African Academy Research Articles

Berhanu Abegaz heads the UNESCO International Basic Sciences Programme (IBSP) scientific board

The African Academy of Sciences’ executive director Berhanu Abegaz has been elected chair of the UNESCO International Basic Sciences Programme (IBSP) scientific board.

African Leaders Endorse a Science Funding Platform for Africa: the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA)

In a key development for scientific and health research in Africa, the African Union (AU) Heads of State and Government Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, endorsed the establishment of the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), a platform created by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and the NEPAD Agency. This pan-African platform offers an opportunity for the long-term development of research leadership, scientific excellence, and innovation that will have an impact on Africa’s developmental challenges. The AESA platform will, among other things, identify challenges that hinder rapid scientific advancement in Africa, run open calls for proposals with transparent review processes, actively manage grants, and evaluate and measure the impact of such investments. AESA will promote the collaborative and coordinated implementation of the African Union’s (AU) Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa (STISA 2024) in the area of health.

South African Remains: E. P. Thompson, Biko, and the Limits of The Making of the English Working Class

E. P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class exercised a substantial influence on the South African academy and acted as a key shaper of a “history from below” movement in the 1980s. While Thompson's influence in South Africa has been celebrated, the limits of his circulation are less frequently explored. This article takes on this task by placing The Making alongside Steve Biko's I Write What I Like. Biko was a major figure in the emergence of the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM). The article compares the interlinked formations of which the two texts formed a part—the BCM displaced white radical intellectuals, who retreated into class analysis as an analytical alternative to race. The article also examines specific copies of the two titles found in South African libraries and uses the different patterns of marginalia as a way of tracing the individual impacts of the two texts.

Tom Kariuki to head the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa

Dr. Thomas Kariuki, a Kenyan biomedical scientist, has been appointed Director of the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), the new pan-African science funding and agenda-setting platform created by the African Academy of Sciences (AAS) and NEPAD Agency. Kariuki, a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences, is an award-winning scientist who worked at the institute of Primate Research/National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi until his appointment at AESA. He has also served as President and Board Member of a number of Africa-wide professional networks, including the Federation of African Immunological Societies, which he is the immediate past President.

Doping in sport: Attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of competitive high school athletes in Gauteng Province

Objective . To determine the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of talented young athletes residing in Gauteng regarding prohibited performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and anti-doping rules and regulations. Methods. This was a survey study using a quantitative research approach. South African TuksSport academy athletes at the High Performance Centre, University of Pretoria, and competitive high-school athletes at four private high schools in Gauteng completed the survey. A selfdetermined, structured questionnaire was used to establish the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of the athletes. Results. A total of 346 (208 males, 138 females) athletes, mean (standard deviation) age 16.9 (1.4) years participated in the survey. According to this survey, 3.9% of the athletes in this survey admitted to using a prohibited PED and more than 14.0% of the athletes said they would consider using a prohibited PED if they knew they would not get caught. Ambition (46.0%) and emotional pressure (22.5%) were the primary reasons why the athletes would consider using prohibited PEDs. Even though coaches appeared to be one of the main sources of information (on PEDs and anti-doping rules), only 42.1% of the athletes felt that they were well informed. Conclusion . Controlling doping by means of testing is important. However, it may be necessary to put more emphasis on changing attitudes towards doping and implementing additional educational programmes.

Doping in sport: Attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of competitive high school athletes in Gauteng Province

Objective. To determine the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of talented young athletes residing in Gauteng regarding prohibited performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and anti-doping rules and regulations.Methods. This was a survey study using a quantitative research approach. South African TuksSport academy athletes at the High Performance Centre, University of Pretoria, and competitive high-school athletes at four private high schools in Gauteng completed the survey. A selfdetermined, structured questionnaire was used to establish the attitudes, beliefs and knowledge of the athletes.Results. A total of 346 (208 males, 138 females) athletes, mean (standard deviation) age 16.9 (1.4) years participated in the survey. According to this survey, 3.9% of the athletes in this survey admitted to using a prohibited PED and more than 14.0% of the athletes said they would consider using a prohibited PED if they knew they would not get caught. Ambition (46.0%) and emotional pressure (22.5%) were the primary reasons why the athletes would consider using prohibited PEDs. Even though coaches appeared to be one of the main sources of information (on PEDs and anti-doping rules), only 42.1% of the athletes felt that they were well informed.Conclusion. Controlling doping by means of testing is important. However, it may be necessary to put more emphasis on changing attitudes towards doping and implementing additional educational programmes.

