Communicating for survival in the mining and construction industries: Northern conversations and Southern contextualisations

The Global South, as the collective for the peripheries of mainstream development is known, is often regarded as merely a beneficiary of Northern borne notions and theories in the field of organisational communication. The problem is that the Southern context and circumstance does not always mirror that of the North, which means that these dominant, revered theories are not necessarily applicable. One Southern context is that of the South African mining and construction industries which is seen as notoriously dangerous, plagued by various obstacles to internal organisational communication (such as illiteracy and diversity) and what Le Roux and Naudé (2009:29) refer to as “historical baggage”. The research question of this paper is hence whether congenital Northern communication theories can be adequately incorporated into the unique Global South in order to fulfil the important task of communicating safety information to employees. The article explores the appropriate implementation of the principles of the excellence theory, the stakeholder theory as well as the relationship management theory and the research methodology includes interviews, focus groups and quantitative questionnaires at two organisations. The result of the empirical research is the amalgamation and reworking of these theories’ principles into a model for internal safety communication applicable to the South

Uricult trio as a screening test for bacteriurla in pregnancy

Objective. To establish the effectiveness in an indigent urban population of Uricult Trio as a screening test for asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy and in diagnosing urinary tract infections (UTI) in symptomatic pregnant women. likelihood ratios were established for positive and negative Uricult Trio test results.Subjects. Two populations of patients from the Pretoria region were involved: (J) asymptomatic pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic for the first time or presenting in labour; and (iI) pregnant women with symptoms suggestive of UTI.Method. A midstream urine specimen was collected from the two populations of patients, plated onto the Uricult Trio and sent to the laboratory for culture.Results. The prevalence of asymptomatic bacteriuria in this population was 23%, and for women with symptoms suggestive of UTI, 29%. The likelihood ratios for a positive test were 1.8 and 1.5 for asymptomatic and symptomatic patients respectively. The likelihood ratios for a negative test were 0.35 and 0.44 for asymptomatic and symptomatic patients respectively. Escherichia coli was the causative agent . in 36% of cases.Conclusion. Uricult Trio is not effective as a screening test for asymptomatic bacteriuria in pregnancy or for diagnosing UTIs in women with symptoms suggestive of infection

ArgR is an essential local transcriptional regulator of the arcABC-operon in Streptococcus suis and crucial for biological fitness in acidic environment

Streptococcus suis is one of the most important pathogens in pigs and can also cause severe infections in humans. Despite its clinical relevance very little is known about the factors contributing to its virulence. Recently, we identified a new putative virulence factor in Streptococcus suis, the arginine deiminase system (ADS), an arginine catabolic enzyme system encoded by the arcABC-operon, which enables Streptococcus suis to survive in acidic environment. In this study, we focused on ArgR, an ADS associated regulator belonging to the ArgR/AhrC arginine repressor family. Using an argR knock-out strain we could show that ArgR is essential for arcABC-operon expression and necessary for the biological fitness of Streptococcus suis. By cDNA expression microarray analyses and quantitative real time RT-PCR we found that the arcABC-operon is the only gene cluster regulated by ArgR, which is in contrast to many other bacteria. Reporter gene analysis with gfp under the control of the arcABC promoter demonstrated that ArgR is able to activate the arcABC promoter. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays with fragments of the arcABC promoter and recombinant ArgR, and chromatin immunoprecipitation with antibodies directed against ArgR revealed that ArgR interacts with the arcABC promoter in vitro and in vivo by binding to a region from -147 to 72 bp upstream of the transcriptional start point. Overall our results show that in Streptococcus suis ArgR is an essential, system specific transcriptional regulator of the ADS directly interacting with the arcABC promoter in vivo

The development, optimisation and evaluation of molecular methods to diagnose abalone tubercle mycosis (ATM) caused by Halioticida Noduliformans in South African abalone, Haliotis Midae

Magister Scientiae (Biodiversity and Conservation Biology)Land-based abalone aquaculture in South Africa started in the early 1990s and is based on the local species Haliotis midae. This industry expanded with great success over the last decade. In 2006 abalone exhibiting typical clinical signs of tubercle mycosis was discovered for the first time in South African abalone culture facilities,posing a significant threat to the industry. Halioticida noduliformans, a fungus belonging to the Peronosporomycetes (formerly Oomycetes), has been identified as the causative agent of abalone tubercle mycosis (ATM). While diagnoses of this disease are currently done by gross observation and histopathology, these methods fail to be sensitive enough to identify the causative agent accurately and reliably.Molecular confirmation could provide for quicker more accurate diagnostic information. The aim of this study was to develop a DNA based molecular diagnostic test. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) has been used to rapidly detect, characterise and identify a variety of organisms. Nucleotide sequences of the smalland large-subunit ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) and mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit II (cox2) genes of H. noduliformans were compared with closely related Peronosporomycete gene sequences to identify potential PCR primer sites. H. noduliformans specific real-time quantitative PCR (Q-PCR) primer sets were designed and optimised for each of the selected genes. Results indicate that, although all tested primers sets could amplify fungal DNA, only the LSU and cox2 primer sets - v -demonstrated no cross-amplification with the closely related Peronosporomycete and non-fungal DNA tested in the present study. The H. noduliformans specific LSU primer set was chosen for further analysis and used for all subsequent real-time PCR assays. The lowest detection limit for the LSU primer set was evaluated by running Q-PCR on serial dilutions of known quantities of extracted H. noduliformans DNA.Serial dilutions were made in PCR grade water as well as in an abalone tissue matrix.The sensitivity of the Q-PCR reaction was determined to be 266 pg of H.noduliformans DNA per 25 μL reaction volume. However, inclusion of a nested PCR step, utilising universal fungal outer primers, followed by Q-PCR with the H.noduliformans LSU specific primers improved sensitivity to 0.266 pg of H.noduliformans DNA per 25 μL reaction volume. This equates to approximately 2.4spores per 25 μL reaction volume. DNA extraction protocols were optimised to ensure efficient and repeatable extraction of high quality fungal DNA from pure fungus and tissue samples spiked with known quantities of fungal DNA. PCR amplification efficiency and potential inhibition were examined for each extraction method. Results suggest that real-time PCR has great potential in monitoring and quantifying H. noduliformans on abalone culture facilities in South Africa

