A Sudanese Merchant's Career Based on His Papers: A Research Project

1990 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 31-40
Author(s):  
Anders Bjørkelo ◽  
Mustafa A. Ali

The number of Arabic documents and manuscripts of historical significance found in the Sudan is constantly growing. The national repository for such material is the National Records Office (NRO) in Khartoum, but a substantial collection of photographed, photocopied, and microfilmed documents has also been built up at the Department of History, University of Bergen, Norway. Most of this material has been brought together as a result of fieldwork in various parts of the Sudan in connection with historical research. However, at the end of the 1970s the NRO launched a campaign to collect private documents in the rural areas, with good results. Another step in the same direction was taken in 1986, when a four years' cooperative project between the Department of History, University of Bergen, Norway, and the NRO in Khartoum, was started. Organized joint field expeditions were planned and carried out from 1987 onwards for the purpose of locating and photographing private documents. This project is financed by the Norwegian Aid Agency (NORAD) and the University of Bergen, and is part of a larger program of cooperation with the University of Khartoum. Bjørkelo is the project leader on the Bergen side and Dr. Ali S. Karrar is the local coordinator in the NRO. The 1987 expedition went to al-Matamma, al-Dāmar, Berber, Ghubush, and Kadabās in the north and photographed 196 documents. The following year various religious centres of the Gezira were visited and another 96 documents were photographed. Research on these acquisitions is planned or in progress.

Author(s):  
Nontsikelelo O. Mapukata ◽  
Ian Couper ◽  
Jocelyn Smith

Introduction: Rural hospitals in South Africa, as elsewhere, face enduring shortages of, and challenges in attracting and retaining, suitably qualified staff. The Wits Initiative for Rural Health Education (WIRHE), based at the University of the Witwatersrand but covering three universities, is a rural scholarship programme established to find local solutions to these challenges in the North West and Mpumalanga provinces. The purpose of this evaluation was to ascertain whether the WIRHE project was achieving its objectives.Methods: This article draws from an evaluation commissioned by the Swiss-South African Cooperative Initiative, a major funder of the programme when WIRHE was launched in 2003. Qualitative interviews were conducted either as face-to-face meetings or telephonically with 21 WIRHE students and graduates. Content analysis was undertaken to identify common themes.Results: There was a consistency in the findings as the students and graduates reported similar experiences. Many of the participants were overwhelmed by their initial challenges of having to adapt to a different language, an institutional culture and resources that they previously did not have access to. The participants acknowledged the role of WIRHE staff in facilitating the transition from home to university and, in particular, the value of the financial and academic support. The geographic distance to Wits presented a challenge for the Pretoria- and Sefako Makgatho-based students. The holiday work affirmed clinical advantages for WIRHE students and heightened students’ interest in becoming healthcare workers.Conclusion: WIRHE’s key success factors are the financial, academic and emotional support offered to students. WIRHE achieved its objectives based on a principled strategic approach and an understanding that students from rural backgrounds are more likely to return to rural areas. The study supports the value of structured support programmes for students of rural origin as they pursue their studies.


Polar Record ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 464-473
Author(s):  
Joshua D. Reuther ◽  
Jason S. Rogers

ABSTRACTIn 1931, the Hudson's Bay Company cargo steamer, SS Baychimo, was trapped in sea ice and abandoned in the Chukchi Sea off the northern coast of Alaska. Large amounts of scientific and navigational instruments and gear and personal items were left aboard, among them an ethnographic collection gathered in 1930 from Inuit groups in the Canadian Arctic by Richard Sterling Finnie. The ship was boarded several times over the next three years with items being salvaged by locals from nearby Wainwright and Barrow. In 1933, crew and passengers from MS Trader, a small trading vessel from Nome, boarded the abandoned ship and recovered several of Finnie's ethnological specimens. In 1934, Peter Palsson, crewmember of Trader, gave several ethnological specimens to members of the United States Department of the Interior-Alaska College Archaeological Expedition. That year, the Baychimo collection was accessioned to the nascent University of Alaska Museum (now, the University of Alaska Museum of the North). For over 80 years, the collection's relationships with Finnie, the Baychimo, and Palsson remained obscure, and its historical significance has just been rediscovered. This paper describes the collection and the path it took from the Baychimo to the University of Alaska Museum.


