Inevitability of Labour Broking in South Africa and the Need for Strict Regulation

It seems apparent that despite all the agitations, protests, and concerns raised by various organised trade unions, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), scholars and interested persons on the need for South Africa to out rightly ban the business of labour broking in South Africa because of the various unfair labour practices being perpetrated by the labour brokers and their clients, the business continues to thrive and prosperous. The ban continues to fail because till date, no single legislation has been enacted specifically to outlaw labour broking. Therefore, it seems that labour broking as a business is inevitable in South Africa and will continue to operate. That being said, even if it is not banned, this article strongly accentuates the need to stringently regulate labour broking considering various unfair labour practices that labour brokers and their clients perpetrate against workers. Against the backdrop of this, the article extensively relied on and utilised the recently enacted Labour Relations Amendment Act, 2014 which makes a moderate attempt to protect casual workers from unfair labour practices in South Africa. The South African courts have made tremendous progress by interpreting and applying this regulatory regime to protect the labour broker's employees and transform labour broking in South Africa. This article contributes to the body of knowledge regarding the need to ensure holistic protection for vulnerable casual works through stringent regulation of the business. This assertion is made against the backdrop that this aspect has not been robustly researched hence this article seeks to address the problem and proffer solutions

A Critical Assessment of Fiscal Policy and Impact on Economic Growth. Albanian and Transition Economies Case

The main focus of this paper is making a critical assessment of possible links that exists between public finance policies and growth during transition period in Albania. Based on panel data technique is tested the impact of government size and the effect of budget deficit in economic growth.On revenue side of public finance are done important reform, such as the introduction of VAT and flat taxes for both personal income tax and corporate income tax. A common trend in the last years has been substantial deduction of corporate income tax. Based on taxation theory are also analyzed, the main determinants of tax performance in selected transition economies.The main findings of this work are that both government size and fiscal deficit are important factors that influence growth performance. The study has found support for negative impact on growth of government size in transition economies.In tax performance evaluation for transition economies, GDP per capita, share of agriculture and share of industry have the expected impact in accordance with tax literature and previous studies. Total government expenditure has a positive impact in tax collection. Shadow economy is important for tax performance; therefore in order for the government to increase tax revenue, the tax evasion should be reduced

Longer-term Baerveldt to Trabectome glaucoma surgery comparison using propensity score matching

Purpose: To apply propensity score matching to compare Baerveldt glaucoma drainage implant (BGI) to Trabectome-mediated ab interno trabeculectomy (AIT). Recent data suggests that AIT can produce results similar to BGI which is traditionally reserved for more severe glaucoma. Methods: BGI and AIT patients with at least 1 year of follow-up were included. The primary outcome measures were intraocular pressure (IOP), number of glaucoma medications, and a Glaucoma Index (GI) score. GI reflected glaucoma severity based on visual field, the number of preoperative medications, and preoperative IOP. Score matching used a genetic algorithm consisting of age, gender, type of glaucoma, concurrent phacoemulsification, baseline number of medications, and baseline IOP. Patients with neovascular glaucoma, with prior glaucoma surgery, or without a close match were excluded. Results: Of 353 patients, 30 AIT patients were matched to 29 BGI patients. Baseline characteristics including, IOP, the number of glaucoma medications, type of glaucoma, the degree of VF loss and GI were not significantly different between AIT and BGI. BGI had a preoperative IOP of 21.6 ± 6.3 mmHg compared to 21.5 ± 7.4 for AIT on 2.8 ± 1.1 medications and 2.5 ± 2.3 respectively. At 30 months, the mean IOP was 15.0 ± 3.9 mmHg for AIT versus 15.0 ± 5.7 mmHg for BGI (p > 0.05), while the number of drops was 1.5 ± 1.3 for AIT (change: p = 0.001) versus 2.4 ± 1.2 for BGI (change: p = 0.17; AIT vs BGI: 0.007). Success, defined as IOP  0.05) and 50% versus 52% at 2.5 years. Conclusions: A propensity score matched comparison of AIT and BGI demonstrated a similar IOP reduction through 1 year. AIT required fewer medications

Physico-Chemical Characterization Of Water Samples At Egbin Thermal Station In Ijede And Its Environs In Lagos State Of Nigeria.

With the view to determining the effect of industrial effluents on the water quality of the river at Ijede in Ikorodu, Lagos state of Nigeria as a result of the panicking situation within the community, the physicochemical parameters which include PH, Turbidity, Dissolved Oxygen, Salinity and Electrical conductivity were measured to ascertain the level of pollution in the river and the Environment. The result  shows  that the pollutions of this river, if any, were not really from the effluent coming out of the Plant, but attributed to other sources since the effluents from the Plant were well managed and the physico-chemical parameters are in good agreement with World Health Organization guidelines before it is discharged into the main river. It is therefore recommended that the control on the effluents management should be controlled and enforced by the Environmentalists to protect the activities of the residents at Egbin in Ijede and its environs. Key words:         Physico-chemical, Pollution, Discharged-water, WHO

