A COMPARISON IN TRANSITO: TO ADAPT, APPLY AND EVALUATE THE ITC'S TPI FOR ANALYSING EXPORT INDUSTRIES' EXPORT STRATEGIES: THE CASE OF FRESH GRAPES AND ORANGES

International Relations/Trade,

Is Water Shedding Next?

South Africa is in the grip of an electricity crisis marked by a euphemism known as “load shedding”. The demand for electricity has grown to the point that the supply reserve margin is often under threat, necessitating the electricity supplier to cut supply to some areas for various periods of time, or to shed load. This is a condition previously unknown to South Africa since the country has enjoyed electricity security from the mid-1950s. Are we, however, heading in the same direction when considering water? Is water shedding inevitable? We ask these questions since South Africa is a country classified has having chronic water shortages, a condition exacerbated by climate change and the rapidly increasing demand for water. Can we avert a water shedding crisis by being proactive? In this paper we address this issue by applying a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model using an integrated database comprising South Africa’s Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) and sectoral water use balances. We refer to AsgiSA, the governments’ Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative in South Africa, and conclude that continuing business as usual will indeed lead to a situation where water shedding will be inevitable. Unlike electricity, however, water security is much more serious from livelihood, health and socio-economic development perspectives since there are no substitutes for it, although its influence is not directly and immediately visible. This delayed effect can create a degree of comfort and ill-founded complacency leading to non-action, whereas there is an urgent need for proactive measures.

Electricity Intensities of the OECD and South Africa: A Comparison

Improving a country’s electricity efficiency is considered one of the important ways to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and to meet its commitments concerning climate change mitigation. In this paper, we conduct a comparative analysis between South Africa and OECD members’ total and sectoral electricity intensities. This is done to establish a sense of South Africa’s relative performance in this regard, to ascertain the possible scope for improvement and, if such scope exists, to determine in which of the industrial sectors

Reflection of a Second Year Medical Student: Navigating Medical School with Chronic Illness

The medical school journey is one that many are familiar with. However, there lacks familiarity amongst medical students and healthcare professionals about the stories of those who navigate this journey while struggling with chronic health issues. This article will detail a personal story about navigating medical school with chronic illness. In reflecting on simultaneously navigating a medical school and personal health journey, the struggles and successes experienced as well as the lessons learned will be highlighted. The importance of acknowledging, embracing, and sharing these stories will be emphasized through this reflection and a review of similar stories published in medical literature

The Effect of Real-time Headbox Adjustments on Data Quality

Following a patent owned by Tobii, the framerate of a CMOS camera can be increased by reducing the size of the recording window so that it fits the eyes with minimum room to spare. The position of the recording window can be dynamically adjusted within the camera sensor area to follow the eyes as the participant moves the head. Since only a portion of the camera sensor data is communicated to the computer and processed, much higher framerates can be achieved with the same CPU and camera.Eye trackers can be expected to present data at a high speed, with good accuracy and precision, small latency and with minimal loss of data while allowing participants to behave as normally as possible. In this study, the effect of headbox adjustments in real-time is investigated with respect to the above-mentioned parameters.It was found that, for the specific camera model and tracking algorithm, one or two headbox adjustments per second, as would normally be the case during recording of human participants, could be tolerated in favour of a higher framerate. The effect of adjustment of the recording window can be reduced by using a larger recording window at the cost of the framerate

Using smooth pursuit calibration for difficult-to-calibrate participants

Although the 45-dots calibration routine of a previous study (Blignaut, 2016) provided very good accuracy, it requires intense mental effort and the routine proved to be unsuccessful for young children who struggle to maintain concentration. The calibration procedures that are normally used for difficult-to-calibrate participants, such as autistic children and infants, do not suffice since they are not accurate enough and the reliability of research results might be jeopardised.Smooth pursuit has been used before for calibration and is applied in this paper as an alternative routine for participants who are difficult to calibrate with conventional routines.  Gaze data is captured at regular intervals and many calibration targets are generated while the eyes are following a moving target. The procedure could take anything between 30 s and 60 s to complete, but since an interesting target and/or a conscious task may be used, participants are assisted to maintain concentration.It was proven that the accuracy that can be attained through calibration with a moving target along an even horizontal path is not significantly worse than the accuracy that can be attained with a standard method of watching dots appearing in random order. The routine was applied successfully for a group of children with ADD, ADHD and learning abilities.This result is important as it provides for easier calibration – especially in the case of participants who struggle to keep their gaze focused and stable on a stationary target for long enough