Showing papers by "University of Zambia published in 1980"

The skill of pictorial perception: an interpretation of cross‐cultural evidence

Abstract: A theoretical framework is proposed for understanding perceptual skills in their functional context. Pictorial perception is construed as a functionally specialised skill whose pervasive importance in modern education derives from the proliferation of pictorial materials in Western culture. Drawing on cross-cultural research, the major components of the skill are identified as (1) detection of appropriate contexts for its application, (2) selection of a limiting frame of reference, (3) use of conventional criteria of fidelity to recognise depicted items, (4) sensitivity to impoverished depth cues, (5) an expectation of finding in the picture most of the information necessary for its disambiguation, and (6) various assumptions about the range of cognitive inferences that may legitimately be made 'beyond the information given'. Training studies are interpreted as suggesting that the skill can be enhanced through guided experience.

The slave trade in eighteenth century Angola: effects on demographic structures

Abstract: RESUMEUn recensement du XVIIIe siecle nous permet d'etudier les effets de la traite des esclaves sur la population africaine en Angola. La structure par âge et par sexe se prete particulierement bien a l'analyse demographique. Etant donne la preference des negriers pour les esclaves de sexe masculin, il n ‘est pas etonnant que les femmes en âge d'enfanter aient ete au moins deux fois plus nombreuses que les hommes du meme âge. Ce desequilibre eut toutefois un faible impact sur le potentiel de croissance. Meme avec une fecondite normale, les femmes ont conserve un taux brut de natalite suffisament eleve pour compenser les pertes consecutives a la traite. Celle-ci n'a donc pas bouleverse fortement les effectifs de ta population angolaise comme on le suppose d'habitude; par contre elle a modifie en profondeur la structure et l'equilibre demographiques.

Box-fault systems and ramps; atypical associations of structures from the eastern shoulder of the Kenya Rift

Abstract: Box-fault systems are striking arrangements of short faults that are associated with complex groups of elongate, tilted fault blocks (ramps). They occur within the faulted eastern shoulder of the Rift Valley, close to the equatorial bend in its alignment. This association of small-scale structures is shown to be integrated within the large-scale, asymmetrical structural pattern of the equatorial bend.

The African Press in Kenya, 1945–1952

Abstract: This paper discusses the African press in Kenya in the years between 1945 and 1952. The growth of an extensive vernacular press was caused by the political frustrations suffered by Kenya's Africans and the political, social and ethnic divisions which separated them. The press can be divided into three major categories: moderate nationalist, regional vernacular and populist newspapers. The moderate nationalist newspapers were edited by members of the educated elite who campaigned for constitutional change and social reforms. The regional vernacular papers were concerned more with local than national issues. The populist press was edited by semi-educated men active in politics at the grassroots level who came to reject the moderate leadership. All these papers publicized the activities of the Kenya African Union and demanded an improvement in the political and social position of Africans in Kenya. But they also expressed the ethnic, political and social hostilities which divided their editors. The decline of moderate leadership was reflected in the closure of their newspapers. The radicals who seized power in K.A.U. in 1951 were supported by the populist press and began new newspapers in 1951 and 1952.Some of the African newspapers achieved quite large circulations, were distributed by agents throughout the towns of Kenya and attracted some advertising revenue. But they all suffered from lack of money and found it difficult to find and pay a printer, and they suffered also from the lack of experience of their editors. Many newspapers lasted only a short time. But throughout these years there were always a number of newspapers published. These were widely read and were politically influential. The populist press played a direct role in stimulating militant resistance. Government attempts to curb the African press and to replace it with government newspapers were not successful. Only in 1952 when a State of Emergency had been imposed and the government had assumed powers to refuse printing licences and to suppress newspapers could the African press be silenced.

Structural Implications of Organizational Dependence upon Customers and Owners: Similarities and Differences

Abstract: The concept of organizational dependence is examined and its possible implications for different aspects of organizational structure are considered. It is argued that the implica tions of dependence in different environmental sectors will be different and a number of propositions are advanced concerning the effects of dependence upon customers and owners. Empirical evidence from a study of 78 companies in the United Kingdom is considered and most of the propositions are found to be supported. The study appears to confirm that greater predictive power can be obtained by disaggregating the concept of dependence and examining different environmental sectors separately.

Racism and the Heart of Darkness

Abstract: As I have shown elsewhere, Conrad's setting, themes, and his triumph in writing major literature in his third language, have won him a special admiration in the non-European world. "The African writer and Joseph Conrad share die same world and that is why Conrad's world is so familiar. Both have lived in a world dominated by capitalism, imperialism, colonialism." But African readers are also checked by, and disconcerted at, works such as The Nigger of the "Narcissus" and Heart of Darkness. The case against the latter was most strongly made by Chinua Achebe in the course of a lecture titled "An Image of Africa," delivered at the University of Massachusetts on the 18th of February 1975. He argued that Conrad sets up Africa "as a foil to Europe, a place of negations . . . in comparison with which Europe's own state of spiritual grace will be manifest" (I.o.A., p. 31). Africa is "the other world," "the antithesis of Europe and therefore of civilization, a place where man's vaunted intelligence and refinement are finally mocked by triumphant bestiality" (I.o.A., p. 32). Achebe commented on Conrad's comparison of the Congo and the Thames, and also alleged that the contrast made between the two women who loved Kurtz, one African, the other European, is highly prejudiced. Any sympathy expressed for the sufferings of the black African under colonialism, argued Achebe is a sympathy born of a kind of liberalism which whilst acknowledging distant kinship, repudiates equality. Conrad, continued Achebe, is a "racist"—and great art can only be "on die side of man's deliverance and not his enslavement; for the brotherhood and unity of all mankind and not for the doctrines of Hitler's master races or Conrad's 'rudimentary souls' " (I.o.A., p. 38). Achebe concluded his attack on Heart of Darkness by describing it as "a book which parades in the most vulgar fashion prejudices and insults from which a section of mankind has suffered untold agonies and atrocities in the past and continues to do so in many ways and many places today. I am talking about a story in which the very humanity of black people is called in question. It seems to me totally inconceivable that great art or even good art could possibly reside in such unwholesome surroundings" (I.o.A., p. 40).

