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Despite its high mortality rate of approximately 90 % , the Ebola virus disease (EVD) has not received enough attention in terms of in-depth research. This illness has been responsible for over 40 years of epidemics throughout Central Africa. However, during 2014–2015, the Ebola-driven epidemic in West Africa became, and remains, the deadliest to date. Thus, Ebola has been declared one of the major public health issues. This paper aims at exploring the effects of external fluctuations on the prevalence of the Ebola virus. We begin by proposing a sophisticated biological system that takes into account vaccination and quarantine strategies as well as the effect of time lags. Due to some external perturbations, we extend our model to the probabilistic formulation with white noises. The perturbed model takes the form of a system of stochastic differential equations. Based on some non-standard analytical techniques, we demonstrate two main approach properties: intensity and elimination of Ebola virus. To better understand the impact of applied strategies, we deal with the stochastic control optimization approach by using some advanced theories. All of this theoretical arsenal has been numerically confirmed by employing some real statistical data of Ebola virus. Finally, we mention that this work could be a rich basis for further investigations aimed at understanding the complexity of Ebola virus propagation at pathophysiological and mathematics levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The caudate lobe is a relatively unknown part of the liver due to its location and many variations. The caudate lobe is a separate entity that is located behind the trunk of the portal vein. It constitutes the hepatic dorsal area that comprises of only segment I. Thus, this lobe can be vascularized by caudate veins (CV) born either from the right branch of the portal vein (PV), from the left branch or from both. Therefore, the work allows us to study the morphometry of caudate veins. Based on the exploitation of vascular mussels of the inferior vena cava and the portal vein after injection-corrosion of the liver, the study conducted from April 2018 to March 2019 involved 41 livers of which 30 were exploited for caudate veins. These were from fresh adult subjects, both sexes free of any hepatobilio-pancreatic pathology or trauma. The injection-corrosion parts of his vascular mussels included the hepatobasement junction and the hepatic pedicle. The PV and its right and left branches provided accessory caudate branches for the caudate lobe at the level of the hepatic hilum. Thus, for all livers, we found 102 branches cauded by accessories. The accessory caudate veins were born either from the left branch of the PV in 28 livers out of 30 (93.37%), by 1 to 4 vessels with an average distance between its branches and the portal bifurcation being 17 mm with extremes ranging from 7 to 39 mm; either from the right branch of the PV in 23 livers out of 30(76.6%), by 1 to 3 vessels with an average distance of 12.9 mm between its branches and the portal bifurcation, with extremes ranging from 9 to 18 mm. The stem of the portal vein gave branches to the caudate lobe in 11 livers on 30(36.6%), by 1 to 2 vessels whose diameter varied from 1 mm to 3 mm. We studied on 30 liver samples the anatomical variations related to CV. This is a contribution to the fundamental foundations of liver removal surgery because too little work (and often radiological) exists in Africa on the subject. However, this lack of comparative anthropometric data confirms the diversity of anatomical variations in caudate veins. On the therapeutic level these anatomical data contribute to the perioperative safety of liver surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned with a stochastic different equation which describes the evolution of a species in the presence of Allee effects. By utilizing the Feller boundary classification criteria, it is testified that the model has a unique dynamical bifurcation point Δ with the following properties: if Δ < 0 , then the zero solution of the equation is stable; if Δ > 0 , then the equation possesses a unique invariant measure with an explicit density form. Some previous studies are improved and extended. This article also utilizes the theoretical findings to probe the living situation of Painted Hunting Dogs in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we applied the principle of a competitive predator-prey system to propose a prey-predator-like model of xenophobia in Africa. The boundedness of the solution, the existence and stability of equilibrium states of the xenophobic model are discussed accordingly. As a special case, the coexistence state was found to be locally and globally stable based on the parametric conditions of effective group defense and anti-xenophobic policy implementation. The system was further analyzed by Sotomayor's theory to show that each equilibrium point bifurcates transcritically. However, numerical proof showed period-doubling bifurcation, which makes the xenophobic situation more chaotic in Africa. Further numerical simulations support the analytical results with the view that tolerance, group defense and antixenophobic policies are critical parameters for the coexistence of foreigners and xenophobes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although inherent in capitalism as such, it assumes I a different and distinctive guise in every historically specific form of capitalist society i - in the liberal, competitive capitalism of the 19th century; in the state-managed capitalism of the postwar era; and in the financialized neoliberal capitalism of our time. Labour segregation was both a political (racial/ethnic) and economic (accumulation) problem that the authorities, through the legislative arm of the state available to them and through the co-optation of moderate natives into the indirect structures of customary authority, could check native resistance from below. Not only in relation to the bifurcation of the colonial state, but also with regard to the I structural dynamics which facilitated the stabilization of the bifurcated domains of rule. i The stabilization of the tribalized domains of native authority was highly articulated to the productive and reproductive roles to which laboring women in the colonies were confined as the migrant cash crop economy expanded. The contemporary period of a raging global pandemic has reasserted the significance of land and landed resources as the basis for social reproduction in agrarian societies. [Extracted from the article]

This study examines the relationship between premarital childbearing and the timing of women's entry into their first marriage in sub‐Saharan Africa. The study shows that African women who have a premarital birth generally experience later transitions to marriage than do their childless peers. Although the birth of a child precipitates a quicker transition to marriage initially, unmarried mothers, on average, marry at older ages than their childless peers and remain single for between 2 and 14 years. Evidence from a subsample of countries confirms that the time between having a child and first marriage has lengthened slightly in some countries; however, this reflects mainly the overall trend toward later marriage, rather than a further bifurcation of the marital trajectories of mothers versus childless women. The study raises policy concerns about the welfare of Africa's single mothers and their children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The common explanation of terrorism in literature is that it is a political phenomenon. But this paper argues that terrorism is place bound and location specific. It explores how geography connects to the understanding of terrorism as a territorialized phenomenon, stressing the importance of lagging regions which often serve as excuses for terrorism and safe havens for terrorist groups. The argument presented is premised on textual data, expert sources of information on terrorism, and examples largely drawn from Africa to illustrate the bifurcation of terrorism into territorial and non-territorial terrorist groups. A component of an effective counter-terrorism strategy, the paper concludes, must include revamping the depressed regions in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

