-education based on the idea of People’s Technology for People’s Power. It also argues that current scholarship on education technology neglects the political and sociological importance of People’s Technology to education, economy, and society, as well as the global significance of Big Tech dominance vis-a-vis digital colonialism, and that subsequent literature would be enriched by addressing these issues.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Kwet, Michael
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Operation Phakisa Education (South Africa) , Educational technology -- South Africa , Internet in education -- South Africa , Educational sociology -- South Africa , Technological innovations -- South Africa , Technological literacy -- South Africa , Education and state -- South Africa , Open source software -- South Africa , Electronic surveillance -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Privacy, Right of -- South Africa , Business and education -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/93767 , vital:30936
- Description: This dissertation investigates the social implications of technology choices for the emerging education transformation of the South African basic education sector. In October 2015, then President Jacob Zuma launched Operation Phakisa Education (OPE), an initiative designed behind closed doors to fast-track digital education into all South African public schools. This study identifies and analyses policy choices and perspectives regarding the technology considered and deployed for the national education rollout. It documents the OPE proposal, and examines how e-education policy choices relate to humanitarian objectives. Theoretically, this study draws upon libertarian socialist theory (anarchism) to examine the sociology of education technology policy. Using anarchist theory, it assesses the perspective, aims, and choices of e-education policy at the national level. It also draws on the Free Software philosophy for society as articulated by Richard Stallman and Eben Moglen. Finally, it compares classic colonialism with global power in the digital era, and posits a theory of digital colonialism. Synthesizing anarchism and the Free Software philosophy into a single theoretical framework – placed into the context of colonial relations – it is the first work to apply anarchist sociological theory to education technology policy, and the first doctoral study on digital colonialism. For its methodology, this dissertation utilizes two qualitative methods: document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Interview subjects include high-level e-education policymakers and administrators in government, key stakeholders, and experts at the intersection of technology innovation and human rights. These methods were used to both identify and interrogate e-education policy as it relates to the humanitarian objectives of education policy at the national level. The findings demonstrate that South African education policy is beholden to largely United States-based corporations and models for e-education. The study found that the types of technologies for consideration in education are rooted in surveillance capitalism, which is spreading across the world. It contends that current e-education policy choices will entrench the power and exploitation of US state-corporate power in South African education, economy, and society. It argues that an alternative set of choices, People’s Technology for People’s Power, is consistent with the spirit of South African technology policy, and should be chosen for South African schools in order to counter the power of foreign power and resist surveillance capitalism. This dissertation is the first publication to document and analyze what the new government education policy is about and how it relates to equality and human rights. It argues that present South African e-education policy constitutes a new form of digitally-driven technocratic neoliberalism which ultimately favors ruling class interests in the United States and South Africa. It also argues that OPE violates South Africa’s Free and Open Source policy and the spirit of democracy outlined in the Phakisa methodology and the Batho Pele principles. This study found that OPE replicates the latest trends in e-education implementation popular in Silicon Valley. Tech multinationals are providing both the products and models for use in South Africa. The dissertation concludes that US technological and conceptual dominance in South African education constitutes digital colonialism. It emphasizes the need for public inclusion in the policy process, and proposes alternative policies and technologies for e-education based on the idea of People’s Technology for People’s Power. It also argues that current scholarship on education technology neglects the political and sociological importance of People’s Technology to education, economy, and society, as well as the global significance of Big Tech dominance vis-a-vis digital colonialism, and that subsequent literature would be enriched by addressing these issues.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Enumeration, conformation sampling and population of libraries of peptide macrocycles for the search of chemotherapeutic cardioprotection agents
- Authors: Sigauke, Lester Takunda
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Peptides -- Synthesis , Macrocyclic compounds , Drug development , Drug discovery , Cardiovascular system -- Diseases -- Prevention , Proteins -- Synthesis
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/116056 , vital:34293
