scholarly journals The e-Flora of South Africa – restructuring data to comply with Darwin Core standards for inclusion into the World Flora Online

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fhatani Ranwashe ◽  
Marianne Le Roux
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Data Standards ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Bibliographic Records ◽  
Darwin Core ◽  
The World ◽  
Botanical Research

The e-Flora of South Africa project was initiated in 2013 by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in support of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC, 2011-2020). South Africa's flora consists of ca. 21,000 taxa of which more than half are endemic. South Africa will contribute a national Flora towards Target 1 of the GSPC ("To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020"). South Africa's contribution is ca. 6% of the world’s flora of which ca. 3% are endemic and therefore unique. South Africa’s electronic Flora is comprised of previously published descriptions. South Africa’s e-Flora data forms part of the Botanical Dataset of Southern Africa (BODATSA) that is currently managed through the Botanical Research And Herbarium Management System (BRAHMS). To date, South Africa’s e-Flora data (http://ipt.sanbi.org.za/iptsanbi/resource?r=flora_descriptions) represents 19,539 indigenous taxa, 79,139 descriptions of distribution, morphological, habitat and diagnostic data, and 27,799 bibliographic records. The e-Flora data was recently published online using the Integrated Publishing Toolkit and henceforth harvested by the World Flora Online (WFO) into the portal. A series of challenges were encountered while manipulating descriptive data from BRAHMS to be ingested by the WFO portal; from taxonomic issues to data quality issues not excluding compliance to data standards. To contribute to the WFO portal, the taxa in BODATSA has to match with the taxa in the WFO taxonomic backbone. Once there is a match, a unique WFO taxon identifier is assigned to the taxa in BODATSA. This process presented various challenges because the WFO taxonomic backbone and the taxonomic classification system that is used by South Africa (South African National Plant Checklist) does not fully correlate. The schema used to store taxonomic data also does not agree between BRAHMS and WFO and had to be addressed. To enable consistency for future, a detailed guideline document was created providing all the steps and actions that should be taken when publishing an e-Flora, managed in BRAHMS, to the WFO portal. The presentation will focus on matching taxonomic classifications between BRAHMS and WFO; dealing with character encoding issues and manipulating data to meet Darwin Core standards.

scholarly journals Descriptive Data Challenges for the World Flora Online

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. e26731
Author(s):  
Chuck Miller ◽  
William Ulate
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Threat Status ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
Plant Names ◽  
The World ◽  
Management Project ◽  
Data Elements

The World Flora Online (WFO) is primarily a data management project initiated in 2012 in response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation – "To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020". A WFO Consortium has been formed of now 42 international partners with a governing Council and three Working Groups. The World Flora Online Public Portal (www.worldfloraonline.org) was launched at the International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China in July, 2017. The baseline Public Portal was primarily populated with a taxonomic backbone of information gathered from The Plant List augmented by newer taxonomic sources like Solanaceae Source. To support all known plant names in the WFO. including both vascular and non-vascular plants, new WFO identifiers (WFOIDs) were created, which were also cross-referenced to the International Plant Names Index (IPNI) identifiers for plant names included there. The next phase of the World Flora Online involves additional enhancement of the taxonomic backbone by engagement of new plant Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs) and acceleration of ingestion of descriptive data from digital floras and monographs, and other sources like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) threat assessments and the Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) Global Tree Assessment. Descriptive data can be text descriptions, images, geographic distributions, identification keys, phylogenetic trees, as well as atomized trait data like threat status, lifeform or habitat. Initial digital descriptive datasets have been received by WFO from Flora of Brazil, Flora of South Africa, Flora of China, Flora of North Africa, Solanaceae Source and several others. The hard work is underway to match the names associated with the submitted descriptions to the names and WFOIDs in the World Flora Online taxonomic backbone and then merging the descriptive data elements into the WFO database. Numerous data tools have been adopted and created to accomplish the data cleaning, standardization and transformation required before descriptive data can be integrated. The WFO project has discovered many variations between just the few datasets received so far, which highlights the need for better standardization and controlled vocabularies for flora and monographic descriptive data. This presentation will review some of the issues identified by the project when merging descriptive data and some potential gaps in the TDWG standards specifically for flora descriptive data. Some opportunities for consideration by the TDWG Species Information Interest Group will be presented.