Developing a billion leaders

Intentionally developing the leadership capacity of all students is a necessary requirement for schools around the world. The Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, N.C., has been at the center of this work and presents three schools as examples: Ravenscroft School in Raleigh, N.C., the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India.

African Science Leaders Focus on Key Challenges and Opportunities

While dozens of African presidents were in Washington, D. C., in early August to meet with U.S. president Barack Obama during the first U.S.‐Africa Leaders Summit, African science ministers and science academy officials held their own gathering at the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) to focus on challenges and opportunities related to environmental protection, climate change, development, health, poverty, technology, and other issues.

English

The paper argues that Baya’s play, Tomorrow’s People, advocates the transformation and localisation of the African theatrical industries as a part of the educational system that aims at liberating the mind and promoting an Afro-centric worldview within a global framework. It explored the dramatisation of the school system and showed that the reclamation of the African academy requires the enactment of an indigenous curriculum that allowed pupils to relate to the wider global world. Through textual analysis of the play, it was noted that the playwright rejected the anti-creative culture of imitating established Eurocentric artistic traditions and championed the training of independent and innovative thinkers who can improvise, theorise, confidently articulate issues from an Afro-centric perspective and contribute to the enrichment of a multicultural global village where Africans participated as peers. The play was rooted within Zimbabwean histories, realities and sensibilities; whilst proffering solutions to real life developmental and existential problems that enabled Africa to participate in shaping global cultural and intellectual discourses. Key words: Glocalization, globalisation, creativity, indigenisation, reclamation, African-centeredness, academy, knowledge, discourse.

Professor Peter Jacobs FRRSAf

Once in a while a country is fortunate enough to be blessed by someone who takes up the challenge to let the spheres of mediocrity be in order to take up the responsibility to lead and to guide a group of people into the future. South Africa, and in particular many South African individuals have been blessed over a number of decades by the self-denying sacrifice of Professor Peter Jacobs, one of South Africa's leading lights in the fields of Haematological Pathology and Clinical Haematology. These were heartfelt words that I wrote as accompaniment to the Centenary Medal awarded to Professor Peter Jacobs in 2009 by the South African Academy for Arts and Sciences. Very appropriately, as a man who dedicated most of his working life to teaching students, the award was presented to him in the student church in Bloemfontein at the University of the Free State.

Comparison of the nine-point Beighton hypermobility score between males and females

This paper was initially delivered at the Annual Congress of the Biological Sciences Division of the South African Academy for Science and Art, ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute, Roodeplaat, Pretoria, South Africa on 01 October 2010.

<i>In vitro</i> effects of a new and novel antimitotic compound in human breast adenocarcinoma metastatic epithelial cells

This paper was initially delivered at the Annual Congress of the Biological Sciences Division of the South African Academy for Science and Art, ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute, Roodeplaat, Pretoria, South Africa on 01 October 2010.

Does sexual selection explain the courtship song of field crickets (<i>Gryllus bimaculatus</i>)?

This paper was initially delivered at the Annual Congress of the Biological Sciences Division of the South African Academy for Science and Art, ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute, Roodeplaat, Pretoria, South Africa on 01 October 2010.

<i>Calvatia Fr.</i> (Fungi, Lycoperdaceae) in southern Africa: 50 Years after Bottomley

This paper was initially delivered at the Annual Congress of the Biological Sciences Division of the South African Academy for Science and Art, ARC-Plant Protection Research Institute, Roodeplaat, Pretoria, South Africa on 01 October 2010.