Linguistic flexibility in urban zambian schoolchildren

Abstract: Discussions of language policy in multilingual nations often suffer from oversimplification. One factor that contributes to this trend is the temptation to impose on multilingual communities a compartmentalized mode of categorization whose validity is mainly confined to relatively homogeneous speech communities. In this mode, languages are construed as discrete and largely autonomous systems, and each individual is assumed to have a static, well-defined hierarchy of access to various languages, with the dominant position assigned to her mother-tongue, L1, or native language. Yet in many multilingual communities the distinctions between various dialects and languages are blurred by fluid interchange, and an individual member of such a community may be more conscious of the various social connotations of different speech codes than of variations in her competence across them. The present exploratory study was prompted by the feeling that the current national debate in Zambia concerning medium of instruction in primary schools has suffered from this type of conceptual bias. The speech community of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city, is characterized by (1) great diversity of ethnic origins, (2) a high incidence of individual multilingualism, and (3) a very fluid linguistic repertoire. The first of these features has tended to receive great emphasis in political and educational circles, often to the virtual exclusion of the other two equally important characteristics.

On spontaneous symmetry breakdown and the Higgs mechanism

Abstract: A geometric description of Higgs fields as cross sections of some fibre bundle is given. Within such a framework of fibre bundles the Higgs mechanism is characterized in terms of a reduction of a principal bundle, which stands for a certain gauge structure to a subbundle. This subbundle is defined in terms of a given Higgs field.

Immature stages and affinities of the southern lechwe warblefly, Strobiloestrus vanzyli Zumpt (Diptera: Oestridae)

Abstract: Summary Eggs and first instar larvae of Strobiloestrus vanzyli Zumpt are described for the first time and it is suggested that there is a subdermal migration of the larvae from the site of oviposition on the hosts' hairs to the site of encystment and warble formation. Intrastadial morphological changes are reported for all larval instars and the descriptions of second and third stage larvae are enlarged. Wild caught adults and those reared from larvae extracted from lechwe antelope (Kobus leche) are compared with the published descriptions of Strobiloestrus species and with other specimens of this genus. The diagnostic features within the genus are discussed and it is concluded that S. vanzyli may not be a separate species from S. erikssoni. Strobiloestrus is considered in relation to other Oestridae, Hypodermatinae and Hypodermatini and it is suggested that this genus forms a distinctive group within the Hypodermatini but has some features in common with the Oestrinae.

Small Cancellation Theory Over Groups Equipped with an Integer-Valued Length Function

Abstract: Publisher Summary In this chapter, small cancellation theory is developed over a class of groups equipped with an integer-valued length function satisfying certain “natural” axioms. Such groups can also be characterized by the fact that they are equipped with a normal form (for elements) satisfying certain other axioms. Since free groups, free products with amalgamation and HNN groups all possess a normal form of the required type. The theory discussed in the chapter includes the “classical” small cancellation theories of Lyndon, Schupp, and Sacerdote and Schupp.

Second stage larvae of nasal botflies (Oestridae) from African antelopes

Abstract: . A key is provided to second stage larvae of the nine species of Oestrinae known to infest the nasal passages of African antelopes. Second stage larvae of Kirkioestrus blanchardi Gedoelst and Oestrus macdonaldi Rodhain & Bequaert are described for the first time while expanded descriptions are given for K.minutus (R. & B.), O.aureoargentatus R. & B. and O.variolosus (hew): the validity of these descriptions is supported by the coincidence of second instar cuticles and identifiable third instar cuticles in mature, pharate, second stage larvae. The antelope-infesting species of Gedoelstia R. & B. and Rhinoestrus Brauer are also included. The use of posterior spiracles for the recognition of these larvae is discussed together with a consideration of their possible biological significance. Hosts and distributions are given for these nasal bots and their differing host specificities are discussed.

Paramount chiefs and central governments in Sierra Leone

Abstract: (1980). Paramount chiefs and central governments in Sierra Leone. African Studies: Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 183-195.

Multidimensional scaling of cognized distances among selected African states: Illustration of a methodological alternative to univariate scaling techniques

Abstract: Cognitive mapping involves psychological assimilation or internalization of the relative location of given phenomena. In this investigation multidimensional scaling was utilized to recover cognitive maps of selected African countries, from African students, at Kent State University, Ohio, USA. MDS yielded results which suggest that the subjects seemed to differentiate these African countries on the basis of three criteria; first, reactionary status, secondly colonial grouping. The third dimension for state categorization however remains obscure, thus posing a challenge for future investigation.