Agriculture and local economic development : a case study of the uMshwathi Local Municipality.

Master of Business Administration. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville 2013.Local economic development (LED) is a process encompassing the mobilisation of resources for competitive advantage by locally-owned or managed courses of action, identified through participation and social dialogue, in a strategically defined territory. Local economic development based on sound economic and business principles can contribute to economic growth, job creation and poverty alleviation. Government policy has accorded prominence to agriculture. LED in South Africa is mandated to local municipalities and a challenge is to identify LED strategies that combine a pro-growth (market-led), with a pro-poor (market-critical) dimension. The present study reviews the literature on local economic development and analyses mainly secondary data in the case study on the Local Municipality of uMshwathi (District Municipality of uMgungundlovu, KwaZulu-Natal). Theories are applied and tested in the case study and the research objectives focus on the development, implementation and growth of all-inclusive job creation LED strategies in uMshwathi, using local resources and skills, able to generate partnerships and respond to changing circumstances. uMshwathi residents suffer from unemployment, poor functional literacy and poverty. The potential role of agriculture in the acceleration of local economic development in uMshwathi is confirmed. A grand strategy and functional strategies are proposed. Agricultural land is of a high potential and smallholder and organic farming are practicable. Findings show the presence of locational development-inducing factors. LED suffers from the Municipality‘s lack of capacity and there is uncertainty between social and economic policy objectives. There is no provincial strategy in place to use the Dube TradePort Corporation as a platform for targeted economic development of the agricultural sector. The Ingonyama Trust and associated land issues need to be urgently addressed. Horizontal and vertical cooperation and coordination between stakeholders is essential. Professional LED practitioners should be employed in all LED Units. The establishment of an Agricultural Forum in uMshwathi, and an LED Agency in the uMgungundlovu District, is recommended. Networks must be established with Agricultural Unions and significant stakeholders. The implementation of a strategy for agriculture development with a focus on exporting through the Dube TradePort Corporation is deemed necessary

The effect of pegylation on the transfection activity of two homologous cationic cholesteryl cytofectins

Polyethylene glycol is being used increasingly to improve circulation times and enhance bioavailability of therapeutic molecules and nano sized macromolecular assemblies. Here, two homologous cationic cholesteryl cytofectins 3β[N-(N’,N’-dimethylaminoethane)-carbamoyl] cholesterol (DC-Chol) and 3β[N- (N’,N’-dimethylaminopropane)-carbamoyl] cholesterol (Chol-T) with 2 and 3 carbon spacer elements, respectively, have been formulated into liposomes with near equimolar amounts of dioleoylphosphatidyl ethanolamine (DOPE) and 2 and 5% polyethylene glycol2000 (PEG2000). Pegylated liposomes (80 - 150 nm diameter) formed electrostatic complexes with plasmid DNA in the 1.5:1 – 2.5:1 range of liposome (positive): DNA (negative) charge ratio, which afforded protection to the DNA cargo against serum nuclease digestion. Plasmid pGL3-containing pegylated lipoplexes were only weakly cytotoxic in the human embryonic kidney cell line HEK 293. Gene transfer experiments in this cell line confirmed that the homologue with the 3 carbon spacer Chol-T, is associated with higher transgene activity, a trend which has been previously observed in unpegylated lipoplexes. Furthermore, only a 15% drop in transfection activity was recorded in increase of pegylation level from 2 to 5 mole percent.Key words: Cationic cytofectin, gene transfer, polyethylene glycol, HEK 293

Estudo da (in) satisfação dos integrantes em relação ao Grupo de Jovens que Brilham Juntos de Treviso

Monografia apresentada à Diretoria de Pós-graduação da Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense- UNESC, para a obtenção do título de especialista em MBA Gestão de Desenvolvimento Humano e Organizacional.Este trabalho de especialização apresenta um estudo de caso sobre (in) satisfação com Linha de Pesquisa em Gestão de Equipes realizado com os integrantes e coordenadores do Grupo de Jovens que Brilham Juntos de Treviso. Para isso a fundamentação teórica abrange assuntos relacionados ao terceiro setor, grupos de jovens, religiosidade, liderança, motivação, comunicação e criatividade. O método utilizado para identificação do problema abordado foi a pesquisa de campo, com abordagem quantitativa e qualitativa, cujos dados foram coletados por meio de questionário. Conforme conclusão da pesquisa, os objetivos específicos propostos e o relacionamento entre integrantes e coordenadores são favoráveis para um diagnóstico positivo de Gestão de Equipes. Mas é importante que o grupo de jovens em estudo pense em seus coordenadores e integrantes como parceiros, proporcionando meios para que todos os envolvidos sintam-se valorizados para que o grupo atinja com êxito, as estratégias definidas

