Gods lewende woord en die mens

In sy proefskrif: „Klaarheid en interpretasie” praat dr. H. W. Rossouw, net soos vele in ons tyd wat allerlei reserwes daarop nahou t.o.v. die letterlike inspirasie van die Skrif, dik- wels van „Gods lewende Woord”. Hy het dit veral teen die Ortodoksie wat na die Reformasietyd 'n teologie probeer uit- bou het, waarby hulle formeel die Aristotelies-skolastiese metodiek van metafisika en logika gebruik het om 'n leer- sisleem van stabiele waarhede en sillogistiese konklusies op te stel wat dan in die plek van die „lewende Woord” gefunk- sioneer het

Is Barth gereformeerd?

Daar het ’n tydjie gelede ’n boek verskyn van dr. G. C. van Niftrikin Nederland. Die boek is getitel „Een beroerder Israels” en dit behandeld ie teologie van Barth. Alhoewel Van Niftrik op enkele punte van Barthverskil, is hy ’n bewonderaar van hom en vergelyk hy hierdie geleerde metElia van ouds, wat deur koning Agab ’n „beroerder van Israel” genoemis

English medium of instruction: A situation analysis

The majority of learners in southern Africa receive their education through the medium of a second language, English. Although teachers of English play a crucial role in helping learners to acquire language skills in the medium of instruction, we argue that subject content teachers' lack of attention to the teaching of the four language skills may be a raison d'être for learners' lack of academic achievement. A situation analysis conducted among three study populations examined the extent to which subject content teachers took responsibility for the teaching of language skills in the content classroom, as well as possible reasons for not doing so. It also shed some light on the amount of language teaching that actually took place in a content classroom. The aim of the situation analysis was to determine whether there was a need for a specialised training course for English second language medium of instruction teachers.South African Journal of Education Vol. 27 (1) 2007: pp. 69-8

The enforceability of tenants rights (part 1)

CITATION: Van Der Walt, A.J. & Maass, S. 2012. The enforceability of tenants' rights (part 1). Journal of South African Law / Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg, 2012(1):35-52.The original publication is available at https://journals.co.za/content/journal/ju_tsarThe purpose of the article is ultimately to align our current understanding of the nature of tenants' rights, according to basic common-law property principles, with their nature and role in the new constitutional dispensation. We consider this a worthwhile exercise in view of the question, emerging from constitutional law rather than property law or landlord-tenant law, whether the holders of short-term and unregistered long-term residential tenancies should enjoy the benefits of section 25(6) of the 1996 constitution. Section 25(6) provides that a person or community whose tenure of land is legally insecure as a result of past racially discriminatory laws or practices is entitled, to the extent provided by an act of parliament, either to tenure which is legally secure or to comparable redress. If this provision applies to holders of short-term residential tenancies, tenants whose current position is particularly vulnerable because of past racial discrimination might be able to challenge current landlord-tenant legislation for being inadequate in view of the constitutional provision.Publishers versio

The burden of depression and anxiety among medical students in South Africa: A cross-sectional survey at the University of Cape Town

Background. Depressive and anxiety disorders occur at very high rates among medical students. For instance, an international review and meta-analysis estimated the overall pooled crude prevalence of depression or depressive symptoms at 27.2%. However, South African (SA) data are very limited.Objectives. To determine rates of depression and anxiety among medical students and to examine the associations with various sociodemographic variables (biological sex, gender identity, household income, ethnicity, and clinical v. pre-clinical students). We also examined whether the ‘mini-semester’ of 2017 resulting from the 2016 ‘Fees Must Fall’ student protests was associated with increased depression/anxiety.Methods. The study was a cross-sectional electronic survey conducted in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Cape Town, using an anonymous, self-administered online questionnaire. The questionnaire included basic sociodemographic questions, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale.Results. The sample consisted of 473 medical students, 333 (70.4%) female and 140 (29.6%) male. Based on ethnic self-identification, 165 (35.6%) were black, 144 (31.1%) white, 88 (19%) coloured, 52 (11.2%) Indian and 8 (1.7%) Asian. There were 239 pre-clinical students (50.5%) and 234 clinical students (49.5%). Of the sample, 36.4% were above the cut-off for major depressive disorder and 45.9% for anxiety disorder. Reported rates of disorders diagnosed by a health professional were 25.0% for depressive disorder and 20.5% for anxiety disorder, and 28.1% of all students were receiving psychotropic medication. Female sex was associated with both depression (prevalence ratio (PR) 3.7; p<0.001) and anxiety diagnoses (PR 4.7; p<0.001). None of the other sociodemographic characteristics showed significant associations. Interestingly, students who undertook the 2017 mini-semester showed an increased rate of depression (PR 2.1; p<0.05) and anxiety diagnoses (PR 2.1; p<0.05).Conclusions. Nearly one in four students reported depression/anxiety diagnoses and were on psychotropic medication, significantly more than age-based expectations. Even more screened positive for risk of depression/anxiety. Our findings indicate that medical students, particularly females, are at a significantly increased risk of depression and anxiety disorders. Results suggest that the 2016 student protests may have had a direct impact on the mental state of students. Multidisciplinary efforts should be targeted at initiatives to strengthen mental wellbeing and institutional culture around mental health. These efforts may help build resilience in the next generation of health professionals in SA ahead of work in an overburdened health and health education system.

