The relationship between macroeconomic indicators and stock returns: evidence from the JSE sectoral indices

Thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Management in finance and investment 2017This study investigates the causal relationship between selected macroeconomic indicators (inflation, industrial production, South African (SA) short term interest rate, United States (US) short term interest rate) and the Resources, Financials and Industrials sectoral indices of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) using monthly data over the period January 2002 to January 2016. The Granger-causality test is used to determine whether a causal relationship exists between the macroeconomic indicators and the sectoral indices. The results found the following: a uni-directional causal relationship from the Resources index to the US short term interest rate; a uni-directional causal relationship from the Financials index to the SA short term interest rate and the US short term interest rate; and a uni-directional causal relationship between the Industrials index and inflation, Industrials index and US short term interest rate, Industrials index and SA short term interest rate, Industrial production and the Industrials index. Further, the results show that only the SA short term interest rate and gold price jointly impact the Resources index, negatively and positively, respectively. Also, SA short term interest rate and US short term interest rate have a negative and positive joint impact the Financials index. Inflation, industrial production and gold price are restricted in the multiple regression model. These findings have important implications for managing resources and the macroeconomy.MT201

Swazi migrants in Johannesburg: quiet living

A Thesis Submitted for the fulfilment of a Bachelor of Arts Master’s Degree in Social Anthropology 2014 University Of Witwatersrand JohannesburgThis study will explore how Swazi skilled migrants become insiders when they move to Johannesburg. It will focus on the bureaucratic and social mechanisms they employ to facilitate this process. As an under researched group skilled Swazi migrants remain relatively unknown. The study looks at the functions of blending in and distinctiveness; which encompass the social and bureaucratic mechanisms that manage the negative perceptions and attitudes towards foreigners. The study pays some attention to the historical and contemporary factors that Swazi migrants encounter and how they deal with them. There are two main theoretical frameworks that base the study; the documentation of migrants and the ideas of foreignness in South Africa. Documentation is examined from a legal/bureaucratic and symbolic understanding. Foreignness is examined as both advantageous and disadvantageous. This brings forth issues of contradiction and dichotomies in migrancy and how these can be understood. Lastly it considers citizenship and belonging. By examining how Swazi migrants validate their South African citizenship in cases where citizenship has been obtained illegally or without due process

Management of HIV-associated cryptococcal disease in South Africa

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Experimental verification of entanglement generated in a plasmonic system

A core process in many quantum tasks is the generation of entanglement. It is being actively studied in a variety of physical settings - from simple bipartite systems to complex multipartite systems. In this work we experimentally study the generation of bipartite entanglement in a nanophotonic system. Entanglement is generated via the quantum interference of two surface plasmon polaritons in a beamsplitter structure, i.e. utilising the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect, and its presence is verified using quantum state tomography. The amount of entanglement is quantified by the concurrence and we find values of up to 0.77 +/- 0.04. Verifying entanglement in the output state from HOM interference is a nontrivial task and cannot be inferred from the visibility alone. The techniques we use to verify entanglement could be applied to other types of photonic system and therefore may be useful for the characterisation of a range of different nanophotonic quantum devices.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figure

Atypical pneumonia in adults in southern Africa

The true incidence of Legionella pneumophilia, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Coxiella burnetti, the so-called atypical pathogens that cause adult community-acquired pneumonia in southern Africa, is unknown. Although there are a lack of community-based studies, hospital-based studies suggest that the incidence may be as high as 30% in patients admitted to, but not requiring, an intensive care unit. A lack of specific clinical features that differentiate atypical pathogens, plus the lack of reliable, simple diagnostics, compound the uncertainty regarding the contribution of atypical pathogens to the sum total of community-acquired pneumonia in southern Africa. Without reliable diagnostic tests, macrolide or azalide antibiotics are widely used for in-patients with pneumonia, potentially fuelling the rise of antibiotic resistance to macrolides in other bacteria

Why have socio-economic explanations between favoured over cultural ones in explaining the intensive spread of HIV in South Africa?

The HIV prevalence in South Africa’s various racial/ethnic groups differs by more than an order of magnitude. These differences are determined not by the lifetime number of sexual partners, but by how these partnerships are more likely to be arranged concurrently in African communities. The available evidence demonstrates that neither HIV nor concurrency rates are determined by socio-economic factors. Rather, high concurrency rates are maintained by a culturally sanctioned tolerance of concurrency. Why then do socio-economicexplanations trump cultural ones in the South African HIV aetiological literature? In this article, we explore how three factors (a belief in monogamy as a universal norm, HIV’s emergence in a time of the construction of non-racialism, and a simplified understanding of HIV epidemiology) have intersected to produce this bias and therefore continue to hinder the country’s HIV prevention efforts

Higher Order Compact Finite Difference Schemes for Unsteady Boundary Layer Flow Problems

