The unecic: International trade in the digital era

The use of electronic communications in international trade communications and transactions has raised some concerns about the legal validity and legal certainty of such communications. The perception that this type of communication causes legal uncertainty has caused UNCITRAL to develop a draft convention which has now been adopted by the United Nations as the Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, 2005 (UNECIC). This contribution traverses the legislative history of the UNECIC, its scope and purpose as a background for an initial analysis of the provisions of the Convention. The author refers to interpretational methods and techniques developed and used for the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, 1980 (CISG) as a possible approach to the interpretation and application of the UNECIC. The CISG is a highly successful convention and there will be an inevitable interaction between the two conventions once the UNECIC comes into operation due to the provisions of article 20 of the UNECIC. It is argued that the UNECIC will be able to draw on the experience with the CISG due to the similarity in the interpretational provisions of the two conventions. For this purpose a number of the underlying principles of the UNECIC is abstracted and discussed.The article concludes with a brief critical exposition of the provisions of the UNECIC. The convention is very new and consequently very little analysis on it has been published to date. It is concluded that the convention represents a clear and sensible solution to the issues and perceptions of legal uncertainty raised by electronic communications in international transactions and should be widely adopted

Prof Dr. H.G. Schulze as hoogleraar in die Letterkunde

Sittende op ’n klip, bene gekruis, gevly — so kenteken die middeleeuseelmboog op die knie, wang in sy hand Walther von der Vogelweide homself, soword hy in die Manessiese handskrifgeskets, so word hy gekenskets aan dieonkundige student. Of die „bontkraaikleurige” Feirefix, wit en swart geskakeersoos ’n dambord, seun van ’n witvader en ’n swart moeder, snel heldhaftigsy halfbroer Parzival te hulp — endie eerste digter van 'n „ontwikkelingsroman”in Duits, Wolfram von Eschenbach,is reeds gekenteken in sy wildekleurryke fantasie en hoë idealisme

Exploring Afrikaans word embeddings with analogies and nearest neighbours

This paper presents an exploration of word embeddings for Afrikaans using the analogies and nearest neighbours methodologies. We compare the results on three types of embeddings (fastText, FLAIR and GloVe) on a novel analogy data set for Afrikaans, inspired by the Bigger Analogy Test Set: BATS (Gladkova et al. 2016). Our analysis shows that for Afrikaans, similar to English, the types of embeddings influence the quality of analogies found for different linguistic tasks. Our investigation also demonstrates, however, that these Afrikaans embeddings do not encode as clear a linguistic representation as with English embeddings. The exact reason for this is subject to future work, but the added morphological complexity and the lack of data most likely play a role

Using ordinal logistic regression to analyse self-reported usage of, and attitudes towards swearwords

Likert-type data is commonly used in many research fields in humanities: from gaging the usability of different user-interface designs, to determining users’ likeliness to vote for a particular political party, to evaluation of course materials–to name but a few examples. Despite its prevalence, there is still some disagreement within the statistics community on whether Likert-type scales are true ordinal variables, and by implication whether parametric tests are legitimate to be used in such cases (Endresen &Janda 2017).In this paper, we explore one parametric statistical test, viz. cumulative odds ordinal logistic regression (OLR),as an analysis method for self-reported data in the humanities. For illustration purposes, our focus is specifically on data of users’ self-reported usage of, and attitudes towards swearwords, with the aim of identifying demographic attributes that are predictive of their usage and/or attitudes. After a brief description of the data we’re using, including how the data is being collected, we give a layman’s overview of OLR. Since one of our aims is to demonstrate the usability of OLR, we apply our discussion practically to a step-by-step procedure (based on Laerd Statistics 2015) that could be followed easily. We demonstrate the usefulness of the results in reporting on the usage of, and attitude towards two near synonymous Afrikaans swearwords. We show, amongst others, that the odds ratios that are generated as part of the modelling procedure can be used to draw direct conclusions about specific demographic groups

Immunization of the rural Bantu against diphtheria in the Northern Transvaal

No Abstrac

The Unecic: International Trade in The Digital Era

The use of electronic communications in international trade communications and transactions has raised some concerns about the legal validity and legal certainty of such communications. The perception that this type of communication causes legal uncertainty has caused UNCITRAL to develop a draft convention which has now been adopted by the United Nations as the Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, 2005 (UNECIC). This contribution traverses the legislative history of the UNECIC, its scope and purpose as a background for an initial analysis of the provisions of the Convention.   The author refers to interpretational methods and techniques developed and used for the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, 1980 (CISG) as a possible approach to the interpretation and application of the UNECIC. The CISG is a highly successful convention and there will be an inevitable interaction between the two conventions once the UNECIC comes into operation due to the provisions of article 20 of the UNECIC. It is argued that the UNECIC will be able to draw on the experience with the CISG due to the similarity in the interpretational provisions of the two conventions. For this purpose a number of the underlying principles of the UNECIC is abstracted and discussed.   The article concludes with a brief critical exposition of the provisions of the UNECIC. The convention is very new and consequently very little analysis on it has been published to date. It is concluded that the convention represents a clear and sensible solution to the issues and perceptions of legal uncertainty raised by electronic communications in international transactions and should be widely adopted.   &nbsp

The Requirements for the Inclusion of Standard Terms in International Sales Contracts

The problem dealing with the inclusion of standard terms and conditions in contracts is a problem that has engaged most legal systems. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Vienna 1980 (CISG) does not expressly deal with this problem. Accordingly the solution to the issue must be found in an interpretation and application of the general principles found in articles 8, 14 and 18.  One of the main objects of the CISG is the harmonisation of international trade law. It is generally recognised that in order to achieve harmonisation it is necessary that courts should interpret and apply the convention in a consistent and harmonious manner. Unfortunately a number of approaches have emerged from courts around the world in regard to the inclusion of standard terms. German courts have developed a strict approach which requires that the standard terms be made available to the addressee at the time of the conclusion of the contract. They also require that the standard terms be couched in the language of the main contract. In stark contrast an American court has used an approach which is very lax in regard to incorporation, even allowing incorporation after the conclusion of the contract. There is, however a more moderate approach set out in decisions of the Austrian Supreme Court where the court adopted an approach which is more akin to that found in most legal systems, namely that a clear incorporation clause in the contract is sufficient for the effective incorporation of standard terms.  The author critically examines the case law, the various approaches and the underlying arguments on which they are based, before reaching the conclusion that the two extreme approaches should be rejected in favour of the more moderate approach. This approach is founded on a proper interpretation of the provisions of the CISG as well as being in step with international trade practice.    &nbsp

Der Berater zwischen Betroffenheit und Reflexion: Themenschwerpunkt: Organisationsberatung mit Gefühl

Der Berater ist stets auch mit seinen eigenen Gefühlen in das Beratungsgeschehen involviert. Das analytische Konzept der Übertragung/ Gegenübertragung wird daraufhin geprüft, inwiefern es genutzt werden kann, diese Gefühle zu reflektieren und zudem noch als diagnostisches Instrument zu nutzen

Fiddling with the ECT act – Electronic signatures

Amongst the changes the Department of Trade and Industry is considering is an amendment of the definition of "electronic signature". Although the amendment seems to be in line with the provisions of the UNCITRAL Model Laws on eCommerce and the 2005 UN Convention on the Use of Electronic Communications in International Contracts, the amendment sets additional and more onerous requirements for all electronic signatures. The note illustrates how this amendment undermines the key principles of functional equivalence, media neutrality and party autonomy, and how this innocuous looking amendment may have very harmful practical consequences. It is suggested that amendments to section 13 would be more appropriate to achieve the objectives of the legislature.