An evaluation of co-operative education in cost accounting at the Cape Technikon

Bibliography: pages 180-181.Since 1982 a form of co-operative education has been applied in the training of cost accountants in the School of Accounting of the Cape Technikon. The object of this research is the investigation and description of this application of co-operative education which is generally referred to as "practical work". An evaluation will be made of the following aspects of the training of cost accountants: the curriculum, the practical work that the students are expected to do, career opportunities and the training requirements of practice. It is confidently hoped to make suggestions which may lead to the improvement of the current curriculum of the National Diploma in Cost Accounting, the syllabuses of the subject Industrial Accounting as well as the system of co-operative education that is being used

Wissenschaftlicher Ansatz zum Entdecken von der Begabung zum Rugby bei 10- und 11jährigen Jungen

It has become apparent, since the dismantling of apartheid, that there is an urgent need especially among hitherto deprived groups of people, to develop talent in sport. The process of development and training of the young should be scientifically grounded. Departments of Physical Education can and should play an active role to ensure that such scientific individual development of Sporting talent takes place and is monitored regularly. A group of 173, ten and eleven year-old boys from a cross-section of the population was subjected to a battery of tests. The group consisted of youngsters who had never played rugby on the one hand (n = 110) and boys who played rugby (n = 63). The AAPHERD “Football Skills Test” was used together with relevant standardized motor-ability tests. The results of the tests were a) descriptively analyzed (x, sd) and b) analyzed by means of analysis of variance (ANOVA) to determine significance differences (P<0,05). Group differences were determined by means of the Newman-Keuls-posthoc test. Results were compared to existing norm scales to substantiate strengths and weaknesses. It emerged that the deprived population groups have certain weaknesses to be addressed during talent development clinics. It also emerged, however, that these groups have the some potential as their more developed counterparts, given the same opportunities. Development programmes should be devised by experts to develop rugby talent and to monitor results. It is essential that research and organized rugby should co-operate to ensure professional development.Nach dem Auseinandernehmen von der Apartheid ist es klar geworden, dabei den bisher benachteiligten Menschen die Notwendigkeit besteht, das Talent für Sport zu entwickeln. Der Prozeß der Entwicklung und des Trainings bei Jugendlichen soll wissenschaftlich gegründet werden. Die Abteilungen für Sport können und sollen eine aktive Rolle übernehmen, um zu sichern, daß eine solche wissenschaftlich basierte Entwicklung der sportlichen Begabung geschieht, und daß sie kontrolliert wird. Die Gruppe von 173 10- und 11jdhrigen Jungen wurde der Testbatterie unterzogen. Diese Gruppe umfaßte einerseits diejenigen Jugendlichen, die kein Rugby gespielt haben (n=110), und andererseits diejenigen, die diesen Sport schon betrieben haben (n=63). Es wurde der AAPHERD "Football Skills Test" verwendet, zusammen mit relevanten standardisierten Tests der motorischen Fähigkeiten. Die Resultate wurden: a) deskriptorisch analysiert (x, sd) und b) analysiert mittels der Varianzanalyse (ANOVA), um die Signifikanzunterschiede (P< 0,05) festzustellen. Die Unterschiede zwischen den Gruppen wurden mittels des Newman-Keuls-Posthoc-Tests festgestellt. Die Resultate wurden mit der existierenden Normenskala verglichen, um die Starken und Schwachen zu determinieren. Es hat sich gezeigt, daß die benachteiligten Populationsgruppen bestimmte Schwächen hatten, mit denen man sich in der Begabungsentwicklung befassen Soll. Es hat sich auch gezeigt, daß diese Gruppe dasselbe Potential für Rugby hatte, wie die andere. Entwicklungsprogrammesollen von Experten entwickelt werden, mit dem Ziel, die Begabung zum Rugby zu entwickeln und die Resultate zu kontrollieren. Es ist wichtig, daß das wissenschaftliche und organisierte Rugby zusammenarbeiten, um die professionelle Entwicklung zu sichern

Telling different stories, making new realities: The ontological politics of ‘addiction’ biographies

Personal narratives of alcohol and other drug addiction circulate widely in popular culture and they also have currency in professional therapeutic settings. Despite this, relatively little research has explored the conventions operating in these narratives and how they shape people's experiences and identities. While research in this area often proceeds on the premise that addiction biographies are straightforwardly ‘true’ accounts, in this paper we draw on the insights of critical alcohol and other drug scholarship, and the concept of ‘ontological politics’ to argue that biographies produce normative ideas about addiction and those said to be experiencing it. Our analysis compares traditional addiction narratives with the biographies we reconstructed from qualitative interviews with 60 people in Australia who describe themselves as having an ‘addiction’, ‘dependence’ or drug ‘habit’. We track how addiction is variously enacted in these accounts and comment on the effects of particular enactments. By attending to the ways in which people cope, even thrive, with the kind of consumption that would attract a diagnosis of addiction or dependence, the biographies we produced disrupt the classic narrative of increasing drug use, decline and eventual collapse. Doing so allows for consideration of the benefits of consumption, as well as the ways that people carefully regulate it to minimise harms. It also constitutes individuals as active in managing consumption—an important move that challenges dominant understandings of addiction as a disorder of compulsivity. We conclude by considering the implications of our attempt to provide an alternative range of narratives, which resonate with people's diverse experiences

