Conservation of African Leafy Vegetables in South Africa

The nutritional and cultural importance of African Leafy Vegetables has become very important in South Africa in the past few years. Recent research has also confirmed these issues, leading to the incorporation of African Vegetables into the core business of the ARC. ARC-Roodeplaat wants to improve the distribution and conservation status of African Leafy Vegetables. Geographical collection data on Amarant, Cleome gynandra, Corchorus olitorius and Vigna inguiculata was obtained from the National Botanical Institute and the data was analyzed with DIVA and Flora map. Ecogeographical distribution maps were drawn to predict the possible distribution of the species. Germplasm of African Leafy Vegetables was collected during routine visits and the conservation status was discussed with participants in the study areas of Arthurstone in Bushbuckridge, Watershed near Ladysmith and Mars/Glenroy near Polokwane. Germplasm of various species were also collected in collaboration with the Plant Genetic Resource Centre (NPGRC) of the Department of Agriculture in Arthurstone and Watershed.The NPGRC included leafy vegetables in their mandate since this trip. Seed flow diagrams were used to discuss the Watershed community’s seed exchange systems. It was clear when discussing African leafy vegetables in communities that their conservation and utilization are declining. Also looking at the trendlines of African Vegetables availability and utilization it is clear that the use and availability of African Leafy vegetables are declining due to various reasons. Two major reasons are the negative image of the African Leafy Vegetables and the increased use of “exotic” vegetables like spinach and carrots. The active promotion, use and conservation of African Leafy Vegetables are important if we want to increase the production potential and potential contribution towards food security in South Africa. This will ensure that the status of these crops is enhanced, specifically their contributing towards sustainable nutrition as well as sustainable production. Results from promotion activities in the project (reported in another paper) indicated that the negative image of African Leafy Vegetables could be reversed and also had an affect on the roll-out of the project to other areas of research such as plant protection, nutritional analysis and food safety, crop science and indigenous knowledge systems.Key Words: Ecogeographical, Conservation, Leafy vegetable  

Teamwerk in de wijk: een rapportage over het functioneren van wijkteams in vijf gemeentelijke organisaties 2020-2021

The politics and administration of institutional chang

‘Teamwerk in de wijk’. Overkoepelende rapportage 2021-2022

The politics and administration of institutional chang

Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor microimaging reveals a role for Bcl-x in brain development and homeostasis

A new technique based on diffusion tensor imaging and computational neuroanatomy was developed to efficiently and quantitatively characterize the three- dimensional morphology of the developing brains. The technique was used to analyze the phenotype of conditional Bcl-x knock-out mice, in which the bcl-x gene was deleted specifically in neurons of the cerebral cortex and hippocampus beginning at embryonic day 13.5 as cells became postmitotic. Affected brain regions and associated axonal tracts showed severe atrophy in adult Bcl-x-deficient mice. Longitudinal studies revealed that these phenotypes are established by regressive processes that occur primarily during the first postnatal week, whereas neurogenesis and migration showed no obvious abnormality during embryonic stages. Specific families of white matter tracts that once formed normally during the embryonic stages underwent dramatic degeneration postnatally. Thus, this technique serves as a powerful tool to efficiently localize temporal and spatial manifestation of morphological phenotype

Re-Creating Awareness of Traditional Leafy Vegetables in Communities

ABSTRACT Research and extension in South Africa has been labelling traditional leafy vegetables as weeds since the 1960s when they started encouraging households to produce food seen in the shops. This negative perception has led to an unwillingness to use and conserve these 'poverty foods', as many community members have labelled them. The status of these crops needed to be improved to help people realise the importance of these crops in their daily diet. Awareness activities in six communities made use of production training sessions in seven schools and eight community gardens, discussion groups, garden competitions, cooking competitions, recipe collection, awareness days, local resource collection activities, participatory selection and a radio talk. Discussions about use and conservation status of these crops during the data collection phase stimulated discussions on various aspects of these crops and caused an increased awareness about the poor conservation status within the communities, leading to the appointment of keepers of specific seed. The local resource collection efforts and gene bank actions caused community members to appreciate their natural resources more and emphasised the vulnerability of the crops, and their important role in keeping the biodiversity available for them and for future generations. In an effort to create awareness of the traditional plants at all levels within the community, schools (where possible) and community gardens were targeted during the training and awareness campaigns. The awareness campaigns culminated in a school garden and community garden competition, as well as a cooking competition. Participatory selection was used to expose the community members to new crops and to variations in the crops that they know. Community evaluation of these crops created a better understanding for researchers and community members, leading to improved cooperation. A noticeable increase in demand for seed and training on production methods was the result of the awareness activities within the communities