With the emergence of the Black bourgeoisie in Africa and the diaspora, there is a need to conceptualise the urban Black person, who, in pursuit of a better life, had to redefine, adopt, and formulate an identity acceptable within the middle and upper social classes. Inclusivity and diversity are key terms in these classes because there is a need to design urban spaces accommodative and cognisant of the history informing the diverse groups inhabiting it. This should contemplate the effects of colonialism on the urban space and how colonialism influences the formulation of the different Black identities in urban spaces. This research contends that the inequalities of the urban space have created two groups of Black people: The Ghetto-Rural Black and the Blacksurbian especially in South African and American (for African Americans) urban space. This has created a hierarchy amongst Black people which has not been mitigated because of popular culture and how it influences the consciousness of Black people on race matters. This research uses D. A. Masolo's arguments to conceptualise these concepts. Additionally, it proposes new ideas of Blackness to demonstrate dislocation and how the Blacksurbian influences exclusion from the urban space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecosystems can undergo abrupt transitions between alternative stable states when the driver crosses a critical threshold. Dynamical systems theory shows that when ecosystems approach the point of loss of stability associated with these transitions, they take a long time to recover from perturbations, a phenomenon known as critical slowing down. This generic feature of dynamical systems can offer early warning signals of abrupt transitions. However, these signals are qualitative and cannot quantify the thresholds of drivers at which transition may occur. Here, we propose a method to estimate critical thresholds from spatial data. We show that two spatial metrics, spatial variance and autocorrelation of ecosystem state variable, computed along driver gradients can be used to estimate critical thresholds. First, we investigate cellular‐automaton models of ecosystem dynamics that show a transition from a high‐density state to a bare state. Our models show that critical thresholds can be estimated as the ecosystem state and the driver values at which spatial variance and spatial autocorrelation of the ecosystem state are maximum. Next, to demonstrate the application of the method, we choose remotely sensed vegetation data (Enhanced Vegetation Index, EVI) from regions in central Africa and northeast Australia that exhibit alternative states in woody cover. We draw transects (8 × 90 km) that span alternative stable states along rainfall gradients. Our analyses of spatial variance and autocorrelation of EVI along transects yield estimates of critical thresholds. These estimates match reasonably well with those obtained by an independent method that uses large‐scale (250 × 200 km) spatial data sets. Given the generality of the principles that underlie our method, our method can be applied to a variety of ecosystems that exhibit alternative stable states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasmodium vivax is one of the most geographically widespread malaria parasites in the world, primarily found across South-East Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa. One of the significant characteristics of the P. vivax parasite is its ability to remain dormant in the human liver as hypnozoites and subsequently reactivate after the initial infection (i.e. relapse infections). Mathematical modelling approaches have been widely applied to understand P. vivax dynamics and predict the impact of intervention outcomes. Models that capture P. vivax dynamics differ from those that capture P. falciparum dynamics, as they must account for relapses caused by the activation of hypnozoites. In this article, we provide a scoping review of mathematical models that capture P. vivax transmission dynamics published between January 1988 and May 2023. The primary objective of this work is to provide a comprehensive summary of the mathematical models and techniques used to model P. vivax dynamics. In doing so, we aim to assist researchers working on mathematical epidemiology, disease transmission, and other aspects of P. vivax malaria by highlighting best practices in currently published models and highlighting where further model development is required. We categorise P. vivax models according to whether a deterministic or agent-based approach was used. We provide an overview of the different strategies used to incorporate the parasite's biology, use of multiple scales (within-host and population-level), superinfection, immunity, and treatment interventions. In most of the published literature, the rationale for different modelling approaches was driven by the research question at hand. Some models focus on the parasites' complicated biology, while others incorporate simplified assumptions to avoid model complexity. Overall, the existing literature on mathematical models for P. vivax encompasses various aspects of the parasite's dynamics. We recommend that future research should focus on refining how key aspects of P. vivax dynamics are modelled, including spatial heterogeneity in exposure risk and heterogeneity in susceptibility to infection, the accumulation of hypnozoite variation, the interaction between P. falciparum and P. vivax, acquisition of immunity, and recovery under superinfection. Author summary: Malaria is a mosquito-borne disease and causes significant morbidity and mortality. P. vivax is one of the five species that cause malaria and the parasites can stay hidden within the human liver after an infection from an infected mosquito bite. These hidden parasites are known as hypnozoites and can activate later, causing further infections. Mathematical modelling techniques have been used since the 19th century to understand how P. vivax malaria spreads through a population. In this study, we provide a review of all the mathematical models that have been developed until May 2023 to capture P. vivax transmission. We discuss some key aspects that are crucial when developing P. vivax transmission models and highlight the models that capture these aspects. We aim to assist researchers in the field of P. vivax malaria by providing this summary and identifying the areas where further focus is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deliberates on the re-positioning of Africa to combat the negative impact of the coloniality of knowledge by the West. It shows how this epistemic injustice, designed for the mental subjugation of Africans has relegated Africans to the backwaters of intellectual and socio-political developments. To reverse this unwieldy situation and re-position Africa as a legitimate partner in the global arena of competing cultures, the paper argues for a genuine decoloniality and de-westernization of knowledge systems in the continent. In view of this important goal, it advocates for the integration and reinforcement of African indigenous epistemic orientation in African research and studies as encouraged by the demands of Afrocentric epistemology – an emancipatory decolonial intellectual approach that asserts the legitimacy of the African order of knowledge as a valid frame of reference in intellectual inquiry. It argues that the imperative for such commitments to Afrocentrism in African scholarship resides in the need to effectively contain the threats of coloniality of knowledge in the continent as well as ensure the re-invention of Africa, where Africans can assert themselves intellectually and psychologically, breaking the bounds of mental colonization. It concludes that Afrocentric epistemology has the capacity to push the bounds of the new wave of African revolution against the mental coloniality of knowledge. The expository and critical methods of research are adopted in the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of meridional shift of the oceanic subtropical front (STF) on the Agulhas Current (AC) regime shifts is studied using satellite altimeter data and a 1.5-layer ocean model. The satellite observations suggest the northward shift of the STF leads to the AC leaping across the gap with little Agulhas leakage, and the southward shift of the STF mainly results in the AC intruding into the Atlantic Ocean in the forms of a loop current and an eddy-shedding path, while there are three flow patterns of AC for moderate latitude of the STF. The ocean model results suggest no hysteresis (associated with multiple equilibrium states) exists in the AC system. The model reproduces similar AC regimes depending on different gap widths as in the observations, and model results can be used to explain the observed Agulhas leakage well. We also present the parameter space of the critical AC strength that results in different AC flow patterns as a function of the gap width. The vorticity dynamics of the AC regime shift suggests that the β term is mainly balanced by the viscosity term for the AC in the leaping and loop current paths, while the β and instantaneous vorticity terms are mainly balanced by the advection and viscosity terms for the AC in the eddy-shedding path. These findings help explain the dynamics of the AC flowing across the gateway beyond the tip of Africa affected by the north–south shift of the STF in the leaping regime or penetrating regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present-day humans outside Africa descend mainly from a single expansion out ~50,000-70,000 years ago, but many details of this expansion remain unclear, including the history of the male-specific Y chromosome at this time. Here, we reinvestigate a rare deep-rooting African Y-chromosomal lineage by sequencing the whole genomes of three Nigerian men described in 2003 as carrying haplogroup DE* Y chromosomes, and analyzing them in the context of a calibrated worldwide Y-chromosomal phylogeny. We confirm that these three chromosomes do represent a deep-rooting DE lineage, branching close to the DE bifurcation, but place them on the D branch as an outgroup to all other known D chromosomes, and designate the new lineage D0. We consider three models for the expansion of Y lineages out of Africa ~50,000-100,000 years ago, incorporating migration back to Africa where necessary to explain present-day Y-lineage distributions. Considering both the Y-chromosomal phylogenetic structure incorporating the D0 lineage, and published evidence for modern humans outside Africa, the most favored model involves an origin of