Sour grapes

Employment creation is a national priority, and it is often said that agriculture is a sector in which jobs should be created. This has not happened. A study of employment in the Hex River Valley confirms this. Although the area under cultivation expanded by half, the number of jobs had fallen by 30 percent over a thirty-year period. How, then, are the job statistics reconciled with burgeoning informal settlements? The most plausible explanation seemed to be a growth of indirect employment. The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether there had indeed been a growth of indirect employment, and to what extent this was attributable to the labour law regime, as well as its consequences for that regime. A second aim is to interrogate the argument that labour legislation has introduced “rigidities” in the labour market and trade unions (through collective bargaining) have pushed up minimum wages to unrealistic levels

Waste management and the workplace

The article examines forms of labour and economic opportunity created by local government in relation to waste management (refuse removal and recycling) and the kinds of vulnerabilities these generate. The authors seek to lift the “contractual veil” on outsourced municipal services and describe a typology of labour arranged along a declining gradient of formality and employment protections, with inequality and vulnerability commensurately rising toward the informal pole. The article argues for an enlarged conception of the “workplace” but also poses difficult questions of how employment protections might be extended to those at its most vulnerable and informal pole

Improving nanopore read accuracy with the R2C2 method enables the sequencing of highly multiplexed full-length single-cell cDNA.

High-throughput short-read sequencing has revolutionized how transcriptomes are quantified and annotated. However, while Illumina short-read sequencers can be used to analyze entire transcriptomes down to the level of individual splicing events with great accuracy, they fall short of analyzing how these individual events are combined into complete RNA transcript isoforms. Because of this shortfall, long-distance information is required to complement short-read sequencing to analyze transcriptomes on the level of full-length RNA transcript isoforms. While long-read sequencing technology can provide this long-distance information, there are issues with both Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) and Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) long-read sequencing technologies that prevent their widespread adoption. Briefly, PacBio sequencers produce low numbers of reads with high accuracy, while ONT sequencers produce higher numbers of reads with lower accuracy. Here, we introduce and validate a long-read ONT-based sequencing method. At the same cost, our Rolling Circle Amplification to Concatemeric Consensus (R2C2) method generates more accurate reads of full-length RNA transcript isoforms than any other available long-read sequencing method. These reads can then be used to generate isoform-level transcriptomes for both genome annotation and differential expression analysis in bulk or single-cell samples

A three-way partnership model of tourism graduate employability

Abstract: The aim of this paper presentation is to show the employability of tourism graduates, using a three-way perspective. The concept of employability differs depending on the context, as well as the views of the people making employment decisions and those seeking employment. Graduates are not always employable, because they lack certain knowledge, skills, employability attributes, and practical work experience. Therefore, it has become imperative to ensure an adequate level of preparedness of tourism graduates, including their employability attributes, to enhance their chances of securing and sustaining employment in the tourism industry. The researcher adopted a sequential explanatory mixed method, which entailed combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The researcher conducted a quantitative survey on a purposive sample of 561 managers, supervisors and owners within the tourism industry and tourism graduates working in the tourism industry. The researcher used means, standard deviations, exploratory factor analysis and independent t-test. The qualitative research approach was applied to investigate graduate employability more in-depth. A total of twelve interviews were conducted with three academics within higher education institutions (HEIs) that offer a tourism qualification, three graduates working within the industry and three experts within the tourism industry. The researcher found a significant relationship between the professional skills, personality traits, knowledge skills and operation skill within the tourism industry. The researcher constructed a model to enhance graduate employability through a three-way perspective within the tourism industry. The model links all three partners the tourism graduate, tourism industry and Higher education institutions) that play a key role in the industry regarding the transfer of knowledge, skills and other employability attributes. The originality of this paper is that it constructed a model for the tourism industry to enhance graduate employability that links three partners, and creates further constructive debate

In Search of an Alternative to Fire for Manipulating Bush Encroachment in the Arid Karoo Region of South Africa

Burning of natural rangeland in order to rejuvenate and increase palatability of grazing is a common practice in parts of South Africa. Concern about the long-term effects on biodiversity and the depletion of much-needed soil car-bon led to this investigation

Comparison of the composition and opsonic activities of imported and South African-manufactured intravenous and intramuscular immunoglobulin preparations

We compared the composition and opsonic activities for two common microbial pathogens (Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes) of various imported intravenous (IV) (Sandoglobulin, Octagam and Gammagard) and intramuscular (IM) (Beriglobin and Globuman Berna) immunoglobulin (Ig) preparations with those of the corresponding locally manufactured products, Polygam (IV) and Intragam (IM). When tested at equivalent concentrations (1 g/1 00 ml) the total IgG and IgG subclass concentrations of the various IV and IM preparations were similar. All the test preparations (IV and IM) possessed similar opsonic activity for S. aureus and S. pyogenes. These findings demonstrate that, in respect of IgG content and protective biological activity, Intragam and Polygam, the locally manufactured IM and IV Ig preparations, respectively, compared extremely favourably with the corresponding imported products

The Spirit on All Flesh: Systematic Reflections on a Critical, Trinitarian Anthropology, with Special Reference to Oepke Noordmans and Fyodor Dostoyevski

Beek, A. van de [Promotor

Patterns of Striped order in the Classical Lattice Coulomb Gas

We obtain via Monte Carlo simulations the low temperature charge configurations in the lattice Coulomb gas on square lattices for charge filling ratio $f$ in the range $1/3 < f < 1/2$. We find a simple regularity in the low temperature charge configurations which consist of a suitable periodic combination of a few basic striped patterns characterized by the existence of partially filled diagonal channels. In general there exist two separate transitions where the lower temperature transition ($T_p$) corresponds to the freezing of charges within the partially filled channels. $T_p$ is found to be sensitively dependent on $f$ through the charge number density $\nu = p_{1}/q_{1}$ within the channels.Comment: 4 pages, 8 figure

Suid-Afrika se volhoubaarheid in die lig van wêreldbeelde: Prakties-teologiese perspektiewe

Sustainability in South Africa in the light of worldviews: Practical theological perspectives. According to the index of Fund for Peace (FFP) regarding the sustainability of different countries, the situation in South Africa is unfavourable due to phenomena such as a growing demographic pressure on natural resources and unequal distribution of wealth. This condition can be attributed to a greater or lesser extent to the way in which South Africa is governed by the ruling party. The researchers investigate whether this unsustainable situation could possibly be connected to the worldview(s) of the ruling party. The concept worldview is briefly described and analysed in the context of the composition and development of the ruling political party. After that, some connections between worldview and sustainability are examined. The article concludes by exploring the way in which Christians who want to obey God’s Word in all aspects of their lives, should think about sustainability and about what they could do to improve the situation in South Africa. The central theoretical argument of this article is that a reformational worldview can provide a framework for people to evaluate and change, if necessary, their thinking, decisions and behaviour in order to promote sustainability in South Africa to the benefit of all her citizens