Political power, national identitiy and language

Afrikaans is the home language of 5.9 million people. During the 1980s, Afrikaans was the dominant state language and a widely-used lingua franca in South Africa and Namibia. But by the end of the twentieth century, English had replaced Afrikaans as the dominant state language and a decline in the use of Afrikaans was in evidence, even among native Afrikaans speakers. An examination of this language's twentieth-century journey helps illustrate the relationship(s) between political power, national identity, and the growth and/or decline of languages

School self-evaluation for school improvement: Examining the measuring properties of the LEAD surveys

Research evidence suggests school self-evaluation with the participation of school stakeholders could improve teaching and learning. Identification and use of appropriate self-evaluation frameworks, however, is not an easy task for schools. Such a framework, the LEAD School Effectiveness Surveys, has been developed by Independent Schools Victoria in Australia. The LEAD suite of school stakeholder surveys enables schools to evaluate their overall effectiveness in several domains and make informed decisions for school improvement. This article evaluates the reliability as well as the face, content and construct validity of the LEAD surveys and discusses the ways in which school self-evaluation results could contribute to school improvement. Data were gathered from a total of 119,749 students, teaching staff, general and parents taking the LEAD Surveys in 112 independent (non-government) schools and followed a five-year longitudinal design from 2009 to 2013. The results support the reliability as well as the face, content and construct validity of the LEAD surveys. The importance of evaluating the measuring properties of instruments used for school self-evaluation is discussed and suggestions for school self-evaluation are provided. Independent Schools Victoria (Australia

The southern African poultry value chain : corporate strategies, investments and agro-industrial policies

Abstract: Following various regional investments in the last decade, production and participation in the poultry value chain in southern Africa has increased. One of the factors that determines entry into, and success in, a global value chain is the governance structure. This paper adopts a modular approach to analyse the governance structures in the poultry value chains in Botswana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. A key finding is that various stakeholders have an influence on the regional poultry value chain in southern Africa, with the sources of influence depending on the formality of structures within the value chain

Shallow rainwater lenses in deltaic areas with saline seepage

In deltaic areas with saline seepage, freshwater availability is often limited to shallow rainwater lenses lying on top of saline groundwater. Here we describe the characteristics and spatial variability of such lenses in areas with saline seepage and the mechanisms that control their occurrence and size. Our findings are based on different types of field measurements and detailed numerical groundwater models applied in the south-western delta of the Netherlands. By combining the applied techniques we could extrapolate measurements at point scale (groundwater sampling, temperature and electrical soil conductivity (TEC)-probe measurements, electrical cone penetration tests (ECPT)) to field scale (continuous vertical electrical soundings (CVES), electromagnetic survey with EM31), and even to regional scale using helicopter-borne electromagnetic measurements (HEM). The measurements show a gradual mixing zone between infiltrating fresh rainwater and upward flowing saline groundwater. The mixing zone is best characterized by the depth of the centre of the mixing zone <i>D</i><sub>mix</sub>, where the salinity is half that of seepage water, and the bottom of the mixing zone <i>B</i><sub>mix</sub>, with a salinity equal to that of the seepage water (Cl-conc. 10 to 16 g l<sup>−1</sup>). <i>D</i><sub>mix</sub> is found at very shallow depth in the confining top layer, on average at 1.7 m below ground level (b.g.l.), while <i>B</i><sub>mix</sub> lies about 2.5 m b.g.l. The model results show that the constantly alternating upward and downward flow at low velocities in the confining layer is the main mechanism of mixing between rainwater and saline seepage and determines the position and extent of the mixing zone (<i>D</i><sub>mix</sub> and <i>B</i><sub>mix</sub>). Recharge, seepage flux, and drainage depth are the controlling factors

Candida albicans Hypha Formation and Mannan Masking of β-Glucan Inhibit Macrophage Phagosome Maturation

Received 28 August 2014 Accepted 28 October 2014 Published 2 December 2014 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We thank Janet Willment, Aberdeen Fungal Group, University of Aberdeen, for kindly providing the soluble Dectin-1-Fc reporter. All microscopy was performed with the assistance of the University of Aberdeen Core Microscopy & Histology Facility, and we thank the IFCC for their assistance with flow cytometry. We thank the Wellcome Trust for funding (080088, 086827, 075470, 099215, 097377, and 101873). E.R.B. and A.J.P.B. are funded by the European Research Council (ERC-2009-AdG-249793), and J.L. is funded by a Medical Research Council Clinical Training Fellowship.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Inclusion strategies for multi-word units in monolingual dictionaries

