Is China Reshaping the African Landscape?

The purpose of this research is to identify the ways in which China is reshaping the African landscape. The goal is to show how China has developed a strategy, to build close ties with countries in Africa to market their products. The focus of the research is to show how China has made a huge impact in Africa the past twenty years. Twenty years ago, China’s influence in Africa was scarce. Today, China’s strategy includes Africa and its vast resources. China’s growing industrial businesses in energy, petroleum, mineral deposits, and raw materials have them looking outside their country to fulfill their needs. Africa with its large quantity of natural resources has caught the attention of the Chinese government. The Chinese seek additional connections with the countries of Africa. China’s arrival as a global power, is seeking to transform the African continent. Several African countries have embraced the Chinese as a partner, which can help them with their infrastructure, economies, military, and foreign direct investments. African leaders have embraced China as a superpower on the continent. China is putting into place programs that will address these issues. China’s ideas are to introduce and reinforce its growing economic and political influence in Africa. Various authors on this subject have referred to China as the “Crouching tiger” and Africa as the “Hidden dragon.” Eventually, Africa will be a strong test to China and its influence abroad. The United States has mostly ignored the African continent. Would an established Chinese presence come back to haunt the United States in the future or is this also a wakeup call for the United States, to become more involved with the nations of Africa; or does China already have too much of a first-mover advantage

Tests of Gaussianity

We review two powerful methods to test the Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB): one based on the distribution of spherical wavelet coefficients and the other on smooth tests of goodness-of-fit. The spherical wavelet families proposed to analyse the CMB are the Haar and the Mexican Hat ones. The latter is preferred for detecting non-Gaussian homogeneous and isotropic primordial models containing some amount of skewness or kurtosis. Smooth tests of goodness-of-fit have recently been introduced in the field showing some interesting properties. We will discuss the smooth tests of goodness-of-fit developed by Rayner and Best for the univariate as well as for the multivariate analysis.Comment: Proceedings of "The Cosmic Microwave Background and its Polarization", New Astronomy Reviews, (eds. S. Hanany and K.A. Olive), in pres

Genus Pogostemon (Lamiaceae) in Cuba

Context: The presence in Cuba of taxons of Pogostemon Desf. (Lamiaceae), a native genus from Africa, Asia, and Australia, whose previous recorded information was not accurate. Objectives: To report on relocation of a species of this genus, define its nomenclature, contribute with data for identification, and provide arguments of its usefulness. Methods: Study of herbarium specimens, field exploration, sample comparisons with descriptions, analytical keys, and samples incorporated to scientific collections. Results: The presence of Pogostemon cablin (Blanco) Benth (Lamiaceae) was confirmed in the provinces of Sancti Spíritus, Camagüey, Holguín, and Guantánamo, Cuba. This is a promising species for the medical-pharmaceutical industry, and the areas of perfumes and cosmetics. Conclusions: Out of the 34 infra-generic Lamiaceae representatives known to be of exotic origin in the Cuban archipelago, 25 have been unable to naturalize