Urban planning law in Liberia: the case for a transformational approach

This article discusses the need for a fundamental rethinking of urban planning in Liberia with special reference to Monrovia, the capital. Liberia is a post-conflict country and is facing a multitude of problems. One is the very rapid urbanisation of the country. Well over 50% of the population live in urban areas, and over one million people—one third of the population—live in Monrovia, for the most part in informal ‘illegal’ settlements with few facilities. Despite land issues being acknowledged as in need of being tackled as a matter of urgency, little has been done by the Johnson-Sirleaf government since it came to power in 2006. What is needed and what this article argues for is a plan for the development of Monrovia based on the Right to the City with residents given clear rights to land and to participate in the governance of their city. The approach is denominated as a transformational one, taking its inspiration from van der Walt’s approach set out in his Property in the Margins. The need for and the outline of an Urban Transformation Act are set out in the article which concludes with a warning that it cannot be supposed that the residents of Monrovia will continue indefinitely to put up with their very poor living conditions

Iterating ‘addiction’: Residential relocation and the spatio-temporal production of alcohol and other drug consumption patterns

Addiction is generally understood to be characterised by a persistent pattern of regular, heavy alcohol and other drug consumption. Current models of addiction tend to locate the causes of these patterns within the body or brain of the individual, sidelining relational and contextual factors. Where space and place are acknowledged as key factors contributing to consumption, they tend to be conceived of as static or fixed, which limits their ability to account for the fluid production and modulation of consumption patterns over time. In this article we query individualised and decontextualised understandings of the causes of consumption patterns through an analysis of accounts of residential relocation from interviews undertaken for a large research project on experiences of addiction in Australia. In conducting our analysis we conceptualise alcohol and other drug consumption patterns using Karen Barad's notions of intra-action and spatio-temporality, which allow for greater attention to be paid to the spatial and temporal dimensions of the material and social processes involved in generating consumption patterns. Drawing on 60 in-depth interviews conducted with people who self-identified as experiencing an alcohol and other drug addiction, dependence or habit, our analysis focuses on the ways in which participant accounts of moving enacted space and time as significant factors in how patterns of consumption were generated, disrupted and maintained. Our analysis explores how consumption patterns arose within highly localised relations, demonstrating the need for understandings of consumption patterns that acknowledge the indivisibility of space and time in their production. In concluding, we argue for a move away from static conceptions of place towards a more dynamic conception of spatio-temporality, and suggest the need to consider avenues for more effectively integrating place and time into strategies for generating preferred consumption patterns and initiating and sustaining change where desired

Prevalence of overweight and obesity in grade 1 learners in the North West Province of South Africa: The NW-CHILD Study

Objectives. To determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity among grade 1 learners, taking into account age, gender, race and school socioeconomic profile. Methods. The study is based on the baseline prevalence of overweight and obesity as part of the ongoing 6-year longitudinal NW Child Health Integrated Learning and Development (NW-CHILD) study. Stratified random sampling was used to identify 20 schools from four educational districts across all five quintiles of schools in the North West Province (NWP) of South Africa (SA). A total of 816 (419 boys, 397 girls) grade 1 learners with a mean age of 6.80 (standard deviation 0.39) years participated in the study, including 567 black learners, 218 white learners and 31 learners from other race groups. Standard anthropometric techniques and international body mass index (BMI) cut-off points for children were used to determine overweight and obesity. Results. A combined prevalence of overweight and obesity (Ow/Ob) of 11.1% was found, of which 7.5% were overweight and 3.6% obese. Although 7-year-old children showed a significantly higher prevalence of overweight (10.5%) than 6-year-old children (6.3%; p&lt;0.05), obesity levels were more prevalent among 6-year-old children (4.7%) than 7-year-old children (2.3%). Although not significant, a higher prevalence of overweight (9.3 v. 6.4%) and obesity (4.3% v. 3.3%) was found in girls than boys. For the whole sample, white children displayed a significantly higher prevalence of Ow/Ob compared with black children (19.7% v. 8.8%; p&lt;0.05), and the prevalence of Ow/Ob was higher in 4th- (18.1%) and 5th- (21.2%) quintile schools (which are associated with higher socioeconomic status (SES)) than in quintile 1 to quintile 3 schools (5.1%, 8.7%, 6.1%, respectively; p&lt;0.05). Conclusions. More than 10% of grade 1 learners in the NWP of SA were overweight or obese, with the prevalence being significantly lower in lower SES schools and among black children. Prevention strategies are needed to combat overweight and obesity, and the associated negative consequences of these health risks. Obesity levels in black children should also be monitored because of continuing economic transition, and taking into account increasing overweight and obesity in black South African adults

