A new archival hub at Wits University: A conversation with Noor Nieftagodien, Head of History Workshop (University of Witwatersrand)

For some years, the archives in South Africa have faced a series of unprecedented challenges that threaten the high quality of the documentation and the functioning of the centers that maintain them. The crises facing the State Archives reflect problems in the state more generally including inadequate strategic investment and lack of training, which jeopardise the potential renewal of archivists. At the same time, the wide array of political activities and social movements, the dynamics of civil society organizations and activism require more than ever to curate documentation and expand the archives’ capacities. To answer this paradox, a team working in two independent archives and a research center at Wits University is experimenting with a new “hub” to constitute an important center of independent archives in South Africa. Noor Nieftagodien, director of the Wits History Workshop - the research center that has played a role in the creation of the hub - and a member of the board of the South African Historical Archives, sheds light on the new enterprise

Nugent (2019) - Boundaries, Communities, and State-Making in West Africa. The Centrality of the Margins

Critical review: Paul Nugent, Boundaries, Communities, and State-Making in West Africa. The Centrality of the Margins, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 610 p.Recension : Paul Nugent, Boundaries, Communities, and State-Making in West Africa. The Centrality of the Margins, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2019, 610 p

Un hub archivistique en Afrique du Sud

Un projet significatif doit donner naissance à un pôle (hub) résultant du rapprochement de plusieurs entités archivistiques à l’Université du Witwatersrand (Johannesbourg). Par sa visée, ce nouveau lieu deviendrait le premier centre d’archives indépendantes d’Afrique en Sud, en volume et en importance. Mais surtout, il est le fruit d’une intense réflexion sur la place des archives dans le projet démocratique qui anime le pays et dans les cursus universitaires. La place de ce hub archivistique ne peut se comprendre sans un regard sur l’Afrique du Sud depuis la fin de l’apartheid. La place de l’histoire et des archives y semble privilégiée au regard de ses voisins et de nombreux États, et elle dénote les espoirs et les soutiens qu’a suscité ce pays lors de la transition des années 1990. Un tel pôle permettrait d’opérer un rassemblement majeur de fonds d’archives au service d’un nouveau regard sur les centres indépendants de documentation et les pratiques qu’ils doivent générer

Factors underlying age-related changes in discrete aiming

Age has a clear impact on one’s ability to make accurate goal-directed aiming movements. Older adults seem to plan slower and shorter-ranged initial pulses towards the target, and rely more on sensory feedback to ensure endpoint accuracy. Despite the fact that these age-related changes in manual aiming have been observed consistently, the underlying mechanism remains speculative. In an attempt to isolate four commonly suggested underlying factors, young and older adults were instructed to make discrete aiming movements under varying speed and accuracy constraints. Results showed that older adults were physically able to produce fast primary submovements and that they demonstrated similar movement-programming capacities as young adults. On the other hand, considerable evidence was found supporting a decreased visual feedback-processing efficiency and the implementation of a play-it-safe strategy in older age. In conclusion, a combination of the latter two factors seems to underlie the age-related changes in manual aiming behaviour

Changements côtiers et inondations suite au passage d’un ouragan extrême (Irma, 2017) aux Petites Antilles

Cette étude porte sur les changements côtiers et les inondations suite au passage d’un ouragan de catégorie 5 (Irma) les 5 et 6 septembre 2017 sur les îles de Saint-Martin et Saint-Barthélemy aux Antilles. Deux missions de terrain à t+2 mois et t+8 mois sur les deux îles ont permis d’analyser les impacts de l’ouragan Irma sur des côtes basses particulièrement sensibles aux événements météo-marins extrêmes et aux pressions anthropiques. Le retour d’expérience a été réalisé sur les côtes les plus touchées par l’évènement. Pour comparer les impacts de l’ouragan Irma et les interactions avec les systèmes côtiers et les infrastructures côtières, nous avons choisi d’analyser des côtes peu urbanisées et des littoraux densément aménagés. La méthode a reposé sur l’analyse d’images satellites avant le passage de l’ouragan Irma et l’analyse d’images drones post-évènement. Elle s’est aussi appuyée sur des observations géomorphologiques, la mesure des hauteurs de vagues et la cartographie des espaces inondées. Les systèmes côtiers ont répondu très différemment en fonction du degré d’artificialisation de la côte, révélant des changements côtiers variés, des transferts sédimentaires perturbés et une influence sur les hauteurs d’eau maximales à la côte.This study deals with the coastal changes, flooding and damage after the passage of a category 5 hurricane (Irma) on 6 September 2017 over the islands of Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy in the Lesser Antilles. Two field work were made 2 and 8 months after the catastrophe over the two islands. It made it possible to analyze the impacts of Hurricane Irma on the low-lying shores that are particularly susceptible to extreme cyclonic events and anthropogenic stressors. The field work was made on the coasts most affected by the cyclonic event. To compare impacts of hurricane Irma and interactions with coastal systems and coastal infrastructure, we chose to analyze undeveloped to highly urbanized coasts. The method was based on the analysis of satellite images and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle surveys. It also relied on qualitative observations, geomorphological and sedimentary surveys and the measurement of wave run up and the mapping of flooded areas. The coastal system revealed a variety of morpho-sedimentary responses on both the natural and highly urbanized coasts, showing varied coastal changes, perturbed sedimentary transfers and the effects of coastal structures and street on flow channeling and on water level increas