scholarly journals The World Flora Online – Research Infrastructure for Plant Conservation

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chuck Miller
Keyword(s):  
Phylogenetic Trees ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Flora Of Australia ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Threat Status ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
International Botanical Congress ◽  
The World ◽  
Data Elements

The World Flora Online (WFO) project was initiated in 2012 in response to Target 1 of the Congress on Biological Diversity's Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) – "To create an online flora of all known plants by 2020". Target 1 is intended to enable and support the additional 15 targets of the GSPC because plant conservation requires a stable foundation of taxonomic and descriptive information. A WFO Consortium has been formed of 42 international partners and growing. The World Flora Online Public Portal (www.worldfloraonline.org) was launched at the International Botanical Congress in Shenzhen, China in July, 2017. The baseline Public Portal was initially populated with a taxonomic backbone of plant names and taxonomic data gathered from The Plant List, later augmented by newer taxonomic sources like Solanaceae Source. All names in the backbone are assigned globally unique WFOIDs that facilitate ingestion and update of both taxonomic and descriptive data. The next phase of the World Flora Online involves more enhancement of the taxonomic backbone by new plant Taxonomic Expert Networks (TENs) and acceleration of ingestion of descriptive data from digital floras and monographs, as well as threat status data from other sources like International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Descriptive data can include text descriptions, images, geographic distributions, identification keys, phylogenetic trees, as well as atomized trait data like threat status, lifeform or habitat. Initial digital descriptive datasets have been incorporated from Flora of Brazil, Flora of South Africa, Flora of China, Flora of North Africa, Flora of Australia, and many others. Hard work continues to match the names associated with the newly submitted descriptions to the names in the WFO taxonomic backbone and then ingest the descriptive data elements into the WFO database. Numerous data tools have been added to the WFO infrastructure to accomplish the data cleaning, standardization and transformation required before descriptive data can be integrated. This presentation will review the history of WFO, the design of the WFO infrastructure and plans for its use, and future directions.

scholarly journals The sixth World Flora Online Council meeting held in South Africa

Bothalia ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Marianne Le Roux ◽  
Ronell R. Klopper ◽  
Peter S. Wyse Jackson ◽  
Pierre-Andre Loizeau ◽  
Janine E. Victor ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Working Group ◽  
Plant Conservation ◽  
Global Strategy ◽  
Council Meeting ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The South ◽  
International Botanical ◽  
International Botanical Congress

Background: Biannual Council meetings are held with the aim of developing a World Flora Online (WFO) in response to Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (2011–2020).Objectives: To report on the sixth WFO Council meeting held in Pretoria, South Africa, on November 2016.Method: A WFO Council meeting (preceded by Taxonomic and Technical Working Group meetings) was hosted by the South African National Biodiversity Institute in Pretoria.Results: Significant progress with the development of the WFO portal was made.Conclusion: The WFO portal will be launched at the International Botanical Congress in China in 2017.

scholarly journals An Evaluative Study of Criminalistics: A Case of South African Counterfeiting and Knock-Off Menace

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-60
Author(s):  
Godfrey Thenga
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Health Hazard ◽  
Capital Flight ◽  
Tax Revenue ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Counterfeit Goods ◽  
Evaluative Study ◽  
The World

Counterfeit goods are a health hazard to human life, environment and business. More so as the goods destroy the viability of legitimate businesses across the world. Counterfeit goods are characterized as a threat to the financial viability of legitimate businesses and has a dire impact on the tax revenue of countries, necessitating its effective and efficient policing for the financial wellbeing of countries. If not well managed, counterfeit goods could lead to unemployment, disinvestment and capital flight in countries. The available evidence reveals that even though counterfeit goods has dire consequences for the economic wellbeing of countries, its penalties in most African countries are less severe in comparison to penalties for other crimes. The sight of counterfeit goods in many places, such as on busy street corners and transportation terminals in the Southern parts of Africa, attests to its prevalence in the continent. Especially in South Africa as the country has become a transit point for contrabands. Post 1994, South Africa opened its borders to the world of branded and protected goods and this enabled rogue people to trade in counterfeit goods. Effective policing is hindered by the use of sophisticated skills and expertise that leads to counterfeit goods resembling genuine goods. Moreover, in South Africa, the problem persists despite the promulgation of the Counterfeit Goods Act 37 of 1997, thus questioning the effectiveness of the policing strategies in use to quell the problem.