the DE lineage within Africa with D0 and E remaining there, and migration out of the three lineages (C, D, and FT) that now form the vast majority of non-African Y chromosomes. The exit took place 50,300-81,000 years ago (latest date for FT lineage expansion outside Africa -- earliest date for the D/D0 lineage split inside Africa), and most likely 50,300-59,400 years ago (considering Neanderthal admixture). This work resolves a long-running debate about Y-chromosomal out-of-Africa/back-to-Africa migrations, and provides insights into the out-of-Africa expansion more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of its strategy to win African votes for election to the UN Security Council (2008–12), Canberra sought to leverage its soft power potential by presenting Australia as having "no colonial baggage" in Africa while framing Australia as "a country from the Global North, located in the Global South," and one that would "work with other small and middle powers." Ultimately, the campaign was successful, including up to 50 of Africa's 54 countries voting for Australia. This paper considers this framing in the context of a shared but differentiated colonial history, including its contradictions, given that Australians fought several wars on African soil on behalf of the British Empire, supported white minority regimes and anti‐communist movements on the continent, and maintained the white Australia policy until the 1970s. The paper deploys decoloniality theory to engage Australia's lack of a neat fit within a historicised articulation of a "coloniser‐colonised" relationship between Europe and Africa. We show that, despite this lack of fit, Australia's relations with the countries of Africa reinforce long‐standing of patterns of knowledge, power, and being associated with colonialism. Accordingly, the paper makes three recommendations for cooperation and innovative thinking in foreign policy and diaspora diplomacy between Africa and a more independent and multicultural Australia based on the "equality of being." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current trends in refugee protection within the African continent expose the deep-seated manifestations of coloniality. The 20th-century Eurocentric approaches to the management of people of concern continue to guide refugee protection in Africa. The approaches that are arguably a triumph of 'European Universalism' or Eurocentrism in refugee protection, both in theory and praxis, continue to be questioned because of their unmistakable results - the formation of hierarchies between Africans based on nationality and territoriality. This has led to the categorisation of African people and power conflicts, clashes, and intense contests for co-existence. Such a status quo has been normalised to be natural, occasioning deplorable refugee situations in the continent. Against such a background, this article aims to augment and complement the broad swathe of literature in the quest for African Renaissance movements using a Decolonial approach to refugee protection. It departs from untangling the lived experiences of the forcibly displaced, particularly refugees and asylum seekers, to critique the Westerninfluenced system of refugeehood in Africa. The research argues that the modern approaches to refugeehood rooted in Eurocentrism have eliminated ways of acceptance and co-existence amongst Africans, disregarding some of the traditional ways of incorporation, inclusion and integration. Instead, the refugee regime has been ordering, othering and hierarchizing the forcibly displaced, making them typical subjects of coloniality. It suggests decolonising the asylum system, considering an African-driven refugee regime and the involvement of local communities in the management of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Supply–demand mismatch in solid organ transplantation is particularly pronounced in small children. For liver transplantation, advanced surgical techniques for reducing deceased and living donor grafts allow access to life‐saving transplantation. Living donor left lateral segment liver grafts have been successfully transplanted in small children in our center since 2013, the only program providing this service in Sub‐Saharan Africa. This type of partial graft remains too large for children below 6 kg body weight and generally requires reduction. Methods: A left lateral segment graft was reduced in situ from a directed, altruistic living donor to yield a hyperreduced left lateral segment graft. Results: The donor was discharged after 6 days without complications. The recipient suffered no technical surgical complications except for an infected cut‐surface biloma and biliary anastomotic stricture and remains well 9 months post‐transplant. Conclusions: We report the first known case in Africa of a hyperreduced left lateral segment, ABO incompatible, living donor liver transplant in a 4,5 kg child with pediatric acute liver failure (PALF). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims The Lythraceae are a mainly subtropical to tropical family of the order Myrtales with 28 currently accepted genera and approximately 600 species. There is currently no well-supported phylogenetic and biogeographical hypothesis of the Lythraceae incorporating all currently accepted genera, which we sought to provide. Methods Plastomes of representative species of 18 distinct Lythraceae genera were sequenced and annotated. Together with existing sequences, plastomes of all 28 currently accepted genera in the Lythraceae were brought together for the first time. The plastomes were aligned and a Bayesian phylogenetic hypothesis was produced. We then conducted a time-calibrated Bayesian analysis and a biogeographical analysis. Key Results Plastome-based Bayesian and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees are generally congruent with recent nuclear phylogenomic data and resolve two deeply branching major clades in the Lythraceae. One major clade concentrates shrubby and arboreal South American and African genera that inhabit seasonally dry environments, with larger, often winged seeds, adapted to dispersal by the wind. The second major clade concentrates North American, Asian, African and several near-cosmopolitan herbaceous, shrubby and arboreal genera, often inhabiting humid or aquatic environments, with smaller seeds possessing structures that facilitate dispersal by water. Conclusions We hypothesize that the Lythraceae dispersed early in the Late Cretaceous from South American to North American continents, with subsequent expansion in the Late Cretaceous of a North American lineage through Laurasia to Africa via a boreotropical route. Two later expansions of South American clades to Africa in the Palaeocene and Eocene, respectively, are also hypothesized. Transoceanic dispersal in the family is possibly facilitated by adaptations to aquatic environments that are common to many extant genera of the Lythraceae, where long-distance dispersal and vicariance may be invoked to explain several remarkable disjunct distributions in Lythraceae clades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insecurity is a prominent phenomenon that threatens the peace and development of Africa in general and particularly, the Lake Chad Basin [LCB]. One of the factors driving the menace is the phenomenon of youth bulge. This article argues that young people with poor economic prospects are liable to be recruited for violence. Situated within the grievance model, the article shows how youth make up the larger percentage of protesting, violent and armed groups in the region and presents evidence of how grievance against deprivation moves demography to exacerbate insecurity. The article adopts a qualitative approach and relies on secondary data sourced from briefs, government reports, peer-reviewed journal articles and internet sources. The findings show that the endless supply of children and young people in the LCB is a major factor driving insecurity. By examining the phenomenon of Almajiri, child soldiers and youth radicalisation as enablers of conflict and insecurity in the LCB, the article concludes that population explosion amid a lack of resources leads to grievance and fuels insecurity. This is significant given the paucity of literature on the incidence of demography and insurgency in the LCB; which has become a theatre of insecurity in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The goal of this study is to analyze and obtain a new numerical approach to an important mathematical model called polio, which is one of the highly infectious and dangerous diseases challenging many lives in most developing nations, most especially in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. A number of research outputs have proven beyond doubt that modeling with noninteger‐order derivative is much more accurate and reliable when compared with the integer‐order counterparts. In the present case, an extension is given to the polio model by replacing the classical time derivative with the newly defined operator known as the Atangana–Baleanu fractional derivative which has its formulation based on the noble Mittag–Leffler kernel. This derivative has been tested and applied in number of ways to model a range of physical phenomena in science and engineering. The Picard–Lindelöf theorem is applied to determine the condition under which the proposed model has a solution, also to show that the solution exists and unique. Local stability analysis of