Author(s):  
Daryl A. Cornish ◽  
George L. Smit

Oreochromis mossambicus is currently receiving much attention as a candidater species for aquaculture programs within Southern Africa. This has stimulated interest in its breeding cycle as well as the morphological characteristics of the gonads. Limited information is available on SEM and TEM observations of the male gonads. It is known that the testis of O. mossambicus is a paired, intra-abdominal structure of the lobular type, although further details of its characteristics are not known. Current investigations have shown that spermatids reach full maturity some two months after the female becomes gravid. Throughout the year, the testes contain spermatids at various stages of development although spermiogenesis appears to be maximal during November when spawning occurs. This paper describes the morphological and ultrastructural characteristics of the testes and spermatids.Specimens of this fish were collected at Syferkuil Dam, 8 km north- west of the University of the North over a twelve month period, sacrificed and the testes excised.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Andrew Jackson

One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused by a greater awareness of superior economic conditions outside the DPRK. Using Jack Goldstone’s theoretical expla-nations for the outbreak of popular rebellion, and comparisons with the 1989 Romanian and 2010–11 Tunisian transitions, this paper argues that marketi-zation has led to a loosening of state ideological control and to an influx of infor-mation about conditions in the outside world. However, unlike the Tunisian transitions—in which a new information context shaped by social media, the Al-Jazeera network and an experience of protest helped create a sense of pan-Arab solidarity amongst Tunisians resisting their government—there has been no similar ideology unifying North Koreans against their regime. There is evidence of discontent in market unrest in the DPRK, although protests between 2011 and the present have mostly been in defense of the right of people to support themselves through private trade. North Koreans believe this right has been guaranteed, or at least tacitly condoned, by the Kim Jong Un government. There has not been any large-scale explosion of popular anger because the state has not attempted to crush market activities outright under Kim Jong Un. There are other reasons why no popular rebellion has occurred in the North. Unlike Tunisia, the DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and unlike Romania, the DPRK authorities have shown some flexibility in their anti-dissent strategies, taking a more tolerant approach to protests against economic issues. Reduced levels of violence during periods of unrest and an effective system of information control may have helped restrict the expansion of unrest beyond rural areas.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (62) ◽  
pp. 66-81
Author(s):  
Adriana M. Moreno Moreno ◽  
Eduar Fernando Aguirre González

Social Responsibility is a concept that has been approached from different perspectives by theoreticians and institutions. Initially, this was limited exclusively to companies, however, the creation of the Social Capital, Ethics and Development Initiative by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) sought to make educational institutions aware that, like any other organization, they are responsible for the externalities they generate in their environment and their stakeholders. This research approaches the concept of University Social Responsibility (USR) from the scheme proposed by the IDB, which proposes four axes of action for Universities’ CR: Responsible Campus, Professional and Citizen Training, Social Management of Knowledge and Social Participation. The Universidad del Valle has a strategic plan entitled “Universidad del Valle’s Strategic Development Plan” and Regionalization attached thereto. It has also developed its action plan and in the five strategic issues raised herein, its socially responsible approach is clearly identifiable. The North Cauca Facility wherein this study is being developed, even though it does not have a University Social Responsibility Management Model, has attempted to align its practices with its strategic affairs that broadly conform to the four axes proposed by the IDB. This research addresses a relevant and current issue inasmuch as it proposes to develop a diagnosis on the relationship between the four axes of Social Responsibility proposed by the IDB and the practice of Social Responsibility applied at the Universidad del Valle, North Cauca Facility, for the period 2014-2015. In order to answer the research problem, a qualitative, exploratory and descriptive type of study is used, given that the work was based on the documentary information available at the University, while the interviews with the directors of the Institution are used as a tool for oral history. The research method used is the case study, which allows to address a unit of analysis in depth, in this case the USR within the Universidad del Valle, North Cauca Facility.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Molloy ◽  
Christopher Tchervenkov ◽  
Thomas Schatzmann ◽  
Beaumont Schoeman ◽  
Beat Hintermann ◽  
...  

To slow down the spread of the Coronavirus, the population has been instructed to stay<br>at home if possible. This measure consequently has a major impact on our daily mobility<br>behaviour. But who is being affected, and how? The MOBIS-COVID-19 research project,<br>an initiative of ETH Zurich and the University of Basel, is a continuation of the original<br>MOBIS study. The aim of the project is to get a picture of how the crisis is affecting<br>mobility and everyday life in Switzerland.


1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (11) ◽  
pp. 87-95
Author(s):  
R. Fenz ◽  
M. Zessner ◽  
N. Kreuzinger ◽  
H. Kroiss

In Austria approximately 70% of the population is connected to sewerage and to biological waste water treatment plants. Whereas the urban areas are already provided with these facilities to a very high extent, effort is still needed in rural areas to meet the requirements of the Austrian legislation. The way, this task should be solved has provoked much controversy. It is mainly the question, whether centralised or decentralised sewage disposal systems are preferable from the ecological and economical point of view, that became a political issue during the last 5 years. The Institute for Water Quality and Waste Management was asked to elaborate a waste water management concept for the Lainsitz River Basin, a mainly rural area in the north of Austria discharging to the Elbe river. Both ecological and economical aspects should be considered. This paper presents the methodology that was applied and the criteria which were decisive for the selection of the final solution.


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