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Synthesis, photophysical and photochemical properties of octa-substituted antimony phthalocyanines

- Modibane, Desmond Kwena, Nyokong, Tebello

Authors: Modibane, Desmond Kwena , Nyokong, Tebello
Date: 2009
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/264226 , vital:53711 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poly.2008.11.052"
Description: This work reports on the synthesis and photophysicochemical parameters of unsubstituted [SbIIIPc]+I3- and octa-phenoxy ([SbIIIOPPc]+I3-) and -4-t-butylphenoxy ([SbIIIOTBPPc]+I3-) substituted antimony phthalocyanines. Photophysical and photochemical properties were studied for these complexes in dimethylsulfoxide, dimethylformamide and toluene. The excitation spectra of oxidized antimony (Sb(V)Pc) derivates were similar to absorption spectra. Low fluorescence quantum yields, high triplet quantum yields and low triplet lifetimes were observed as the result of heavy atom (antimony ion).
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Date Issued: 2009

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Histological validation of gonadal macroscopic staging criteria for Labeo cylindricus (Pisces: Cyprinidae)

- Booth, Anthony J, Weyl, Olaf L F

Authors: Booth, Anthony J , Weyl, Olaf L F
Date: 2010
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/124593 , vital:35634 , https://doi.org/10.1080/15627020.2000.11657094
Description: Histological examination of gametogenesis revealed that the current staging criteria used to assess gonadal recrudescence of the redeye labeo, Labeo cylindricus, were adequate. Gametogenesis was qualitatively similar to that of freshwater teleosts with a clearly defined seasonal reproductive cycle. L. cylindricus undergoes seasonal gross morphological and cytological gonadal changes with previtellogenesis dominating during the winter, vitellogenic development during spring and summer culminating in large-scale spawning at the end of summer. Post-spawning mass atresia of oocytes was evident in autumn. The histological data presented support macroscopical evidence that L. cylindricus is a synchronous iteroparous spawner, reproducing over a short period each year throughout its life-span.
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Date Issued: 2010

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Synthesis of phthalocyanine conjugates with gold nanoparticles and liposomes for photodynamic therapy

- Nombona, Nolwazi, Maduray, Kaminee, Antunes, Edith M, Karsten, Aletta, Nyokong, Tebello

Authors: Nombona, Nolwazi , Maduray, Kaminee , Antunes, Edith M , Karsten, Aletta , Nyokong, Tebello
Date: 2012
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/245798 , vital:51406 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphotobiol.2011.11.007"
Description: The efficiency of [2,9,17,23-tetrakis-(1,6-hexanedithiol)phthalocyaninato]zinc(II) as a photodynamic therapy (PDT) agent was investigated. This compound belongs to the second generation of photosensitizers currently tested for the cellular photo-damage of cancer cells. The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and phototoxicity of the photosensitizer were assessed. Healthy fibroblast cells and breast cancer (MCF-7) cells were treated with either free phthalocyanine or phthalocyanine bound to either gold nanoparticles or encapsulated in liposomes. Cell viability studies showed the optimum phototoxic effect on non-malignant cells to be 4.5 J cm−2. The PDT effect of the liposome bound phthalocyanine showed extensive damage of the breast cancer cells. Gold nanoparticles only showed a modest improvement in PDT activity.
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Date Issued: 2012

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A high-level architecture for efficient packet trace analysis on gpu co-processors

- Nottingham, Alastair, Irwin, Barry V W

Authors: Nottingham, Alastair , Irwin, Barry V W
Date: 2013
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429572 , vital:72623 , 10.1109/ISSA.2013.6641052
Description: This paper proposes a high-level architecture to support efficient, massively parallel packet classification, filtering and analysis using commodity Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) hardware. The proposed architecture aims to provide a flexible and efficient parallel packet processing and analysis framework, supporting complex programmable filtering, data mining operations, statistical analysis functions and traffic visualisation, with minimal CPU overhead. In particular, this framework aims to provide a robust set of high-speed analysis functionality, in order to dramatically reduce the time required to process and analyse extremely large network traces. This architecture derives from initial research, which has shown GPU co-processors to be effective in accelerating packet classification to up to tera-bit speeds with minimal CPU overhead, far exceeding the bandwidth capacity between standard long term storage and the GPU device. This paper provides a high-level overview of the proposed architecture and its primary components, motivated by the results of prior research in the field.
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Date Issued: 2013