New Periodic 6.7 GHz Class II Methanol Maser Associated with G358.460-0.391

Eight new class II methanol masers selected from the 6.7 GHz Methanol Multibeam survey catalogues I and II were monitored at 6.7 GHz with the 26m Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) radio telescope for three years and seven months, from February 2011 to September 2014. The sources were also observed at 12.2 GHz and two were sufficiently bright to permit monitoring. One of the eight sources, namely G358.460-0.391, was found to show periodic variations at 6.7 GHz. The period was determined and tested for significance using the Lomb-Scargle, epoch-folding and Jurkevich methods, and by fitting a simple analytic function. The best estimate for the period of the 6.7 GHz class II methanol maser line associated with G358.460-0.391 is 220.0 $\pm$ 0.2 day.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS. The appendix of 4 pages (with 16 figures) will be published as online versio

How do methanol masers manage to appear in the youngest star vicinities and isolated molecular clumps?

General characteristics of methanol (CH3OH) maser emission are summarized. It is shown that methanol maser sources are concentrated in the spiral arms. Most of the methanol maser sources from the Perseus arm are associated with embedded stellar clusters and a considerable portion is situated close to compact HII regions. Almost 1/3 of the Perseus Arm sources lie at the edges of optically identified HII regions which means that massive star formation in the Perseus Arm is to a great extent triggered by local phenomena. A multiline analysis of the methanol masers allows us to determine the physical parameters in the regions of maser formation. Maser modelling shows that class II methanol masers can be pumped by the radiation of the warm dust as well as by free-free emission of a hypercompact region hcHII with a turnover frequency exceeding 100 GHz. Methanol masers of both classes can reside in the vicinity of hcHIIs. Modelling shows that periodic changes of maser fluxes can be reproduced by variations of the dust temperature by a few percent which may be caused by variations in the brightness of the central young stellar object reflecting the character of the accretion process. Sensitive observations have shown that the masers with low flux densities can still have considerable amplification factors. The analysis of class I maser surveys allows us to identify four distinct regimes that differ by the series of their brightest lines.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, invited presentation at IAU242 "Astrophysical Masers and their environments

On the Identification of High Mass Star Forming Regions using IRAS: Contamination by Low-Mass Protostars

We present the results of a survey of a small sample (14) of low-mass protostars (L_IR < 10^3 Lsun) for 6.7 GHz methanol maser emission performed using the ATNF Parkes radio telescope. No new masers were discovered. We find that the lower luminosity limit for maser emission is near 10^3 Lsun, by comparison of the sources in our sample with previously detected methanol maser sources. We examine the IRAS properties of our sample and compare them with sources previously observed for methanol maser emission, almost all of which satisfy the Wood & Churchwell criterion for selecting candidate UCHII regions. We find that about half of our sample satisfy this criterion, and in addition almost all of this subgroup have integrated fluxes between 25 and 60 microns that are similar to sources with detectable methanol maser emission. By identifying a number of low-mass protostars in this work and from the literature that satisfy the Wood & Churchwell criterion for candidate UCHII regions, we show conclusively for the first time that the fainter flux end of their sample is contaminated by lower-mass non-ionizing sources, confirming the suggestion by van der Walt and Ramesh & Sridharan.Comment: 8 pages with 2 figures. Accepted by Ap

Periodic variability of the mainline hydroxyl masers in G9.62+0.20E

We present the results of a monitoring campaign using the KAT-7 and HartRAO 26m telescopes, of hydroxyl, methanol and water vapour masers associated with the high-mass star forming region G9.62+0.20E. Periodic flaring of the main line hydroxyl masers were found, similar to that seen in the 6.7 and 12.2 GHz methanol masers. The 1667 MHz flares are characterized by a rapid decrease in flux density which is coincident with the start of the 12.2 GHz methanol maser flare. The decrease in the OH maser flux density is followed by a slow increase till a maximum is reached after which the maser decays to its pre-flare level. A possible interpretation of the rapid decrease in the maser flux density is presented. Considering the projected separation between the periodic methanol and OH masers, we conclude that the periodic 12.2 methanol masing region is located about 1600 AU deeper into the molecular envelope compared to the location of the periodic OH masers. A single water maser flare was also detected which seems not to be associated with the same event that gives rise to the periodic methanol and OH maser flares.Comment: 8 pages, 11 figure