Restructuring manufacturing in South Africa's lagging regions : the case of the Free State

The manufacturing economy of the Free State reflects both historical dependence on locally available raw materials and high-levels of state intervention, in terms of support for import substitution and Homeland development. In the contemporary era, deindustrialization, the uncertain future of the clothing / textile industries and limited growth over the last ten years, suggests that, in terms of manufacturing, the Free State is a 'lagging' region. While there has been significant expansion in the number of small firms, this is not matched by employment growth and does not compensate for the loss of many large firms and economic downscaling in the Goldfields. Key sectors such as petro-chemicals and gold jewellery present certain opportunities for future growth

Timing and causes of North African wet phases during the last glacial period and implications for modern human migration

We present the first speleothem-derived central North Africa rainfall record for the last glacial period. The record reveals three main wet periods at 65-61 ka, 52.5-50.5 ka and 37.5-33 ka that lead obliquity maxima and precession minima. We find additional minor wet episodes that are synchronous with Greenland interstadials. Our results demonstrate that sub-tropical hydrology is forced by both orbital cyclicity and North Atlantic moisture sources. The record shows that after the end of a Saharan wet phase around 70 ka ago, North Africa continued to intermittently receive substantially more rainfall than today, resulting in favourable environmental conditions for modern human expansion. The encounter and subsequent mixture of Neanderthals and modern humans – which, on genetic evidence, is considered to have occurred between 60 and 50 ka – occurred synchronously with the wet phase between 52.5 and 50.5 ka. Based on genetic evidence the dispersal of modern humans into Eurasia started less than 55 ka ago. This may have been initiated by dry conditions that prevailed in North Africa after 50.5 ka. The timing of a migration reversal of modern humans from Eurasia into North Africa is suggested to be coincident with the wet period between 37.5 and 33 ka

The Research Roadmap: A Primer To The Approach And Process

Performing research can be an overwhelming and challenging endeavor.  It’s easy to get confused just from collecting, reading and deciphering textbooks and journal articles. Getting organized and mapping out the entire process would be extremely helpful and more importantly provide a path for accomplishing the research project.  This paper will provide a research roadmap that can be used as a guide for accomplishing a research project or a doctoral dissertation.  It will discuss research methods, ethics in research, key components, and provide a comprehensive graphic that can be used as a guide to quick-start the research effort

Implementing tradable permits for sulfur oxides emissions : a case study in the South Coast Air Basin

Tradable emissions permits have important theoretical advantages over source-specific technical standards as a means for controlling pollution. Nonetheless, difficulties can arise in trying to implement an efficient, competitive market in emissions permits. Simple workable versions of the market concept may fail to achieve the competitive equilibrium, or to take account of important complexities in the relationship between the pattern of emissions and the geographical distribution of pollution. Existing regulatory law may severely limit the range of market opportunities that states can adopt. This report examines the feasibility of tradable permits for controlling particulate sulfates in the Los Angeles airshed. Although the empirical part of the paper deals with a specific case, the methods developed have general applicability. Moreover, the particular market design that is proposed -- an auction process that involves no net revenue collection by the state -- has attractive features as a general model

An Evaluation of Existing Light Stemming Algorithms for Arabic Keyword Searches

The field of Information Retrieval recognizes the importance of stemming in improving retrieval effectiveness. This same tool, when applied to searches conducted in the Arabic language, increases the relevancy of documents returned and expands searches to encompass the general meaning of a word instead of the word itself. Since the Arabic language relies mainly on triconsonantal roots for verb forms and derives nouns by adding affixes, words with similar consonants are closely related in meaning. Stemming allows a search term to focus more on the meaning of a term and closely related terms and less on specific character matches. This paper discusses the strength of light stemming, the best techniques, and components for algorithmic affix-based stemmers used in keyword searching in the Arabic language

Geographical variation of cerebrovascular disease in New York State: the correlation with income

