Beyond Agency: The African Peasantry, the State, and Tobacco in Southern Rhodesia (Colonial Zimbabwe), 1900–80

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History, politics and dogs in Zimbabwean literature, c.1975–2015

Zimbabwean fiction writers have engaged with dogs as objects, subjects and even actors. This essay focuses on the pivotal forty-year period between 1975 and 2015, which saw the end of white rule, the rise of an independent African state and the collapse of that state. In analysing how selected writers have variously made use of dogs, we discuss the extent to which writers deal with human-dog relations. We buttress our point by examining key pieces of fiction in which dogs appear and we unpack the extent to which fictive representations of humans and dogs approximate lived relations in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial settings. We show the enduring relevance of dogs as metaphors of power in the Zimbabwean political landscape. We contend that such canine allegories have a history and explore their usage by creative writers over the last forty years

The South African Defence Force and Horse Mounted Infantry Operations, 1974-1985

The South African Defence Force (SADF) made effective use of the horse mounted soldier in the Namibian Independence War or ‘Border War’, 1966 to 1989, in Namibia (South West African) and Angola, in a conflict usually depicted as a series of high profile mechanised infantry operations. Nevertheless, the legacy of the horse-mounted infantryman of the South African War era commando was evident in this unit, which proved competent in the counter-insurgency patrol in the Area of Operations, and subsequently domestic deployment during civilian struggle during the State of Emergency. This article offers an exploration of the Potchefstroom Equestrian Centre’s contribution to horse and rider training and the military use of horses in counterinsurgency and urban peace enforcement operations in the period c.1974-1985.</p

Clinical and serological evaluation of a novel CENP-A peptide based ELISA

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION: Anti-centromere antibodies (ACA) are useful biomarkers in the diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (SSc). ACA are found in 20-40% of SSc patients and, albeit with lower prevalence, in patients with other systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases. Historically, ACA were detected by indirect immunofluorescence (IIF) on HEp-2 cells and confirmed by immunoassays using recombinant CENP-B. The objective of this study was to evaluate a novel CENP-A peptide ELISA. METHODS: Sera collected from SSc patients (n=334) and various other diseases (n=619) and from healthy controls (n=175) were tested for anti-CENP-A antibodies by the novel CENP-A enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Furthermore, ACA were determined in the disease cohorts by IIF (ImmunoConcepts), CENP-B ELISA (Dr. Fooke), EliA(R) CENP (Phadia) and line-immunoassay (LIA, Mikrogen). Serological and clinical associations of anti-CENP-A with other autoantibodies were conducted in one participating centre. Inhibition experiments with either the CENP-A peptide or recombinant CENP-B were carried out to analyse the specificity of anti-CENP-A and -B antibodies. RESULTS: The CENP-A ELISA results were in good agreement with other ACA detection methods. According to the kappa method, the qualitative agreements were: 0.73 (vs. IIF), 0.81 (vs. LIA), 0.86 (vs. CENP-B ELISA) and 0.97 (vs. EliA(R) CENP). The quantitative comparison between CENP-A and CENP-B ELISA using 265 samples revealed a correlation value of rho=0.5 (by Spearman equation). The receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated that the discrimination between SSc patients (n=131) and various controls (n=134) was significantly better using the CENP-A as compared to CENP-B ELISA (p<0.0001). Modified Rodnan skin score was significantly lower in the CENP-A negative group compared to the positive patients (p=0.013). Inhibition experiments revealed no significant cross reactivity of anti-CENP-A and anti-CENP-B antibodies. Statistically relevant differences for gender ratio (p=0.0103), specific joint involvement (Jaccoud) (p=0.0006) and anti-phospholipid syndrome (p=0.0157) between ACA positive SLE patients and the entire SLE cohort were observed. CONCLUSION: Anti-CENP-A antibodies as determined by peptide ELISA represent a sensitive, specific and independent marker for the detection of ACA and are useful biomarkers for the diagnosis of SSc. Our data suggest that anti-CENP-A antibodies are a more specific biomarker for SSc than antibodies to CENP-B. Furthers studies are required to verify these findings.status: publishe

The large GTPase Sey1/atlastin mediates lipid droplet- and FadL-dependent intracellular fatty acid metabolism of Legionella pneumophila