South African Foreign Policy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fritz Nganje ◽  
Odilile Ayodele
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
South African ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
African National Congress ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The World ◽  
Role Conception ◽  
The Government

In its foreign policy posture and ambitions, post-apartheid South Africa is like no other country on the continent, having earned the reputation of punching above its weight. Upon rejoining the international community in the mid-1990s based on a new democratic and African identity, it laid out and invested considerable material and intellectual resources in pursuing a vision of the world that was consistent with the ideals and aspirations of the indigenous anti-apartheid movement. This translated into a commitment to foreground the ideals of human rights, democratic governance, and socioeconomic justice in its foreign relations, which had been reoriented away from their Western focus during the apartheid period, to give expression to post-apartheid South Africa’s new role conception as a champion of the marginalized interests for Africa and rest of the Global South. Since the start of the 21st century, this new foreign policy orientation and its underlying principles have passed through various gradations, reflecting not only the personal idiosyncrasies of successive presidents but also changes in the domestic environment as well as lessons learned by the new crop of leaders in Pretoria, as they sought to navigate a complex and fluid continental and global environment. From a rather naive attempt to domesticate international politics by projecting its constitutional values onto the world stage during the presidency of Nelson Mandela, South Africa would be socialized into, and embrace gradually, the logic of realpolitik, even as it continued to espouse an ethical foreign policy, much to the chagrin of the detractors of the government of the African National Congress within and outside the country. With the fading away of the global liberal democratic consensus into which post-apartheid South Africa was born, coupled with a crumbling of the material and moral base that had at some point inspired a sense of South African exceptionalism, Pretoria’s irreversible march into an unashamedly pragmatic and interest-driven foreign policy posture is near complete.

Strategic Litigation in South Africa and Uganda: Shared Perspectives and Comparative Lessons

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
John C Mubangizi
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Health Care Services ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Advocacy Groups ◽  
Care Services ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
Strategic Litigation

Abstract The South African Constitution, particularly its Bill of Rights, is regarded as one of the most progressive in the world. The Ugandan Constitution, adopted around the same time as its South African counterpart, also has a Bill of Rights. Lawyers and advocacy groups in both countries have taken advantage of their constitutions to challenge the government to enforce several rights ranging from health care services, education, water and sanitation, to housing and social security, albeit at a lower scale and with less impact and significance in Uganda than South Africa. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and determine the constitutional impact of strategic litigation in South Africa and Uganda. The paper begins with a conceptual context of strategic litigation. The specific reasons for the choice of the two countries are highlighted before focusing, in a comparative way, on some relevant organizations and the various court decisions that have emanated from strategic litigation in both countries. The paper identifies similarities and differences between Ugandan and South African approaches to strategic litigation. Conclusions are then made after highlighting the comparative lessons that both countries can learn from each other, but also what other African states can learn from these two countries’ experiences.

scholarly journals ‘The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper’ (WB Yeats): enhancing resilience among deaf young people in South Africa through photography and filmmaking

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 416-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alys Young ◽  
Lorenzo Ferrarini ◽  
Andrew Irving ◽  
Claudine Storbeck ◽  
Robyn Swannack ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Young People ◽  
Sign Language ◽  
South African ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Theoretical Discussion ◽  
Children And Young People ◽  
The World ◽  
Interdisciplinary Research Project

This article concerns deaf children and young people living in South Africa who are South African Sign Language users and who participated in an interdisciplinary research project using the medium of teaching film and photography with the goal of enhancing resilience. Specifically, this paper explores three questions that emerged from the deaf young people’s experience and involvement with the project: (i) What is disclosed about deaf young people’s worldmaking through the filmic and photographic modality? (ii) What specific impacts do deaf young people’s ontologically visual habitations of the world have on the production of their film/photographic works? (iii) How does deaf young people’s visual, embodied praxis through film and photography enable resilience? The presentation of findings and related theoretical discussion is organised around three key themes: (i) ‘writing’ into reality through photographic practice, (ii) filmmaking as embodied emotional praxis and (iii) enhancing resilience through visual methodologies. The discussion is interspersed with examples of the young people’s own work.