Live outflow imaging in porcine eyes

Purpose: Although outflow of aqueous humor can be estimated using fluorophotometry and tonography, no method exists to assess segmental outflow directly. This has hindered investigations into outflow resistance elements that are downstream of the trabecular meshwork and into causes of failure of canal-based minimally invasive glaucoma surgeries (MIGS). Here, we describe a method to observe and quantify conventional outflow directly in ex vivo whole eyes and an organotypic culture model using standard fluorescence visualization equipment. Results: Aqueous outflow paths could be distinguished from venous and arterial vessels. Intricate vascular tree filling patterns were observed down to estimated 50 micrometer diameter. Whole eyes demonstrated significantly earlier filling of the nasal (SN, IN) than of the temporal quadrants (ST, IT). The fastest, superonasal quadrant filled 1.6 times faster than the slowest, superotemporal quadrant (p≤0.05). The inferotemporal quadrant also filled faster than the superotemporal quadrant. In contrast, perfused anterior segment cultures had lost these characteristic filling time differences (p>0.05). One eye showed no outflow after 20 minutes of pressurization. After three days of culture, the same quadrant that was the fastest in whole eyes (SN), was 2.2 times as fast as the slowest (ST) but this did not reach statistical significance with the number of eyes tested. The eye without flow at 20 minutes did not recuperate during 3 days of culture. Reverse filling was occasionally seen in d3 anterior segments (bottom row, red arrowhead). Whole eyes could not be reliably cultured for 3 days. Discussion: Canalograms using a green fluorescent chromophore can be obtained with standard visualization equipment to estimate the local outflow function. Regionally different outflow patterns and filling times can be observed that match channel size equivalents in human eyes. Outflow is impaired in fresh anterior segment cultures but then normalizes to the pattern seen in whole eyes. The nasally increased flow may have implications for placement and study of MIGS

International frameworks promoting tourism for poverty alleviation and sustainable development.

The article highlights that the international frameworks for tourism interventions are potent instruments that could be used to strengthen domestic tourism practices and business by using the salient provisions in these international instruments to deliver high quality tourism services in South Africa. To this end, the article invoked section 39(1)(b)(c) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 which paved the way for South African courts to rely on and use these international instruments to interpret the domestic law. The article outlines salient international instruments, analyzes them and articulates how they can be used to benefit tourism sector and businesses

Transformative tourism legislation: an impetus for socioeconomic development in South Africa.

In South Africa, apart from different interventions that have been put in place to ensure that the general wellbeing of the citizens is secured, laws and regulations play a critical role in ensuring that all these interventions become achievable and successful. Pursuant to this, this article strategically accentuates that there are laws that have been strategically put in place to foster tourism for socio-economic growth and development. These laws have been put in place to drive and deliver socio-economic goods, reduce poverty and improve the standard of living, especially of the Historically Disadvantaged Black South African (HDBSA). In order to establish why the black majority were excluded from the tourism sector during apartheid era, the article provides sources and historical background on the apartheid tourist business exclusion. It demonstrates that these restrictive apartheid laws were deliberately promulgated to exclude HDBSA from tourism enterprises. The researchers reviewed relevant literature linked and related to the problem identified. To this end, they considered salient provisions of the laws and examined court’s decision that seeks to preserve, conserve and protect the existence of heritage sites for sustainable tourism. This was considered in view of the fact that tourism is regarded as a potent driver of economic activities which create employment and income for small and big enterprises. But at the same time cautions that the environment should not be destroyed and degraded and as such there is need to use the existing legal frameworks and regimes to conserve the environment, ecosystem, endangered species, heritage sites as well as other important tourism and social monuments

Perspectives on Transformative Legislative and Policy Frameworks Promoting Tourism for poverty alleviation in South Africa.

There are many legislative and policy frameworks in South Africa that have been introduced specifically to promote tourism as a tool for poverty alleviation and socioeconomic growth and development. Part of the agenda is to make tourism enterprises accessible to all South Africans, especially the black South Africans who were previously denied opportunities to participate and thrive in the sector. The article highlights that there have been a plethora of these legislative and policy interventions for purposes of using tourism for inclusive socioeconomic growth and development. However, the extent to which they are being implemented has to be accelerated in order for these instruments to achieve the desired impacts and outcomes whereby poverty is drastically reduced through the creation of tourism enterprises. This would be ideal for the majority of the black South Africans particularly those who reside around the tourism attractions sites. It is against the backdrop of the potential of tourism to promote and accelerate socioeconomic transformation and alleviate poverty that this article examines legislative and policy frameworks that have been introduced to realise and deliver the needed results

Automatic extraction of angiogenesis bioprocess from text

Motivation: Understanding key biological processes (bioprocesses) and their relationships with constituent biological entities and pharmaceutical agents is crucial for drug design and discovery. One way to harvest such information is searching the literature. However, bioprocesses are difficult to capture because they may occur in text in a variety of textual expressions. Moreover, a bioprocess is often composed of a series of bioevents, where a bioevent denotes changes to one or a group of cells involved in the bioprocess. Such bioevents are often used to refer to bioprocesses in text, which current techniques, relying solely on specialized lexicons, struggle to find

Kinstate intervention in ethnic conflicts : Albania and Turkey compared

Albania and Turkey did not act in overtly irredentist ways towards their ethnic brethren in neighboring states after the end of communism. Why, nonetheless, did Albania facilitate the increase of ethnic conflict in Kosovo and Macedonia, while Turkey did not, with respect to the Turks of Bulgaria? I argue that kin-states undergoing transition are more prone to intervene in external conflicts than states that are not, regardless of the salience of minority demands in the host-state. The transition weakens the institutions of the kin-state. Experiencing limited institutional constraints, self-seeking state officials create alliances with secessionist and autonomist movements across borders alongside their own ideological, clan-based and particularistic interests. Such alliances are often utilized to advance radical domestic agendas. Unlike in Albania's transition environment, in Turkey there were no emerging elites that could potentially form alliances and use external movements to legitimize their own domestic existence or claims