- Description: Peptides are uniquely endowed with features that allow them to perturb previously difficult to drug biomolecular targets. Peptide macrocycles in particular have seen a flurry of recent interest due to their enhanced bioavailability, tunability and specificity. Although these properties make them attractive hit-candidates in early stage drug discovery, knowing which peptides to pursue is non‐trivial due to the magnitude of the peptide sequence space. Computational screening approaches show promise in their ability to address the size of this search space but suffer from their inability to accurately interrogate the conformational landscape of peptide macrocycles. We developed an in‐silico compound enumerator that was tasked with populating a conformationally laden peptide virtual library. This library was then used in the search for cardio‐protective agents (that may be administered, reducing tissue damage during reperfusion after ischemia (heart attacks)). Our enumerator successfully generated a library of 15.2 billion compounds, requiring the use of compression algorithms, conformational sampling protocols and management of aggregated compute resources in the context of a local cluster. In the absence of experimental biophysical data, we performed biased sampling during alchemical molecular dynamics simulations in order to observe cyclophilin‐D perturbation by cyclosporine A and its mitochondrial targeted analogue. Reliable intermediate state averaging through a WHAM analysis of the biased dynamic pulling simulations confirmed that the cardio‐protective activity of cyclosporine A was due to its mitochondrial targeting. Paralleltempered solution molecular dynamics in combination with efficient clustering isolated the essential dynamics of a cyclic peptide scaffold. The rapid enumeration of skeletons from these essential dynamics gave rise to a conformation laden virtual library of all the 15.2 Billion unique cyclic peptides (given the limits on peptide sequence imposed). Analysis of this library showed the exact extent of physicochemical properties covered, relative to the bare scaffold precursor. Molecular docking of a subset of the virtual library against cyclophilin‐D showed significant improvements in affinity to the target (relative to cyclosporine A). The conformation laden virtual library, accessed by our methodology, provided derivatives that were able to make many interactions per peptide with the cyclophilin‐D target. Machine learning methods showed promise in the training of Support Vector Machines for synthetic feasibility prediction for this library. The synergy between enumeration and conformational sampling greatly improves the performance of this library during virtual screening, even when only a subset is used.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Sigauke, Lester Takunda
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Peptides -- Synthesis , Macrocyclic compounds , Drug development , Drug discovery , Cardiovascular system -- Diseases -- Prevention , Proteins -- Synthesis
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/116056 , vital:34293
- Description: Peptides are uniquely endowed with features that allow them to perturb previously difficult to drug biomolecular targets. Peptide macrocycles in particular have seen a flurry of recent interest due to their enhanced bioavailability, tunability and specificity. Although these properties make them attractive hit-candidates in early stage drug discovery, knowing which peptides to pursue is non‐trivial due to the magnitude of the peptide sequence space. Computational screening approaches show promise in their ability to address the size of this search space but suffer from their inability to accurately interrogate the conformational landscape of peptide macrocycles. We developed an in‐silico compound enumerator that was tasked with populating a conformationally laden peptide virtual library. This library was then used in the search for cardio‐protective agents (that may be administered, reducing tissue damage during reperfusion after ischemia (heart attacks)). Our enumerator successfully generated a library of 15.2 billion compounds, requiring the use of compression algorithms, conformational sampling protocols and management of aggregated compute resources in the context of a local cluster. In the absence of experimental biophysical data, we performed biased sampling during alchemical molecular dynamics simulations in order to observe cyclophilin‐D perturbation by cyclosporine A and its mitochondrial targeted analogue. Reliable intermediate state averaging through a WHAM analysis of the biased dynamic pulling simulations confirmed that the cardio‐protective activity of cyclosporine A was due to its mitochondrial targeting. Paralleltempered solution molecular dynamics in combination with efficient clustering isolated the essential dynamics of a cyclic peptide scaffold. The rapid enumeration of skeletons from these essential dynamics gave rise to a conformation laden virtual library of all the 15.2 Billion unique cyclic peptides (given the limits on peptide sequence imposed). Analysis of this library showed the exact extent of physicochemical properties covered, relative to the bare scaffold precursor. Molecular docking of a subset of the virtual library against cyclophilin‐D showed significant improvements in affinity to the target (relative to cyclosporine A). The conformation laden virtual library, accessed by our methodology, provided derivatives that were able to make many interactions per peptide with the cyclophilin‐D target. Machine learning methods showed promise in the training of Support Vector Machines for synthetic feasibility prediction for this library. The synergy between enumeration and conformational sampling greatly improves the performance of this library during virtual screening, even when only a subset is used.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Examination of teacher mediation and its impact on foundational reading skills in Grade-R classrooms in Namibia
- Authors: Nzwala, Kenneth