Mahdi Elmandjra and the Future of the Muslim World

Mahdi Elmandjra, a prominent sociologist and futurist, is one of the Muslim scholars who consistently discuss about the future of the Muslims and the Muslim world. Elmandjra was born in Rabat in 1933. He graduated from Cornell University and obtained his doctorate from the London School of Economics. He was the Director General of the Moroccan Broadcasting Service and Counselor of the Moroccan Mission to the United Nation. Between 1961 to 1981, he occupied various functions in the United Nation System including the Assistant Director General of UNESCO for Social Sciences, Human Sciences and Culture and the Coordinator of the Conference on Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (UNDP) (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm). He was also the President of the World Future Studies Federation and of Futuribles International of Paris as well as the Founding President of the Moroccan Association of Futures Studies and the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights. He has been a Visiting Professor of Tokyo University (1998) and a Visiting Scholar of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) at the Tokyo Keizai University (1999) (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Elmandjra has published over 400 articles in the fields of the human and social sciences. He is a co-author of No Limits to Learning (Report to the Club of Rome 1979) and the author of several books including The United Nations System, Maghreb et Francophonie, Premiere Guerre Civilisationnelle, Retrospective des Futurs, Nord-Sud, Prelude a l'Ere Postcoloniale, Cultural Diversity Key to Survival, Dialogue about Communication, Decolonisation Culturelle: Defimajeur du 21e Siele, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Path of a Mind, Reglobalization of Globalization, and Intifadate, to name a few (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Throughout his intellectual and professional life, he has been designated to various important positions for his outstanding scholarship, such as the President of the World Future Studies Federation (WFSF) (1977-1981), the President of the Futuribles International (1981-1990), and the President of the Club of Rome (resigned in 1988). He was also members of various institutions such as the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco, the World Academy of Art and Science, the World Academy of Social Prospective, the Moroccan Association of Economists, the Moroccan Association of Philosophy, and the Moroccan Association of Historians. He was also the Founding President of the Moroccan Association of Futures Studies, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights and the Founding Member and the Vice President of the Morocco-Japan Association. He was also the Executive Committee of the African Academy of Sciences and the Pugwash Movement and Council for the Society for International Development between 1982 to 1988 and its Executive Committee between 1985 until 1988. With all these significant contributions to the world society, he was chosen by the International Biographical Center as one of the 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 20th Century (http://www.elmandjra.org/summary.htm).Islam and the FutureThe source of Elmandjra's thought derived from the Islamic sources when he refers to the Quranic verses2 and conception of future in claiming the importance of futures thinking. He emphasizes that in Islamic discourse on the future, there are a few concepts that should be understood correctly. Such concepts, as he discusses them briefly, is the concept of 'al-ghayb' (unknown) which he believes within the realm of God and 'mustaqbal' (future) which for him implies the anticipation of developments arising from people's action or inaction. He also asserts the difference between the concept of 'bid'ah' (heresy) and 'ibdaa' (innovation) in which, ...the first is an opinion or attitude which is in violation of the basic tenets of Islam..., whereas ...the second is, on the contrary, an invitation to introduce changes and innovations in order to stimulate the community's development and vitality (Elmandjra 1990: 3). …

