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Showing papers by "University of Zimbabwe published in 1984"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The regular or obligate aphytophagy of certain lycaenid butterflies (Lepidoptera) is discussed within the framework of the most recent general classification of the family, with emphasis falling on the ecology of myrmecophilous early stages and the significance of their ant-related adaptations.

152 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, Schillebeeckx defined the critical self-consciousness of Christian praxis in the world and the church as a response of men of faith both to the word of God and to their own world.
Abstract: Edward Schillebeeckx in The Understanding of Faith (1974, 154) defined or described theology as ‘the critical self-consciousness of Christian praxis in the world and the church’. Others may prefer another definition, but it can be agreed that Christian theology is not revelation and it is not church doctrine; both of these while inevitably formulated within time yet lay claim to, and acquire, a certain degree of timelessness which is neither possible nor desirable for ‘theology’. Theology rather requires a continuous contemporaneity. It is a ‘critical self consciousness’ — an extended intelligent response of men of faith both to the word of God and to their own world. At times it may appear to concentrate more upon that word, as found in the Scriptures, while interpreting and applying it aptly and acutely in the light of contemporary culture; at other times theology will appear to concentrate more upon the contemporary world, or upon some part of it decisively significant for this theologian or the group of christians of which he or she forms part, interpreting it and judging it in the light of scripture. Behind appearances theology, to be true to itself, has always to do both.

45 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It was concluded that effective pigeonpea rhizobia occur in many arable soils of Zimbabwe, however, to fully exploit biological nitrogen fixation and maximize yields of pigepea, highly efficient, adapted and competitive indigenous rhizobial isolates must be identified and evaluated.
Abstract: A study was conducted to determine the population sizes of indigenous pigeonpea (Cajanus cajan)-nodulating rhizobia and responses of the crop to rhizobial inoculation in soils under smallholder management. Rhizobia populations were determined in 21 soils from three different agro-ecological regions of Zimbabwe using the plant infection most-probable-number technique. Pigeonpea response to rhizobial inoculation was tested in five soils representative of low, medium and high rhizobia populations. Pigeonpea rhizobia ranged from undetectable to 121 cells per g soil compared with 16 to 159 cells per g soil for cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) which was used for reference. Soils with high cowpea rhizobia counts had relatively low counts of pigeonpea rhizobia and vice versa, showing that the two legumes associate with different subgroups of rhizobia. Poor soil organic matter, low soil moisture at sampling, low pH and low clay content of the soils had a significant negative effect on rhizobial counts. Organic matter appeared critical for maintenance of high populations of indigenous rhizobia in the mostly sandy soils sampled. Lack of pigeonpea response to inoculation in all the soils tested despite the low initial rhizobial populations could be the result of within-season proliferation of indigenous populations which are competitive and effective. There was evidence of rapid build-up of pigeonpea-compatible rhizobia within one growing season when the crop was first introduced. It was concluded that effective pigeonpea rhizobia occur in many arable soils of Zimbabwe. However, to fully exploit biological nitrogen fixation and maximize yields of pigeonpea, highly efficient, adapted and competitive indigenous rhizobial isolates must be identified and evaluated.

34 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
01 Dec 1984-Heredity
TL;DR: In a field study of the B locus polymorphism in Ghana, significant changes in the morph frequencies were recorded over eighteen months at Cape Coast, and the hypothesis that polymorphism arose as a result of the overlapping of previously isolated geographical races was discussed.
Abstract: The polymorphism of Danaus chrysippus is anomalous since it is a distasteful butterfly. In a field study of the B locus polymorphism in Ghana, significant changes in the morph frequencies were recorded over eighteen months at Cape Coast. There were also significant differences between localities. There was some evidence that brown morphs are favoured by wet conditions, and that orange forms have higher survival rates as caterpillars. There were no differences between forms in larval foodplants, sex ratio, body size, wing damage, mating success, or in the effects of weather on adult activity. There was however, strong assortative mating between forms. Crosses with Kenyan females gave aberrant segregations for the sex chromosomes and the C locus. The results are discussed with regard to the hypothesis that polymorphism arose as a result of the overlapping of previously isolated geographical races.