the disease‐free equilibrium and endemic state is also discussed. A novel approximation based on the Adams–Bashforth method is formulated to numerically approximate the fractional derivative operator. To justify the theoretical findings, some numerical results obtained for different instances of fractional order are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we begin from the presupposition that the university campus – historically, in the popular imagination, and in any possible futures worth fighting for – is a terrain of struggle. Drawing from our ongoing study, which has documented and digitally mapped more than 700 campus protest events occurring over the past 20 years across Africa, we explore protest as a lens for interpreting the experience and continued renegotiation of the very idea of the contemporary African university. In our analysis, we trace protest in two ways: (1) as a tactical form, to explore the major catalysts, political strategies, and institutional and state responses to campus protests today; and (2) as a spatial form, to examine spatialities of struggle through which campus geographies are produced, contested and remade. Ultimately, we argue that attention to campus protests confirms the continued importance of the university to popular struggles in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examining developments in the history of education in Africa as a whole raises far-reaching philosophical, anthropological and historical questions about what Africa is and whether such a history is even possible as such. The course of that history and its tributaries wend around social theories; its dominant issues, tensions and gaps represent ideological interventions that highlight competing narratives in attempts to theorise social progress along a set of converging historiographic projects through which the conflicts between positivist, Marxist and poststructuralist (and other critical theory) perspectives – and the Eurocentricity of their objects – become visible. Anticipating broadened inquiries that centre Africans in historical narratives concerning education in Africa, this review (a) critiques historians' obsession with and dissensions on colonial education, (b) clarifies epistemic ruptures in the well-worn quest for 'truth' in history evident in that obsession, and (c) proposes some prospects for decolonial futures in the history of education in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Irregularly sampled time series analysis is a common problem in various disciplines. Since conventional methods are not directly applicable to irregularly sampled time series, a common interpolation approach is used; however, this causes data distortion and consequently biases further analyses. We propose a method that yields a regularly sampled time series spectrum of costs with minimum information loss. Each time series in this spectrum is a stationary series and acts as a difference filter. The transformation costs approach derives the differences between consecutive and arbitrarily sized segments. After obtaining regular sampling, recurrence plot analysis is performed to distinguish regime transitions. The approach is applied to a prototypical model to validate its performance and to different palaeoclimate proxy data sets located around Africa to identify critical climate transition periods during the last 5 million years and their characteristic properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change models for southern Africa predict less frequent, but more intense, rainfall events, and an increased frequency of tropical cyclones. With their steep topography and small catchments, headwater streams generate large floods following intense rainfall events. Large flooding events in headwater streams are under studied in southern Africa. In this paper, we explore flooding in the upper Klaserie River, Limpopo River System, South Africa, to determine the flow distribution and flood frequency for the catchment. In addition, we determine the return level for a large, economically damaging, flood generated following the landfall of a sub-tropical depression in January 2012 and, attempt to identify rainfall patterns that resulted in similar floods. An annual hydrological cycle with summer maxima and winter minima for both rainfall and flow was identified. The flood frequency analysis demonstrated that the January 2012 flood had an estimated return level of 225 years. This flood had a peak flowrate exceeding 1200 m3s-1 in a system with an average daily flowrate of 1 m3s-1. Regression tree analysis showed that a two-day rainfall in excess of 240 was a predictor for four of the five largest floods. A two-day rainfall in excess of 400 mm distinguished the January 2012 flood from other floods. Non-stationarity analyses for the flow and rainfall data and a SWAT hydrological model are recommend for the upper Klaserie River to evaluate climate and land cover changes, and their relationship to the magnitude of the 2012 flood. Our study demonstrates that South African river monitoring data can be used to detect and characterize major floods, despite deficiencies in these data. Continuation of these monitoring programs is vital for river health monitoring and the detection of trends in floods resulting from human activities and climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stable isotopes of O and H in water are meaningful indicators of hydrological and ecological patterns and processes. The Global Network of Isotopes in Precipitation (GNIP) and the Global Network of Isotopes in Rivers (GNIR) are the two most important global databases of isotopes in precipitation and rivers. While the data of GNIP is almost globally distributed, GNIR has an incomplete spatial coverage, which hinders the utilization of river isotopes to study global hydrological cycle. To fill this knowledge gap, this study supplements GNIR and provides a river isotope database with global-coverage by the meta-analysis method, i.e., collecting 17015 additional data points from 215 published articles. Based on the newly compiled database, we find that (1) the relationship between δ18O and δ2H in river waters exhibits an asymmetric imbricate feature, and bifurcation can be observed in Africa and North America, indicating the effect of evaporation on isotopes; (2) multiple regression analysis with geographical factors indicates that spatial patterns of river isotopes are quite different across regions; (3) multiple regression with geographical and meteorological factors can well predict the river isotopes, which provides regional regression models with r2 of 0.50 to 0.89, and the best predictors in different regions are different. This work presents a global map of river isotopes and establishes a benchmark for further research on isotopes in rivers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The epidemic of COVID-19 has shown different developments in Africa compared to the other continents. Three different approaches were used in this study to analyze this situation. In the first part, basic statistics were performed to estimate the contribution of the elderly people to the total numbers of cases and deaths in comparison to the other continents; Similarly, the health systems capacities were analysed to assess the level of underreporting. In the second part, differential equations were reconstructed from the epidemiological time series of cases and deaths (from the John Hopkins University) to analyse the dynamics of COVID-19 in seventeen countries. In the third part, the time evolution of the contact number was reconstructed since the beginning of the outbreak to investigate the effectiveness of the mitigation strategies. Results were compared to the Oxford stringency index and to the mobility indices of the Google Community Mobility Reports. Compared to Europe, the analyses show that the lower proportion of elderly people in Africa enables to explain the lower total numbers of cases and deaths by a factor of 5.1 on average (from 1.9 to 7.8). It corresponds to a genuine effect. Nevertheless, COVID-19 numbers are effectively largely underestimated in Africa by a factor of 8.5 on average (from 1.7 to 20. and more) due to the weakness of the health systems at country level. Geographically, the models obtained for the dynamics of cases and deaths reveal very diversified dynamics. The dynamics is chaotic in many contexts, including a situation of bistability rarely observed in dynamical systems. Finally, the contact number directly deduced from the epidemiological observations reveals an effective role of the mitigation strategies on the short term. On the long term, control measures have contributed to maintain the epidemic at a low level although the progressive release of the stringency did not produce a clear increase of the contact number. The arrival of the omicron variant is clearly detected and characterised by a quick increase of interpeople contact, for most of the African countries considered in the analysis. Author summary: In this study, we show (1) that two main factors can explain the lower numbers of cases and deaths per inhabitants in Africa: an underestimation (by a factor 8.5) of the reported cases and deaths which directly results from the under capacities of the health systems at country level, but also a genuine effect by a factor 5.1 directly resulting from the smaller fraction of elderly people. We demonstrate (2) that the dynamics of the epidemic can be approximated