Challenging the addiction/health binary with assemblage thinking: An analysis of consumer accounts

Critical analyses of drug use and 'addiction' have identified a series of binary oppositions between addiction and free will, independence, self-control, responsibility, productivity and autonomy. This critical work has also examined how science, policy and popular discourses frequently characterise addiction as antithetical to health and well-being. Furthermore, those diagnosed with addiction are often understood as indifferent to health and well-being, or as lacking the knowledge or desire required to maintain them. In this article, we draw on data from 60 qualitative interviews with people who self-identify as living with an 'addiction', 'dependence' or 'habit', to argue that the binary opposition between addiction and health struggles to attend to their rich and varied health perspectives and experiences. We explore three themes in the interview data: reinscribing the binary opposition between addiction and health/well-being; strategies for maintaining health and well-being alongside addiction; and alcohol and other drug consumption as aiding health and well-being. Perhaps because addiction and health have been so thoroughly understood as antithetical, such perspectives and experiences have received surprisingly little research and policy attention. Yet they offer fertile ground for rethinking the strengths and capacities of those who self-identity as living with an addiction, dependence or habit, as well as untapped resources for responding to the harm sometimes associated with alcohol and other drug use

In silico evaluation and exploration of antibiotic tuberculosis treatment regimens

Abstract Background Improvement in tuberculosis treatment regimens requires selection of antibiotics and dosing schedules from a large design space of possibilities. Incomplete knowledge of antibiotic and host immune dynamics in tuberculosis granulomas impacts clinical trial design and success, and variations among clinical trials hamper side-by-side comparison of regimens. Our objective is to systematically evaluate the efficacy of isoniazid and rifampin regimens, and identify modifications to these antibiotics that improve treatment outcomes. Results We pair a spatio-temporal computational model of host immunity with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic data on isoniazid and rifampin. The model is calibrated to plasma pharmacokinetic and granuloma bacterial load data from non-human primate models of tuberculosis and to tissue and granuloma measurements of isoniazid and rifampin in rabbit granulomas. We predict the efficacy of regimens containing different doses and frequencies of isoniazid and rifampin. We predict impacts of pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic modifications on antibiotic efficacy. We demonstrate that suboptimal antibiotic concentrations within granulomas lead to poor performance of intermittent regimens compared to daily regimens. Improvements from dose and frequency changes are limited by inherent antibiotic properties, and we propose that changes in intracellular accumulation ratios and antimicrobial activity would lead to the most significant improvements in treatment outcomes. Results suggest that an increased risk of drug resistance in fully intermittent as compared to daily regimens arises from higher bacterial population levels early during treatment. Conclusions Our systems pharmacology approach complements efforts to accelerate tuberculosis therapeutic development.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116019/1/12918_2015_Article_221.pd

Randomised trials in the South African Medical Journal, 1948- 1997

Objective. To describe randomised controlled trials (RCTs) published in the South African Medical Journal (SAMJ) over a 50-year period from 1948 to 1997 with regard to number, topic and quality.Methods. We hand searched all issues of the SAMJ published during the study period to identify all published RCTs.Outcome measures. Number, topic and quality of RCTs published from 1948 to 1997.Results. Eight hundred and fifty-eight clinical trials were published during the period reviewed. Eighty-four per cent of RCTs were published as full articles. During the 1980s the number of RCTs published increased rapidly,  with a peak of 35 in 1985, but then declined to only 5 in 1997. The majority (92%) of RCTs were conducted in a hospital setting. A varied range of subjects was covered, with gastroenterology taking the lead and no trials in public health. The sample size in more than 50% of RCTs was smaller than 50 patients. Fifty-one per cent (435 trials) used random allocation and 49% (423) quasi-random methods of allocation. Concealment of treatment allocation was judged to be adequate in 46% of studies (N == 200), blinding of observers assessing outcomes was adequate in 28% (123), and all the allocated test subjects were included in the primary analysis in 28% (123). The follow-up period was more than 1 year in 4% (17) and less than 6 days in 16% (71).Conclusions. Compared with other international journals the SAMJ is highly regarded in terms of the number of trials published. There are, however, a number of deficiencies in the quality of the trials