AN IMPORTANCE PERFORMANCE-PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF AFRICAN STUDENTS’PERCEPTION ON ENROLLING AT THAI UNIVERSITIES

This study focuses on African students’ perception on enrolling at Thai Universities using the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA), so the objectives are set to describe the African students’ perception of their university experience upon studying in Thailand and identifying the extent to which these perceptions can lead to what Thai universities services for them. The reason behind the need to study on perception on enrolling at Thai Universities is that these universities are no exception when it comes to marketing on international studies as such there has been an influx of students from all over the world who study at Thai universities, so in order to understand what makes international students leave their home countries to study in Thailand, that alone signifies the importance of Thai universities to international education, thereby bringing more reasons to understand the perceptions of enrolling students to these universities. The researcher distributed the questionnaire to five universities within the greater Bangkok metropolitan, including Salaya sub-district in Nakhon Pathom province and Pathum Thani province. The universities engaged in this study are Assumption university, Mahidol university, Rangsit university, Ramkhamhaeng university and Kasem Bundit university. Out of the 400 enrolling African students respondents from these five universities 207 respondents were male, representing 51.8%, while 193 respondents were females, representing 48.3%. Thus the majority of enrolling African students in Thai universities within Bangkok metropolitan and surrounding provinces are male. The IPA in this study is based on five elements which include: academic aspects, access, administrative support, programs issues, reputation and 30 attributes of the students’ perception of the five elements and 6 attributes on demographics. There in total five hypotheses tested using paired sample t-test and the results indicate that four out of five hypotheses have the significant difference at the level of p>0.05 except academic aspects

No. 25: Food Insecurity in Informal Settlements in Lilongwe, Malawi

Although there is widespread food availability in urban areas across the Global South, it is not correlated with universal access to adequate amounts of nutritious foods. This report is based on a household survey conducted in 2015 in six low-income informal areas in Malawi’s capital city, where three-quarters of the population live in informal settlements. Understanding the dimensions of household food insecurity in these neighbourhoods is critical to sustainable and inclusive growth in Lilongwe. The survey findings provide a complementary perspective to the 2008 AFSUN survey conducted in Blantyre, which suggested a level of food security in urban Malawi that was probably more typical of peri-urban areas where many people farm. Given that informal settlements house most of Malawi’s urban residents, the Lilongwe research presents a serious public policy challenge for the country’s leaders. Poverty is a profound problem in Malawi’s rapidly expanding cities. Of particular concern is the poor quality of diets among residents of informal settlements. Precarity of income, reflected in the survey findings of frequent purchasing of staple foods and the need for food sellers to extend credit, appears to be a key driver of food insecurity in these communities. Economically inclusive growth, with better prospects for stable employment and protection for informal-sector workers, appears to be the surest route to improved urban food security in Malawi

Development of novel methodology for the synthesis of the angucycline tetrangulol, benzo[c]phenathridines and benzonaphthopyranones

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand Johannesburg. In fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. March 2017In this PhD thesis, we report for the first time, new methodology for the synthesis of angucycline antibiotic natural products. In particular, for the synthesis of 1,8-dihydroxy-3methyltetraphene-7,12-dione, commonly known as tetrangulol. We also report on the synthesis of 1,10,12-trimethoxy-8-methylbenzo[c]phenanthridine in our quest to synthesise phenanthroviridone from an intermediate product in the synthesis of tetrangulol. The Suzuki-Miyaura coupling reaction between 1,4,5-(trimethoxynaphthalen-2-yl)boronic acid and 2-iodo-3-methoxy-5-methylbenzaldehyde afforded intermediate, 3-methoxy-5methyl-2-(1,4,5-trimethoxynaphthalen-2-yl)benzaldehyde. Conversion of this benzaldehyde into the alkyne, 2-(2-ethynyl-6-methoxy-4-methylphenyl)-1,4,5-trimethoxynaphthalene was accomplished utilizing the Corey-Fuchs reaction. Exposure of the derived acetylene to a catalytic platinum(II)-mediated ring closure yielded the required tetracyclic aromatic product, 1,7,8,12-tetramethoxy-3-methyltetraphene which was converted into tetrangulol. Exposure of the related 3-methoxy-5-methyl-2-(1,4,5-trimethoxynaphthalen-2-yl)benzaldehyde O-phenyl oxime to microwave irradiation in an ionic liquid yielded 1,10,12-trimethoxy-8methylbenzo[c]phenanthridine, instead of the desired natural product phenanthroviridone. We also report on the unexpected synthesis of the benzonaphthopyranone core found in other classes of angucycline antibiotics from oxygen analogs of 2-naphthylbenzyl alcohols when exposed to N-bromosuccinimide. Treatment of (2-(1,4-dimethoxynaphthalen-2yl)phenyl)methanol and related analogues with N-bromosuccinimide under an oxygen atmosphere afforded 12-methoxy-6H-dibenzo[c,h]chromen-6-one, 2-Methoxy-6Hbenzo[c]chromen-6-one and of 6H-benzo[c]chromen-6-one. An investigation into possible mechanisms for this transformation was also conducted.LG201

Levels of inquiry focused in the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) school certificate chemistry paper 3 (5070/3) examination

