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Sterols and sterolins in Hypoxis hemerocallidea (African potato)

- Nair, V D P, Kanfer, Isadore

Authors: Nair, V D P , Kanfer, Isadore
Date: 2008
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6417 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006535
Description: Commercially available health supplements and herbal remedies containing sterols and sterolins, either from African potato (Hypoxis hemerocallidea) alone, or whether enriched with sterols and sterolins, are claimed to be efficacious in the treatment of a variety of ailments. Sterols and sterolins in African potato are purported to be the relevant constituents that are required for the therapeutic claims of such products. A patent describing the extraction of sterolins from African potato plant material has claimed that approximately 9 mg sterolins can be isolated from 100 g of an enriched aqueous African potato extract. Our analysis of African potato plant material and its sterol and sterolin content, when similarly prepared, shows that the measureable content of sterols and sterolins in African potato is far less than the amounts of these compounds that have been claimed to be necessary for therapeutic benefit. We conclude that therapeutic claims relating to sterol and sterolin content in African potato are unsubstantiated, in view of the extremely low content of such compounds that we have isolated from our plant material, and in products containing African potato, or extracts thereof.
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Date Issued: 2008

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The development of ICT networks for South African schools: Two pilot studies in disadvantaged areas

- Siebörger, Ingrid, Terzoli, Alfredo, Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl

Authors: Siebörger, Ingrid , Terzoli, Alfredo , Hodgkinson-Williams, Cheryl
Date: 2008
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/431018 , vital:72737 , https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-09729-9_25
Description: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are increasingly considered valuable tools in educa-tion, promoting the development of higher cognitive processes and allowing teachers and learners access to a plethora of information. This paper reports on two pilot studies conducted in South Africa in proto-typical previously disadvantaged schools and their surrounding communities. Each pilot study deployed a local loop network within impoverished communi-ties, connecting schools to one another and central services such as email and voice communications. The benefits of these networks were that teachers, learners and the local community had access to in-formation, and communication and collaboration channels, providing potential test beds for investigat-ing the use of computers as mind tools.
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Date Issued: 2008

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Dog Latin, Norman Morrissey : book review

- Beard, Margot

Authors: Beard, Margot
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6115 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003828
Description: I have only seen one earlier collection of Morrissey's - his slim volume Seasons (1999). Therein he revealed his enjoyment and interest in haiku. Even the two longer poems in that volume were haiku-like, being brief self-contained stanzas grouped under a single title. His new volume, Dog Latin, consists of sixty short poems primarily concerned with man and nature. A number of these are haiku-like in their brevity ("Edgar on Inclusive Fitness," "Setting Ratbane," "Adam Again"), although they too often do not amount to more than post-it like notes. ("This habit / of holding habits to the wind / -me" is the sum total of the poem "Adam Again.") The epigraph to the whole collection is the final stanza of Robert Frost's "The Need of Being Versed in Country Things," which suggests both Morrissey's interest in the apparently unconsidered minutiae of natural objects and beings, and, it would seem, an admiration of Frost's deceptively plain, unmannered style.
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Date Issued: 2007

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Editorial, 2007

- Lotz-Sisitka, Heila, O’Donoghue, Rob B, Robottom, Ian

Authors: Lotz-Sisitka, Heila , O’Donoghue, Rob B , Robottom, Ian
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67345 , vital:29078 , https://www.ajol.info/index.php/sajee/article/view/122733
Description: publisher version , The year 2007 is a significant year for environmental education. It marks 30 years since the first internationally agreed principles of environmental education were developed at Tbilisi, commonly known as the Tbilisi Principles. It is also the year in which human beings apparently are finally ‘waking up’ to the fact that human-induced environmental change is causing impacts which are infinitely complex and difficult to resolve. This year, through various highly publicised and politicised events, people have begun to recognise that it is getting hot on planet Earth, and that the associated social, economic and environmental costs are profoundly disturbing. The Stern Review and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change both firmly indicated that human-induced environmental change will threaten human economies and security in ways that are unprecedented in human history.
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Date Issued: 2007

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Isolation of microsatellite markers for the endangered Knysna seahorse Hippocampus capensis and their use in the detection of a genetic bottleneck

- Galbusera, Peter H A, Gillemot, Sarah, Jouk, Phillippe, Teske, Peter R, Hellemans, Bart, Volckaert, Filip A M J

Authors: Galbusera, Peter H A , Gillemot, Sarah , Jouk, Phillippe , Teske, Peter R , Hellemans, Bart , Volckaert, Filip A M J
Date: 2007
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/445678 , vital:74413 , https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-8286.2007.01688.x
Description: We report the isolation and characterization of 15 (12 di‐, 1 tri‐ and 2 tetranucleotide) microsatellite markers from Hippocampus capensis, the Knysna seahorse. This marker set allows the detection of a genetic bottleneck as shown in a captive population. Furthermore, we test their genotyping potential in eight other seahorse taxa.
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Date Issued: 2007