Guideline for the management of acute asthma in children: 2013 update

Acute asthma exacerbations remain a common cause of hospitalisation and healthcare utilisation in South African children. To update the South African paediatric acute asthma guidelines according to current evidence, and produce separate recommendations for children above and below 2 years of age. A working group of the South African Childhood Asthma Group was established to review the published literature on acute asthma in children from 2000 to 2012, and to revise the South African guidelines accordingly. Short-acting inhaled bronchodilators remain the first-line treatment of acute asthma. A metered-dose inhaler with spacer is preferable to nebulisation for bronchodilator therapy to treat mild to moderate asthma. Two to four puffs of a short-acting bronchodilator given every 20 - 30 minutes, depending on clinical response, should be given for mild attacks; up to 10 puffs may be needed for more severe asthma. Children with severe asthma or oxygen saturation (SpO2) <92% should receive oxygen and frequent doses of nebulised beta-2-agonists, and be referred to hospital. Nebulised ipratropium bromide (via nebulisation or multidosing via pMDI-spacer combination) should be added if there is a poor response to three doses of β2-agonist or if the symptoms are severe. Early use of corticosteroids reduces the need for hospital admission and prevents relapse; oral therapy is preferable. Assessment of acute asthma in children below the age of 2 years can be difficult, and other causes of wheezing must be excluded. Treatment of acute asthma in this age group is similar to that of older children. Effective therapy for treatment of acute asthma - primarily inhaled short-acting β2-agonists, oral corticosteroids and oxygen with appropriate delivery systems - should be available in all healthcare facilities and rapidly instituted for treatment of acute asthma in children. The guideline document was endorsed by the Allergy Society of South Africa (ALLSA), the South African Thoracic Society (SATS), the National Asthma Education Programme (NAEP), the South African Paediatric Association (SAPA) and the South African Academy of Family Practice.

The Research Output of Female Academics at a South African University: Progress with Gender Equity?

Two pressing demands directed to the South African academy in the post 1994 environment, have been those of gender equity and of increasing research output. The progression of women to the higher academic ranks is a problem, not only in South Africa, but worldwide. In view of the importance attached to research output for purposes of academic promotion, raising the research output of female academics is therefore important beyond the reason of being an end in itself. This paper is a case study at one university of the intersection between these two issues. The aim is to assess the improvement of the research output of female academic members of staff relative to their male counterparts, in the post 1994 period. The data used in the study indicate a steady increase in the research output of female academics relative to their male counterparts. However, a significant gender discrepancy in this regards still remains. In conclusion some suggestions are made with regard to how to an increase in the research output of female academics may be facilitated.

Of Hauntings, Impasses and Lacunae: The South African Debate on Postcolonial Theory

Summary Which modalities of postcolonial theory gained currency within the literary-cultural discourses of the South African academy? In seeking to answer this, I highlight the key concerns in the debate on postcolonial theory in South Africa: the question of the applicability of the term postcolonial or a notion of postcoloniality as an explanatory discourse for the South African case; the question of critical disablement of the investigating intellectual who deploys postcolonial theory informed by deconstruction; the question of the political implications of postcolonial theory as appropriated in the South African academy; and the question of the focus on racial and cultural difference at the expense of an analysis of class. The mode of articulation of postcolonial theory in South Africa submerges a “liberal-humanist” tendency – one that sought to abrogate some of the most radical insights of postcolonial theory. What results from this will to power is a deadlocked institutional politics that does not yet begin to exhaust the potentialities of postcolonial theory – a correlative reductivism of literary criticism (should we posit one) could then perhaps be traced back to this moment of appropriating a theoretical lexicon.

Listening to Africa’s children in the process of practical theological interpretation: A South African application

As part of the theological task of developing a publicly oriented ministry that will do justice to the social plight of children in Africa, this article adopted as its point of departure an appreciation of the new ‘hermeneutics of listening’ that is advanced today by an interdisciplinary movement of scholars from the disciplines of practical theology, theological ethics and religion studies. Emphasising the fact that this new hermeneutics is by and large the result of this scholarly movement’s newly-found engagement with, and exposure to, the social science field of childhood studies, the article moved from a more general appreciation of the new hermeneutical line of thinking to a more pertinent evaluation of the unfolding of this line of thinking in the scholarly context of Africa. In a further development that narrows the African focus to South Africa, the results from a recent empirical investigation amongst members of the South African practical theological academy were discussed in particular to determine the extent of this group’s shift to the new line of thinking. This led the article to make a concluding statement, in the light of its overt practical theological interest, about the way in which the new ‘hermeneutics of listening’ to children could still be seen as an important ongoing challenge, not only for practical theological scholarship in South Africa but also within the larger context of Africa.

