The low-lying excited states in 136Cs relevant to the double beta decay of 136Xe were studied via a 138Ba(d, α)136Cs transfer reaction with a high resolution magnetic spectrometer. Preliminary results from the experiment ...

The reaction 11Li(p,t) 9Li(gs) at an incident energy of 4 MeV is treated in terms of a simplistic distorted-wave Born approximation transfer. The halo neutrons involved in the reaction are treated as a di-neutron cluster ...

A Markov process fluctuating away from its typical behavior can be represented in the long-time limit by another Markov process, called the effective or driven process, having the same stationary states as the original ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African ostrich industry is currently being threatened by respiratory disease in feedlot ostriches with dramatic production losses. Three ostrich-specific mycoplasmas, Ms01, Ms02 and Ms03 were ...

Background The Australian redclaw crayfish (Cherax quadricarinatus, von Martens), is native to Australasia, but has been widely translocated around the world due to aquaculture and aquarium trade. Mostly as a result of ...

Knowing how climate change affects the population dynamics of insect pests is critical for the future of integrated pest management. Rising winter temperatures from global warming can drive increases in outbreaks of some ...

Biological invasions are major threats to biodiversity, with impacts that may be compounded by other forms of environmental change. Observations of high density of the invasive springtail (Collembola), Hypogastrura manubrialis ...

Hybridization between domestic and wild animals is a major concern for biodiversity conservation, and as habitats become increasingly fragmented, conserving biodiversity at all levels, including genetic, becomes increasingly ...

Moso bamboos (Phyllostachys edulis) are important forestry plants in southern China, with substantial roles to play in regional economic and ecological systems. Mixing broad-leaved forests and moso bamboos is a common ...

Alien species are a major component of human-induced environmental change. Variation in the numbers of alien species found in different areas is likely to depend on a combination of anthropogenic and environmental factors, ...

We compare the genetic structuring and demographic history of two sympatric caridean shrimp species with distinct life history traits, one amphidromous species Palaemon capensis and one marine/estuarine species Palaemon ...

Since the early 1990s human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) emerged as a global health pandemic, with sub-Saharan Africa the hardest hit. While the successful roll-out of antiretroviral ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT : In this thesis I study the integrability of the geodesic equations of the ZipoyVoorhees metric. The Zipoy-Voorhees spacetime is a one parameter family of Stationary Axisymmetric Vacuum spacetimes (SAV’s) ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Earth is one of the only solid celestial bodies displaying, at present day, an internal activity significant enough to modify its surface. This activity is mostly pictured by plate tectonic motions, ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Araçuaí orogen (AO), located in the southeastern Brazil, and its African counterpart, the West Congo belt, is part of the Pan-African-Brasiliano orogenic system developed between the Congo and São ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Since pollinators are declining in many parts of the world, it is vital to understand the consequences of pollinator loss. How will plant communities be affected? If pollinators are keystone mutualists, ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Plant-pollinator interactions are threatened by habitat fragmentation and little is being done to mitigate its varying impacts. Thus the Iingcungcu study put together three chapters 1) aiming to establish ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, has become increasingly resistant to all commercially available drugs used in the treatment of malaria, and as such, the development of new antimalarial drugs ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The Nobel prize winning discovery of the human glucocorticoid (GC), cortisol, was instrumental in steroidal anti-inflammatory medication development. GCs are employed to combat diseases caused by ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Evaluating potentially invasive plants is an important part of invasive species management. Reports of several naturalized and invasive Melaleuca species in South Africa prompted an investigation into ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The constant flow of goods into and out of cities has resulted in the proliferation of invasive species in urban areas and, because of this, cities are viewed as ‘hotspots’ for invasive species. The rise ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Invasive alien plants (IAPs) are a major threat to biodiversity and ecosystem services in South Africa and are particularly widespread and damaging in the Cape Floristic Region (CFR). Activities such as ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Styrene -N-(N’,N’-dimethyl-3-aminopropyl)maleimide copolymer (SMI-P) was prepared by treating styrene-maleic anhydride copolymer (SMA) with N,N-dimethyl-3-aminopropylamine (DMAPA). The SMI-P copolymer was ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Adrenal C19 steroids are often implicated in numerous androgen dependent disease conditions. Androgen excess is the hallmark of 21-hydroxylase deficiency (21OHD) fuelled by an increase in the production ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The work presented in this study focused on the development of chitosan based sponges for the possible use as wound dressings. The sponges were to be modified to try and overcome some of the flaws associated ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Background: Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are nanoscale (30 to 1000 nm diameter) mediators of intercellular information transfer, shuttling diverse cargos including functional nucleic acids, proteins and ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Sheep husbandry makes a considerable contribution to the economy of South Africa. However, it has been pressure during the last few decades due to the rapidly growing numbers of predators such as the ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Every nuclear reactor will eventually reach the end of its life time. With more than 60 new power reactors currently under construction, the need for understanding the safe decommissioning of a nuclear ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT : Near infrared femtosecond laser pulses were generated in the spectral range 900 - 2400 nm using the idler of a noncollinear optical parametric amplifier (NOPA). The amplitude and phase of four exemplary ...

ENGLISH ABSTRACT : In this study we attempt to solve the problem of text detection in natural images. This requires us to identify regions in a natural image that contain text. Possible applications range from assistive ...