The amoeba-resistant bacterium Legionella pneumophila causes Legionnaires' disease and employs a type IV secretion system (T4SS) to replicate in the unique, ER-associated Legionella-containing vacuole (LCV). The large fusion GTPase Sey1/atlastin is implicated in ER dynamics, ER-derived lipid droplet (LD) formation, and LCV maturation. Here, we employ cryo-electron tomography, confocal microscopy, proteomics, and isotopologue profiling to analyze LCV-LD interactions in the genetically tractable amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum. Dually fluorescence-labeled D. discoideum producing LCV and LD markers revealed that Sey1 as well as the L. pneumophila T4SS and the Ran GTPase activator LegG1 promote LCV-LD interactions. In vitro reconstitution using purified LCVs and LDs from parental or Δsey1 mutant D. discoideum indicated that Sey1 and GTP promote this process. Sey1 and the L. pneumophila fatty acid transporter FadL were implicated in palmitate catabolism and palmitate-dependent intracellular growth. Taken together, our results reveal that Sey1 and LegG1 mediate LD- and FadL-dependent fatty acid metabolism of intracellular L. pneumophila

Editorial:Protecting Olympic Participants from COVID-19 — The Trialled and Tested Process

The COVID-19 pandemic has created many challenges to ensure a safe environment for competitive sport. While modern medicine has already developed effective protocols for the treatment and prevention of the disease, there are serious concerns about hosting a sporting event of the scale of the Olympic Games, where more than 11¿000 athletes from over 200 nations are expected to participate. Accordingly, there have been many calls to cancel the Tokyo Olympic Games, also known as Tokyo 2020, in both the international press and the scientific literature. A recent perspective published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) highlights the complexity and risks of convening the Tokyo Olympic Games during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the many uncertainties, much has been learnt over the past 18 months and many policies trialled and tested to protect athletes during sports participation..

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Fusarium and allied fusarioid taxa (FUSA). 1

Seven Fusarium species complexes are treated, namely F. aywerte species complex (FASC) (two species), F. buharicum species complex (FBSC) (five species), F. burgessii species complex (FBURSC) (three species), F. camptoceras species complex (FCAMSC) (three species), F. chlamydosporum species complex (FCSC) (eight species), F. citricola species complex (FCCSC) (five species) and the F. concolor species complex (FCOSC) (four species). New species include Fusicolla elongata from soil (Zimbabwe), and Neocosmospora geoasparagicola from soil associated with Asparagus officinalis (Netherlands). New combinations include Neocosmospora akasia, N. awan, N. drepaniformis, N. duplosperma, N. geoasparagicola, N. mekan, N. papillata, N. variasi and N. warna. Newly validated taxa include Longinectria gen. nov., L. lagenoides, L. verticilliforme, Fusicolla gigas and Fusicolla guangxiensis. Furthermore, Fusarium rosicola is reduced to synonymy under N. brevis. Finally, the genome assemblies of Fusarium secorum (CBS 175.32), Microcera coccophila (CBS 310.34), Rectifusarium robinianum (CBS 430.91), Rugonectria rugulosa (CBS 126565), and Thelonectria blattea (CBS 952.68) are also announced her

Identification of a mitotic recombination hotspot on chromosome III of the asexual fungus Aspergillus niger and its possible correlation elevated basal transcription

Genetic recombination is an important tool in strain breeding in many organisms. We studied the possibilities of mitotic recombination in strain breeding of the asexual fungus Aspergillus niger. By identifying genes that complemented mapped auxotrophic mutations, the physical map was compared to the genetic map of chromosome III using the genome sequence. In a program to construct a chromosome III-specific marker strain by selecting mitotic crossing-over in diploids, a mitotic recombination hotspot was identified. Analysis of the mitotic recombination hotspot revealed some physical features, elevated basal transcription and a possible correlation with purine stretches

Storylines: an alternative approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change

As climate change research becomes increasingly applied, the need for actionable information is growing rapidly. A key aspect of this requirement is the representation of uncertainties. The conventional approach to representing uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change is probabilistic, based on ensembles of climate model simulations. In the face of deep uncertainties, the known limitations of this approach are becoming increasingly apparent. An alternative is thus emerging which may be called a ‘storyline’ approach. We define a storyline as a physically self-consistent unfolding of past events, or of plausible future events or pathways. No a priori probability of the storyline is assessed; emphasis is placed instead on understanding the driving factors involved, and the plausibility of those factors. We introduce a typology of four reasons for using storylines to represent uncertainty in physical aspects of climate change: (i) improving risk awareness by framing risk in an event-oriented rather than a probabilistic manner, which corresponds more directly to how people perceive and respond to risk; (ii) strengthening decision-making by allowing one to work backward from a particular vulnerability or decision point, combining climate change information with other relevant factors to address compound risk and develop appropriate stress tests; (iii) providing a physical basis for partitioning uncertainty, thereby allowing the use of more credible regional models in a conditioned manner and (iv) exploring the boundaries of plausibility, thereby guarding against false precision and surprise. Storylines also offer a powerful way of linking physical with human aspects of climate change