Analogies between SARS-CoV-2 infection dynamics and batch chemical reactor behavior

The pandemic infection of SARS-CoV-2 presents analogies with the behavior of chemical reactors.Susceptible population (A), active infected population (B), recovered cases (C) and deaths (D) can beassumed to be molecules of chemical compounds and their dynamics seem well aligned with those ofcomposition and conversions in chemical syntheses. Thanks to these analogies, it is possible to generatepandemic predictive models based on chemical and physical considerations and regress their kineticparameters, either globally or locally, to predict the peak time, entity and end of the infection with certainreliability. These predictions can strongly support the emergency plans decision making process. Themodel predictions have been validated with data from Chinese provinces that already underwent com-plete infection dynamics. For all the other countries, the evolution is re-regressed and re-predicted everyday, updating a pandemic prediction database on Politecnico di Milano’s webpage based on the real-timeavailable data

Detection of emotions in Parkinson's disease using higher order spectral features from brain's electrical activity

Non-motor symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD) involving cognition and emotion have been progressively receiving more attention in recent times. Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals, being an activity of central nervous system, can reflect the underlying true emotional state of a person. This paper presents a computational framework for classifying PD patients compared to healthy controls (HC) using emotional information from the brain's electrical activity

Inter-hemispheric EEG coherence analysis in Parkinson's disease : Assessing brain activity during emotion processing

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is not only characterized by its prominent motor symptoms but also associated with disturbances in cognitive and emotional functioning. The objective of the present study was to investigate the influence of emotion processing on inter-hemispheric electroencephalography (EEG) coherence in PD. Multimodal emotional stimuli (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise, and disgust) were presented to 20 PD patients and 30 age-, education level-, and gender-matched healthy controls (HC) while EEG was recorded. Inter-hemispheric coherence was computed from seven homologous EEG electrode pairs (AF3–AF4, F7–F8, F3–F4, FC5–FC6, T7–T8, P7–P8, and O1–O2) for delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands. In addition, subjective ratings were obtained for a representative of emotional stimuli. Interhemispherically, PD patients showed significantly lower coherence in theta, alpha, beta, and gamma frequency bands than HC during emotion processing. No significant changes were found in the delta frequency band coherence. We also found that PD patients were more impaired in recognizing negative emotions (sadness, fear, anger, and disgust) than relatively positive emotions (happiness and surprise). Behaviorally, PD patients did not show impairment in emotion recognition as measured by subjective ratings. These findings suggest that PD patients may have an impairment of inter-hemispheric functional connectivity (i.e., a decline in cortical connectivity) during emotion processing. This study may increase the awareness of EEG emotional response studies in clinical practice to uncover potential neurophysiologic abnormalities

Delivery of drugs, proteins and genes into cells using transferrin as a ligand for receptor-mediated endocytosis

Transferrin, an iron-transporting serum glycoprotein, is efficiently taken up into cells by the process of receptor-mediated endocytosis. Transferrin receptors are found on the surface of most proliferating cells, in elevated numbers on erythroblasts and on many kinds of tumors. The efficient cellular mechanism for uptake of transferrin has been subverted for the delivery of low-molecular-weight drugs, protein toxins, and liposomes by linkage of these agents to transferrin or to anti-transferrin receptor antibodies. Linkage may be via chemical conjugation procedures or by the generation of chimeric fusion proteins. Transferrin conjugated to DNA-binding compounds (e.g. polycations or intercalating agents) has been successfully used for the import of DNA molecules into cells. High-level gene expression is obtained only if endosome-disruptive agents such as influenza hemagglutinin peptides or adenovirus particles are included which release the DNA complex from intracellular vesicles into the cytoplasm