Search results for " Africa"
showing 10 items of 604 documents
Transnational monasteries: The economic performance of cloistered women
2015
Monastery research not only throws light on little-known aspects of Christianity in Africa, but also can make an important contribution to the understanding of the processes of social change and debates on globalization in African societies. The contemplative orders develop alternative economic forms, interact with their local environment, and build transnational networks or integrate into them. They emerge as local and transnational actors, change in the course of these processes, and contribute to the social change in the societies in which they participate. This interaction is the focus of the article, which is based on the analysis of a case study, a Benedictine abbey in Koubri, near t…
Victims at the Central African Republic's Special Criminal Court
2021
The Central African Republic's Special Criminal Court (SCC), the latest hybrid criminal tribunal, may be considered an important legal development concerning victims of mass atrocities in international criminal justice mechanisms due to certain characteristics. Yet there is no academic commentary on victims at the SCC; this piece seeks to fill the gap. First it considers restorative justice as a general framework for victims’ roles and rights in criminal justice in contexts of mass atrocities. Second, victim matters at the SCC are examined: victim protection, victims as civil parties, and reparations. Overall, this paper argues that provisions on victims’ roles and rights contained in SCC i…
Migration Control in the Mediterranean Grenzsaum: Reading Ratzel in the Strait of Sicily
2014
Migration controls are more and more transforming borders. In this regard, this paper is a border case study focusing on the Strait of Sicily. It analyzes the border regime between Italy and its North African neighboring countries Tunisia and Libya from the point of view of the transformations of territorial borders in space and time. It provides an inventory of border control measures and instruments, and analyzes the way they actually work. The evolution of policies and practices of migration controls results in transformations of territorial borders not only in terms of their location (inward and outward flexibilization of the border) but also in terms of their shape (from boundary lines…
The crime of consumption of alcoholic beverages in the Somali Penal Code
2021
Somalia is a Muslim country whose criminal law has been based on the 1930 Italian penal code to which some changes have been made to try to adapt it to the local context. One of these changes has been to introduce the crime of consumption of alcoholic beverages, a crime that anyway could be committed only by local Somali people due to their religious belief. This chapter analyzes this part of the Somali penal code trying to highlight the issues arising from the text of the law. The analysis is compared to the regime existing in the other Muslim African countries to understand similarities and differences with the Somali regulation. A conclusion is then drawn up also in view of a possible fu…
Narratives on access to higher education : educational leadership looking beyond barriers
2017
This research aims to understand the social, economic and political complexities that surround a learner’s access to higher education in South Africa. The objective of the study is therefore to particularly examine the enabling and constraining factors in accessing higher education for the participants in the study. The study looks at the experiences of four young men and women (two men and two women) from South Africa that led to their educational achievements. It weaves their success stories through the complex interwoven social, familial, school and community environments. The narratives have been observed in con-text to existing key educational leadership theories and mainly by evaluati…
“Historical fiction is back”: (Non)Fictional Pasts and Presents in Fred Khumalo’s metahistorical romance, The Longest March
2023
International audience; This article examines the ways Fred Khumalo’s second historical novel, The Longest March, blends different genres – from the use of gothic tropes to the rewriting of historical romances – to reflect on both the fabricated and limited nature of narrative, as well as its necessity in the South African context. The article concludes that The Longest March qualifies as a “metahistorical romance”, as it blurs the boundary between fiction and nonfiction while questioning historical discourse.
Nuovi dati sulla fauna a "grandi branchiopodi" (Branchiopoda: Anostraca, Notostraca, Spinicaudata) delle acque temporanee della Tunisia
2011
Nonostante i primi studi sulla fauna a grandi branchiopodi (Anostraca, Notostraca e Spinicaudata) della Tunisia risalgano alla fine del XIX secolo, ad oggi non esiste un inventario completo ed aggiornato di questi organismi nella regione. Al fine di fornire un quadro organico e quanto più possibile completo, una serie di campagne di campionamento sono state condotte a partire dal 2004. Circa 240 corpi idrici temporanei, distribuiti in tutto il territorio Tunisino e nelle sue isole maggiori (Kerkennah e Djerba), sono stati campionati ripetutamente in inverno e primavera e sono stati raccolti dati sulla morfometria dei bacini e sulle principali caratteristiche fisiche e chimiche delle acque. …
Novel Acylated Triterpene Glycosides from Muraltia heisteria
2002
Four new acylated triterpene glycosides (1-4) have been isolated as two inseparable mixtures of the trans- and cis-3,4,5-trimethoxycinnamoyl derivatives (1,2 and 3,4) from the roots of Muraltia heisteria. The structures of these compounds were elucidated by various 1D and 2D NMR techniques, including (1)H and (13)C, COSY, NOESY, HSQC, TOCSY, and HMBC experiments and FABMS. Compounds 3 and 4 were shown to be cytotoxic in a human colon cancer cell line but did not show any ability to potentiate in vitro cisplatin cytotoxicity.
Cytotoxic bufadienolides from the leaves of a medicinal plant Melianthus comosus collected in South Africa.
2020
Abstract From the leaves of South African medicinal plant Melianthus comosus, four previously undescribed bufadienolides, 16β-formyloxymelianthugenin (1), 2β-acetoxymelianthusigenin (2), 2β-hydroxy-3β,5β-di-O-acetylhellebrigenin (3), and 2β-acetoxy-5β-O-acetylhellebrigenin (4) were isolated together with two known bufadienolides. The structural elucidation of the compounds was based on 1D and 2D NMR spectroscopy, high-resolution mass spectrometry, and other spectroscopic methods. The relative configurations were determined by single-crystal X-ray crystallography analysis and NOESY correlations. The isolated compounds displayed strong cytotoxicity against MCF-7 breast cancer cells, sensitive…
Lattice-particle simulation of stress patterns in a Rwenzori-type rift transfer zone
2011
Abstract A new 3D spring lattice computer model has been developed and used to calculate the stress-field in the vicinity of a rift transfer zone. The numerical setup is based on the Rwenzori block, a transfer zone in the Western Branch of the East African Rift Valley. The study has two closely related, yet independent aims: primarily to gain insight into the pattern and the causes of the stress field in the Rwenzori area. The second aim is the evaluation of the model itself, based on a comparison of the model results with local geological structures. The simulations calculate the stress in the brittle part of the crust, at the topographic surface and at a depth of 10 km. The model does the…