deterministically by few variables only. Its time evolution is however highly sensitive to the initial conditions which makes it unpredictable at long term. Moreover, dynamics can largely vary from one country to another. For one country (Ghana), it is shown that very different epidemiological evolution can occur under strictly identical sanitary conditions. Finally, we reveal (3) that the impact of the control measures on the contact number is effective at short term and enabled to maintain the epidemic at a relatively low level, but it is more difficult to identify distinctly the long-term role of mitigation strategy. The omicron variant is very clearly detected in the recent evolution of the epidemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the key features of today's global economy is an 'offshore world' of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption. While its worldwide impact is very significant, Africa is affected to an unusual extent by the strategies of tax avoidance/evasion, outward financial flows (both legal and illegal) and corruption enabled by the offshore world. This is corroborated by a number of quantitative studies of capital flight as well as by influential investigations such as the Pandora Papers, Panama Papers and Luanda Leaks. The offshore world's limited presence in the study of contemporary African politics, political economy and international relations is therefore striking. The purpose of this exploratory paper is to highlight this gap, provide a preliminary analysis, and suggest that the politics of African insertion in the global offshore economy merits more attention from scholars of African politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to other regions, the drivers of diversification in Africa are poorly understood. We studied a radiation of insects with over 100 species occurring in a wide range of habitats across the Afrotropics to investigate the fundamental evolutionary processes and geological events that generate and maintain patterns of species richness on the continent. By investigating the evolutionary history of Bicyclus butterflies within a phylogenetic framework, we inferred the group's origin at the Oligo-Miocene boundary from ancestors in the Congolian rainforests of central Africa. Abrupt climatic fluctuations during the Miocene (ca. 19–17 Ma) likely fragmented ancestral populations, resulting in at least eight early-divergent lineages. Only one of these lineages appears to have diversified during the drastic climate and biome changes of the early Miocene, radiating into the largest group of extant species. The other seven lineages diversified in forest ecosystems during the late Miocene and Pleistocene when climatic conditions were more favorable—warmer and wetter. Our results suggest changing Neogene climate, uplift of eastern African orogens, and biotic interactions have had different effects on the various subclades of Bicyclus , producing one of the most spectacular butterfly radiations in Africa. [ Afrotropics; biodiversity; biome; biotic interactions; Court Jester; extinction; grasslands; paleoclimates; Red Queen; refugia forests; dependent-diversification; speciation.] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

That is, even in regimes in which formal institutions played key roles, state resources and power were not only distributed according to the clear, formal criteria laid out by these institutions and as is necessary to promote mutual elite expectations and regime stability via elite power-sharing. Unlike personalist autocracies, single-party autocracies regimes were considered highly institutionalized with all regime matters occurring through formal channels that existed apart from, and superseded, the autocrat. Classifying authoritarian regimes: Africa and beyond As autocracy took root soon after the independence era, contemporaneous scholarship documented the ways in which these regimes operated, and specifically, how they dealt with the problem of power-sharing among the ruling elite. While leaders of personalist regimes share spoils and power as well, they do so through highly unstable personalistic ties - 'access to office and the fruits of office depends much more on the discretion of an individual leader' - that leads to systematically weaker regimes. [Extracted from the article]

The pandemic of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) took the world by surprise. Following the first outbreak of COVID-19 in December 2019, several models have been developed to study and understand its transmission dynamics. Although the spread of COVID-19 is being slowed down by vaccination and other interventions, there is still a need to have a clear understanding of the evolution of the pandemic across countries, states and communities. To this end, there is a need to have a clearer picture of the initial spread of the disease in different regions. In this project, we used a simple SEIR model and a Bayesian inference framework to estimate the basic reproduction number of COVID-19 across Africa. Our estimates vary between 1.98 (Sudan) and 9.66 (Mauritius), with a median of 3.67 (90% CrI: 3.31–4.12). The estimates provided in this paper will help to inform COVID-19 modeling in the respective countries/regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Civil society and philanthropy in Africa are regularly theorized in formal terms and oft perceived as inherently democratizing forces. Yet, existing evidence exposes the limitations of these assumptions. This article provides an introduction to the symposium issue on civil society and philanthropy in Africa. The objective of the introduction, and the articles contained in the symposium, is to examine important questions related to civil society and philanthropy on the continent: What is the complex history and role of civil society and philanthropy in Africa? How have donor dependence and professionalization affected the effectiveness of the third sector? What are the contours of the relationship between the state and civil society? We ask these crucial questions in an attempt to provide a more nuanced and contextualized understanding of civil society and philanthropy on the continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ionosphere around the Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) region exhibits complex dynamics and responds markedly to the solar-magnetospheric energy and momentum. In this paper, the hourly total electron content (TEC) variations in response to the EIA structure in Africa to the 2013 and 2015 St. Patrick's Day storms is investigated using data obtained from a chain of GPS receivers located in the Africa region. The TEC variations are characterized based on the convective magnetospheric dynamo fields, neutral wind circulation, and zonal electric fields. Generally, the result indicates that the TEC variations are consistent with the different directions of the interplanetary fields during the different phases of the storms. We observed reverse EIA structures in the main phase of the March 2015 storm, likely to be related to the intense PPEF and strong equatorward wind, which imposed a westward zonal electric field at the equator. A similar equatorial peak observed during the recovery phase is associated with DDEF, poleward wind and plasma convergence. Furthermore, the TEC variations also indicate hemispheric asymmetries during the storms. During the main phase of the storm, the TEC variation is more enhanced in the Northern Hemisphere in March 2013 and reverses during March 2015. We observed an equatorial peak during the SSC period in March 2013, while EIA structures are generally weak in March 2015 event. This posit that ionospheric pre-storm behaviour in the EIA region can be better understood when the IMF-Bz and E-field are not significant. The observed distinctive response avowed the peculiarity of the electrodynamics intricacy in the Africa sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With a media anthropological-philosophical approach to ICT, four convergent developmental stages are distinguished and defined: pictography, ethography, phonography, and prography. They are invented/acquired in this sequence by human individuals as well as the human genus in general. Pictograms were first invented in forager cultures, ethograms in permanently settled village communities, phonograms in the early cities and civilizations of southwest Asia and northeast Africa, and electronic programs in a globalized society under North Atlantic domination. Print is considered as a corollary to phonography. Anthropological contextualization of technologies and institutions and the socio-politico-economic inclusivity and exclusivity of media are highlighted. Since the 'agricultural revolution', exclusive as well as inclusive media have accompanied humanity. Lately, inclusive potential has grown again through the accessibility, ubiquity, and convergent depth of prography. However, new challenges to inclusivity, including new forms of surveillance, weaponization of the media and widening wealth disparities, have materialized in the same context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The two-tier legal education system has become increasingly ineffective by virtue of the evolution of changes in legal practice and Africa's unique conditions and circumstances. The problem is rooted in the fact that some African countries adopted the two-tier legal education system on the assumption that what worked in Britain