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Reading (Elementary) -- Namibia -- Case studies , Elementary school teachers -- Namibia -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- Curricula -- Namibia , Vygotskiĭ, L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 1896-1934
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92291 , vital:30700
- Description: Grounded in the Sociocultural Theory (SCT) of Lev Vygotsky, this study examined teacher mediation and its impact on development of foundational reading skills in six Grade-R classrooms in the Zambezi Region of Namibia. It was a multiple case study with a mixed methods approach. Six Grade R classes attached to primary schools were studied to facilitate following of the same learners to Grade One. A purposive sampling technique was used to draw a sample of six Grade-R and Grade-One teachers. Learners were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected by means of interviews, observation of Grade R lessons, and an emergent Early Grade Reading Assessment (eEGRA) test. eEGRA facilitated benchmarking teacher efficacy in mediating Grade R learners’ foundational reading skills. Nine Grade One learners per teacher per school took part in the test at the beginning of Grade One. Three 35-minute lessons, per Grade-R teacher, were observed. Data were analysed statistically using ANOVA with thematic qualitative analysis of interview data against document analysis of curricula, teacher planning and learner exercise books. The study established that teachers had no understanding of ‘emergent literacy’, did not promote a love of books, or promote learning through play. There was evidence of a language barrier during lessons, which potentially reduced the efficacy of teacher mediation. The curriculum was found to be inappropriate as it lacked guidance relevant to Grade R teachers. This point was particularly pertinent as all teachers in this study had not received Grade-R training and were therefore looking to the curriculum for support. The difference between what teachers said and what they did was revealed in their classroom practice. Lesson planning was found to be superficial and non-reflective, with a marked discrepancy between what was planned and what was done. The style of pedagogy was primarily transmissive and authoritarian. Finally, the socio-economic distribution of the schools did not demonstrate significant impact on learner performance in the benchmark test. This study concludes that the Grade-R curriculum needs to be revised to be culturally and age appropriate. Teachers should be trained to understand the speciality of Grade R, and support should be given to current teachers to adopt a child-centred, play-based approach to pedagogy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Nzwala, Kenneth
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Reading (Elementary) -- Namibia -- Case studies , Elementary school teachers -- Namibia -- Case studies , Early childhood education -- Curricula -- Namibia , Vygotskiĭ, L. S. (Lev Semenovich), 1896-1934
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92291 , vital:30700
- Description: Grounded in the Sociocultural Theory (SCT) of Lev Vygotsky, this study examined teacher mediation and its impact on development of foundational reading skills in six Grade-R classrooms in the Zambezi Region of Namibia. It was a multiple case study with a mixed methods approach. Six Grade R classes attached to primary schools were studied to facilitate following of the same learners to Grade One. A purposive sampling technique was used to draw a sample of six Grade-R and Grade-One teachers. Learners were selected using stratified random sampling. Data were collected by means of interviews, observation of Grade R lessons, and an emergent Early Grade Reading Assessment (eEGRA) test. eEGRA facilitated benchmarking teacher efficacy in mediating Grade R learners’ foundational reading skills. Nine Grade One learners per teacher per school took part in the test at the beginning of Grade One. Three 35-minute lessons, per Grade-R teacher, were observed. Data were analysed statistically using ANOVA with thematic qualitative analysis of interview data against document analysis of curricula, teacher planning and learner exercise books. The study established that teachers had no understanding of ‘emergent literacy’, did not promote a love of books, or promote learning through play. There was evidence of a language barrier during lessons, which potentially reduced the efficacy of teacher mediation. The curriculum was found to be inappropriate as it lacked guidance relevant to Grade R teachers. This point was particularly pertinent as all teachers in this study had not received Grade-R training and were therefore looking to the curriculum for support. The difference between what teachers said and what they did was revealed in their classroom practice. Lesson planning was found to be superficial and non-reflective, with a marked discrepancy between what was planned and what was done. The style of pedagogy was primarily transmissive and authoritarian. Finally, the socio-economic distribution of the schools did not demonstrate significant impact on learner performance in the benchmark test. This study concludes that the Grade-R curriculum needs to be revised to be culturally and age appropriate. Teachers should be trained to understand the speciality of Grade R, and support should be given to current teachers to adopt a child-centred, play-based approach to pedagogy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Examining mathematical reasoning through enacted visualisation
- Authors: Dongwi, Beata Lididimikeni
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Visualization , Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Namibia , Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids , Geometry -- Study and teaching , Reasoning , Mathematical ability
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68192 , vital:29217