31 citations


Journal Article
TL;DR: The results strongly indicated that drug use was quite prevalent among the students, and increased with age and involved both sexes, the problem being more acute in the urban schools.
Abstract: In this survey a total of 2,783 secondary school students of both sexes, mean age 15.5 years, from randomly selected schools in both rural and urban areas of Zimbabwe were studied using a self report questionnaire. The results strongly indicated that drug use was quite prevalent among the students. The main drugs involved, in descending order, were: alcohol, tobacco, inhalants (solvents), amphetamines and cannabis. Others included mandrax, tranquilisers, sedatives and the hallucinogen mudzepete. No students reported use of heroin, cocaine, LSD or opium. Drug use increased with age and involved both sexes, the problem being more acute in the urban schools. A differential use pattern is revealed, implying valuable information for targeted prevention efforts.

24 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The cause of acute viral hepatitis in 141 patients admitted to both Infectious Diseases Hospitals in Harare (Zimbabwe) was hepatitis A in 44, hepatitis B in 86 and hepatitis Non-A Non-B in 11; the wide distribution of hepatitis A and B viruses and early exposure to both in Zimbabwe are shown.
Abstract: The cause of acute viral hepatitis in 141 patients admitted to both Infectious Diseases Hospitals in Harare (Zimbabwe) was hepatitis A in 44, hepatitis B in 86 and hepatitis Non-A Non-B in 11. The wide distribution of hepatitis A and B viruses and early exposure to both in Zimbabwe are shown by the high positivity rate for anti-HAV antibody in patients under 10 years old (87.5%) and for anti-HBs antibody in patients over 20 (60%). Among the 86 hepatitis B cases, e and delta systems were also investigated: 66 patients (76.5%) were HBeAg positive, six (7%) anti-HBe positive and 14 (16.5%) negative for both; only one was anti-delta positive. Two cases of fulminant liver failure (both occurring in HBsAg and anti-HBc IgM positive, but delta-markers negative patients) and five cases of hepatoma (only one of whom was negative for all HBV markers) are described.

17 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The findings show that medicine-taking is a highly individualistic phenomenon and several factors, for example education attitude and belief, have to be taken into account when trying to educate the public on the use of medicines.

15 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, preliminary environmental impact studies have shown that one of these schemes, at Mupata Gorge, poses a serious threat to the wilderness character and wildlife resources of the middle-Zambezi valley, while an alternative scheme, at Batoka Gorge, would entail much less environmental cost.

10 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a simple system for controlling the excitation of a brushless synchronous motor independently of the motor speed or load angle is presented, which comprises a pulsewidth modulated (PWM) inverter provided with controllable pulsenumber.
Abstract: A simple system is presented for controlling the excitation of a brushless synchronous motor independently of the motor speed or load angle. The system comprises a pulsewidth modulated (PWM) inverter provided with controllable pulsenumber. Experimental measurements of the induced rotor excitation shows that a wide range of excitation control is obtainable by simply varying the pulsenumber of the output waveform of the inverter while keeping the fundamental frequency of the inverter unaltered. An approximate formula for the rotor current is also given which confirms the dependence of the rotor current upon the pulsenumber.

9 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Morton Dj1
TL;DR: The pharmacokinetic data for 12 anticonvulsant drugs was evaluated after administration to laboratory rats and in all cases the half-life and elimination rate constants were significantly different from clinically-determinant values.

7 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Lilongwe Land Development Programme (LLDP) in Malawi was the first of its projects to which the World Bank applied the integrated rural development label as discussed by the authors, and LLDP was subsequently used as a model for a national programme within Malawi, and its approach has been widely replicated in many countries in integrated Rural Development projects aimed at smallholder farmers.

Journal Article
TL;DR: Reports of a similar condition occurring in a group of people who may be ethnically related to the Wadoma living on either side of the Botswana/Zimbabwe border, who have not, as far as is known, been scientifically assessed, are made.
Abstract: Ectrodactyly has been referred to as being present among the Wadoma people of Zimbabwe for many years and has given rise in popular imagination to the legend of 'the two-toed people'. An investigation into this situation is reported in which three members of one Wadoma family are described. Reference is made to reports of a similar condition occurring in a group of people who may be ethnically related to the Wadoma living on either side of the Botswana/Zimbabwe border, who have not, as far as is known, been scientifically assessed.



