Recognition of neotype specimens for species described from the Arnot Pipe, Banke, Namaqualand, South Africa

Important palynological studies were completed by Scholtz (1985) on material from the Arnot Pipe on the farm Banke in Namaqualand, Northern Cape Province. The results comprised a rare record of early Tertiary vegetation in southern Africa. The body of Scholtz’s research consisted of systematic, descriptive palynology including the description of one new genus and fifteen new species. Ongoing research into South Africa’s Tertiary palynology requires that the type specimens from Arnot be used for comparative purposes. However, the microscope slides on which they were founded were not available for examination. Another set of slides, representing two of the seven samples taken at Arnot, was used to search for neotype specimens to replace the missing holotypes. Specimens representing all fifteen new species were found, but were often badly preserved, obscured by debris or trapped between air bubbles as the condition of the decade-old microscope slides had deteriorated. Only specimens in good condition were selected as neotypes, and comprehensively illustrated. Four of Scholtz’s new species were transferred to alternative, more applicable, genera.The Council's Research Committe, University of the Witwatersrand; National Science Foundatio

Stroke in the young

CITATION: De Villiers, R. V. P., February, E. & De Villiers, M. L. 2003. Stroke in the young. South African Medical Journal, 93(11):836-837.The original publication is available at http://www.samj.org.za[No abstract available]Publisher’s versio

Democracy in schools: are educators ready for teacher leadership?

The aim of this research was to determine educators’ perceptions of and readiness for teacher leadership. A total of 283 educators in the Eden and Central Karoo Education District in the Western Cape participated in the study. The participants included district officials, principals, and members of school management teams, as well as veteran, middle, and novice educators. A series of instruments was used to determine educators’ perspectives, perceptions and readiness for teacher leadership, including the Teacher Leadership Readiness Instrument (TLRI). The results indicated that educators held positive assumptions about teacher leadership. Educators’ preliminary leadership perceptions, assumptions about and readiness for teacher leadership proved that the majority of educators are ready for a more distributed, deep democratic leadership practice in schools. Educators acknowledged the need for continuous professional development in the area of teacher leadership. It was also found that as preliminary leadership perceptions of educators improve or strengthen, readiness for teacher leadership is also likely to improve or strengthen. These findings have significant implications for leadership practices, collaboration, capacity-building and improvement in schools, educators’ self-esteem, motivation and productivity, as well as student outcomes.Keywords: distributed leadership; educators’ assumptions; educators’ perceptions; educators’ readiness; parallel leadership; professional development; teacher leadershi

The palynology of tertiary sediments from a palaeochannel in Namaqualand, South Africa.

Main articleA site in amaqualand, Western Cape Province, has yielded a diverse and well-preserved pa lynoflora. The site consists of a quarry, exposing a palaeochannel containing fluviatile sands, silts and clays with accompanying peat horizons. This paper presents a qualitative account of the pollen and pore assemblages extracted from the peats. Ang iosperms were dominant both in terms of the number of individuals and the recognised types. Identification were made where possible with reference to published illustrations and descriptions. There was a total of 69 palynomorph types, including spores, gymnosperm and angiosperm pollen.Non

First-year Accounting students’ confidence levels during Covid-19: Evidence over a period of two years at a South African university

The Coronavirus Disease (Covid-19) outbreak has caused serious and continuous concerns globally within the higher education sector. One of these is the confidence levels of students to perform specific academic-related tasks. This study explored first-year accounting students’ confidence levels during Covid-19 over a two-year period at a South African university to determine if any associations exist between students’ gender, age, choice of study, language, and method of study funding, compared to confidence level, whilst applying a quantitative research design. Mixed results were obtained. Areas for further research identified include collaboration with other universities, and to expand the scope of the population, to determine the status of students’ confidence levels for different accountancy-related modules during and post-Covid-19. The study will inform and sensitise lecturers, students and academic institutions regarding the confidence levels of students to perform specific academic-related tasks within accounting education and training under Covid-19 conditions

The adjoint mehod for automotive optimisation using a sphericity based morpher

A robust workflow for shape optimisation of internal and external flows with application to automotive design is demonstrated in this paper. A gradient based approach is presented, in which the surface sensitivity with respect to the flow variables is computed with the continuous adjoint method. For aerodynamic shape optimisation cases, mesh displacement algorithms are indispensable in order to avoid re-meshing the updated geometry in each optimisation step. Keeping the same mesh topology at every optimisation cycle secures gradient consistency and the possibility to use the previous solution as initial conditions in order to converge the CFD equations faster. Simple mesh displacement algorithms, such as the spring analogy, run into problems under complex surface deformations. Thus a mesh optimisation approach can be proved to be more robust as it copes better with complex elements optimising also the base mesh. In this paper the mesh displacement algorithm is based on sphericity, which quantifies the mesh quality. Solving an extra optimisation problem for the maximisation of the sphericity value, results in the new internal mesh nodes positions. The methodology is heuristic in nature in that it does not consider known numerical quality metrics explicitly. It has shown however to be exceptionally robust and effective allowing the maintenance of high cell quality even during extreme deformation events. The suggested method is applied to automotive test cases of internal and external aerodynamics. In such cases, the use of a robust morpher which preserves geometry features and delays mesh quality deterioration is found to be crucial

The Socio-Economic Benefit of the Livestock Traceability System on Communal Beef Farmers in Swaziland

In this article, Swaziland is placed in the forefront as a small African country that implemented a livestock traceability system to benefit both communal and commercial farmers. The communal farmers are also able to export beef to European countries, markers that were previously unavailable to them, due to the successful implementation of the Swaziland Livestock Information and Traceability System (SLITS).  Livestock traceability is briefly explained to align it with the importance of safe food production for human consumption and a few aspects are highlighted. The traceability systems is further explained in terms of its benefit to the rural economy, its role in growing the GDP and the realization of its aims as was initially expected by the Swazi Government. The data collection methods used were a document review, a case study and five interviews. It is concluded that livestock traceability systems should be adopted wider by other developing countries as it has a direct effect on the improvement of the socio-economic conditions of the rural poor. Its development and implementation remains very expensive, but Swaziland can be used as an example of a country that is able to reap the rewards from a commodity that is ample in their country, but scarce globally, leading to wider food sustainability