Supplying Syntactic Information in a Quadrilingual Explanatory Dictionary of Chemistry (English, Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sepedi): A Preliminary Investigation*

Abstract: In response to a number of recent government publications on the promotion of science and technology training, the Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns (South African Academy for Science and Art) initiated the compilation of a multilingual explanatory dictionary for chemistry. The need for such a dictionary is especially urgent in learning environments where learners receive tuition through a medium other than their mother tongue. This is particularly relevant for learners whose mother tongue is an African language. Taking into account the target user's fragmented knowledge of the subject field and low second language competence, the planners decided that certain syntactic information should be specified for the isiZulu and Sepedi entries; specifically the part of speech to which a lemma belongs. This poses certain problems for the lexicographer, since the issue of word categorisation is, especially in Sepedi, an unresolved one. A second problem that presents itself to the lexicographer is the lexicographic convention which is used to indicate the word class to which a specific lemma belongs. Abbreviations referring to the parts of speech are normally used for this purpose. No standardised abbreviations for the different parts of speech exist in isiZulu or Sepedi. Principles for the formation of abbreviations have also not been formulated for the official orthographies of these languages. The only solution to this problem is to study existing abbreviations in order to abstract the principles of abbreviation formation. Only then can abbreviations indicating the parts of speech be formulated for use in the dictionary. Keywords: SPECIAL FIELD DICTIONARY, CHEMISTRY, ISIZULU, SEPEDI, WORD CATEGORISATION, LEXICOGRAPHICAL CONVENTION, ABBREVIATIONS, MULTILINGUAL DICTIONARY Opsomming: Die insluiting van sintaktiese inligting in 'n viertalige verklarendechemiewoordeboek (Engels, Afrikaans, isiZulu, Sepedi): 'n Voorlopigeondersoek. In reaksie op 'n aantal onlangse regeringspublikasies rakende die bevordering vanwetenskap- en tegnologieopleiding, het die Suid-Afrikaanse Akademie vir Wetenskap en Kuns die inisiatief geneem om 'n viertalige verklarende chemiewoordeboek saam te stel. Die behoefte aan so'n woordeboek is veral dringend in leeromgewings waar leerders onderrig in 'n ander taal as hulmoedertaal ontvang. Dit is veral van toepassing op leerders wat 'n Afrikataal as moedertaal het.Met die teikengebruiker se gefragmenteerde kennis van die studieveld en swak tweedetaalvaardigheidin ag geneem, het die beplanners besluit dat bepaalde sintaktiese inligting ook ten opsigte vandie isiZulu- en Sepedi-inskrywings gespesifiseer moet word; veral die woordklas waartoe 'n lemmabehoort. Dit veroorsaak sekere probleme vir die leksikograaf, aangesien die aangeleentheid vanwoordkategorisering veral in Sepedi, 'n onopgeloste een is. 'n Tweede probleem waarmee die leksikograafgekonfronteer word, is die leksikografiese konvensie wat gebruik word om die woordkategoriewaartoe 'n spesifieke lemma behoort, aan te dui. Afkortings wat na die woordklasse verwys,word normaalweg vir hierdie doel gebruik. In nog isiZulu, nog Sepedi bestaan daar egter gestandaardiseerdeafkortings vir die verskillende woordklasse. Geen beginsels vir die vorming vanafkortings is ook nog in die amptelike ortografiee van hierdie tale geformuleer nie. Die enigsteoplossing vir hierdie probleem is om bestaande afkortings te bestudeer ten einde die beginsels virdie vorming van afkortings daaruit te abstraheer. Slegs dan kan afkortings wat die woordklasseaandui, geformuleer word vir gebruik in die woordeboek. Sleutelwoorde: SPESIALISWOORDEBOEK, CHEMIE, ISIZULU, SEPEDI, WOORDKATEGORISERING,LEKSIKOGRAFIESE KONVENSIE, AFKORTINGS, VEELTALIGE WOORDEBOEK