The Effects of Shortage of Accommodation on Students’ Performance in Private Tertiary Institutions in Botswana

The student accommodation has been a major area of concern with increasing student population in Botswana. This study investigated the effects of shortage of accommodation on students’ performance in the private tertiary institutions in Botswana. A questionnaire was used to collect data. The findings revealed that lack of space for construction of student hostels and lack of partnership between government and private tertiary institutions are some of the major causes to shortage of student accommodation. The study also found out that lack of hostel accommodation encourages truancy and consequently poor concentration on academic work. It was recommended that the government should provide land where student hostels will be built, especially near the institutions where students can easily have access and provide a walking distance. Keywords: Student hostels/accommodation, student performance, Private tertiary institution

The Impact of Employee Motivation on Customer Satisfaction in the Insurance Sector in Botswana

The study seeks to measure the impact of employee motivation on customer satisfaction focusing on the insurance sector in Botswana. According to Botswana Business week report (2018) the local insurance sector is in the doldrums with one in 10 licenced operators closing down, profits are diminishing down 23%, and the high marginal decline in gross written premiums. The insurance sector is experiencing a decreasing customer base, high turnover of experienced employees, reduction in profits and low productivity. The study was quantitative in nature and the causal research design was used. The questionnaire was personally-administered to 80 participants which includes employees and customers. The findings of the study clearly acknowledged that employee motivation and customer satisfaction are positively correlated. The regression analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. The empirical examination of the study suggests that employee motivation is vital to boost customer satisfaction, service quality and lowers staff turnover. The study results revealed that employee motivation plays a significant role in enhancing the operational performance of organizations in the service industry. It was recommended that, management should employ motivational factors (innovative promotions, involvement, fringe benefits) to enhance service delivery and customer satisfaction, emphasis on market research through design thinking, as well as, understanding of the customer needs and expectations and designing customer care service policies so that a wide number of customer complaints and areas of interests are considered. Keywords: Employee motivation, customer satisfaction, service qualit

A supply chain framework for characterizing indirect vulnerability

Purpose Climate vulnerability assessments are often operationalized by the analysis of indicators defined by the spatial boundaries of the community under study. These, however, sometimes fail to capture interdependency among communities for basic resources. This paper aims to propose a framework for characterizing vulnerability caused by interdependency by adapting a supply chain lens. Design/methodology/approach The paper proposes a definition for “indirect vulnerability” that recognizes the transboundary and teleconnected nature of vulnerability arising from resource networks among cities and communities. A conceptual framework using a supply chain approach is presented for climate hazards in particular. This approach is then demonstrated through a rapid appraisal of the rice, energy and water supply chains and the waste management chains of Metro Manila. Findings The application of the supply chain lens to assessing the indirect vulnerability of Metro Manila brings to fore issues extending beyond the decision-making boundaries of local government units. Addressing these will require vertical government coordination and horizontal inter-sectoral collaboration. Thus, this supply chain-based indirect vulnerability assessment can be complementary to traditional vulnerability assessments in providing a larger systems perspective. Originality/value Innovative tools are needed to make community vulnerability assessments both holistic and tractable. Existing methods in the private sector can be adapted rather than reinventing the wheel. This supply chain framework can be a useful decision support and planning tool across governance levels to comprehensively address vulnerability

Hemolysis in patients with the cloth-covered aortic valve prosthesis : Changing severity of hemolysis and prediction of anemia

This paper is addressed to two questions: (1) Is there evidence for Increasing hemolysis in patients with a cloth-covered aortic valve prosthesis? (2) Is it possible to predict from the hematocrit, retriculocyte count, serum hemoglobin and serum lactic dehydrogenase (LDH) levels which patients are at risk of anemia? These screening studies were performed in patients attending the postoperative clinic from 1970 to 1973. Patients were classified into anemic and nonanemic groups. LDH values for the anemic group include all yearly values for that patient including preanemia levels. The median LDH levels showed a yearly increase in the anemic group and no change in the nonanemic group (P < 0.005). A subset of these patients had a mean 1 year increase of 3 LDH units for 15 nonanemic patients and 242 units in 17 anemic patients. The reticulocyte levels did not demonstrate any progressive increase in the anemic group. The LDH level was the most useful predictor of future anemia. A value of 250 units predicted anemia on the next yearly visit with 28 percent false positive and 4 percent false negative readings. The reticulocyte count of more than 2.5 percent also placed the patient at greater risk of anemia. A serum hemoglobin level in excess of 40 mg/100 ml was common in the anemic patients and was present in only 3 of 17 nonanemic patients. It is suggested that the serum LDH level should be monitored in all patients with the aortic totally cloth-covered prosthesis. Values in excess of 250 units (four times the upper limit of normal by other LDH methods) or increasing levels, or both, suggest future anemia.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22257/1/0000693.pd