- Description: This study sets out to analyse the co-emergence of visualisation and reasoning processes when selected learners engaged in solving word problems. The study argues that visualisation processes and mathematical reasoning processes are closely interlinked in the process of engaging in any mathematical activity. This qualitative research project adopted a case study methodology embedded within a broader interpretative orientation. The research participants were a cohort of 17 mixedgender and mixed-ability Grade 11 learners from a private school in southern Namibia. Data was collected in three phases and comprised of one-on-one task-based interviews in the first phase, focus group task-based interviews in the second, and semi-structured reflective interviews in the third. The analytical framework was informed by elements of enactivism and consisted of a hybrid of observable visualisation and mathematical reasoning indicators. The study was framed by an enactivist perspective that served as a linking mediator to bring visualisation and reasoning processes together, and as a lens through which the coemergence of these processes was observed and analysed. The key enactivist concepts of structural coupling and co-emergence were the two mediating ideas that enabled me to discuss the links between visualisation and reasoning that emerged whilst my participants solved the set word problems. The study argues that the visualisation processes enacted by the participants when solving these problems are inseparable from the reasoning processes that the participants brought to bear; that is, they co-emerged.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Dongwi, Beata Lididimikeni
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Visualization , Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Namibia , Mathematics -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids , Geometry -- Study and teaching , Reasoning , Mathematical ability
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68192 , vital:29217
- Description: This study sets out to analyse the co-emergence of visualisation and reasoning processes when selected learners engaged in solving word problems. The study argues that visualisation processes and mathematical reasoning processes are closely interlinked in the process of engaging in any mathematical activity. This qualitative research project adopted a case study methodology embedded within a broader interpretative orientation. The research participants were a cohort of 17 mixedgender and mixed-ability Grade 11 learners from a private school in southern Namibia. Data was collected in three phases and comprised of one-on-one task-based interviews in the first phase, focus group task-based interviews in the second, and semi-structured reflective interviews in the third. The analytical framework was informed by elements of enactivism and consisted of a hybrid of observable visualisation and mathematical reasoning indicators. The study was framed by an enactivist perspective that served as a linking mediator to bring visualisation and reasoning processes together, and as a lens through which the coemergence of these processes was observed and analysed. The key enactivist concepts of structural coupling and co-emergence were the two mediating ideas that enabled me to discuss the links between visualisation and reasoning that emerged whilst my participants solved the set word problems. The study argues that the visualisation processes enacted by the participants when solving these problems are inseparable from the reasoning processes that the participants brought to bear; that is, they co-emerged.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
Expanding learning in clergy leadership formation in an Anglican Church Province in Southern Africa: a critical realist study
- Authors: Chinganga, Percy
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Leadership -- Africa, Southern -- Religious aspects -- Christianity , Church management -- Africa, Southern , Critical realism , Educational leadership , Anglican Church of Southern Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92258 , vital:30704
- Description: The focus of this study was to investigate the kind of learning that happened when participants involved in clergy leadership formation programmes and activities in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) engaged in their responsibilities as a collective. Further, the research sought to explore collaborative and transforming practices in ACSA clergy leadership formation programmes and activities which could be expanded through learning. The study is premised on an investigation of the historical foundations of Christian leadership formation processes which sought to establish clergy leadership formation models relevant to ACSA (the context of the study) from inception (1848) to date (2017). This entailed investigating how the developments which have happened in the church from its inception in the New Testament times through the Medieval and Reformation periods, have contributed to the emergence of distinct Christian leadership formation models which have formed the basis of clergy leadership formation in ACSA. Accordingly, the study highlighted key issues relating to clergy leadership formation which are discernible in the different historical phases of the life and work of the church with the objective of establishing how ACSA, through expansive learning, could transform her current clergy leadership formation model(s) towards collaborative and transforming practices. The concept of expansive learning, drawn from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), was used in the study as a methodological tool to create an environment where research participants (formators) from several dioceses would engage in collective work activities which