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A kernel-driven framework for high performance internet routing simulation

- Herbert, Alan, Irwin, Barry V W

Authors: Herbert, Alan , Irwin, Barry V W
Date: 2013
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/429585 , vital:72624 , 10.1109/ISSA.2013.6641048
Description: The ability to provide the simulation of packets traversing an internet path is an integral part of providing realistic simulations for network training, and cyber defence exercises. This paper builds on previous work, and considers an in-kernel approach to solving the routing simulation problem. The inkernel approach is anticipated to allow the framework to be able to achieve throughput rates of 1GB/s or higher using commodity hardware. Processes that run outside the context of the kernel of most operating system require context switching to access hardware and kernel modules. This leads to considerable delays in the processes, such as network simulators, that frequently access hardware such as hard disk accesses and network packet handling. To mitigate this problem, as experienced with earlier implementations, this research looks towards implementing a kernel module to handle network routing and simulation within a UNIX based system. This would remove delays incurred from context switching and allows for direct access to the hardware components of the host.
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Date Issued: 2013

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Deep Routing Simulation

- Irwin, Barry V W, Herbert, Alan

Authors: Irwin, Barry V W , Herbert, Alan
Date: 2013
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/430353 , vital:72685 , https://www.academic-bookshop.com/ourshop/prod_2546879-ICIW-2013-8th-International-Conference-on-Information-Warfare-and-Security.html
Description: This paper discusses a dataset of some 16 million packets targeting port 445/tcp collected by a network telescope utilising a /24 netblock in South African IP address space. An initial overview of the collected data is provided. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the packet characteristics observed, including size and TTL. The peculiarities of the observed target selection and the results of the flaw in the Conficker worm's propagation algorithm are presented. An analysis of the 4 million observed source hosts is reported, grouped by both packet counts and the number of distinct hosts per network address block. Address blocks of size /8, 16 and 24 are used for groupings. The localisation, by geographic region and numerical proximity, of high ranking aggregate netblocks is highlighted. The observed shift in geopolitical origins observed during the evolution of the Conficker worm is also discussed. The paper concludes with some overall analyses, and consideration of the application of network telescopes to the monitoring of such outbreaks in the future.
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Date Issued: 2013

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"I want to kill myself!": identity documents and mental health in the South African Daily Sun tabloid

- Boshoff, Priscilla A

Authors: Boshoff, Priscilla A
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143549 , vital:38256 , ISBN , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
Description: An Identity Document (ID) is needed by South Africans to study, apply for a pension or get married. However, Home Affairs, the state department responsible for issuing them, is poorly managed. The popular Daily Sun tabloid newspaper mediates for its five million working class readers the frustration caused by this incompetency in its “Horror Affairs” column. Readers tell their stories about (not) getting their IDs, stories often of suicide, depression and “giving up” on life. Using a Lacanian frame, and through a close reading of “Horror Affairs” texts, I argue that this tabloid plays a therapeutic role for its socially marginalised readers by mediating the “invisibility” engendered by the modernising state and its administrative technologies. Given the concern about high rates of mental health illness in South Africa, the research also demonstrates how popular culture forms can alert health care practitioners to issues which may otherwise go unnoticed.
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Date Issued: 2015

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"I've always known this place, familiar as a room in our house" : engaging with memory, loss and nostalgia through sculpture