Recovery after curettage of grapevines with esca leaf symptoms

Grapevine curettage was re-introduced in France in the early 2000s, and is important for facilitating recovery of plants from esca disease. This surgical practice involves removal of deadwood of vines with leaf symptoms, focusing on white rot generally observed at the centres of grapevine trunks. Assessment of the efficacy of this practice was initiated in the Bordeaux region in 2014. One ‘Sauvignon Blanc’ vineyard severely affected by esca was initially surveyed in the summer of 2014, to identify and treat vines with esca foliar symptoms. Annually thereafter, from 2014 to 2018, selected vine stocks were curetted. Two other ‘Sauvignon Blanc’ vineyards also displaying high levels of esca damage were added to the study in 2015 and 2016. Curettage treatments ceased in 2018, resulting in 11 trials (vineyard × year combinations). In total, 856 vines (422 curetted and 434 control vines) were then surveyed annually up to 2021, for assessments and comparisons of esca development. At each site, plants with esca symptoms recovered well after curettage : on average 85% of all curetted vines became asymptomatic the year immediately after the treatment. Six years after treatment, for curettage campaigns carried out in 2014 and 2015, more than half of the curetted vines were symptom-free, whereas <12% of the control vines were asymptomatic, and gradual loss of efficacy was observed at each site. The mean annual proportion of efficacy erosion was approx. 8% per year. This study highlights the possible short- and midterm benefits of trunk surgery to enable recovery of esca-affected vines, and for them to recover and remain leaf-asymptomatic for several years

Multi-proxy analyses of a mid-15th century Middle Iron Age Bantu-speaker palaeo-faecal specimen elucidates the configuration of the ‘ancestral’ sub-Saharan African intestinal microbiome

Funder: Ministère des Affaires Etrangères; doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100003763Abstract: Background: The archaeological incidence of ancient human faecal material provides a rare opportunity to explore the taxonomic composition and metabolic capacity of the ancestral human intestinal microbiome (IM). Here, we report the results of the shotgun metagenomic analyses of an ancient South African palaeo-faecal specimen. Methods: Following the recovery of a single desiccated palaeo-faecal specimen from Bushman Rock Shelter in Limpopo Province, South Africa, we applied a multi-proxy analytical protocol to the sample. The extraction of ancient DNA from the specimen and its subsequent shotgun metagenomic sequencing facilitated the taxonomic and metabolic characterisation of this ancient human IM. Results: Our results indicate that the distal IM of the Neolithic ‘Middle Iron Age’ (c. AD 1460) Bantu-speaking individual exhibits features indicative of a largely mixed forager-agro-pastoralist diet. Subsequent comparison with the IMs of the Tyrolean Iceman (Ötzi) and contemporary Hadza hunter-gatherers, Malawian agro-pastoralists and Italians reveals that this IM precedes recent adaptation to ‘Western’ diets, including the consumption of coffee, tea, chocolate, citrus and soy, and the use of antibiotics, analgesics and also exposure to various toxic environmental pollutants. Conclusions: Our analyses reveal some of the causes and means by which current human IMs are likely to have responded to recent dietary changes, prescription medications and environmental pollutants, providing rare insight into human IM evolution following the advent of the Neolithic c. 12,000 years ago. E_CXsNG9ctE_c_B9sn31A9Video Abtract

Land, Environmental Externalities and Tourism Development

In a two sectors dynamic model we analyze the process of tourism development based on the accumulation of capital (building of tourism facilities) and the reallocation of land from traditional activities to the tourism sector. The model incorporates the conflict between occupation of the territory by the tourism facilities, other productive activities and availability of cultural, natural and environmental assets that are valued by residents and visitors. We characterize the process of tourism development in two settings: the socially optimal solution and a situation where the costs of tourism expansion are external to the decision makers, where externalities on residents as well as intraindustry externalities are considered. Regarding the optimal solution, we show that it is optimal to limit tourism expansion before it reaches its maximum capacity even in a context where the economic attractiveness of tourism relative to other productive sectors rise continuously. However, in this context and when all the costs of tourism development are externalities the only limit to tourism quantitative expansion is its maximum capacity determined by the availability of land. Finally, we show that excessive environmental degradation from the future generations' point of view is not a problem of discounting the future but rather a problem of externalities that affects negatively the current and future generations