Emerging role of corporate treasury management in cyber space

The original publication is available at http://www.sajim.co.za/The Internet has brought about many new implications for the way we do business and is becoming a feature of normal business (Forster 2000). The most important implication is the way in which the Internet links many different entities in a vast network, creating a pool of information that is accessible from any location in the world. The computer screen is a small window into this pool of information, allowing us to interact with other participants in cyberspace. The most important aspect of the Internet from the point of view of this research is that it allows or facilitates the flow of business information, called e-business, between businesses and consumers, allowing business-to-business and business-to-consumer interaction. One of the possibilities brought about by the Internet is that of trading on-line, also called ecommerce. This opens up a new world that allows trade with global markets from any location. The ease with which we change things (information) in this environment may cause us to be indifferent to the parties with which we do business – as long as we are able to verify their secure identities. The modern treasury environment in a corporate treasury will be affected materially by the Internet. How treasury departments are being affected and will be affected in the future is important for South Africa. As a developing country, South Africa needs to take note of important changes in the global environment. If the country does not keep up with developments, the cost of catching up, which may be substantial, will place further unnecessary strain on the SA economy. E-business is seen as one of the most important enablers of business and it seems as if SA companies are already about 18 months to two years behind their counterparts in the USA (Gordon 2000:10). Generally, South African companies have not yet fully exploited the business advantages of new technologies (Duffield 2001:18). South African corporate treasuries realize the benefits of the e-business environment but need to take note of the changes and requirements necessary to fully exploit these benefits and to enable them to better manage the overall treasury function and the increased exposure to financial risk which may come about owing to mismanagement, fraud, inefficient systems or the use of modern financial instruments. Devastating losses may come about owing to the incorrect use of, for instance, derivative financial instruments. These instruments may leverage a dramatic loss (Holton 1998) and may threaten the future existence of a company. It is today also much easier to place most or all of the capital of a company at risk with one phone call. This just underlines how important it is to employ technology to improve the flow of business information for transactional, timely and accurate information for management purposes. The management of risk from the enterprise perspective therefore becomes vital.Publishers' Versio

An aspect of language for academic purposes in secondary education: complex sentence comprehension by learners in an integrated Gauteng school

Language for academic purposes is an important concept, not always recognised and developed within the education system. The ability to use language for learning can be diff icult for individuals who are educated in a second language. They are required to master complex concepts in a language they are still acquiring. We aimed to discover how secondary school learners performed on an aspect of academic language: complex sentence comprehension. A group of 464 adolescent participants’ performance on the grammatical understanding subtest of the Test of Adolescent Language was analysed in relation to their status as first or second language English learners, their grade, gender, literacyexperiences, preferred modality of learning, and other factors deemed to influence language acquisition in modern society. The results indicated that the majority of learners achieved within the average range. There were significant differences between the male and female participants and the junior phase ESL males achieved the lowest scores. It was concluded that it may take 8–9 years of formal schooling for some individuals to acquire the requisite academic language proficiency, particularly if they are learning in their second language. This has important implications for the teaching and assessment of second language learners

Vegetation trends following fire in the Roggeveld, Mountain Renosterveld, South Africa

AbstractThe Mountain Renosterveld vegetation of the Roggeveld is an escarpment type renosterveld showing strong karroid affinities. Fire plays an important role as a landscape scale disturbance that shapes plant communities in this vegetation type, however, post-fire succession has never before been documented for renosterveld vegetation. A study was therefore conducted in the northern Roggeveld to improve our understanding of the recovery of the vegetation following fire. The natural vegetation recovery was analysed using line transect data accumulated at five different sites over a ten year period. This paper reports on the post-fire vegetation trends with respect to changes in species composition, species richness, life form composition and life form richness. Vegetation cover began to re-establish within the first nine months following the fire, and remained at a high level from years 3 to 10. At the first survey the species richness varied from 13 to 17 species, with the highest species richness (14 to 31 species) generally encountered at each transect after three years. The highest Shannon index values were generally found within the first three years and the lowest Shannon index values were found in years 9 and 10. In all cases the Principal Co-ordinate Analysis ordinations of the species composition data indicated a clear separation in the species composition between the first two years (years 1 and 2) following the fire and the remaining years (year 3 to 10). This study also supports the ‘initial floristic composition’ model of Egler (1954) in that all or the majority of species encountered during the succession were already present at the beginning of the recovery phase and there was a rapid re-establishment of the initial plant community