offered a prescription for success in Africa. However, the two-tier legal education system has been ineffective in Africa because the infrastructure--pupilage, apprenticeship, continuing legal education--that complements and anneals it is not widely available in Africa. Where these elements exist, they tend to be frail and unreliable. Africa's urgent challenge is to design an appropriate legal education structure that helps lawyers develop the highest possible degree of capability to respond effectively and resourcefully to Africa's problems. It is time for Africa to address a fundamental question well phrased by Samuel Manteaw, a Ghanaian scholar: "What type of lawyer does Africa need? And do these [educational] institutions produce the type of lawyer Africa needs?". Using Nigeria as a case study, this paper examines the two-tier system of legal education in Africa. It examines the implications and assumptions of the two-tier system and its negative effects on legal education. It proposes a constructive alternative that abolishes the two-tier system and vests the teaching of doctrinal and skill courses in the law faculties of universities. This paper argues that the two-tier legal education system imperils legal training by the arbitrary division between doctrinal and skills courses and teaching them separately at different institutions. As it presently exists in Nigeria, the two-tier system requires fundamental structural and institutional reform to create a better pathway to producing competent lawyers who can respond responsibly and effectively to society's needs and challenges. A comprehensive legal education offered through law faculties will powerfully enrich legal education and improve the caliber of training received by lawyers in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Skulls serve many functions and as a result, are subject to many different evolutionary pressures. In squamates, many fossorial species occupy a unique region of skull morphospace, showing convergence across families, due to modifications related to head-first burrowing. As different substrates have variable physical properties, particular skull shapes may offer selective advantages in certain substrates. Despite this, studies of variation within burrowers have been limited and are typically focused on a single origin of fossoriality. We focused on seven skink genera (Acontias, Typhlosaurus, Scelotes, Sepsina, Feylinia, Typhlacontias, and Mochlus; 39 sp.) from southern Africa, encompassing at least three independent evolutions of semi-fossoriality/fossoriality. We used microCT scans and geometric morphometrics to test how cranial and mandibular shape were influenced by phylogenetic history, size, and ecology. We also qualitatively described the skulls of four species to look at variation across phylogenetic and functional levels, and assess the degree of convergence. Results: We found a strong effect of phylogenetic history on cranial and mandibular shape, with size and substrate playing secondary roles. There was a clear gradient in morphospace from less specialized to more specialized burrowers and burrowers in sand were significantly different from those in other substrates. We also created an anatomical atlas for four species with each element described in isolation. Every bone showed some variation in shape and relative scaling of features, with the skull roofing bones, septomaxilla, vomer, and palatine showing the most variation. We showed how broad-scale convergence in traits related to fossoriality can be the result of different anatomical changes. Conclusions: Our study used geometric morphometrics and comparative anatomy to examine how skull morphology changes for a highly specialized and demanding lifestyle. Although there was broad convergence in both shape and qualitative traits, phylogenetic history played a large role and much of this convergence was produced by different anatomical changes, implying different developmental pathways or lineage-specific constraints. Even within a single family, adaptation for a specialized ecology does not follow a singular deterministic path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a software suite that can be used for objective evaluation of tropical cyclones (TCs) in gridded climate data. Using cyclone trajectories derived from 6-hourly data, a comprehensive set of metrics is defined to systematically compare and contrast products with one another. In addition to annual TC climatologies, attention is paid to spatial and temporal patterns of storm occurrence and intensity. Assessment can be performed either on the global scale or for regional domains. Simple-to-visualize "scorecards" allow for rapid credibility assessment. We showcase three key findings enabled by this suite. First, we compare the representation of TCs in seven current-generation global reanalyses and conclude that higher-resolution models and those with TC-specific assimilation contain more accurate storm climatologies. Second, using a free-running Earth system model (ESM) we find that full basin refinement is required in variable-resolution configurations to adequately simulate North Atlantic Ocean TC frequency. Upstream refinement over northern Africa offers little benefit in simulating storm occurrence, but spatial genesis patterns are improved. We also show that TCs simulated by ESMs can be highly sensitive to individual parameterizations in climate models, with North Atlantic TC metrics varying greatly depending on the version of the Morrison-Gettelman microphysics package that is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Situating feminist investigations of food in Southern Africa within a broader discussion of the ecological crisis and the appropriation of nature reveals important connections between ecological and women's struggles. This article draws on ecofeminist scholarship regarding ecological struggles pertaining to land and seed in order to explore the politics of food and its relation to women, nature and society in Southern Africa. It highlights that inherited and assumed ideas of nature have a direct bearing on the dominant conception of food. The article emphasises that feminist agencies are often silenced in food struggles and food scholarship despite the gendered nature of foodwork and women's defence against nature's appropriation. In concluding, the article invites us to see food in its totality and develop a new food logic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The overarching assumption within popular approaches to global learning is that it takes place either in classrooms at home or in the case of study abroad, in experiential learning environments overseas. Policies and programs are carefully crafted to respond to particular institutional goals and objectives towards internationalization. These objectives have increasingly aligned with broader neoliberal reforms within universities that focus on the student as a global consumer. This places those responsible for designing and implementing international programs in a precarious position, often having to straddle a widening divide between critical educator and travel agent. While efforts are made to create programs that allow students to engage cross-culturally, internationally, and in meaningful ways, there also exists immense pressure to do so in the shortest amount of time and for the least amount of money. As more study abroad offices become self-funded, or financially self-sustaining, this often means prioritizing programs that are the most attractive to the student "consumer" as opposed to the student "academic." This competition between study abroad as academic endeavor and study abroad as business is illustrated in the bifurcation of the study abroad literature. One strand of the literature focuses squarely on the student experience, which includes questions of students' motivation for studying abroad and/or what they have gained from the experience. These studies often emphasize students' personal growth and development, their increased cross-cultural competence and understanding, as well as their changing conception of global citizenship. The second category of study abroad literature focuses on "best practices" and policies for the implementation of study abroad programs. This includes work on student and faculty recruitment strategies, program design, monitoring and evaluation tools, safety and risk management as well as re-entry programming for newly returned study abroad participants. What is largely missing from both sets of literature is an exploration of the global learning that takes place before a study abroad program begins; what are students learning about the world and their place within it when they visit a study abroad office website, thumb through a promotional pamphlet or attend a program recruitment event? To the knowledge of the author there has been no explicit acknowledgement in the study abroad literature of the hidden curriculum that presents itself through what she refers to as institutional study abroad portfolios (ISAPs), that is, the compilation of study abroad programs that a university promotes to its students that take place in particular locations focusing on specific academic disciplines. In this paper the author will argue that in looking at ISAPs as a unit of analysis we can uncover political complexity that is often obfuscated both by more macro level policy analysis (i.e. internationalization strategy) as well as more micro-level program evaluation.