In science education, the inquiry has two distinct sides: 1) teaching and learning science by inquiry, 2) Science as inquiry. Teaching and learning science by inquiry involves the means by which students acquire scientific knowledge. On the other hand, science as inquiry focuses on science as a method by which facts are obtained. This study focused on teaching and learning science by inquiry. Specifically, the purpose of this study was to determine inquiry levels in the Examination Council of Zambia chemistry 5070/3 practical examinations for the period ranging from 2008 to 2018. Both questions in chemistry 5070/3 practical paper for each year were analyzed for levels of inquiry using analysis framework and procedures. Analysis framework and procedures involve two processes; categorizing sentences as experiential and further analyzing the experiential sentences for inquiry potential by considering the four levels of inquiry (confirmation, structured, guided, and open inquiry). An inter-rater agreement coefficient for analysis of the chemistry 5070/3 practical examination was calculated using Cohen’s Kappa (Cohen, 1960). The percentage agreement between the two raters for the chemistry 5070/3 practical examination past papers analyses ranged from 75 to 100% with the corresponding Kappa values from 0.421 to 1.00. This means that there was a high degree of agreement between the two raters in categorizing the levels of inquiry. The results showed that the experiments in chemistry practical examinations were mostly at the structured level of inquiry. The period under review had no experiments focusing on higher levels of inquiry such as open inquiry. These results have implications on science teaching, learning, assessment, and teacher education

Projecting Voice in Political Discourse: A Study of Saulos Klaus Chilima’s Discursive Strategies, Malawi

The study takes a stance to explore the political discourse speech in Malawi as the country draws closer to the May 2019 general elections. This is a war-like zone period with different political figures pursuing, negotiating, and struggling for power. We specially mount our research to investigate how Saulos Klaus Chilima strategizes to get the winning card by exploring his voice and voice projection techniques during the launch of his party. We have hence borrowed insights from Heffer’s (2013, 2018) Voice Projection framework (VPF) and used Nvivo 11 Pro software in the analysis. The study discovers that his launch speech is highly authorizing, persuading, converging, and highlighting with very few instances of centring, and indexing which made the speech more powerful, stimulating and impressive. The study brings a different dimension of analyzing political discourse by shopping a theory from Forensic discourse

Audit of gynaecological cancers Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre

The aim of the audit was to assess the trend of the gynaecological cancers for the first quarter of 2008, and the prevalence of HIV and syphilis among the cases. Gynaecological cancer cases accounted for 6% of gynaecological admissions at QECH between January and April 2008. The findings show that cervical cancer still remains the leading gynaecological cancer among women in the unit. Among the cases where HIV testing was done, 50% of cases tested HIV positive and these were all cervical, vaginal and vulval cancer cases. Syphilis was prevalent in 10% of the cases. Low socioeconomic status and young age was associated with cervical cancer. A majority of the cases of advanced cervical cancer had been sub optimally managed by health workers at initial visit when the disease was at its early stage hence missing an opportunity for adequate treatment.Malawi Medical Journal Vol. 20 (4) 2008: pp. 140-14

History of rotavirus research in children in Malawi: the pursuit of a killer

Rotavirus gastroenteritis is a major health problem among Malawian children. Studies spanning 20 years have described the importance, epidemiology and viral characteristics of rotavirus infections in the country. Despite a wide diversity of circulating rotavirus strains causing severe disease inyoung infants, a clinical trial of a human rotavirus vaccine clearly demonstrated the potential for rotavirus vaccination to greatly reduce the morbidity and mortality due to rotavirus diarrhoea in Malawi. This new enteric vaccine initiative represents a major opportunity to improve the health andsurvival of Malawian children

An Overview of Science Challenges Pertaining to our Understanding of Extreme Geomagnetically Induced Currents

Vulnerability of man-made infrastructure to Earth-directed space weather events is a serious concern for today's technology-dependent society. Space weather-driven geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) can disrupt operation of extended electrically conducting technological systems. The threat of adverse impacts on critical technological infrastructure, like power grids, oil and gas pipelines, and communication networks, has sparked renewed interest in extreme space weather. Because extreme space weather events have low occurrence rate but potentially high impact, this presents a major challenge for our understanding of extreme GIC activity. In this chapter, we discuss some of the key science challenges pertaining to our understanding of extreme events. In addition, we present an overview of GICs including highlights of severe impacts over the last 80 years and recent U.S. Federal actions relevant to this community

Present day challenges in understanding the geomagnetic hazard to national power grids

Power grids and pipeline networks at all latitudes are known to be at risk from the natural hazard of geomagnetically induced currents. At a recent workshop in South Africa, UK and South African scientists and engineers discussed the current understanding of this hazard, as it affects major power systems in Europe and Africa. They also summarised, to better inform the public and industry, what can be said with some certainty about the hazard and what research is yet required to develop useful tools for geomagnetic hazard mitigation

Population Differences in Death Rates in HIV-Positive Patients with Tuberculosis.

SETTING: Randomised controlled clinical trial of Mycobacterium vaccae vaccination as an adjunct to anti-tuberculosis treatment in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) positive patients with smear-positive tuberculosis (TB) in Lusaka, Zambia, and Karonga, Malawi. OBJECTIVE: To explain the difference in mortality between the two trial sites and to identify risk factors for death among HIV-positive patients with TB. DESIGN: Information on demographic, clinical, laboratory and radiographic characteristics was collected. Patients in Lusaka (667) and in Karonga (84) were followed up for an average of 1.56 years. Cox proportional hazard analyses were used to assess differences in survival between the two sites and to determine risk factors associated with mortality during and after anti-tuberculosis treatment. RESULTS: The case fatality rate was 14.7% in Lusaka and 21.4% in Karonga. The hazard ratio for death comparing Karonga to Lusaka was 1.47 (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.9-2.4) during treatment and 1.76 (95%CI 1.0-3.0) after treatment. This difference could be almost entirely explained by age and more advanced HIV disease among patients in Karonga. CONCLUSION: It is important to understand the reasons for population differences in mortality among patients with TB and HIV and to maximise efforts to reduce mortality