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JM Coetzee and the ethics of reading:

- Marais, Mike

Authors: Marais, Mike
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/144253 , vital:38325 , https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/26286886.pdf
Description: One of Derek Attridge's principal concerns in J. M. Coetzee and the Ethics of Reading is the relationship that is established with alterity in the writing and reading of literary works. As is evident from the fact that some of the chapters in the book date back more than a decade, this is an abiding concern. Indeed, The Singularity of Literature, which also appeared in 2004, theorizes this relationship at great length. In it, Attridge describes the literary text as the emanation of an act of creation, that is, that mysterious experience in which the writer, who is located in culture's familiar modes of understanding, encounters something strange (in that it does not yet exist within the horizon that culture provides for thinking and feeling) and is required to resist the mind's tendency to reduce novelty by understanding it in terms of the familiar.
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Date Issued: 2007

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Light on a hill: building the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Bronwyn Law-Viljoen (Ed.): book review

- Simbao, Ruth K

Authors: Simbao, Ruth K
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147324 , vital:38626 , https://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC31011
Description: Light on a hill : Building the Constitutional Court of South Africa is a visually elegant book that claims to 'reflect the spirit of the Court and be a beautiful object in its own right' (p. 8). Certainly this book is striking, with its rich photographs by Angela Buckland, its fresh, breathable design by Adele Prins, and its broad format with lavish centerfolds. Reading the text is in many ways an enlightening process of understanding the conceptual underpinnings of the buildings that make up the Constitutional Court complex, but this process of reading takes a few twists and turns along the way.
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Date Issued: 2007

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Physical and biological processes at the Subtropical Convergence in the South-west Indian Ocean

- Froneman, P William, Ansorge, Isabelle J, Richoux, Nicole B, Blake, Justin, Daly, Ryan, Sterley, Jessica A, Mostert, Bruce P, Heyns, Elodie R, Sheppard, Jill N, Kuyper, B, Hart, N, George, C, Howard, J, Mustafa, E, Pey, F, Lutjeharms, Johan R E

Authors: Froneman, P William , Ansorge, Isabelle J , Richoux, Nicole B , Blake, Justin , Daly, Ryan , Sterley, Jessica A , Mostert, Bruce P , Heyns, Elodie R , Sheppard, Jill N , Kuyper, B , Hart, N , George, C , Howard, J , Mustafa, E , Pey, F , Lutjeharms, Johan R E
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: Article
Identifier: vital:6966 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012030
Description: A detailed hydrographic and biological survey was conducted in the region of the Subtropical Convergence in the Indian sector of the Southern Ocean in April 2007. Hydrographic data revealed that the subsurface expression of the Subtropical Convergence (at 200 m), marked by the 10°C isotherm, appeared to meander considerably between 41°S and 42°15’S. Total surface chlorophyll- a concentration was low and ranged from 0.03 to 0.42 µg l–1 and was always dominated by the pico- (<2 µm) and nano- (2–120 µm) size classes, which contributed between 81% and 93% of the total pigment. The total chlorophyll-a integrated over the top 150m of the water column showed no distinct spatial trends, and ranged from 12.8 to 40.1mg chl-a m–2. There were no significant correlations between the total integrated chlorophyll- a concentration and temperature and salinity (P > 0.05). The zooplankton community was dominated, numerically and by biomass, by mesozooplankton comprising mainly copepods of the genera, Oithona,Paraeuchaeta, Pleuromamma, Calanus and Clausocalanus. An exception was recorded at those stations in the region of the front where the tunicate, Salpa thompsoni, dominated the total zooplankton biomass.
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Date Issued: 2007

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Recovery of the critically endangered river pipefish, Syngnathus watermeyeri, in the Kariega Estuary, Eastern Cape province

- Vorwerk, Paul D, Froneman, P William, Paterson, Angus W

Authors: Vorwerk, Paul D , Froneman, P William , Paterson, Angus W
Date: 2007
Language: English
Type: text , Article
Identifier: vital:6965 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1012028
Description: An intensive ichthyofaunal survey in the permanently open Kariega Estuary along the Eastern Cape coast has identified a breeding population of the critically endangered river pipefish, Syngnathus watermeyeri, within the middle and upper reaches of the system. This is the first recorded capture of this species in the estuary for over four decades. We suggest that the presence of S. watermeyeri is the result of the heavy rainfall within the region, which contributed to the establishment of optimum habitat requirements (mesohaline conditions and increased food availability) of the pipefish.
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Date Issued: 2007

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The relationship between female pupal mass and fecundity of Gratiana spadicea (Klug, 1829)(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