Evaluation of waist-to-height ratio to predict 5 year cardiometabolic risk in sub-Saharan African adults

Simple, low-cost central obesity measures may help identify individuals with increased cardiometabolic disease risk, although it is unclear which measures perform best in African adults. We aimed to: 1) cross-sectionally compare the accuracy of existing waist-to-height ratio (WHtR) and waist circumference (WC) thresholds to identify individuals with hypertension, pre-diabetes, or dyslipidaemia; 2) identify optimal WC and WHtR thresholds to detect CVD risk in this African population; and 3) assess which measure best predicts 5-year CVD riskPeer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Role of glucose and CcpA in capsule expression and virulence of Streptococcus suis

Streptococcus suis is one of the most important pathogens in pigs and is also an emerging zoonotic agent. After crossing the epithelial barrier, S. suis causes bacteraemia, resulting in meningitis, endocarditis and bronchopneumonia. Since the host environment seems to be an important regulatory component for virulence, we related expression of virulence determinants of S. suis to glucose availability during growth and to the sugar metabolism regulator catabolite control protein A (CcpA). We found that expression of the virulence-associated genes arcB, representing arcABC operon expression, cps2A, representing capsular locus expression, as well as sly, ofs, sao and epf, differed significantly between exponential and early stationary growth of a highly virulent serotype 2 strain. Deletion of ccpA altered the expression of the surface-associated virulence factors arcB, sao and eno, as well as the two currently proven virulence factors in pigs, ofs and cps2A, in early exponential growth. Global expression analysis using a cDNA expression array revealed 259 differentially expressed genes in early exponential growth, of which 141 were more highly expressed in the CcpA mutant strain 10¿ccpA and 118 were expressed to a lower extent. Interestingly, among the latter genes, 18 could be related to capsule and cell wall synthesis. Correspondingly, electron microscopy characterization of strain 10¿ccpA revealed a markedly reduced thickness of the capsule. This phenotype correlated with enhanced binding to porcine plasma proteins and a reduced resistance to killing by porcine neutrophils. Taken together, our data demonstrate that CcpA has a significant effect on the capsule synthesis and virulence properties of S. suis

Lattice Dynamics and the High Pressure Equation of State of Au

Elastic constants and zone-boundary phonon frequencies of gold are calculated by total energy electronic structure methods to twofold compression. A generalized force constant model is used to interpolate throughout the Brillouin zone and evaluate moments of the phonon distribution. The moments are used to calculate the volume dependence of the Gruneisen parameter in the fcc solid. Using these results with ultrasonic and shock data, we formulate the complete free energy for solid Au. This free energy is given as a set of closed form expressions, which are valid to compressions of at least V/V_0 = 0.65 and temperatures up to melting. Beyond this density, the Hugoniot enters the solid-liquid mixed phase region. Effects of shock melting on the Hugoniot are discussed within an approximate model. We compare with proposed standards for the equation of state to pressures of ~200 GPa. Our result for the room temperature isotherm is in very good agreement with an earlier standard of Heinz and Jeanloz.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures. Accepted by Phys. Rev.

Electron correlation in C_(4N+2) carbon rings: aromatic vs. dimerized structures

The electronic structure of C_(4N+2) carbon rings exhibits competing many-body effects of Huckel aromaticity, second-order Jahn-Teller and Peierls instability at large sizes. This leads to possible ground state structures with aromatic, bond angle or bond length alternated geometry. Highly accurate quantum Monte Carlo results indicate the existence of a crossover between C_10 and C_14 from bond angle to bond length alternation. The aromatic isomer is always a transition state. The driving mechanism is the second-order Jahn-Teller effect which keeps the gap open at all sizes.Comment: Submitted for publication: 4 pages, 3 figures. Corrected figure

Thermal Stabilization of the HCP Phase in Titanium

We have used a tight-binding model that is fit to first-principles electronic-structure calculations for titanium to calculate quasi-harmonic phonons and the Gibbs free energy of the hexagonal close-packed (hcp) and omega crystal structures. We show that the true zero-temperature ground-state is the omega structure, although this has never been observed experimentally at normal pressure, and that it is the entropy from the thermal population of phonon states which stabilizes the hcp structure at room temperature. We present the first completely theoretical prediction of the temperature- and pressure-dependence of the hcp-omega phase transformation and show that it is in good agreement with experiment. The quasi-harmonic approximation fails to adequately treat the bcc phase because the zero-temperature phonons of this structure are not all stable