The Anatomy of Job Satisfaction and the Role of Contingent Employment Contracts

In this paper I analyse job satisfaction using fixed effect analysis and a multiple equation model. Overall job satisfaction is analysed as an aggregate of satisfaction with several job aspects. I find that overall job satisfaction is mainly determined by satisfaction with job content. All aspect satisfactions are subsequently explained from observed characteristics, with special focus on contingent employment contracts. Satisfaction with job security is the aspect satisfaction with the strongest relation to type of contract. Since this is also the aspect that receives least weight in overall job satisfaction this has little impact on workers' total happiness. More influential is the low satisfaction with job content due to agency work. Overall, temporary agency work leads to the lowest job satisfaction. On-call work and fixed-term work arrangements do not differ from regular work in overall job satisfaction they provide, even though they do lead to highe! r or lower satisfaction with some aspects of the job

Long-term influence of normal variation in neonatal characteristics on human brain development

It is now recognized that a number of cognitive, behavioral, and mental health outcomes across the lifespan can be traced to fetal development. Although the direct mediation is unknown, the substantial variance in fetal growth, most commonly indexed by birth weight, may affect lifespan brain development. We investigated effects of normal variance in birth weight on MRI-derived measures of brain development in 628 healthy children, adolescents, and young adults in the large-scale multicenter Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition, and Genetics study. This heterogeneous sample was recruited through geographically dispersed sites in the United States. The influence of birth weight on cortical thickness, surface area, and striatal and total brain volumes was investigated, controlling for variance in age, sex, household income, and genetic ancestry factors. Birth weight was found to exert robust positive effects on regional cortical surface area in multiple regions as well as total brain and caudate volumes. These effects were continuous across birth weight ranges and ages and were not confined to subsets of the sample. The findings show that (i) aspects of later child and adolescent brain development are influenced at birth and (ii) relatively small differences in birth weight across groups and conditions typically compared in neuropsychiatric research (e.g., Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, schizophrenia, and personality disorders) may influence group differences observed in brain parameters of interest at a later stage in life. These findings should serve to increase our attention to early influences

Glutamine depletion by crisantaspase hinders the growth of human hepatocellular carcinoma xenografts

Background: A subset of human hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) exhibit mutations of β-catenin gene CTNNB1 and overexpress Glutamine synthetase (GS). The CTNNB1-mutated HCC cell line HepG2 is sensitive to glutamine starvation induced in vitro with the antileukemic drug Crisantaspase and the GS inhibitor methionine-L-sulfoximine (MSO). Methods: Immunodeficient mice with subcutaneous xenografts of the CTNNB1-mutated HCC cell lines HepG2 and HC-AFW1 were treated with Crisantaspase and/or MSO, and tumour growth was monitored. At the end of treatment, tumour weight and histology were assessed. Serum and tissue amino acids were determined by HPLC. Gene and protein expression were estimated with RT-PCR and western blot and GS activity with a colorimetric method. mTOR activity was evaluated from the phosphorylation of p70S6K1. Results: Crisantaspase and MSO depleted serum glutamine, lowered glutamine in liver and tumour tissue, and inhibited liver GS activity. HepG2 tumour growth was significantly reduced by either Crisantaspase or MSO, and completely suppressed by the combined treatment. The combined treatment was also effective against xenografts of the HC-AFW1 cell line, which is Crisantaspase resistant in vitro. Conclusions: The combination of Crisantaspase and MSO reduces glutamine supply to CTNNB1-mutated HCC xenografts and hinders their growth