would surface contradictions relating to how clergy leadership formation programmes and activities were understood and facilitated in ACSA. In response to the surfaced contradictions, the study engaged research participants in Change Laboratory Workshops whose goal was to transform the organisation (ACSA) in two particular ways: empowerment of participants (formators) with conceptual tools relevant to their responsibilities in clergy leadership formation programmes and activities in ACSA, and improvement of organisational cultural practices, that is, the manner in which ACSA ought to conceptualise, design, plan, facilitate and manage clergy leadership formation programmes and activities. The latter brought into the discourse the need for participants (formators) to select and employ methodologies, methods, approaches and resources relevant to the southern African context where ACSA is located even though the study also acknowledged the influence of other Anglican Church contexts on what happened at the local level. In order to decipher meaning out of investigated phenomena about clergy leadership formation in ACSA, the study employed the critical realist “underlabouring” philosophy advanced by theorists such as Bhaskar to surface underlying mechanisms that exist at the level of the “real” in order to understand the causes of particular events and experiences as they manifest in the “actual” and “empirical” domains of the world, ACSA in the case of the study. In particular, the study engaged critically the opinion deliberated by critical realists concerning the interplay between structure and agency in relation to the responsibilities of the research participants (formators) in ACSA clergy leadership formation programmes and activities. For instance, the study had an interest in investigating why bishops (principal formators in ACSA) exercised their episcopal authority in the manner they do and why individual formators were concerned about particular issues which relate to the facilitation of clergy leadership formation in ACSA (agential reflexivity/subjectivity). The study observed that, in the case of diocesan bishops, critical realists would argue that, by virtue of the authority which comes with their responsibilities (agency), they have the power to influence transformation of practices in clergy leadership formation in ACSA at any given point in time. The flip side of the discourse was also taken note of: that some bishops, for reasons known to themselves and their predecessors, are often reluctant to embrace new ideas relating to clergy leadership formation practices in their dioceses. Further, through critical realist lens, the study concluded that Canons, Vision and Mission statements, Acts, and structures such as Synod of Bishops, Provincial Synod, ABoTE, Cott, and TfM structurally shape ACSA, thus providing the organisation with a stable ontology which ought to direct, regulate and control the manner in which clergy leadership formation programmes and activities were conceptualised, designed, planned, facilitated and managed. As such, the study had an interest in establishing what would happen, in relation to clergy leadership formation practices in ACSA, when these structures would have been activated? Beyond that, in view of the goal of the study, it was enquired how expansive learning processes could be helpful in responding to the research findings towards exploring collaborative and transforming clergy leadership formation practices in ACSA. Drawing from the conceptual framework which was carved in the study on the basis of the theoretical tools (critical realism and educational leadership theory) and methodological tools (CHAT orientated concepts) undergirded by the Vygotskian theorisation of human consciousness development, the study concluded that clergy leadership formation is a collaborative activity which calls for the recognition, appreciation and utilisation of available expertise in ACSA and provision of a platform where participants (formators) could engage collectively on issues relating to their work with the objective of building each other up in knowledge and skills (expansive learning) towards realisation of the goals and objectives of the organisation. Diverse understandings (contradictions) of what needed to be prioritised in the facilitation of clergy leadership formation in ACSA would be considered as a positive rather than a negative. Ultimately, through the use of inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference, the study modelled a transforming, transformational, transformative, embodied and incarnational model of clergy leadership formation which ACSA could consider using in future deliberations on the object of study particularly in relation to the key research findings across the case studies which were used in the study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019
- Authors: Chinganga, Percy
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Leadership -- Africa, Southern -- Religious aspects -- Christianity , Church management -- Africa, Southern , Critical realism , Educational leadership , Anglican Church of Southern Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/92258 , vital:30704