BACKGROUND: Income is known to be associated with cerebrovascular disease; however, little is known about the more detailed relationship between cerebrovascular disease and income. We examined the hypothesis that the geographical distribution of cerebrovascular disease in New York State may be predicted by a nonlinear model using income as a surrogate socioeconomic risk factor. RESULTS: We used spatial clustering methods to identify areas with high and low prevalence of cerebrovascular disease at the ZIP code level after smoothing rates and correcting for edge effects; geographic locations of high and low clusters of cerebrovascular disease in New York State were identified with and without income adjustment. To examine effects of income, we calculated the excess number of cases using a non-linear regression with cerebrovascular disease rates taken as the dependent variable and income and income squared taken as independent variables. The resulting regression equation was: excess rate = 32.075 - 1.22*10(-4)(income) + 8.068*10(-10)(income(2)), and both income and income squared variables were significant at the 0.01 level. When income was included as a covariate in the non-linear regression, the number and size of clusters of high cerebrovascular disease prevalence decreased. Some 87 ZIP codes exceeded the critical value of the local statistic yielding a relative risk of 1.2. The majority of low cerebrovascular disease prevalence geographic clusters disappeared when the non-linear income effect was included. For linear regression, the excess rate of cerebrovascular disease falls with income; each $10,000 increase in median income of each ZIP code resulted in an average reduction of 3.83 observed cases. The significant nonlinear effect indicates a lessening of this income effect with increasing income. CONCLUSION: Income is a non-linear predictor of excess cerebrovascular disease rates, with both low and high observed cerebrovascular disease rate areas associated with higher income. Income alone explains a significant amount of the geographical variance in cerebrovascular disease across New York State since both high and low clusters of cerebrovascular disease dissipate or disappear with income adjustment. Geographical modeling, including non-linear effects of income, may allow for better identification of other non-traditional risk factors

Medical Device Regulation in Australia: Safe and Effective?

Objective: To describe the frequency, characteristics and outcomes of reports of possible harms related to medical devices submitted to the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) using data made publicly available on the TGA website. Design and setting: A retrospective analysis, conducted in January 2012, of data made publicly available on the TGA website from January 2000 to December 2011. Main outcome measures: The number and nature of reports of medical device incidents, recalls and alerts. Results: Up to December 2011, 6812 incidents involving medical devices were reported to the TGA, although there were several periods where data were unavailable. Incidents were reported more frequently in later years, most often by device sponsors, and were often attributed to mechanical problems. 295 deaths and 2357 serious injuries have been related to incidents, with serious injury (597) highest in 2009. Most incidents involving medical devices were not investigated (47.5%), or, after investigation, no further action was taken (25.0%). During the same time period, there were 35 medical device recalls and 34 medical device alerts issued by the TGA, with no consistent increase over time. Conclusions: Despite TGA reform proposals, greater transparency is still needed. Issues that have not been addressed include patchy and conflicting data in the public domain and lack of explanations for the large proportion of uninvestigated reports. To maintain public confidence in the national regulatory system these problems need to be resolved

Systematic reviews of surgical procedures in children: Quantity, coverage and quality

Aim Systematic reviews have the potential to map those areas where children are under‐represented in surgical research. We aimed to describe and evaluate the quantity, coverage and the quality of conduct and reporting of systematic reviews of surgical procedures in children. Methods We searched four biomedical databases, a systematic review register, reference lists and conducted hand searching to identify relevant reviews. Two reviewers worked independently to critically appraise included studies and abstract data. We assessed reporting quality using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta‐analysis statement and methodological quality using the Assessment of Multiple SysTemAtic Reviews tool. Results Fifteen systematic reviews were identified, representing 0.01% of all paediatric surgical citations in MEDLINE and E mbase. Thirteen of the reviews were C ochrane reviews, and most reviews (12/15) addressed subspecialty interests such as otorhinolaryngology. The median number of included trials per systematic review was four (interquartile range 1 to 9.5), the median number of primary outcomes was 5.5 (interquartile range 3.5 to 7.5). In general, reporting and methodological quality was good although there were several omissions, particularly around completeness of reporting of statistical methods used, and utilisation of quality assessments in analyses. Outcomes were often not clearly defined and descriptions of procedures lacked sufficient detail to determine the similarities and differences among surgical procedures within the contributing trials. Conclusion Systematic reviews of surgical procedures in children are rarely published. To improve the evidence base and guide research agendas, more systematic reviews should be conducted, using standard guidelines for conduct and reporting

Minimising medicine use in organic dairy herds through animal health and welfare planning

Livestock is important in many organic farming systems, and it is an explicit goal to ensure high levels of animal health and welfare (AHW) through good management. This will lead to reduced medicine use and better quality of animal products. In two EU network projects NAHWOA & SAFO it was concluded that this is not guaranteed merely by following organic standards. Both networks recommended implementation of individual animal health plans to stimulate organic farmers to improve AHW. These plans should include a systematic evaluation of AHW and be implemented through dialogue with each farmer in order to identify goals and plan improvements. 15 research institutions in 8 European countries are involved in the proposed project with the main objective to minimise medicine use in organic dairy herds through active and well planned AHW promotion and disease prevention. The project consists of 5 work packages, 4 of which comprise research activities building on current research projects, new applications across borders, exchange of knowledge, results and conclusions between participating countries, and adopting them to widely different contexts. International and national workshops facilitate this exchange. Focus areas are animal health planning, AHW assessment using animal based parameters and development of advisory systems and farmer groups. Epidemiological analyses of the effect on AHW from reduced medicine use and herd improvements are planned in all participating countries