Structural analysis of proteases from South African HIV-1 (subtype C) patients undergoing Lopinavir treatment, using comparative modeling, ligand-docking and molecular dynamics
- Authors: Sheik-Amamuddy, Olivier
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4931 , vital:20744
- Description: HIV is regarded as one of the most devastating infectious diseases of the last few decades, and has a high prevalence in South Africa, subtype C being the most common. Palliative measures used to fight HIV involve the use various types of inhibitors, including the use of HIV protease inhibitors. Representatives from this class of inhibitors are gradually losing their efficacy due to development of resistance mutations from HIV-1. In this study, compounds from the South African Natural Compound Database (SANCDB) were screened against HIV-1 protease models generated from protease protein sequences belonging to 11 South African HIV patients before and after treatment with Lopinavir. The effect of Lopinavir on the alteration of drug-binding affinity before and after treatment is investigated by molecular docking of the protease against other FDA-approved drugs and detection of mutation types using the HIVdb tool. A network representation of hydrogen bonding between docked ligands and their receptor proteases has been developed and a profiling method of visualizing receptor-ligand docking energies at the local level is presented. Four potential HIV-1 protease inhibitors were identified from the list of 599 natural compounds on the basis of receptor conformation and binding free energy. Ligand stabilities were monitored by 20ns molecular dynamics runs using the GROMACS software.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The effect of strategic leadership on competitive advantage & innovation performance : a case of small business in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality
- Authors: Maziti, Lindah
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Small business -- Technological innovations Small business -- Management Competition
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10353/8619 , vital:33200
- Description: Orientation: The manner in which Small, Medium and Micro Enterprises (SMMEs) perform is important for the sustainability of the enterprise. The role of strategic leadership on competitive advantage and innovation performance are investigated within this. Research purpose: To determine whether strategic leadership has an effect on competitive advantage and innovation performance in SMMEs. Secondly, to determine if innovation performance has an effect on competitive advantage. Motivation for the study: Contradictory views still exist on the concept of strategic leadership and its effect on competitive advantage and innovation performance and the effect of innovation performance on competitive advantage in SMMEs. This study contributes to these views within the South African SMME context. Research design, approach and method: A cross-sectional survey design was used and a questionnaire self-administered to a sample of 275 SMMEs in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality drawn through simple random sampling from a population 950 SMMEs available from the Eastern Cape Development Corporation (ECDC) database. Main findings: The result showed that strategic leadership have a positive effect on competitive advantage and innovation performance in SMMEs. Furthermore, the results showed that there is a positive effect of innovation performance on competitive advantage in SMMEs. Practical implications: More is needed to develop strategic leadership. This can be done through leadership training and development, support from government of leaders of SMMEs and finally, a leader can take personal efforts to acquire competencies that allow them to make better decisions in managing the small business. Contribution: The study advances theory on leadership by showing its role on competitive advantage and innovation performance.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Conflicts in the role of business as a social partner in the South African economy : a study of skills development in the Border-Kei region
- Authors: Delport, Kandi Sue
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Social responsibility of business -- South Africa , Industries -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Conflict management -- South Africa , Occupational training -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Human capital -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Economic development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Labor laws and legislation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3364 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011784 , Social responsibility of business -- South Africa , Industries -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Conflict management -- South Africa , Occupational training -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Human capital -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Economic development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Labor laws and legislation -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This thesis analyses conflicts in the role of business as a social partner in the South African economy by studying skills development in the Border-Kei Region. Skills development is a key component of the South African government’s programme of labour market regulation and is founded on a participatory approach. The skills development framework requires the participation and co-operation of multiple social partners but relies heavily on the role of business in the attainment of national and sectoral skills development objectives. Unfortunately, however, there are significant conflicts in the role which business is expected to play which consequently hinder the efficiency of the framework and the likelihood that that these objectives will be realised. One of the most pertinent examples of these conflicts is the voluntary nature of the skills development framework, which incentivises but does not compel organisations to invest in training and development. Other conflicts include dissonances between national and employer led strategies and organisational disincentives to engage in training and development. This qualitative study uses an interpretive approach to study how and to what extent the Skills Development Act is implemented in selected organisations in Buffalo City as well as studying the issues pertaining to the implementation process. By using a purposive sampling approach, this research includes both primary data in the form of semi-structured interviews and secondary data in the form of documentary sources. The data represents the perspectives of business, labour and government and provides significant depth of insight into the discussions and issues surrounding skills development in Buffalo City. This dissertation argues that South Africa’s vocational training system, institutionalised through appropriate legislation, may not be sufficient to mobilise social partners, and of primary concern in this research – business – to invest in skills development. It suggests that extensive reliance on business is an insufficient way in which to upskill the labour market. However, with few alternatives to this approach, it is subsequently essential that business is encouraged to buy into the collective interest of skills development objectives. This primarily entails overcoming the challenges that embody the framework and increasing state emphasis on skills development.