- Czypionka, K, Hill, Martin P

Authors: Czypionka, K , Hill, Martin P
Date: 2007
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/451568 , vital:75060 , https://hdl.handle.net/10520/EJC32729
Description: In the early 1900s Solanum sisymbriifolium Lamarck (Solanaceae), commonly known as dense thorned bitter apple and previously referred to as wild tomato, was introduced into southern Africa and has since become an invasive weed (Hill and Hulley 1995, 1996). In 1994 a chrysomelid beetle, Gratiana spadicea (Klug, 1829) (Coleoptera : Chrysomelidae), was introduced as a biological control agent against the weed (Hill and Hulley 1995). Prior to its release, various specificity tests were conducted to identify the potential host range of this agent. These included larval survival and adult choice and no-choice tests on several native and commercial Solanum species. These specificity tests generally identify the potential host range of an agent accurately, but fail to predict the magnitude of non-target risks in the field (Wan and Harris 1997; Louda et al. 2003).
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Date Issued: 2007

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Zebra fingerprints: towards a computer-aided identification system for individual zebra

- Foster, Gregory G, Krijer, Hans, Bangay, Shaun D

Authors: Foster, Gregory G , Krijer, Hans , Bangay, Shaun D
Date: 2007
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433482 , vital:72973 , https://doi.org/10.1145/1108590.1108616
Description: The article presents a study which investigates the development of a computer-aided system for individual zebra identification based on the lateral side stripe pattern. The model proposed for individual animal identification is based on a combination of image processing and fingerprint identification technology. About 20 minutes of zebra footage was filmed at the Amakhala Game Reserve in South Africa. The study indicates that there is sufficient variation in lateral stripe patterns to differentiate individual animals.
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Date Issued: 2007

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DRAPA-a flexible framework for evaluating the quality of VoIP components

- Clayton, Bradley, Terzoli, Alfredo, Irwin, Barry V W

Authors: Clayton, Bradley , Terzoli, Alfredo , Irwin, Barry V W
Date: 2006
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/428213 , vital:72494 , https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/3456214/No_268_-_Clayton-libre.pdf?1390832682=andresponse-content-disposi-tion=inline%3B+filename%3DDRAPA_a_flexible_framework_for_evaluatin.pdfandExpires=1714742712andSignature=FTQ3UMH7w9KMXeuld-NbnboBP9kqza7jDnVI2AJMFrhV6fkW56bPgPZKVAY-bKJFqJP-jq4h4JwRhWVuCA-oIIA4ckbhKHA4OoL4X5DYtlujkhkombcp-B5fVR02AioXBazDtfnTGvZLE21wluH0BnkBL9OAQSen7YJDzDsYtNH2pFIn06Nmg9-kDaJoRmW9KWlQs8BwyaXml4-pG~FrpiGCRclANXBSpmsxYSdJyZAnHq2ZZNqx9pEHigaYHUUgllDq64dp8C8R84xAbbbRcvt-XNhuQ~fU2AkJILms4FUkJSjGI0E-TOKhh7vQiVIh5KzZX8MOiS~rEuBH6ekx8g__andKey-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA
Description: When adding to or altering a VoIP system, the overall performance and quality of the system is at risk. For example, adding confidentiality, in-tegrity and authentication (CIA) would incur an overhead for each addi-tional security method. A method of measuring the performance of a VoIP system after a change or addition is needed. This paper describes a framework and testbed (DRAPA) which provides a flexible base from which VoIP performance analysis systems can be built. DRAPA gener-ates and collects data from any part of a VoIP system within a real do-main. This paper also discusses the flexibility of DRAPA. While security is our primary focus, DRAPA allows the user to configure the testbed and change the type and nature of data to be collected.
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Date Issued: 2006

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First record of predation by the alien invasive freshwater fish Micropterus salmoides L.(Centrarchidae) on migrating estuarine fishes in South Africa

- Weyl, Olaf L F, Lewis, Hylton

Authors: Weyl, Olaf L F , Lewis, Hylton
Date: 2006
Subjects: To be catalogued
Language: English
Type: text , article
Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/446852 , vital:74565 , https://doi.org/10.1080/15627020.2006.11407365
Description: This study presents results from stomach content analysis of 123 largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides, sampled at the mouth of the fishway leading into a 3 m high weir at the tidal limit of the Kowie River, Eastern Cape Province (33°32‘39“S, 26°46‘ 52.3“E). Stomach contents from small (120–240 mm fork length, FL) and large (250–440mm FL) fish were analysed separately. Fish were the dominant prey item in small bass, followed by terrestrial insects and Potamonautes sp. In large bass, Potamonautes sp. dominated the stomach contents, while fish were less dominant and other prey items were considered incidental. Estuarine fish species, Monodactylus falciformis, and two species of the family Mugilidae, Mugil cephalus and Myxus capensis, were the most common fish prey in both size classes of M. salmoides. These results are the first evidence of the alien M. salmoides preying on these three indigenous estuarine species during their migration into fresh water.
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Date Issued: 2006

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