We investigate the applicability of the compact finite difference relaxation method (CFDRM) in solving unsteady boundary layer flow problems modelled by nonlinear partial differential equations. The CFDRM utilizes the Gauss-Seidel approach of decoupling algebraic equations to linearize the governing equations and solve the resulting system of ordinary differential equations using compact finite difference schemes. The CFDRM has only been used to solve ordinary differential equations modelling boundary layer problems. This work extends its applications to nonlinear partial differential equations modelling unsteady boundary layer flows. The CFDRM is validated on two examples and the results are compared to results of the Keller-box method

THE IMPACT OF MACROECONOMIC POLICIES ON AGRICULTURE IN SWAZILAND: AN EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS (1980-2012)

Policymakers in Swaziland view agriculture as an engine to foster economic growth, reduce poverty and eradicate inequality among the populace when the right policies are formulated and implemented within their rightful institutional framework. This study is an empirical investigation of the effect of macroeconomic policies on the agricultural sector in Swaziland using annual time-series data for the period 1980 to 2012. The study used the bound test approach to cointegration to analyse the data. The cointegration results revealed that there was long run relationship amongst the variables of agriculture GDP and export. The results also revealed that real money supply, real exchange rate, real GDP, and real government expenditure had a significant long run impact on agriculture GDP with elasticity coefficients of 0.07, 0.24, 0.88 and -0.3 respectively, while short run coefficients were -0.002,0.23,-0,94 and -0.4 respectively.  In the case of agriculture exports, the results further revealed that real money supply, real government expenditure, discount rate, real exchange rate and real GDP had a significant impact on the sector`s exports with long run elasticity coefficients of 0.13,-0.32,-0.01,0.5 and 2.53 respectively, while short run elasticities were 0.06,0.35,0.01,0.46 and -1.34 respectively.The Central Bank of Swaziland needs to adopt policies aimed at providing affordable credit to agriculture. In terms of the low response of the agricultural sector to macro-policy variables the study recommends that policymakers should intensify the promotion of finished or processed agriculture exports and create a disincentive to imports. Keywords: Agriculture, exports, prices, macroeconomic policy, cointegration, autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL), Swaziland

Shifting from Ideal to Critical Multiculturalism in Canadian Teacher Education Programs: Examining the Challenges

This paper describes a recent initiative designed to provide support for teacher candidates from culturally diverse backgrounds as they traverse a one-year teacher education program in Canada. Results and discussion are based on qualitative data from an information survey, student-professor conversations, a review of seminar documents and processes, and observations and reflections made by professors conducting the seminar. Overall, the Language and Cultural Engagement Seminar was successful in providing a supportive environment in which complicated and politically volatile issues, which would otherwise have remained unacknowledged, were discussed openly. The main concerns expressed by participants were the communication concern (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, accent, etc.), concern for power and authority in the classroom, and the socio-cultural acceptance concern. Power and communication concerns diminished when teacher candidates felt a level of cultural acceptance in the classroom; therefore, we propose that socio-cultural acceptance be investigated in future research into the concern construct. Since differential pronunciation had the effect of positioning teacher candidates on the periphery of classroom discourse, we concluded that acceptance of accent diversity (lack thereof) was one barrier between ideal (policy) and experienced (lived) multi-cultures. Cet article décrit une initiative récente désignée à procurer un soutien aux étudiants-maîtres provenant de divers milieux socio-culturels pendant l\u27année de leur formation au Canada. Les résultats et les discussions sont basés sur les données qualitatives obtenues d\u27une surveillance de renseignements, des conversations entre professeurs et étudiants, une revision des documents et processus obtenus pendant un colloque et des observations et réflexions faites par les professeurs conduisant ce colloque. En général le colloque Language and Cultural Engagement Seminar a réussi à offrir un mileu positif dans lequel des problèmes compliqués ou explosifs, qui auraient pu passer inapperçus, avaient été discutés franchement. Les principales inquiétudes citées par les participants sont: l\u27inquiétude sur la communication (grammaire, vocabulaire, prononciation, accent, etc.), l\u27inquiétude concernant l\u27autorité et le pouvoir en classe. et l\u27inquiétude de n\u27être pas acceptés à cause de leurs antécédents socio-culturels. Mais les inquiétudes sur le pouvoir et la communication sont diminuées quand les étudiants-maîtres sentaient qu\u27ils atteignaient un certain niveau d\u27acceptation culturelle en classe. Nous proposons que l\u27acceptation socio-culturelle deviendra un sujet de recherche plus poussé dans l\u27avenir. Comme la prononciation différentielle avait l\u27effet de placer les instituteurs aux périphéries du discours en classe, nous avions conclu que l\u27acceptation des accents divers (ou le manque de) est une barrière entre l\u27idéal (politique) et l\u27expérience (vécue) d\u27un milieu à cultures multiples