The International Criminal Court and accountability in Africa

Recently, there have been calls from several African leaders to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), but such actions will only result in fewer options for ordinary citizens to hold their leaders and governments accountable, writes GLOBUS researcher William Gumede

Fostering a common SADC regional identity through higher education institutions

Finding a common regional identity in Southern Africa will have to be based on a set of common values. This article will argue that the most sustainable attempt to create a common regional identity in the Southern African Development Community must be based on common democratic values. It argues that higher education institutions in the region – currently at the margins of the political project to create a common regional identity, should be at the core of any project to secure a common regional identity in SADC, based on democratic values. Furthermore, this article analyses how higher education in the region can help foster a common regional identity, which, it argues is a pre-condition for building a more sustainable regional integration project. Higher education can play its role in the context of enhancing integration and building a common regional identity based on democratic values in one of two ways: it can either be used as a tool to foster a regional identity either in its own right, or by serving as a catalyst to help along the processes of identity formation. The article analyses the implications–in terms of governance, leadership, and management–for higher education institutions in SADC, if they pursue such a new democratisation mission

Spatial orientation and cognitive load as factors influencing learning amongst blind learners in the Life Sciences

In Suid-Afrika word min navorsing gedoen oor faktore wat kognitiewe belading tydens onderrig en leer beïvloed. Die gebrek rig ’n uitdaging tot ons sosiale aanspreeklikheid teenoor leerders met spesiale onderwysbehoeftes aangesien die beginsels van gelykheid en billikheid nie altyd in hierdie spesialiseringsveld nagekom word nie. Hierdie artikel berig oor ’n sekondêre analise van die resultate van twee onlangse ondersoeke deur Maguvhe (2005) en Gumede (2010). Die twee ondersoeke het ten doel gehad om te bepaal hoe onderwysers lewenswetenskappe aan blinde leerders en leerders met swak sig onderrig. Die doel met hierdie sekondêre analise was om die oorspronklike resultate verder te analiseer om vas te stel hoe die beginsels van kognitiewe belading, modaliteit en ruimtelike oriëntering tydens die onderrig van lewenswetenskappe aan blinde leerders en leerders met swak sig verreken word. Die sekondêre analise bevestig dat blinde leerders selde aan ondersoeke, eksperimente en aktiwiteite deelneem. Wanneer dit wel gebeur, is sulke interaksies basies, elementêr en bevestigend. Omdat die onderrig hoofsaaklik narratief van aard is, verhoog die moontlikheid dat kognitiewe belading die ouditiewe funksies, in die afwesigheid van visuele en taktiele stimuli, sal laat afneem. Taktiele stimulering is in ’n groot mate afhanklik van faktore soos gespesialiseerde hulpbronne, goedopgeleide onderwysers, Braille-geletterde onderwysers, lesers en skrywers en ’n goeie begrip van hoe ’n holistiese metodologie die taktiele sintuie van blinde en visueelgestremde leerders mag optimaliseer.Little research is done in South Africa on factors influencing cognitive load during teaching and learning. It challenges our social accountability towards learners with special education needs as the principles of equity and equality are not always achieved in this field of specialisation. This article reports on a secondary analysis conducted on the results of two recent investigations by Maguvhe (2005) and Gumede (2010) that focused on the teaching of Life Sciences to blind and visually impaired learners. The purpose of the secondary analysis was to determine from the original results how the principles of cognitive load, modality and spatial orientation are accounted for when Life Sciences is taught to blind and visually impaired learners. The secondary analysis confirmed that blind learners very seldom participate in investigations, experiments and activities, and when they do, such interactions remain basic, elementary and confirmatory. Because teaching occurs mainly by means of narratives, the possibilities remain high that cognitive load might decrease the auditory functions in the absence of other visual and tactile stimuli. Tactile stimulation depends heavily on factors such as specialised resources, well-trained teachers, Braille trainers, readers and writers, and a sound understanding of a holistic methodology that can optimise the tactile senses of blind and visually impaired learners.W.J.F. (Universiteit van Pretoria) en H.S. (Christian Blind Mission) was die studieleiers van M.O.M (South African Council for the Blind) en W.J.F. (Universiteit van Pretoria) was die studieleier van M.J.G. (Universiteit van Pretoria). M.O.M (South African Council for the Blind) en M.J.G. (Universiteit van Pretoria) se studies het op die onderrig van biologie aan blinde leerders en leerders met swak sig gefokus. W.J.F. (Universiteit van Pretoria) was verantwoordelik vir die uitvoering van ’n sekondêre analise op die oorspronklike data.Die Nasionale Navorsingstigting (NNS) en die Universiteit van Pretoriahttp://www.satnt.ac.zahttp://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-06062011-140653/http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-08102005-112348/am2013gv201

AI is a viable alternative to high throughput screening: a 318-target study

: High throughput screening (HTS) is routinely used to identify bioactive small molecules. This requires physical compounds, which limits coverage of accessible chemical space. Computational approaches combined with vast on-demand chemical libraries can access far greater chemical space, provided that the predictive accuracy is sufficient to identify useful molecules. Through the largest and most diverse virtual HTS campaign reported to date, comprising 318 individual projects, we demonstrate that our AtomNet® convolutional neural network successfully finds novel hits across every major therapeutic area and protein class. We address historical limitations of computational screening by demonstrating success for target proteins without known binders, high-quality X-ray crystal structures, or manual cherry-picking of compounds. We show that the molecules selected by the AtomNet® model are novel drug-like scaffolds rather than minor modifications to known bioactive compounds. Our empirical results suggest that computational methods can substantially replace HTS as the first step of small-molecule drug discovery

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

A year of genomic surveillance reveals how the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic unfolded in Africa.

The progression of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in Africa has so far been heterogeneous, and the full impact is not yet well understood. In this study, we describe the genomic epidemiology using a dataset of 8746 genomes from 33 African countries and two overseas territories. We show that the epidemics in most countries were initiated by importations predominantly from Europe, which diminished after the early introduction of international travel restrictions. As the pandemic progressed, ongoing transmission in many countries and increasing mobility led to the emergence and spread within the continent of many variants of concern and interest, such as B.1.351, B.1.525, A.23.1, and C.1.1. Although distorted by low sampling numbers and blind spots, the findings highlight that Africa must not be left behind in the global pandemic response, otherwise it could become a source for new variants

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance.

Investment in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing in Africa over the past year has led to a major increase in the number of sequences that have been generated and used to track the pandemic on the continent, a number that now exceeds 100,000 genomes. Our results show an increase in the number of African countries that are able to sequence domestically and highlight that local sequencing enables faster turnaround times and more-regular routine surveillance. Despite limitations of low testing proportions, findings from this genomic surveillance study underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic and illuminate the distinct dispersal dynamics of variants of concern-particularly Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron-on the continent. Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve while the continent faces many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century

The System needs a Heavy Shock

Abstract: Please refer to full text to view abstrac