- Reed, Kesayne

Authors: Reed, Kesayne
Date: 2015
Subjects: Memory in art , Loss (Psychology) in art , Nostalgia in art , Sculpture -- Themes, motives , Art therapy , Sculpture -- Exhibitions
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
Identifier: vital:2513 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020022
Description: My exhibition draws on Andreas Huyssen's notion of memory sculpture to articulate my own sense of loss and trauma, due to the divorce of my parents. Within my work I explore the effects that divorce had on me and how it has disturbed my normative understanding of home and family. I have created scenarios alluding to the family home that I have manipulated in order to convey a sense of nostalgia and loss. By growing salt crystals over found objects and/or cladding them in salt, I attempt to suggest the dual motifs of preservation (a nostalgic clinging to the past) and destruction (due to the salt’s corrosive properties). In this way, the salt-crusted objects serve as a metaphor for a memory that has become stagnant, and is both destructive and regressive. The objects encapsulate the mind’s coping methods to loss. In my mini thesis, I discuss characteristics of memory sculpture as a response to trauma, drawing on Sigmund Freud's differentiation between mourning and melancholia. I also unpack how objects and traces (such as photographs) may act as nostalgic triggers, inducing a state of melancholic attachment to an idealised past. I address these concerns in relation to selected works by Doris Salcedo and Bridget Baker, and also situate them in relation to my own art practice.
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Date Issued: 2015

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"Soap operas as a platform for disseminating health information regarding ART and the use of 'reel' versus 'real' role models"

- Deiner, Catherine Anne

Authors: Deiner, Catherine Anne
Date: 2015
Subjects: Isidingo (Television program) , Television soap operas -- South Africa , Health in mass media , Mass media in health education -- South Africa , Antiretroviral agents -- South Africa , Public health -- Moral and ethical aspects , HIV-positive women -- South Africa -- Grahamstown
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
Identifier: vital:3542 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017783
Description: The media, through development communication and edutainment, plays a critical role in the transformation of societies. In line with this, this thesis discusses the extent to which commercially driven prosocial soap operas can provide a platform for public health messaging, in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa, for antiretroviral treatment (ART) and for encouraging ART adherence to foster national development. Furthermore, this thesis examined the potential of celebrities as HIV/AIDS ambassadors and the potential of both fictional characters and ‘real-life’ celebrities to disseminate these health messages. Although the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is stabilising, this is not the time to relax the communication around the disease, particularly regarding adherence to ARVs, considering that South Africa has the largest ARV rollout in the world. The qualitative methodological approach taken for this thesis is a three-step approach examining the intended message, the text and the appropriated message by viewers. Firstly, a thematic content analysis of an episode of Isidingo, that illustrated Nandipha as HIV-positive and the side-effects that came with her ART adherence, and the 3Talk interview with Lesego Motsepe, where she announced that she was weaning herself off ART, was done in order to understand the intended health messaging in the soap opera and the health message disseminated by an HIV-positive actress with regards to ART. Thereafter interview responses by the production team as well as by HIV-positive viewers, using ARVs, were thematised. In addition media texts which provided commentary on the use of a celebrity as a HIV-positive role model were examined. In doing this, this thesis has offered up the meanings of how HIV-positive women taking ARVs and living in Makana experience and understand the media, particularly health messaging relating to ARVs. The findings of this study suggest that commercial soap operas are the perfect platform to address HIV/AIDS and that prosocial health messaging regarding ARV adherence is still necessary in this country. Soap operas have the potential to have an educational angle. Although, HIV-positive individuals serve as better role models as they are authentic; given human nature, fictional characters, such as Nandipha Matabane in Isidingo, may be more sustainable role models as their message can be scientifically-based and well-researched. Realistic characters serve as role models whose behaviour is to be emulated. Soap operas appeal to a wide audience and so storylines can be tailor-made according to the times and the needs in terms of health issues and messaging. Thus, soap operas are not a single platform but rather one which can be exploited to maximum advantage for public health messaging.
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Date Issued: 2015

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"Soliloquy: the untold story of Sleeping Beauty's dreams"; a re-vision of Charles Perrault's "The sleeping beauty in the woods."

