Slaves of the state – medical internship and community service in South Africa

Owing to a chronic shortage of medical staff in South Africa, sleep-deprived medical interns and community service doctors work up to 200 hours of overtime per month under the state’s commuted overtime policy. Nurses moonlight in circumvention of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. For trainee doctors, overtime over 80 hours is unpaid, and rendered involuntarily under threat of not qualifying to practise medicine in South Africa. As forced labour, and sleep deprivation amounting to cruel and degrading treatment, it is outlawed in international law. No other professional group in the country is subjected to such levels of exploitation and discrimination by the state. These abuses should be challenged under the Constitution. Solutions include theinstallation of electronic time-recording in state hospitals, cessation of unpaid overtime, limits on medical intern shifts to a maximum of 16 hours, and an investigation by the Human Rights Commission of South Africa

Variations in size compositions of populations of Upogebia africana (Ortmann) (Decapoda, Crustacea) within the Swartkops estuary and possible influencing factors

The size frequencies of various populations of the mud prawn Upogebia africana sampled within the Swartkops estuary were determined and the size compositions of these populations varied along the length of the estuary, as well as vertically within the intertidal zone. Ovigerous prawns were recorded from sites representing the extremes in population structures and their mean sizes differed significantly (P < 0,05) from each other. The variations in the size compositions were therefore attributed to differences in the growth of the prawns, rather than a spatial separation of adults and juveniles. The mean sizes of the adult prawns from the various stations were determined and plotted against factors such as water temperatures and salinities, nitrogen and organic contents of the substrata, population densities and distances of the populations from the estuarine mouth. The latter factor, which was used to give a relative measure of the exposure (in terms of duration and current velocity) of the populations to the flow of water entering the estuary during flood tides, gave the most significant (P < 0,01) correlation with the mean size of the adult prawns and could satisfactorily account for patterns observed

Advances in the corporate governance practices of Johannesburg Stock Exchange companies

Since the 20th century, corporate governance mechanisms have been developed globally to curb the negative effects of the agency problem. South Africa was a pioneer with the publication of the first King Report on corporate governance in 1994. Given the paucity of research on corporate governance in the country, the researchers set out to investigate the corporate governance practices of 230 companies listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange over the period 2002 to 2010. Annual corporate governance scores were compiled by means of content analysis of the sample companies’ annual reports. The empirical findings revealed an increasing compliance trend towards 2010. Although the sample companies tended to improve the disclosure of their corporate governance practices over time, their practices were not per se acceptable (where acceptability implies meeting the King II recommendations). Inexperienced directors and managers might benefit from more training to enhance their understanding of the application of corporate governance principles.Keywords: corporate governance, King II Report, South Africa, compliance, disclosur

Effect of Cissampelos capensis rhizome extract on human spermatozoa in vitro

Cissampelos capensis is commonly known by the Afrikaans name ‘dawidjies’ or ‘dawidjieswortel’. C. capensis is the most important and best-known medicinal plant of the family Menispermaceae used by the Khoisan and other rural people in the western regions of South Africa. Among numerous other ailments, it is traditionally taken to treat male fertility problems. Yet, no studies have investigated the effects of this plant or its extracts on human spermatozoa. The aim of study was to investigate the effects of C. capensis extracts on sperm function. A total of 77 semen samples were collected. Spermatozoa were washed with HTF-BSA medium and incubated with different concentrations of C. capensis (0, 0.05, 0.5, 5, 50, 200 μg ml−1) for 1 h at 37 °C. Sperm motility, vitality, acrosome reaction, reactive oxygen species (ROS), capacitation, Annexin V binding, DNA fragmentation and mitochondrial membrane potential (Δψm) were determined. While viability, Annexin V positivity and Δψm were not affected, the percentages of ROS-positive, TUNEL-positive, capacitated and hyperactivated spermatozoa increased significantly and dose-dependently. It is concluded that the alkaloids present in the extract of C. capansis rhizomes triggered sperm intrinsic superoxide production leading to sperm capacitation and DNA fragmentation.Web of Scienc

Implementation of the regulations of the board of directors of TVRI public agency on Non-Civil Servant in public television broadcasting agency in Indonesia

Purpose: This research aims to analyze the implementation of the regulation of the board of directors of the TVRI public broadcasting institution regarding non-civil servants (Study at the Indonesian Television Public Broadcasting Institute (TVRI), East Nusa Tenggara Station. Research methodology: In this study, the authors used an interpretive research paradigm. The interpretive approach aims to understand the "world of human experience". In this study, the total population was 110 people consisting of 27 non-civil servants and 83 civil servants. Furthermore, purposively, the researcher selected 11 people as informants with details of 1 Head of the Office as Key Informants and 10 non-civil servants as Ordinary Informants Results: The conclusions of this study can be grouped into four aspects, namely actors, organizations, procedures, and techniques. Limitations: this research only analyzes the implementation of policies on the development of Indonesian migrant workers' families in the field of economic empowerment in Kupang city. Contribution: This research becomes scientific information for public administration science. Keywords: Regulations, Implementation, Broadcasting agency, Non-Civil Servan

Chinese Globalisation Strategy, Her Recent Global Business Dominance: A Lesson for Nigeria

The study made a comparative analysis of the Nigerian economy and China on globalization. The need to empirically compare Nigeria and China with regard to China’s recent global business dominance formed the central objective of this study.  Data spanning over 23 years (1990-2012) sourced from World Bank were utilized.  The data were purged of spurious relationship by conducting test for stationarity. Ordinary Least Square was employed to analyze the data. The result revealed that China is benefiting from globalization based on China’s strategies in its globalization effort which yielded positive results. Nigeria on the other hand had hurriedly embraced globalization with a mono cultural primary product whose price is very volatile. The study therefore recommends that Nigeria should emulate the Chinese path of gradual market reforms, characterized by cumulative causation where each reform should lead to the next. Furthermore, it recommends that over emphasis on market economy- privatization, liberalization and commercialization is strategic but government presence in planning and development is valuable as seen in China’s experience. Heavy infrastructure and sustained development attract local and foreign investors and government should create incentives to encourage local production and export. Key words: Chinese Globalisation Strategy, Global Business, Dominance

The KELT-South Telescope

The Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope (KELT) project is a survey for new transiting planets around bright stars. KELT-South is a small-aperture, wide-field automated telescope located at Sutherland, South Africa. The telescope surveys a set of 26 degree by 26 degree fields around the southern sky, and targets stars in the range of 8 < V < 10 mag, searching for transits by Hot Jupiters. This paper describes the KELT-South system hardware and software and discusses the quality of the observations. We show that KELT-South is able to achieve the necessary photometric precision to detect transits of Hot Jupiters around solar-type main-sequence stars.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure