The efficacy of the Senior South African Individual Scale Revised in distinguishing between attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, normal and sluggish cognitive tempo children

The primary objective of this study was to determine whether attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) and a non-clinical (NC) group of learners perform differently on the Senior South African Individual Scale Revised (SSAIS-R). The rationale for this study is based on literature that argues for SCT to be considered as a separate and unique disorder to ADHD. The SSAIS-R results of 618 (7–17 years of age) children were analysed for the purposes of this study. The total sample consisted of three groups, that is, ADHD (n = 106), NC (n = 427) and SCT (n = 85). Between-group t-tests were performed to test for significant differences between the three groups with regard to the different SSAIS-R subtests. The results indicated significant differences between NC and ADHD, NC and SCT but not between ADHD and SCT. These results suggest that if SCT is considered to be a separate disorder from ADHD, then this is not evident in terms of the performance on the SSAIS-R. It is recommended that other cognitive and neuropsychological assessments be included in future research to ascertain whether SCT, if it exists, affects performance differently to ADHD.

Examining the Risks of Engaging in Population-based Surveys on Violence: Follow-up Study of the Individual Deprivation Measure in South Africa

In the South African Individual Deprivation Measure, the individual survey, included questions about two potentially highly sensitive topics—individuals' experience of violence and their control over personal decision making. In-depth follow-up interviews were conducted with 105 consenting survey participants to determine whether participating in the survey resulted in negative impacts for individuals, particularly in relation to these two topics. Several participants found that being asked about their experiences resurfaced painful memories, but we did not find any evidence that the approach of surveying every eligible individual in the dwelling resulted in any form of harm for the survey participants.

Does the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of 1998 provide Adequate Family Home Protection to Insolvent Debtors or Is It Still Pie in the Sky? (Part 2)

Although some legal systems provide some protection for a debtor’s homestead or family home when his or her estate is insolvent, such direct protective measures are absent in South African insolvency law. Such protection during insolvency can be provided by means of some level of exemption for the insolvent’s family home or homestead, as in the insolvency laws of the USA, or by providing protection of occupancy to the insolvents and his or her dependants, as is the case in England and Wales.In view of developments concerning the protection of a debtor’s primary residence in South African individual debt collecting and execution procedures (in light of the right to housing provided for in section 26 of the Constitution), the question was posed in Part 1 of this article whether a court hearing an application for compulsory sequestration should apply the same principles, especially if the debtor raises the point that the sequestration order may render him or her homeless. In this respect, no direct authority for this proposition could be found. (Commentators have argued for some time that the position of the homestead of the debtor in insolvency needs the legislature’s attention as well, but there has not been real progress in this regard to date.)However, there are a few judgments in which courts have considered the applicability of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998 (the PIE Act) after sequestration of the insolvent’s estate. Part 2 of the article is therefore devoted to discussing developments in this regard and to considering what problems are encountered in applying the PIE Act during a debtor’s insolvency. Part 2 also considers whether this Act provides sufficient protection to insolvent debtors to prevent them from being evicted from “their” homes when they cannot afford alternative accommodation.Against this background, the two parts of the article deal with different aspects of the issue under discussion. Ultimately, the two parts aim to provide some answers to the pertinent question – that is, whether the PIE Act can provide effective interim and/or adequate protection to an insolvent debtor who may be evicted from his or her (former) homestead, in particular in the absence of direct measures in insolvency law to protect insolvents and their dependants under these circumstances. In raising this question, pertinent issues regarding the application of the PIE Act in insolvency are also considered.

Does the Prevention of Illegal Eviction From and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act of 1998 Provide Adequate Family Home Protection to Insolvent Debtors or Is It Still Pie in the Sky? (Part 1)

