Medicolegal perspectives of interpersonal violence: A review of first-contact clinical notes

Background. South Africa has one of the highest rates of interpersonal violence (IPV), in all its forms, in the world. Incidents of assault are largely under-reported and place an immense burden on the healthcare, fiscal and judicial systems. The first contact a victim of IPV has with a medical practitioner may be the only opportunity to identify, record and preserve valuable evidence, as evidence not captured on this occasion may be lost forever. The accuracy and quality of clinical notes taken at the time may be of paramount importance in facilitating the administration of justice.Objectives. (i) To investigate the adequacy of medicolegal note keeping by doctors in cases where subsequent legal proceedings may ensue; and (ii) to apprise clinicians of their shared responsibility in contributing to the administration of justice through both appropriate patient management and objective and contemporaneous recording of findings from a medicolegal perspective.Methods. A prospective descriptive study was conducted over a period of 18 months from 2016 to 2018. The investigators reviewed patient files and critically appraised first-contact clinical notes in fatal-outcome cases of IPV admitted to the Pretoria Medico-Legal Laboratory during the study period. The cases were reviewed using rubrics specifically designed by the investigators to critically but consistently assess the adequacy of documentation of the medicolegal aspects applicable to each case.Results. One hundred cases met the defined criteria for inclusion in the study. The victims were predominantly male (98%), and most (79%) were aged <40 years. Blunt-force injuries were the most frequent type of injury (43%), while gunshot wounds accounted for 36% of cases and sharp-force injuries were documented in 11%. Insufficient medicolegal documentation, wound description and evidence collection, by medical practitioners, was identified across all wounding modalities in the study sample.Conclusions. This study showed that medicolegal documentation in cases of IPV is suboptimal, with many important parameters not being routinely recorded, which is likely to impact negatively on criminal investigations and downstream legal proceedings. Greater emphasis on these issues is required during the undergraduate training of healthcare workers in a society as severely afflicted by IPV as SA. Although this study focused on fatal-outcome cases, these conclusions are equally applicable to many more cases where investigators, prosecutors and presiding judicial officers may be dependent on findings contemporaneously and objectively recorded by medical professionals.

Identifying ecotourists’ accommodation needs and preferences?

The purpose of this research is to determine ecotourists’ needs and preferences concerning national parks in South Africa. A survey was conducted at the Tsitsikamma National Park, focusing on fixed-roof accommodation, camping and ecolodges. Results showed that the preferences for each aspect are unique and that setting remains paramount when it comes to fixed-roof accommodation. The research also confirmed that a variety of accommodation types, including provision for self-catering, is preferred by ecotourists. This research makes a valuable contribution to the managing of accommodation in South African National Parks

Factors influencing a memorable game viewing experience

One of the most important aspects in selling tourism products is to provide tourists with a memorable experience. In the case of South Africa, most of the tourism product offerings are nature or wildlife based, with South African National Parks as one of the biggest contributors to the wildlife tourism product offering. The two most preferred methods to engage with wildlife is self-drive game viewing and making use of operators in safari vehicles for guided game viewing. The purpose of this article is therefore to determine which factors determine a memorable game viewing experience in each of the abovementioned options, namely self-drive and guided viewing. A quantitative research method was used by means of a web-based survey. The survey was posted on the official website of South African National Parks. A total of 387 usable questionnaires were received back during this time frame. The results indicated that wildlife ambiance and interpretation are fundamental in having a memorable game viewing experience for self-drive game viewing and guided game viewing in safari vehicles, respectively. This article makes two main contributions to the current literature: Firstly, it has found that national park management do have limited control over some factors (for example species variety, species numbers and infrastructure) which require good management in order to provide tourists with a memorable experience; and secondly, it is the first time that memorable wildlife experience has been determined concerning landbased wildlife and within South African National Parks

Ceding to their appetites: A taxonomy of international tourists to South Africa

Tourism is a key source of income to South Africa. Food and beverages is a key part of tourism and the literature reveals that tourists spend up to a quarter of their budget on cuisine. South Africa has, however, been rated as the least-prepared culinary travel destination and the travel destination with the greatest potential for growth. Therefore, a segmentation taxonomy based on culinary preferences of international tourists to South Africa is put forth which can be used to prepare South Africa as a culinary travel destination. The 627 international tourists surveyed were divided into five segments with the use of factor analyses, t-tests, Spearman rank correlations and analysis of variance. The segments were named conservationists, experience seekers, devotees, explorers and socialisers (CEDES taxonomy). Multiple results and implications are discussed in the paper

A direct comparison of strategies for combinatorial RNA interference

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Combinatorial RNA interference (co-RNAi) is a valuable tool for highly effective gene suppression of single and multiple-genes targets, and can be used to prevent the escape of mutation-prone transcripts. There are currently three main approaches used to achieve co-RNAi in animal cells; multiple promoter/shRNA cassettes, long hairpin RNAs (lhRNA) and miRNA-embedded shRNAs, however, the relative effectiveness of each is not known. The current study directly compares the ability of each co-RNAi method to deliver pre-validated siRNA molecules to the same gene targets.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Double-shRNA expression vectors were generated for each co-RNAi platform and their ability to suppress both single and double-gene reporter targets were compared. The most reliable and effective gene silencing was achieved from the multiple promoter/shRNA approach, as this method induced additive suppression of single-gene targets and equally effective knockdown of double-gene targets. Although both lhRNA and microRNA-embedded strategies provided efficient gene knockdown, suppression levels were inconsistent and activity varied greatly for different siRNAs tested. Furthermore, it appeared that not only the position of siRNAs within these multi-shRNA constructs impacted upon silencing activity, but also local properties of each individual molecule. In addition, it was also found that the insertion of up to five promoter/shRNA cassettes into a single construct did not negatively affect the efficacy of each individual shRNA.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>By directly comparing the ability of shRNAs delivered from different co-RNA platforms to initiate knockdown of the same gene targets, we found that multiple U6/shRNA cassettes offered the most reliable and predictable suppression of both single and multiple-gene targets. These results highlight some important strengths and pitfalls of the currently used methods for multiple shRNA delivery, and provide valuable insights for the design and application of reliable co-RNAi.</p