Notes on structural analysis in a distributed collaboratory

The worldwide growth of communication networks and associated technologies provide the basic infrastructure for new ways of executing the engineering process. Collaboration amongst team members seperated in time and location is of particular importance. Two broad themes can be recognized in research pertaining to distributed collaboration. One theme focusses on the technical and technological aspects of distributed work, while the other emphasises human aspects thereof. The case of finite element structural analysis in a distributed collaboratory is examined in this paper. An approach is taken which has its roots in human aspects of the structural analysis task. Based on experience of how structural engineers currently approach and execute this task while utilising standard software designed for use on local workstations only, criteria are stated for a software architechture that could support collaborative structural analysis. Aspects of a pilot application and the results of qualitative performance measurements are discussed

Why agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa remains low compared to the rest of the world – a historical perspective

Agricultural production in sub-Saharan Africa has, in recent times, remained lower than the rest of the world. Many attribute this to factors inherent to Africa and its people, such as climate, soil quality, slavery and disease. This article traces the role of agriculture through history and argues that these are not the main reasons. Before the arrival of European traders, complex agricultural systems existed, which supported food security, manufacturing and trade. External interference manipulated these systems in pursuit of export crops. Independence has not fundamentally changed this; resource and wealth extraction continue to inhibit economic development for Africans in Africa

The South Atlantic radiation anomaly

Part I. (1) An elementary treatment of the motion of charged particles in a magnetic field is presented. The concept of guiding centre motion is introduced, and is used in outlining the theory of particle drifts. (2 ) The motion of charged particles in the geomagnetic field is discussed, and the concept of adiabatic invariance introduced. (3) Mc Iliwains coordinates for mapping the distribution of charged particles trapped in the geometric field are defined and briefly discussed. (4) A survey of present knowledge of the Van Allen radiation zones is made. Particular attention is given to the distribution, characteristics, and variability of the trapped radiation. (5) The Cape Town magnetic anomaly, the Brazil radiation anomaly and the South Atlantic radiation anomaly are discussed. The electrons entering the South Atlantic radiation anomaly are shown to be those monitored over Iowa by the US satellite Injun I. Part 11. (1) It is shown how the geomagnetic field can, at high altitudes and over relatively short distances, be approximated by the field of a monopole. A new method is developed which enables one to plot the energy absorbed from an electron (which moves in a monopole field in the atmosphere) against altitude, given the initial energy and pitch angle of the electron. Some numerical computations using this method are described, and the results discussed. These results are used, in conjunction with US satellite Injun I for the Iowa region, to estimate the energy inout to the atmosphere in the South Atlantic radiation anomaly. The main approximations and simplifying assumptions made in this treatment, are discussed. (2) Geophysical effects generally recognized to be connected with the precipitation of charged particles are discussed. In the course of this discussion the two main theories of the connection between the radiation zones and the auroras are examined. (3) A preliminary discussion, based on the work summarized in point (1) of detectable geophysical events associated with the precipitation of electrons into the South Atlantic radiation anomaly is given. It is concluded that auroral emission, X-ray bursts, and ionospheric ionization in the E region should be more frequent and pronounced in the South Atlantic radiation anomaly than in any other region of comparable invariant latitudes and that the effects of atmospheric heating by precipitated electrons should be detectable over the anomaly. (4) An assessment is made of the value of the method referred to in point (1). Suggestions for its modification and extension are put forward. It is suggested that if more extensive rocket and satellite data on the low energy component of the electron flux become available, this method can be employed in a rigorous theoretical investigation of the South Atlantic radiation anomaly. Summary, p. 98-100

Scaling up HIV testing in resourceconstrained settings: Debates on the role of VCT and Routine ‘Opt-in or Opt-out\' HIV Testing

Scaling up of the numbers of people voluntarily undergoing HIV testing has become vital, especially in resource-constrained settings, where the need for knowledge of HIV status for both prevention and care is critical. The reality is that for most people in Africa, access to HIV testing and to voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) has been very limited, and this has human rights implications – missing the opportunity to be diagnosed with a disease that is now well understood, manageable and treatable means certain death. The key challenge in our current context is how scaling up of HIV testing should be done. In responding to this challenge, we are guided by Gruskin and Loff,1 who state that ‘A human rights approach mandates that any public strategy, whether or not rights are to be restricted, be informed by evidence and widely debated. This approach protects against unproved and potentially counterproductive strategies, even those motivated by the genuine despair in the face of overwhelming public health challenges.\' This article describes the arguments and discussion raised during a session on models for increasing access to HIV testing at the 2nd National Conference on HIV/AIDS held in Durban in June 2005. It describes the legal framework for HIV testing in South Africa, frames the issues at the heart of the debate, and describes and discusses the various models of HIV testing, routine HIV testing, VCT and mandatory or compulsory HIV testing, within the context of HIV prevention and care. It concludes with recommendations. Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine Vol. 6 (3) 2005: pp. 45-4