Although some legal systems provide some protection of the homestead or family home for the debtor when his or her estate is insolvent, such direct protective measures are absent in South African insolvency law. Such protection during insolvency can be provided by means of some level of exemption of the family home or homestead of the insolvent like in the insolvency laws of the USA, or by providing protection of occupancy to the insolvents and his or her dependants as is the case in England and Wales.In view of the developments in light of the right to housing as provided for in section 26 of the Constitution concerning the protection of the primary residence of a debtor in South African individual debt collecting and execution procedures, the question will be posed in Part 1 of this article if the same principles should apply in the case of a court hearing an application for compulsory sequestration, especially if the debtor raises the point that the sequestration order may render him or her homeless, should also be considered by such court. In this respect, no direct authority for this proposition could be found yet. (Commentators have argued for some time that the position of the homestead of the debtor in insolvency needs attention of the legislature as well but there has not been real progress in this regard to date.)However, there are a few judgments where the applicability of the Prevention of Illegal Eviction from and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act 19 of 1998 (the PIE Act) after sequestration of the insolvent’s estate has been considered. Part 2 of the article will therefore be devoted to discuss developments in this regard and to consider what problems are encountered in applying the PIE Act during insolvency of the debtor and also if this Act provides sufficient protection to insolvent debtors to prevent them from being evicted from “their” homes where they cannot afford alternative accommodation.Against this background, the two parts of the article deal with different aspects of the issue under discussion. Ultimately the two parts are thematic to provide some answers to the pertinent question, namely if the PIE Act can provide effective interim and/or adequate protection to an insolvent debtor who may be evicted from his or her (former) homestead – in particular in the absence of direct measures in insolvency law, which protect insolvents and their dependants under these circumstances. In raising this question pertinent issues regarding the application of the PIE Act in insolvency also will be considered.

Signals interpreted as archaic introgression appear to be driven primarily by faster evolution in Africa

Non-African humans appear to carry a few per cent archaic DNA due to ancient inter-breeding. This modest legacy and its likely recent timing imply that most introgressed fragments will be rare and hence will occur mainly in the heterozygous state. I tested this prediction by calculating D statistics, a measure of legacy size, for pairs of humans where one of the pair was conditioned always to be either homozygous or heterozygous. Using coalescent simulations, I confirmed that conditioning the non-African to be heterozygous increased D, while conditioning the non-African to be homozygous reduced D to zero. Repeating with real data reveals the exact opposite pattern. In African–non-African comparisons, D is near-zero if the African individual is held homozygous. Conditioning one of two Africans to be either homozygous or heterozygous invariably generates large values of D, even when both individuals are drawn from the same population. Invariably, the African with more heterozygous sites (conditioned heterozygous > unconditioned > conditioned homozygous) appears less related to the archaic. By contrast, the same analysis applied to pairs of non-Africans always yields near-zero D, showing that conditioning does not create large D without an underlying signal to expose. Large D values in humans are therefore driven almost entirely by heterozygous sites in Africans acting to increase divergence from related taxa such as Neanderthals. In comparison with heterozygous Africans, individuals that lack African heterozygous sites, whether non-African or conditioned homozygous African, always appear more similar to archaic outgroups, a signal previously interpreted as evidence for introgression. I hope these analyses will encourage others to consider increased divergence as well as increased similarity to archaics as mechanisms capable of driving asymmetrical base-sharing.

Provenance of African-Born Individuals from the Colonial Cemetery of Campeche (Mexico) by Means of Trace Elements Analysis

The present study investigates the issue of foreign provenance of African individuals buried in the early colonial cemetery of Campeche (Mexico) using multiple trace elements analysis from the first permanent molar. It rests on the assumption that, like for Strontium isotopes, the elemental pattern in the first molar reflects the hydro-geological environment the individual grew in. The individuals of African ethnicity were identified from their pattern of dental morphology. Twenty-eight individuals were analyzed in this context, eight of them supposedly Africans, while 15 were infants or early juveniles and five from the prehispanic site of Xcambó in northern Yucatán. The infants and juveniles were likely born in the area, thus serving as term of comparison for the |local” elemental pattern. The elements’ ppm concentrations of the 28 individuals were elaborated using Principal Components Analysis. Results tend to cluster the infants and some of the African individuals together, though the majority of the Africans tend to group. One African individual in particular separates well from all the others. Assuming that dietary components might interfere with the individuals’ distribution, only elements not related to diet were thus used, without different results from the previous analysis. Indeed, the elements correlating high with the first two components are non-dietary. Trace elements patterns indicate that some of the African individuals interred in the early colonial cemetery might have been born in other places, though we cannot infer on their place of origin, while others were probably born in the New World.