This article focuses on inclusion strategies for different types of multi-word units, be it as part of the macrostructure or embedded as treatment units in the microstructure of a specific dictionary. The types of multi-word units discussed range from multi-word lexical items to collocations and multi-word compound lexical items. The general principles set out in this article are applied specifically to monolingual school dictionaries that target learners of English in the junior secondary phase. In order to discuss inclusion strategies adequately it is, however, necessary to make a cursory distinction between idioms and collocations, on the one hand, and between collocations and multiword compound lexical items, on the other. It is shown that current monolingual dictionaries often fail to distinguish between these types and therefore apply potentially confusing inclusion strategies. In the discussion of inclusion strategies for multi-word lexical items that follows, it is shown that, whereas loan groups and group prepositions require lemmatisation as full multilexical lemmas, the strategy for idioms is not as simple. The problems with a full lemmatisation of idioms are pointed out and an alternative system, whereby idioms are consistently included as sublemmas with full microstructural treatment, is proposed. Next it is shown that collocations do not have lexical item status and can therefore not be treated in the same way as multi-word lexical items. However, provision must be made that some collocations may need additional microstructural treatment addressed to them. Lastly, inclusion strategies for multi-word compound lexical items, which frequently occur in English, are discussed. The practice of sublemmatising so-called "transparent" compound lexical items and giving them no or little microstructural treatment, is shown to be inappropriate for school dictionaries. Hopefully the guidelines provided in this article can be of some help in clearing up the muddled approaches currently followed in some South African monolingual school dictionaries. Keywords: collocations, compound nouns, group prepositions, idioms, inclusion strategies, lemma, loan groups, macrostructure, microstructure, multi-word compound lexical items, multi-word units, sublemma, transparenc

The vexed “colour problem”: Doris Lessing and the “African Renaissance”

The question of an African Renaissance is drawing increasing debate among African scholars as they aspire for African unity and the revitalization of African cultures. This involves looking back to Africa’s past and evaluating traditions and customs in order to learn how to shape the future. In this paper it is argued that Doris Lessing, in her African Stories, anticipated post-liberation issues such as the protection of Indigenous Knowledge Systems which have become the cornerstone concepts of the African Renaissance today. She exposes the threat posed by colonial society to African traditions and thereby subverts colonial discourse. Keywords: Doris Lessing; African Renaissanc

Games, tradition and ‘Being Human’ in Ayi Kwei Armah’s "The Healers"

In the era of transnationalism and globalisation it is easy to be drawn into totalising paradigms about what it means to be human which erase alternative ways of thought. It is therefore instructive to revisit Ayi Kwei Armah’s postcolonial critique in order to question our assumptions about human activities such as the Olympic Games and general health practices. Armah reveals ways of thinking in precolonial times which may have been forgotten and which could assist the West in finding a balance in the way we live and treat our environment.Keywords: Ayi Kwei Armah, The Healers, humanity, games, sports, healing practices, culture, linguistic

Response to recharge variation of thin rainwater lenses and their mixing zone with underlying saline groundwater

In coastal zones with saline groundwater, fresh groundwater lenses may form due to infiltration of rain water. The thickness of both the lens and the mixing zone, determines fresh water availability for plant growth. Due to recharge variation, the thickness of the lens and the mixing zone are not constant, which may adversely affect agricultural and natural vegetation if saline water reaches the root zone during the growing season. In this paper, we study the response of thin lenses and their mixing zone to variation of recharge. The recharge is varied using sinusoids with a range of amplitudes and frequencies. We vary lens characteristics by varying the Rayleigh number and Mass flux ratio of saline and fresh water, as these dominantly influence the thickness of thin lenses and their mixing zone. Numerical results show a linear relation between the normalised lens volume and the main lens and recharge characteristics, enabling an empirical approximation of the variation of lens thickness. Increase of the recharge amplitude causes increase and the increase of recharge frequency causes a decrease in the variation of lens thickness. The average lens thickness is not significantly influenced by these variations in recharge, contrary to the mixing zone thickness. The mixing zone thickness is compared to that of a Fickian mixing regime. A simple relation between the travelled distance of the centre of the mixing zone position due to variations in recharge and the mixing zone thickness is shown to be valid for both a sinusoidal recharge variation and actual records of daily recharge data. Starting from a step response function, convolution can be used to determine the effect of variable recharge in time. For a sinusoidal curve, we can determine delay of lens movement compared to the recharge curve as well as the lens amplitude, derived from the convolution integral. Together the proposed equations provide us with a first order approximation of lens characteristics using basic lens and recharge parameters without the use of numerical models. This enables the assessment of the vulnerability of any thin fresh water lens on saline, upward seeping groundwater to salinity stress in the root zone