A study of the litter loadings in urban drainage systems - methodology and objectives

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 99-108 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Marais ◽  
N. Armitage ◽  
S. Pithey
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Monitoring Programme ◽  
Catchment Management ◽  
Urban Drainage ◽  
Land Uses ◽  
Systems Methodology ◽  
Drainage Systems ◽  
The World ◽  
Urban Drainage Systems

The recently completed report on “The removal of urban litter from stormwater conduits and streams” (by Armitage et al.) notes that little data is available on the nature and quantity of litter that finds its way into the stormwater drainage systems. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) estimated in 1991 that 780 000 tonnes of waste a year was entering the drainage systems of South Africa, representing a potential removal cost in excess of two billion rand. There is thus a considerable need for finding ways to reduce litter loadings through better catchment management. Although suggestions have been made as to how this might be achieved, there is very little scientifically verified data from anywhere in the world to show that any of these proposed methods would be effective in South Africa. Only through an improved knowledge of the litter loadings in South African urban drainage systems can appropriate strategies to reduce litter loadings be arrived at. This improved knowledge is one of the twin objectives of the Water Research Commission Project No. K5/1051 entitled “The reduction of urban litter in drainage systems through integrated catchment management.” Under this project a three-year monitoring programme has been instituted in nine catchments covering a range of different land uses, socio-economic levels and densities in the Cape Metropolitan Area. This paper focuses on the methodology behind the monitoring programme and the objectives it is hoped to achieve.

scholarly journals Testing the inescapable network of mutuality: Albert Luthuli, Martin Luther King Jr and the challenges of post-liberation South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Allan A. Boesak
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The United States ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Faith Commitment ◽  
The World ◽  
Ethical Stance ◽  
Martin Luther King

The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 50 years ago on 04 April 1968, has been recalled in the United States with memorial services, conferences, public discussions and books. In contrast, the commemoration in 2017 of the death of Albert John Mvumbi Luthuli, 50 years ago on December 1967, passed almost unremarked. That is to our detriment. Yet, these two Christian fighters for freedom, in different contexts, did not only have much in common, but they also left remarkably similar and equally inspiring legacies for South Africa, the United States and the world in the ways they lived their lives in complete faith commitment to ideals and ways of struggle that may guide us in the ongoing struggles to make the world a more just, peacable and humane place. For South African reflections on our ethical stance in the fierce, continuing struggles for justice, dignity and the authenticity of our democracy, I propose that these two leaders should be considered in tandem. We should learn from both. This article engages Martin Luther King Jr’s belief in the ‘inescapable network of mutuality’, applies it to the struggle for freedom in South Africa and explores the ways in which South Africans can embrace these ethical ideals in facing the challenges of post-liberation.

Symposium Editor's Introduction

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-262
Author(s):  
Lawrence G. Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Black Workers ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Public Issue ◽  
World Community ◽  
The World ◽  
African Youth

Valparaiso University School of Law and the Christian Legal Society annually present a symposium on a critical public issue which is examined from a variety of perspectives. Between October 28-31, 1987, a major symposium was held entitled: “Perspectives on South African Liberation.” In the light of press and other media restrictions in effect since a state of emergency was declared in South Africa on June 12, 1986, and the banning of all political activity by 17 anti-apartheid organizations on February 24, 1988, it is crucial that the world community have access to current information and analysis concerning developments in that tragic land.The Pretoria regime has renewed the state of emergency for a third year following an unprecedented three-day nationwide protest strike on June 6-8 by more than two million black workers mobilized by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and other anti-apartheid groups to protest the recent bannings, a proposed restrictive labor bill, the continuation of apartheid and the regime's violence. These comments are written on June 16, the 12th anniversary of the Soweto student uprising (now commonly known as South African Youth Day) as several million black workers again defied the regime by staying away from work in honor of the hundred of blacks killed following the 1976 protests against apartheid education.

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