- Ledwick, Lisa-Mari

Authors: Ledwick, Lisa-Mari
Date: 2015
Subjects: Perrault, Charles, 1628-1703 , Symbolism in fairy tales , Sleeping Beauty (Tale) in literature
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MTech
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/3155 , vital:20405
Description: Taken as a whole, the purpose of the practical and theoretical components of this research aims to contextualise and present a contemporary fairy tale heroine who recuperates and re-values traditional aspects of femininity within a feminist context.
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Date Issued: 2015

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"Why Persephone?" investigating the unique position of Persephone as a dying god(dess) offering hope for the afterlife

- Goodwin, Grant

Authors: Goodwin, Grant
Date: 2015
Subjects: Mythology, Greek , Gods, Greek , Future life , Greece -- Religious life and customs , Persephone -- (Greek deity)
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
Identifier: vital:3655 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1017896
Description: Persephone’s myth is unique, as it was the central narrative of one of the most prominent ancient mystery religions, and remains one of the few (certainly the most prominent) ancient Greek myths to focus on the relationship of a mother and her daughter. This unique focus must have offered her worshippers something important that they perhaps could not find elsewhere, especially as a complex and elaborate cult grew around it, transforming the divine allegory of the changing seasons or the storage of the grain beneath the earth, into a narrative offering hope for a better place in the afterlife. To understand the appeal of this myth, two aspects of her worship and mythic significance require study: the expectations of her worshippers for their own lives, to which the goddess may have been seen as a forerunner; and the mythic frameworks operating which would characterise the goddess for her worshippers. The myth, as described in The Hymn to Demeter, is initially interpreted for its literary meaning, and then set within its cultural milieu to uncover what meaning it may have had for Persephone’s worshippers, particularly in terms of marriage and death, which form the initial motivating action of the myth. From this socio-anthropological study we turn to the mythic patterns and motifs the story offers, particularly the figure of the goddess of the Underworld (primarily in the influential Mesopotamian literature), and the Dying-Rising God figure (similarly derived from the Near East). These figures, when compared to the Greek goddess, may both reveal her unique appeal, and highlight the common attractions that lie in the figures generally. By this two-part investigation, on the particular culture’s expectations and the general mythic framework she exists in, Persephone’s meaning in her native land may be uncovered and understood.
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Date Issued: 2015

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'Becoming animal': motifs of hybridity and liminality in fairy tales and selected contemporary artworks

- Wasserman, Minke

Authors: Wasserman, Minke
Date: 2015
Subjects: Fairy tales -- History and criticism , Liminality in literature , Cultural fusion in literature , Cultural fusion and the arts , Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Themes, motives , Art, Modern -- 21st century -- Exhibitions , Human-animal relationships in art , Human-animal relationships in literature
Language: English
Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
Identifier: vital:2512 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019759
Description: ‘Becoming Animal’: Motifs of Hybridity and Liminality in Fairy Tales and Selected Contemporary Artworks serves as a theoretical examination of the concept of the hybrid. My research unpacks the liminal aspect of hybridity, locating the hybrid in the imaginative world of popular fairy tales, folk lore and mythology. In my accompanying MFA exhibition, Becoming(s), I explore these motifs through an installation of mixed-media sculptures which are based on the hybrid creatures that populated the fantasy world of my childhood. The written component of my MFA submission will relate directly to my professional art practise, developing it further and situating it within a relevant context. In my mini-thesis I will consider the liminal in relation to the ‘animal turn’ in contemporary art, with a particular focus on relevant artists working with the motifs of hybridity, such as Nandipha Mntambo, Jane Alexander and Kiki Smith. The ‘animal turn’ is a term used by Kari Weil (2010: 3) to describe a contemporary interest in issues of the nonhuman, and in the ways that the relationship between humans and nonhumans is marked by “difference, otherness and power”. Of key concern to my research will be Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concept of ‘becoming animal’. Rather than describing a transition from one stable state to another, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a radical dissolution of boundaries – not just between species (such as ‘human’ and ‘animal’) but between any essentialising binaries. As such, ‘becoming animal’ suggests a conception of identity as being fluid and mutable, rather than stable and fixed.
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Date Issued: 2015