Impact of alien pines on local arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities – evidence from two continents

The introduction of alien plants can influence biodiversity and ecosystems. However, its consequences for soil microbial communities remain poorly understood. We addressed the impact of alien ectomycorrhizal (EcM) pines on local arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities in two regions with contrasting biogeographic histories: in South Africa, where no native EcM plant species are present; and in Argentina, where EcM trees occur naturally. The effect of alien pines on AM fungal communities differed between these regions. In South Africa, plantations of alien EcM pines exhibited lower AM fungal richness and significantly altered community composition, compared with native fynbos. In Argentina, the richness and composition of local AM fungal communities were similar in plantations of alien EcM pines and native forest. However, the presence of alien pines resulted in slight changes to the phylogenetic structure of root AM fungal communities in both regions. In pine clearcut areas in South Africa, the richness and composition of AM fungal communities were intermediate between the native fynbos and the alien pine plantation, which is consistent with natural regeneration of former AM fungal communities following pine removal. We conclude that the response of local AM fungal communities to alien EcM pines differs between biogeographic regions with different histories of species coexistence

Exploring steric and electronic parameters of biaryl phosphacycles

Please read abstract in article.Research Centre for Synthesis and Catalysis (University of Johannesburg) and Sasol (Pty) Ltd as well as the Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC), South Africa for providing computational resources.https://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journal/njhj2023Chemistr

Effect of exercise training on glucose tolerance, in vivo insulin sensitivity, lipid and liproprotein concentrations in middle-aged men with mild hypertriglyceridemia

The effects of 9 weeks of aerobic exercise training with maintenance of stable body weight upon insulin sensitivity and upon glucose, lipid, and lipoprotein concentrations were studied in 10 middle-aged men with mild hypertriglyceridemia. Following training, mean maximum oxygen consumption improved from 33.5 +/- 1.9 to 39.3 +/- 1.9 mL/kg/min ( +/- SEM), (P P P P P P 2. Serum cholesterol levels declined from 211 +/- 8.9 to 193 +/- 11.9 mg/dL (P < 0.01), and the ratio of HDL-cholesterol to total cholesterol was improved. This study demonstrates that exercise training at a level of intensity feasible for many middle-aged men has beneficial effects on several factors that have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25746/1/0000306.pd

Tidying Up International Nucleotide Sequence Databases: Ecological, Geographical and Sequence Quality Annotation of ITS Sequences of Mycorrhizal Fungi

Sequence analysis of the ribosomal RNA operon, particularly the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, provides a powerful tool for identification of mycorrhizal fungi. The sequence data deposited in the International Nucleotide Sequence Databases (INSD) are, however, unfiltered for quality and are often poorly annotated with metadata. To detect chimeric and low-quality sequences and assign the ectomycorrhizal fungi to phylogenetic lineages, fungal ITS sequences were downloaded from INSD, aligned within family-level groups, and examined through phylogenetic analyses and BLAST searches. By combining the fungal sequence database UNITE and the annotation and search tool PlutoF, we also added metadata from the literature to these accessions. Altogether 35,632 sequences belonged to mycorrhizal fungi or originated from ericoid and orchid mycorrhizal roots. Of these sequences, 677 were considered chimeric and 2,174 of low read quality. Information detailing country of collection, geographical coordinates, interacting taxon and isolation source were supplemented to cover 78.0%, 33.0%, 41.7% and 96.4% of the sequences, respectively. These annotated sequences are publicly available via UNITE (http://unite.ut.ee/) for downstream biogeographic, ecological and taxonomic analyses. In European Nucleotide Archive (ENA; http://www.ebi.ac.uk/ena/), the annotated sequences have a special link-out to UNITE. We intend to expand the data annotation to additional genes and all taxonomic groups and functional guilds of fungi

Software Development Standard Processes (SDSP)

A JPL-created set of standard processes is to be used throughout the lifecycle of software development. These SDSPs cover a range of activities, from management and engineering activities, to assurance and support activities. These processes must be applied to software tasks per a prescribed set of procedures. JPL s Software Quality Improvement Project is currently working at the behest of the JPL Software Process Owner to ensure that all applicable software tasks follow these procedures. The SDSPs are captured as a set of 22 standards in JPL s software process domain. They were developed in-house at JPL by a number of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) residing primarily within the Engineering and Science Directorate, but also from the Business Operations Directorate and Safety and Mission Success Directorate. These practices include not only currently performed best practices, but also JPL-desired future practices in key thrust areas like software architecting and software reuse analysis. Additionally, these SDSPs conform to many standards and requirements to which JPL projects are beholden