Journal Article
TL;DR: The problems found in the andrology clinic were a lack of support of the clinic by urologists who are scarce in Zimbabe and the inavailability of various medications needed for male infertility.
Abstract: A study has been carried out in 531 men on aetiological factors of male infertility in Zimbabwe. The most common diagnosed causes of infertility were endocrine dysfunction, primary testicular disorders, ductal obstruction and impotence. Cryptorchidism was present in 3,4% (19) of the study patients, being either unilateral or bilateral. This condition which is correctable by gonadotrophins and surgery before the age of nine is still seen in a large number of Zimbabwean men in the reproductive age group. Other factors associated with male infertility in the study included parasitic infections like bilharzia and bacterial infection. Testicular biopsy was found to be an important diagnostic investigation in cases of severe oligozoospermia and azoospermia. The prevalence of varicocele (1.1 %) was less common that has been reported in studies elsewhere, (2-39%). The problems found in the andrology clinic were a lack of support of the clinic by urologists who are scarce in Zimbabe and the inavailability of various medications needed for male infertility.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors measured the Beta diversity in fynbos and non-fynbos vegetation along parallel environmental gradients using an eigenvector and a graphical method and expressed as half-changes (HC) of floristic composition.

Journal Article
TL;DR: The crocodile, Crocodylus niloticus, Laurenti, has been mentioned in a number of cases of witchcraft accusation since 1899 (Gelfand 1967); this article aims to prove whether there is truth in this claim.
Abstract: The crocodile, Crocodylus niloticus, Laurenti, has been mentioned in a number of cases of witchcraft accusation since 1899 (Gelfand 1967). It is widely believed that the bile from the gall bladder of a crocodile is very poisonous. This article aims to prove whether there is truth in this claim.

Journal Article
TL;DR: Poverty, substitute parenting, poor access to health care facilities and late introduction of solids into the diet are the major causes of malnutrition in a hospital population.
Abstract: A case-control study was carried out to determine the causes o( malnutrition in a hospital population. In all 49 sequential admissions with malnutrition and :38 controls were questioned on family, social and environmental factors. The major causes which emerged were poverty, substitute parenting, poor access to health care facilities and late introduction of solids into the diet.i?½


Journal Article
TL;DR: A series of 284 surgical biopsies with evidence of schistosomiasis have been collected over a 12 month period and many cases presented mimicking cancer and indeed 10.5% of cases were found to have carcinoma concomitant with schistsomiasis.
Abstract: A series of 284 surgical biopsies with evidence of schistosomiasis have been collected over a 12 month period Tissues are categorized according to the tissue of origin and the clinical presentation is recorded Many cases presented mimicking cancer and indeed 105% of cases were found to have carcinoma concomitant with schistosomiasis The possible associations of schistosomiasis and cancer are discussed

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the organisation and management of smallholder irrigation in Zimbabwe and the parastatal organisations involved in the development of small-scale irrigation systems, as well as the national goals for small-holder irrigation development.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a new form of unlaminated rotor induction motor which has the characteristics of solid rotor motor at starting but with very much improved running performance is reported. But the rotor is left plain while the inner surface is fitted with cage winding.
Abstract: This paper reports on a new form of unlaminated rotor induction motor which has the characteristics of solid rotor motor at starting but with very much improved running performance. The motor has a hollow and unlaminated rotor. The outer surface of the rotor is left plain while the inner surface is fitted with cage winding. The motor employs two conventional polyphase stators. High starting torque to inertia ratio, high torque per unit volume and the ability to operate at three different speeds are some of the salient features of the motor. The motor performance is demonstrated experimentally.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is concluded that the determination of the maximal exhalation rate and of cumulativeExhalation within one hour provides useful measures ofl4C-methacetin demethylation capacity for conditions of extensive liver damage.
Abstract: The pharmacokinetics of the blood level and the patterns ofl4CO2 exhalation were determined simultaneously following i.v. administration of14C-methacetin to the conscious rat. The pattern of exhalation ofl4CO2 did not parallel the biexponential decline of radioactivity in the blood and a delay of 30–40 min preceeded the maximal rate ofl4CO2 exhalation. The total radioactivity exhaled remained constant at 56±4.5% (SD) of the applied dose throughout a tenfold dose range of methacetin (0.6, 4.0 and 6.0 mg/kg i.p.), administered to groups of three rats each and measured over a period of 4 hours. The pattern of radiolabel exhalation was biexponential with the low dose, linear with the medium dose and convex with the high dose. Although the total fraction of the label expired after 4 hours remained constant, the rates of exhalation at the higher dosages exhibited saturation type kinetics. At the higher dosage, since the pattern of14CO2 exhalation did not accurately reflect the decline of methacetin seen in blood, one of the steps occuring between the demethylation process and the production of expired CO2 appears to be rate limiting.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the operation of two modes in a multistable laser is examined and one of the modes is treated as a perturbation and the stability of the oscillating mode is analysed.