- Description: The focus of this study was to investigate the kind of learning that happened when participants involved in clergy leadership formation programmes and activities in the Anglican Church of Southern Africa (ACSA) engaged in their responsibilities as a collective. Further, the research sought to explore collaborative and transforming practices in ACSA clergy leadership formation programmes and activities which could be expanded through learning. The study is premised on an investigation of the historical foundations of Christian leadership formation processes which sought to establish clergy leadership formation models relevant to ACSA (the context of the study) from inception (1848) to date (2017). This entailed investigating how the developments which have happened in the church from its inception in the New Testament times through the Medieval and Reformation periods, have contributed to the emergence of distinct Christian leadership formation models which have formed the basis of clergy leadership formation in ACSA. Accordingly, the study highlighted key issues relating to clergy leadership formation which are discernible in the different historical phases of the life and work of the church with the objective of establishing how ACSA, through expansive learning, could transform her current clergy leadership formation model(s) towards collaborative and transforming practices. The concept of expansive learning, drawn from Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), was used in the study as a methodological tool to create an environment where research participants (formators) from several dioceses would engage in collective work activities which would surface contradictions relating to how clergy leadership formation programmes and activities were understood and facilitated in ACSA. In response to the surfaced contradictions, the study engaged research participants in Change Laboratory Workshops whose goal was to transform the organisation (ACSA) in two particular ways: empowerment of participants (formators) with conceptual tools relevant to their responsibilities in clergy leadership formation programmes and activities in ACSA, and improvement of organisational cultural practices, that is, the manner in which ACSA ought to conceptualise, design, plan, facilitate and manage clergy leadership formation programmes and activities. The latter brought into the discourse the need for participants (formators) to select and employ methodologies, methods, approaches and resources relevant to the southern African context where ACSA is located even though the study also acknowledged the influence of other Anglican Church contexts on what happened at the local level. In order to decipher meaning out of investigated phenomena about clergy leadership formation in ACSA, the study employed the critical realist “underlabouring” philosophy advanced by theorists such as Bhaskar to surface underlying mechanisms that exist at the level of the “real” in order to understand the causes of particular events and experiences as they manifest in the “actual” and “empirical” domains of the world, ACSA in the case of the study. In particular, the study engaged critically the opinion deliberated by critical realists concerning the interplay between structure and agency in relation to the responsibilities of the research participants (formators) in ACSA clergy leadership formation programmes and activities. For instance, the study had an interest in investigating why bishops (principal formators in ACSA) exercised their episcopal authority in the manner they do and why individual formators were concerned about particular issues which relate to the facilitation of clergy leadership formation in ACSA (agential reflexivity/subjectivity). The study observed that, in the case of diocesan bishops, critical realists would argue that, by virtue of the authority which comes with their responsibilities (agency), they have the power to influence transformation of practices in clergy leadership formation in ACSA at any given point in time. The flip side of the discourse was also taken note of: that some bishops, for reasons known to themselves and their predecessors, are often reluctant to embrace new ideas relating to clergy leadership formation practices in their dioceses. Further, through critical realist lens, the study concluded that Canons, Vision and Mission statements, Acts, and structures such as Synod of Bishops, Provincial Synod, ABoTE, Cott, and TfM structurally shape ACSA, thus providing the organisation with a stable ontology which ought to direct, regulate and control the manner in which clergy leadership formation programmes and activities were conceptualised, designed, planned, facilitated and managed. As such, the study had an interest in establishing what would happen, in relation to clergy leadership formation practices in ACSA, when these structures would have been activated? Beyond that, in view of the goal of the study, it was enquired how expansive learning processes could be helpful in responding to the research findings towards exploring collaborative and transforming clergy leadership formation practices in ACSA. Drawing from the conceptual framework which was carved in the study on the basis of the theoretical tools (critical realism and educational leadership theory) and methodological tools (CHAT orientated concepts) undergirded by the Vygotskian theorisation of human consciousness development, the study concluded that clergy leadership formation is a collaborative activity which calls for the recognition, appreciation and utilisation of available expertise in ACSA and provision of a platform where participants (formators) could engage collectively on issues relating to their work with the objective of building each other up in knowledge and skills (expansive learning) towards realisation of the goals and objectives of the organisation. Diverse understandings (contradictions) of what needed to be prioritised in the facilitation of clergy leadership formation in ACSA would be considered as a positive rather than a negative. Ultimately, through the use of inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference, the study modelled a transforming, transformational, transformative, embodied and incarnational model of clergy leadership formation which ACSA could consider using in future deliberations on the object of study particularly in relation to the key research findings across the case studies which were used in the study.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2019