Why Have Youth from Different Neighborhoods of Durban, South Africa Developed Different Opinions Regarding the Role and Importance of Voting in the Current State of South African Democracy?

The field of political science has become increasingly interested in the electoral participatory habits of young people in recent decades, and in post-apartheid South Africa more specifically in light of the recent and ongoing #feesmustfall movement within the nation\u27s tertiary institutions. Since 1994, South Africa has made a great deal of progress towards dismantling the apartheid system; however, vast inequalities remain and many, mostly black African communities have not yet reaped the rewards of a democratic South Africa. Using qualitative data gathered from three focus groups, this paper examines why youth from black African township communities of Durban, South Africa view electoral participation more negatively and with greater skepticism than youth living in historically white communities. Two independent variables gleaned from the literature are used to explain these different perspectives: the quality of one\u27s civic education and persisting racial socioeconomic inequality

Historical and Theoretical Survey of the Effect of a Cationic Starch on the Hygroexpansivity of Paper

The effect of a cationic starch as an additive on the hygroexpansivity of paper was made. It was found that the hygroexpansivity of the paper increases as the freeness of the stock is lowered. Small additions of cationic starch gave a substantial strength increase with approximately the same expansivity as the lower strength paper made with pulp alone

Youth Participatory Democracy and Political Choices: Views from eThekweni

In this research project I am seeking to gauge youth participation in and attitudes towards the South African democratic process. As in many democratic societies, there is a perception by some that the youth of South Africa are apathetic to issues related to politics and government. In this study I seek to evaluate youth perspectives of democracy based on what they have been taught in school and at home, levels of youth political participation, attitudes towards the African National Congress’s (ANC) dominance of South African politics, perceptions of political alternatives to the ANC, young people’s engagement with nongovernmental organizations in relation to making progress on civil society-related issues, and youth opinions on the Fees Must Fall campaign of 2015. I conducted four separate focus groups, three with youth from different civil society nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and one with a group of youth who live within a township of the eThekwini municipality. Participants ranged in age from sixteen to twenty-five and included young people of different races, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds. My hypothesis is that South African youth – specifically those associated with civil society NGOs in eThekwini – are, contrary to popular belief, very engaged with their democracy, especially using unconventional methods such as protesting, and have strong opinions related to the state of the political process in South Africa and the recent Fees Must Fall campaign

‘Community of Schools’: A Case Study of Development, Participation and Integration in Cato Manor Township, South Africa

By the end of the twentieth century, a subfield of anthropology known as critical development studies emerged - in large part due to the work of James Ferguson and Arturo Escobar - as a critique of post-colonial development programs and NGOs of the West that were at work in much of the developing world - most notably sub-Saharan Africa. Development was largely panned by these early researchers as a means by which Western powers habituated problems in the developing world so as to create a profitable industry of development. Contemporary anthropological inquiries have called for an increasingly field-based approach to the study of development so as to better understand how development organizations are managed and regarded in their host communities. Many anthropologists - such as Gardner, Lewis, and Mosse - argue that organizations which successfully integrate into their communities and actively seek local perspectives and participation are more likely to defy post-colonial anthropological stereotypes about development organizations. This paper adds to a growing literature on these organizations by examining the role that one small community based organization (CBO) is playing in a predominately black township of Durban, South Africa. The Umkhumbane Schools Project (USP) is an American-South African joint program aimed at improving mathematics and science scores among underserved high school youth in five secondary schools in Cato Manor Township. An examination of the problems schools face in Cato Manor, the structure and history of USP, and perspectives on the program\u27s success reveal that the organization has integrated within Cato Manor as it continues - with mixed results - to create key participatory roles for South African educators, students, parents, and community members. This paper explores the challenges CBOs face in implementing their programs and grapples with how to define and measure CBO success all while attempting to move anthropological exploration of development beyond critique and towards an increasingly qualitative measure for understanding the humanity of development

An economic evaluation of the potential for distributed energy in Australia

Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) recently completed a major study investigating the value of distributed energy (DE; collectively demand management, energy efficiency and distributed generation) technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from Australia’s energy sector (CSIRO, 2009). This comprehensive report covered potential economic, environmental, technical, social, policy and regulatory impacts that could result from the wide scale adoption of these technologies. In this paper we highlight the economic findings from the study. Partial Equilibrium modeling of the stationary and transport sectors found that Australia could achieve a present value welfare gain of around $130 billion when operating under a 450 ppm carbon reduction trajectory through to 2050. Modeling also suggests that reduced volatility in the spot market could decrease average prices by up to 12% in 2030 and 65% in 2050 by using local resources to better cater for an evolving supply-demand imbalance. Further modeling suggests that even a small amount of distributed generation located within a distribution network has the potential to significantly alter electricity prices by changing the merit order of dispatch in an electricity spot market. Changes to the dispatch relative to a base case can have both positive and negative effects on network losses.Distributed energy; Economic modeling; Carbon price; Electricity markets

It's In My Eyes, but It Doesn't Look that Way to Me

In this issue of Neuron, Hannula and Ranganath provide striking evidence that hippocampal activity predicts eye movements that reveal memory for the past even when participants' overt memory decisions are in error. Their findings bear on an ongoing debate about the relationship between mnemonic awareness and hippocampal function

Interactions Between Forms of Memory: When Priming Hinders New Episodic Learning

Human memory consists of multiple forms, including priming and explicit memory. Although considerable evidence indicates that priming and explicit memory are functionally and neuroanatomically distinct, little is know about when and how these different forms of memory interact. Here, behavioral and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) methods were used to examine a novel and counterintuitive hypothesis: Priming during episodic encoding may be negatively associated with subsequent explicit memory. Using an experimental design that exploited known properties of spacing or lag effects, the magnitudes of behavioral and neural priming during a second study episode were varied and the relation between these magnitudes of priming during re-encoding and performance on a subsequent explicit memory test was examined. Results revealed that greater behavioral priming (reduced reaction times) and neural priming (reduced left inferior prefrontal brain activation) during re-encoding were associated with lower levels of subsequent explicit memory. Moreover, those subjects who demonstrated greater behavioral and neural priming effects during re-encoding following a long lag tended to demonstrate the least benefit in subsequent explicit memory due to this second study episode. These findings suggest that priming for past experiences can hinder new episodic encoding.Physic

Blood-based bioenergetic profiling is related to differences in brain morphology in African Americans with Type 2 diabetes.

Blood-based bioenergetic profiling has promising applications as a minimally invasive biomarker of systemic bioenergetic capacity. In the present study, we examined peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) mitochondrial function and brain morphology in a cohort of African Americans with long-standing Type 2 diabetes. Key parameters of PBMC respiration were correlated with white matter, gray matter, and total intracranial volumes. Our analyses indicate that these relationships are primarily driven by the relationship of systemic bioenergetic capacity with total intracranial volume, suggesting that systemic differences in mitochondrial function may play a role in overall brain morphology