Advances in genomics have led to an appreciation that introgression is common, but its evolutionary consequences are poorly understood. In recent species radiations the sharing of genetic variation across porous species boundaries can facilitate adaptation to new environments and generate novel phenotypes, which may contribute to further diversification. Most Anopheles mosquito species that are of major importance as human malaria vectors have evolved within recent and rapid radiations of largely nonvector species. Here, we focus on one of the most medically important yet understudied anopheline radiations, the Afrotropical Anopheles funestus complex (AFC), to investigate the role of introgression in its diversification and the possible link between introgression and vector potential. The AFC comprises at least seven morphologically similar species, yet only An. funestus sensu stricto is a highly efficient malaria vector with a pan-African distribution. Based on de novo genome assemblies and additional whole-genome resequencing, we use phylogenomic and population genomic analyses to establish species relationships. We show that extensive interspecific gene flow involving multiple species pairs has shaped the evolutionary history of the AFC since its diversification. The most recent introgression event involved a massive and asymmetrical movement of genes from a distantly related AFC lineage into An. funestus, an event that predated and plausibly facilitated its subsequent dramatic geographic range expansion across most of tropical Africa. We propose that introgression may be a common mechanism facilitating adaptation to new environments and enhancing vectorial capacity in Anopheles mosquitoes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Climatic and topographic changes function as key drivers in shaping genetic structure and cladogenic radiation in many organisms. Southern Africa has an exceptionally diverse tortoise fauna, harbouring one-third of the world's tortoise genera. The distribution of Psammobates tentorius (Kuhl, 1820) covers two of the 25 biodiversity hotspots in the world, the Succulent Karoo and Cape Floristic Region. The highly diverged P. tentorius represents an excellent model species for exploring biogeographic and radiation patterns of reptiles in Southern Africa. Results: We investigated genetic structure and radiation patterns against temporal and spatial dimensions since the Miocene in the Psammobates tentorius species complex, using multiple types of DNA markers and niche modelling analyses. Cladogenesis in P. tentorius started in the late Miocene (11.63–5.33 Ma) when populations dispersed from north to south to form two geographically isolated groups. The northern group diverged into a clade north of the Orange River (OR), followed by the splitting of the group south of the OR into a western and an interior clade. The latter divergence corresponded to the intensification of the cold Benguela current, which caused western aridification and rainfall seasonality. In the south, tectonic uplift and subsequent exhumation, together with climatic fluctuations seemed responsible for radiations among the four southern clades since the late Miocene. We found that each clade occurred in a habitat shaped by different climatic parameters, and that the niches differed substantially among the clades of the northern group but were similar among clades of the southern group. Conclusion: Climatic shifts, and biome and geographic changes were possibly the three major driving forces shaping cladogenesis and genetic structure in Southern African tortoise species. Our results revealed that the cladogenesis of the P. tentorius species complex was probably shaped by environmental cooling, biome shifts and topographic uplift in Southern Africa since the late Miocene. The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) may have impacted the distribution of P. tentorius substantially. We found the taxonomic diversify of the P. tentorius species complex to be highest in the Greater Cape Floristic Region. All seven clades discovered warrant conservation attention, particularly Ptt-B–Ptr, Ptt-A and Pv-A. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stelladinium bifurcatum n. sp. is a large and distinctive brown heterotrophic dinoflagellate cyst recorded from Upper Pleistocene through modern sediments of the eastern Pacific, modern sediments of the western Bay of Bengal and sediment traps from the South China Sea, and Upper Pleistocene through Middle Holocene deposits of the east equatorial Atlantic. It is distinguished by prominent apical and antapical horns, numerous long processes distributed along the cingulum, tips of horns and processes that are characteristically solid or thickened and taper to points, a prominent flagellar scar, and an archeopyle formed by the second anterior intercalary plate with the operculum adnate along the right lateral margin. Stelladinium bifurcatum has been recorded in the literature under several names including " Stelladinium reidii " and the cyst of Protoperidinium stellatum from which it differs in having abundant cingular processes, at least one of which usually has a strongly divergent bifurcation. Re-examination of published records shows Stelladinium bifurcatum to have a tropical–subtropical neritic distribution in modern sediments of the eastern Pacific margin and to be associated with high biological productivity. Similarly in Pleistocene–Holocene sediments off west equatorial Africa, Stelladinium bifurcatum is linked to elevated sea-surface temperatures during the last deglaciation, and it serves as a marker of river discharge associated with an increase in monsoonal dynamics at this time. • The distinctive new dinoflagellate cyst Stelladinium bifurcatum n. sp. is described. • It has a tropical–subtropical modern neritic distribution associated with high biological productivity. • In Pleistocene–Holocene sediments off west equatorial Africa, Stelladinium bifurcatum serves as a marker of river discharge. • Stelladinium bifurcatum sp. nov. has a lowest known stratigraphic occurrence in the Upper Pleistocene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simplified analysis model of structural pounding, used in the study of the effects of earthquakes subjected to Gaussian white noise of relatively high intensity, filtered through a Kanai-Tajimi filter is proposed in this investigation. The required distance to avoid pounding is important in structural engineering. As a consequence of frictional contact phenomena, energy is dissipated and the state of a system can change slowly and rapidly, depending on the nature of the contact, continuous or impact condition. Buildings without enough separation often create structural pounding under seismic events. Other effects associated with friction in mechanical systems are the vibration and noise propagation of the system components, nonlinear systems behavior and wear. In this paper, we prove that because of the inherent stochastic nature of the applied earthquake loads or the uncertainty arising from randomness (non-smooth behavior), stochastic p-bifurcations occur at law noise intensities and disappear when increasing noise intensities. Because of the presence of both impact-friction events, p-bifurcations should be observed at weak noise intensities. P-bifurcation occurs and created instability that will increase pounding effects. Some relationship between impact-friction events appears: small noise intensity occurs when the time of friction (continuous) is greater than the impacting events, hence high probability density function (PDF). But if the noise intensity increases, the impact events are great (small friction) with weak PDF. But successive jump effects can create noisy system and great impact. The models stochastic processes of stationary probability density function (PDF) of the earthquake ground motion are set up. The demonstrative application examples which include friction in systems involving contact-impact events are illustrated in Central Africa, a part of Congo Stable Block. • The probability density function and the pounding force can have influenced the behavior of the structural building in case of friction. • The relation between pounding force and impact friction behavior is illustrated in the sense of discontinuity. • Impact-friction events appear with earthquakes excitation as well as when considering noise intensity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article establishes the trends in terrorism, the incidents of attacks and threats, and the places of dominance and countries at risk in Africa. Extant literature indicates weak governance structure and poverty as being the drivers of terrorism in Africa. This study found that between 2014 and 2019, the African continent had a significant share (45,5 per cent) of the countries most impacted by terrorism incidents compared to the other five continents, that is, 54,48 per cent altogether. This indicates that the continent experienced more incidents, fatalities, injuries and property damage compared to the rest of the continents. These statistics cast a dark shadow on the African continent's long-awaited