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'Committed, motivated and joyful?'Job satisfaction and organisational commitment of managers at a South African public utility

- Mayer, Claude-Hélène‏, Louw, Lynette, Baxter, Jeremy

Authors: Mayer, Claude-Hélène‏ , Louw, Lynette , Baxter, Jeremy
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/123320 , vital:35427 , https://doi.org/10.4102/acom.v15i1.291
Description: During the past decade, publications and conferences on management in African organisations (Kamoche 2011a; 2011b) and in global contexts (Mangaliso 2001; Jackson 2004)1 have increased steadily. In various African contexts and organisations, job satisfaction (JS) (Walumbwa et al. 2005) and organisational commitment (OC) (Gbadamosi 2003; Wasti 2003; Nyengane 2007; Pillay 2008) have been researched. Most of the previous research is quantitative in nature. Although quantititative research provides insights into the relationships between variables, it does not necessarily provide in-depth meaningful conclusions on micro-psychological levels (e.g. Sempane, Rieger & Roodt 2002; Buitendach & De Witte 2005).
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Date Issued: 2015

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'Feeling at home': institutional culture and the idea of a university

- Vice, Samantha

Authors: Vice, Samantha
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: text , book
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142072 , vital:38047 , ISBN 9781869142902 , https://books.google.co.za/books?id=49o8rgEACAAJanddq=Being+at+home:+Race,+institutional+culture+and+transformation+at+South+African+higher+education+institutionandhl=enandsa=Xandved=0ahUKEwiPgsa6mpjjAhXNN8AKHbNwAtoQ6AEIKDAA
Description: This edited work has gathered together contributions on how to transform universities in South Africa; as many are struggling to shift their institutional culture. In a South African context, transformation means to attempt to change higher education institutions such that they no longer reflect the values promoted by apartheid but rather reflect the values embodied in South Africa's 1996 Constitution. Institutional culture is the main subject for discussion in this book. In order to transform South Africa's universities, the contributors begin by analyzing the idea of what a university is, and relatedly, what its ideal aims are. A second theme is to understand what institutional culture is and how it functions. Moreover, transformation cannot occur without transforming the broader cultures of which they are a part. Related to this theme is a general concern about how contemporary moves towards the instrumentalization of higher education affect the ability to transform institutions. These institutions are being pushed to conform to goals that are outside the traditional idea of a university, such as concerns that universities are being 'bureaucratized' and becoming corporations, instead of a place of learning open to all. In conclusion it can be said that the contemporary South African academic community has an opportunity to recreate itself as the end of apartheid created space for engaging in transformative epistemic projects. The transformation of the tertiary sector entails a transformation of institutional cultures.
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Date Issued: 2015

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'I always knew I would go to university': a social realist account of student agency: part 1

- Ellery, Karen, Baxen, Jean

Authors: Ellery, Karen , Baxen, Jean
Date: 2015
Language: English
Type: article , text
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/61207 , vital:27990
Description: Academic development programmes at higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa are often underpinned by discourses that view students as deficit. Archer's social realist ontology offers a means of understanding reflexivities and agency of students in the higher education context. Using narrative data and drawing on Archer's (2003) theory of mediation between structure and agency through internal conversations, this study examined the socio-economic background of one particular student, Thando, and his agential journey to arrive at the academy. The analysis reveals Thando has a deliberate and determined stance towards achieving his project of obtaining a tertiary education in order to realise a better life for himself and his family. Despite what could be perceived as constraining socio-cultural conditions, Thando strategically circumvents such restrictions and acts in ways that help him pursue his project. It is argued that student agency needs to take a more central place within academic development programmes in higher education.
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Date Issued: 2015

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