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- Date Issued: 2014
Inhibitors to change: a case study of teacher change in a rural African context
- Authors: Stiles, Kathy Greaves
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Education, Elementary -- Zimbabwe Educational change -- Zimbabwe Environmental education -- Study and teaching (Elementary) -- Zimbabwe Teachers -- Training of -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1578 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003460
- Description: Environmental education is taught as part of the Primary School Environmental and Agricultural Science (EAS) curriculum in Zimbabwe. An attempt to improve the quality of learning in EAS resulted in a research project at the University of Zimbabwe that aimed to transpose innovative constructivist pedagogy from a western context to a rural African one. This writer has used a definition of teacher change as social change and a belief that sustainable pedagogical change involves a transformative process. The research backs up previous findings that failure to recognise and deal with how people actually experience the change process, accounts for much failure of social change. This qualitative research has attempted to provide some understanding of the complex interrelationships of factors that affected expected change in teaching style. By focusing on the process of teacher change within innovation, this researcher was able to identify inhibitors to change that were subsequently critically reflected on by the tea~hers themselves. The disappointing resistance to change first noted within the project has become a source of unexpected but potentially important illuminative understanding of teacher education and development in a non-western environment.
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- Date Issued: 1996
The effect of teaching text organisation on reading in English as a second language
- Authors: Silburn, Gail Deirdre
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MEd
- Identifier: vital:1372 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001438
- Description: This research investigated the effect of teaching text organisation on reading in English second language to schoolgirls. All subjects underwent a training programme of five one-hour sessions on consecutive school days. The experimental group were trained in the use and recognition of top-level organisation as a reading strategy, based on work done by Bartlett (1978) and Carrell (1985). The control group were trained in unrelated grammar exercises. A pre-test was administered to each group before their programme began. Post-test 1 was administered immediately after the training was completed, and Post-test 2, three weeks later. These tests required a written recall of two passages once they had been read, and an answer to a question on their organisation. The null hypotheses stated that the experimental group's training in the use and recognition of top-level organisation as a reading strategy would make no difference in their ability to read and recall information or to recognise and use top-level organisation in their recalls. For the quantity of information recalled, no differences were found in the Pre-test and Post-test 1; a statistically significant difference was found in Post-test 2 in favour of the experimental group. For the quality of information recalled, the control group remembered more top-level idea units in the Pre-test; there was no difference in Post-test 1; the experimental group did better in three out of five levels in Post-test 2. There was no difference in the Pretest in either group's use of the passage's top-level organisation to structure recalls, but the experimental group did better in both post-tests. The control group did better in the Pre-test in recognising the passage's top-level organisation, but the experimental group did better in both post-tests. The null hypotheses were rejected as the experimental training made a difference, although this difference only became apparent three weeks later, and not immediately after the training. The experimental group's nullifying the control group's Pre-test advantage in Post-test 1 and surpassing it in Post-test 2, powerfully supports Bartlett's and Carrell's findings that teaching the strategy did make a difference and that this effect could be maintained over three weeks
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- Date Issued: 1991
The life history of a minnow, Barbus Anoplus, in a man-made lake in South Africa
- Authors: Cambray, James Alfred
- Date: 1982
- Subjects: Minnows -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5346 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006861
- Description: Aspects of the life history strategy of Barbus anoplus Weber were studied in a turbid man-made lake (P.K. Ie Roux impoundment, Orange River system, South Africa). The minnow has successfully colonized the shoreline of the P.K. Ie Roux impoundment, where the preferred habitats of the chubbyhead barb are flooded stream beds, erosion gullies and flooded ruderal communities. B. anoplus reaches sexual maturity in one year, at a length of about 40mm FL. They have a multiple spawning habit, with the first spawn in November or December and the second spawn in February or March. A part of the adult population undertakes a spawning migration up inflowing tributaries, while the other part breeds along the shoreline. The eggs and young develop rapidly and a proportion of the protolarvae float near the water surface, where they are probably dispersed by water currents. Most of the males die off after their second summer, whereas many females live into a third summer. Females also attain a larger maximum size (73mm FL) than males (60mm FL). The importance of increasing the reproductive potential of B. anoplus by multiple spawning is discussed. Feeding studies indicate that B. anoplus are opportunistic predators on invertebrates. The feeding habits of minnows collected from four different habitats varied. Minnows collected in the open water fed mainly on zooplankton, while shoreline populations fed on chironomid larvae and zooplankton. The most varied diet was found in fish living in a well-vegetated tributary of the impoundment which was not subject to inundation. B. anoplus is basically an r-strategist (i.e. it is small in size, shortlived, males have bright colouration, high seasonal reproductive potential). These characteristics enable the species to colonize and successfully inhabit unstable environments and probably accounts for the fact that it is the most widespread species south of the Limpopo River system. It is recommended that B. anoplus be considered as a candidate in southern Africa for further studies on life history strategies.
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- Date Issued: 1982