African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which is expected to stimulate sustainable economic development. The study concludes that the increasing incidents of terrorism are likely to affect investor confidence, increase the already high cost of doing business, and lead to more stringent cross-border security checks, which are impediments to the AfCFTA's programmes for skills transfer, manpower development and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines whether the proliferation of overlapping sub-regional security organisations in Eastern Africa is an opportunity or a challenge to the security of the region. To this end, I used secondary sources of data. The data analysed show that the duplication of security institutions has detrimental effects namely, financial problems, inefficiency and ineffectiveness, conflictual competition, forum shopping and regime shifting. As far as the positive aspect of it is concerned, there have been negligible cooperative attempts, while all other possible positive effects discussed in the conceptual framework part are missing. Thus, it is evident from the findings that the proliferation of sub-regional organisations in Eastern Africa is more of a challenge than an opportunity to maintain peace and security in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The association between irrigation and the proliferation of adult mosquitoes including malaria vectors is well known; however, irrigation schemes are treated as homogenous spatio-temporal units, with little consideration for how larval breeding varies across space and time. The objective of this study was to estimate the spatio-temporal distribution of pools of water facilitating breeding at the Bwanje Valley Irrigation Scheme (BVIS) in Malawi, Africa as a function of environmental and anthropogenic characteristics. Methods: Irrigation structure and land cover were quantified during the dry and rainy seasons of 2016 and 2017, respectively. These data were combined with soil type, irrigation scheduling, drainage, and maintenance to model suitability for mosquito breeding across the landscape under three scenarios: rainy season, dry season with limited water resources, and a dry season with abundant water resources. Results: Results demonstrate seasonal, asymmetrical breeding potential and areas of maximum breeding potential as a function of environmental characteristics and anthropogenic influence in each scenario. The highest percentage of suitable area for breeding occurs during the rainy season; however, findings show that it is not merely the amount of water in an irrigated landscape, but the management of water resources that determines the aggregation of water bodies. In each scenario, timing and direction of irrigation along with inefficient drainage render the westernmost portion of BVIS the area of highest breeding opportunity, which expands and contracts seasonally in response to water resource availability and management decisions. Conclusions: Changes in the geography of breeding potential across irrigated spaces can have profound effects on the distribution of malaria risk for those living in close proximity to irrigated agricultural schemes. The methods presented are generalizable across geographies for estimating spatio-temporal distributions of breeding risk for mosquitoes in irrigated schemes, presenting an opportunity for greater geographically targeted strategies for management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2011, Miss Sahhara, a transgender woman from Nigeria with UK refugee status, was crowned First Princess at the world's largest and most prestigious beauty pageant for transgender women--Miss International Queen. The then Cultural Minister of Nigeria when contacted for comment responded that if she was transgender, she could not be Nigerian, and if she was Nigerian, she could not be transgender--a tacit denial of her very existence. In recent years, LGBT people "fleeing Africa" to the "Global North" has become a common media trope. Responses to this, emanating from a variety of African voices, have provided a more nuanced reading of sexuality. What has been absent from these readings has been the role of gender expression, particularly a consideration of transgender experiences. I understand transgender refugees to have taken up "lines of flight" such that, in a Deleuzian sense, they do not only flee persecution in countries of origin but also recreate or speak back to systems of control and oppressive social conditions. Some transgender people who have left, like Miss Sahhara, have not gone silently, using digital means to project a new political visibility of individuals, those who are both transgender and African, back at the African continent. In Miss Sahhara's case, this political visibility has not gone unnoticed in the Nigerian tabloid press. Drawing on the story of Miss Sahhara, this paper maps these flows and contraflows, asking what they might reveal about configurations of nationhood, gender and sexuality as they are formed at both the digital and physical interstices between Africa and the Global North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Malaria infection continues to be a major problem in many parts of the world including Africa. Environmental variables are known to significantly affect the population dynamics and abundance of insects, major catalysts of vector-borne diseases, but the exact extent and consequences of this sensitivity are not yet well established. To assess the impact of the variability in temperature and rainfall on the transmission dynamics of malaria in a population, we propose a model consisting of a system of non-autonomous deterministic equations that incorporate the effect of both temperature and rainfall to the dispersion and mortality rate of adult mosquitoes. The model has been validated using epidemiological data collected from the western region of Ethiopia by considering the trends for the cases of malaria and the climate variation in the region. Further, a mathematical analysis is performed to assess the impact of temperature and rainfall change on the transmission dynamics of the model. The periodic variation of seasonal variables as well as the non-periodic variation due to the long-term climate variation have been incorporated and analyzed. In both periodic and non-periodic cases, it has been shown that the disease-free solution of the model is globally asymptotically stable when the basic reproduction ratio is less than unity in the periodic system and when the threshold function is less than unity in the non-periodic system. The disease is uniformly persistent when the basic reproduction ratio is greater than unity in the periodic system and when the threshold function is greater than unity in the non-periodic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sub-Sahara Africa, periphery contributors exist in a liminal space. They are at once valorized and treated with suspicion by the local journalism and political fields. Valorization occurs when they engage with, and challenge, journalism from the global north, and the opposite occurs when they do the same for the local fields. Focusing on the former and not the latter is a disservice to the complicated and nuanced relationship these actors have with the journalism field and perpetuates a mythologized and romanticized narrative about the redemptive qualities of online platforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chew Bahir Drilling Project (CBDP) aims to test possible linkages between climate and evolution in Africa through the analysis of sediment cores that have recorded environmental changes in the Chew Bahir basin. In this statistical project we consider the Chew Bahir palaeolake to be a dynamical system consisting of interactions between its different components, such as the waterbody, the sediment beneath lake, and the organisms living within and around the lake. Recurrence is a common feature of such dynamical systems, with recurring patterns in the state of the system reflecting typical influences. Identifying and defining these influences contributes significantly to our understanding of the dynamics of the system. Different recurring changes in precipitation, evaporation, and wind speed in the Chew Bahir basin could result in similar (but not identical) conditions in the lake (e.g., depth and area of the lake, alkalinity and salinity of the lake water, species assemblages in the water body, and diagenesis in the sediments). Recurrence plots (RPs) are graphic displays of such recurring states within a system. Measures of complexity were subsequently introduced to complement the visual inspection of recurrence plots, and provide quantitative descriptions for use in recurrence quantification analysis (RQA). We present and discuss herein results from an RQA on the environmental record from six short (< 17 m) sediment cores collected during the CBDP, spanning the last 45 kyrs. The different types of variability and transitions in these records were classified to improve our understanding of the response of the biosphere to climate change, and especially the response of humans in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]