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 1984
TL;DR: In this article, phase space portraits, Poincare sections, and maps have been obtained from experiments on the Belousov-Zhabotinskii chemical reaction and the dynamical behavior is described by a strange attractor, that is, the largest Lyapunov exponent is positive.
Abstract: Phase space portraits, Poincare sections, and maps have been obtained from experiments on the Belousov-Zhabotinskii chemical reaction. For some parameter values the dynamical behavior is described by a strange attractor, that is, the largest Lyapunov exponent is positive. A period-doubling sequence, the U sequence, and a tangent bifurcation have been observed as the flow rate is varied.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a cheap and simple multiple tube incubation system is described for thein situ measurement of phytoplankton production by the 14C method, which takes place in Pyrex glass tubes sealed with rubber suba-seal caps.
Abstract: A cheap and simple multiple tube incubation system is described for thein situ measurement of phytoplankton production by the14C method. Incubation takes place in Pyrex glass tubes sealed with rubber suba-seal caps which are suitable for field, laboratory and incubator work. Comparison of production in the tubes with that in standard pyrex bottles showed no significant difference during both field and laboratory incubations. Thein situ suspension system is transported in units and can be assembled into ‘ladders’ in the field.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The Ballantyne trilogy of Wilbur Smith's novels as discussed by the authors provides ample evidence that he saw Rhodesia as most Rhodesians once saw it, and was forced to re-see it in the same way that many Rhodesians have been forced to do.
Abstract: Wilbur Smith's Ballantyne trilogy begins in romance, moves into satire and concludes with a reflexive narrative. This essay explores the basis for Smith's stylistic decisions in Rhodesian history. Events in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe during the period of the composition of these novels cloud the clarity of the author's few moral certainties: his narrative can register the whole bloody business of the Zimbabwean war only with scepticism, and the narrative mode of scepticism is satire. Smith was once a Rhodesian, and the trilogy provides ample evidence that he saw Rhodesia as most Rhodesians once saw it, and was forced to re‐see it in the same way that many Rhodesians have been forced to do.

Journal Article
01 May 1984-Zambezia
TL;DR: In this respect, it is evident that literature appears to be identified with fiction only in the negative sense, namely, that we never accept it as 'true' as discussed by the authors, and it is precisely for this reason that a story with its characteristic rhetorical devices, metaphor, was translated into English.
Abstract: AT THE END of the last century, missionary efforts to translate the Bible and other religious tracts demonstrated the problems of cross-cultural communication in Zimbabwe.1 The fact that many of the early versions needed soon to be revised was a recognition and an acknowledgeme nt of the nature and scope of the problems of translation which had been experienced earlier on. These various translations provide the basis for a fruitful study of literature. With the spread of Christian education in Southern Rhodesia, that is, about forty to fifty years later, there was a shift in emphasis as Africans took to the writing of imaginative works which they themselves translated into English. This dramatic change, even though it was gradual, was of intellectual significance to nascent Shona literature because what initially started, paradoxically, as a source-language (English) became a receptor-langu age: a work in Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, was translated into English. These two processes, particularly the latter, show the problems of expressing a cultural and national identity in another language. The aesthetics of translation is not divorced from its utility or morality. That is to say that pure aesthetic experience does not consist of a disinterested contemplation of an object without reference to its essence in reality as well as its 'external' ends. In literature, language is used in a way that is aesthetically appealing; but it also invokes our personal attention to its use — especially as a medium for the making of folk-tales, at the oral level, and for making fiction, at the literature level. However, while accepting this view, our attention is drawn to the fact that there is literature which is not fiction, such as biography, and that there is fiction (imaginative work) which is not necessarily literature (take, for instance, the narrative form in advertising) in the sense intended in this article. In this article the concept of fiction will be stretched to cover oral traditional songs, didactic poetry and folk-tales based on family legends and tribal myths, all of which are in turn an important ingredient of modern imaginative works. In this respect, it is evident that literature appears to be identified with fiction only in the negative sense, namely, that we never accept it as 'true'. It is precisely for this reason that a story with its characteristic rhetorical devices — metaphor, 1 G.P. Kahari, 'Missionary influences in Shona literature', in M.F.C. Bourdillon (ed.), Christianity South of the Zambezi, VoL 2 (Gwelo, Mam bo Press, 1977), 87-101.