Inaugural Lectures 2021

My view on enhancing the adaptive capacity and resilience of the most vulnerable in society to climate change. 

Climate change has its greatest impact on the poor people who, in most cases, lack any form of productive capital. The poor, however, are not passive actors, but are actively involved in searching for alternatives to build their adaptive capacity and resilience. Social cash transfers (SCT) have been recognised as a critical package for reducing climate risks. If properly implemented, they can transform poor people’s lives. It is, however, important to note that they are not the silver bullet needed to solve all the climate change challenges faced by the poor. They are a pre-condition for further adaptation to be equitable and effective. When compared with other adaptation options, cash transfers fare well. With the right political-will, transparent community engagements systems which are inclusive in nature, SCT can immeasurably contribute to the adaptation agenda.

The relationship between the packing chromatic numbers of the infinite grid and torus.

The matter of ownership and access to land has dominated Zimbabwean politics and history for many decades. However, lost in scholarly debates as well as in political and economic policies has been water, a vital resource of equal importance. It's significance in urban areas, especially in the capital city Harare, is of growing and urgent concern. Many cities in the developing world confront the same situation as does Harare, where the urban poor lack access to clean, adequate, and affordable potable water as well as any proper sanitation infrastructure. In the case of Zimbabwe, the challenges of supplying water have been exacerbated by the potentially catastrophic effects of climate change, but there are also many other factors that require understanding.

It was the purpose of this lecture to counter what I believe to be a growing tendency in current scholarship to attribute all water scarcity problems to climate change and the absence of proper sanitation to contemporary political decisions. Instead, I contend that the recurrent and serious water crisis now evident in Harare can only be understood within the context of a complex, contentious and long history of water politics in the colonial and postcolonial periods.

Since the rise of modern mathematical logic in the wake of the foundational crisis of the early twentieth century, the field has seen rapid growth and has found application in many areas including mathematics itself, philosophy, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, linguistics and the social sciences. This and the different philosophical views on the nature of mathematics has helped stimulate the development of a wide range of non-classical logics including modal logics, intuitionistic logic, substructural logics, hybrid logics and many-valued logics, to name but a few.

This lecture provided a glimpse into the world of these logics and highlight the systematic connections that can be traced between them when viewed through the lenses of duality and correspondence theory.

Male and female condoms are the only available multi-purpose technology (MPT) that can prevent unintended pregnancy and  sexually transmitted infections including HIV. If used correctly and consistently, condoms can provide levels of pregnancy protection similar to many hormonal methods. Condoms remain one of the most common methods used at first sexual intercourse and are relied on as a current use of contraception and STI/HIV prevention by adolescents in many regions of the world. 

In particular male condoms are generally easy to access at low cost. Female condoms are more expensive than male condoms and less accessible,  however, they have the advantage of being a female-initiated  method.  Condom users may experience some common challenges, however recent advances in condom technology have led to new designs and modifications of existing products to improve quality and make them more attractive, acceptable and pleasurable for consumers and increase use.  Condoms are classified as Class II medical devices and new products are required to undergo rigorous testing including the conduct of clinical trials to assess functional performance.

This lecture presented the latest innovations in condom technology including the research conducted in this area in South Africa.

Reliable and affordable data communication is a key to intelligent transportation systems (ITS). A hybrid power line communication (PLC) and outdoor visible light communication (VLC) system is proposed and the challenges in in-vehicle PLC and outdoor VLC are illustrated. Our recent studies were focused on new techniques and strategies to integrate heterogeneous PLC with VLC so as to improve the reliability and scalability of these data communication techniques in an ITS practice i.e. (a) based on the existing PLC and VLC standards provide a more reliable coding and modulation scheme in the physical layer of a hybrid system; (b) evolve the outdoor visible light communication techniques, which are still in their early stages of development in practice, especially on channel modelling; (c) adapt the existing techniques and propose new techniques up-to-date according to the requirements of data transmission in ITS.

The 120 000 – 50 000 year old archaeological deposits at Klasies River main site connect us to early human innovative cultural strategies and the capability to survive and adapt over many millennia of climate change, from ice ages to rising sea levels.

Africa is characterised by, inter alia, oppressive political systems, a culture of impunity of those who govern, and the use of State sovereignty mantra in the face of gross and systematic rights violations. Yet, African States have, through the establishment of the African Human Rights Court, created an avenue for judicial scrutiny of their laws and executive action that affect human rights. While the Court holds great promise in relation to fighting impunity and provision of effective remedies for rights violations, ensuring respect for human rights, and fostering Africa’s quest for good governance, development and regional integration, it operates amidst State resistance and other complexities, threatening its effectiveness and existence. Against this background, has the Court shown restrictiveness or progressivity in its enforcement of rights?

Materials Science is an exciting interdisciplinary research field spanning various areas of science, engineering and extending to the health sciences. There are abundant techniques currently being utilized to investigate the properties and structure of materials however this presentation will focus on Mössbauer spectroscopy which provides precise information about the chemical, structural, magnetic, and time-dependent properties of a material. This lecture highlighted research works and applications of semiconductors, spintronic systems, waste material, batteries, nanomaterials and cemented carbides from both the WITS Mössbauer Laboratory and ISOLDE/CERN, Switzerland. In addition, an overview of early Martian environmental conditions determined by Mössbauer spectroscopy studies will be presented.  

Violence, in its many forms, remains a defining and seemingly intractable feature of modern life globally. This lecture outlines emergence, risk and enactment as three scholarly focal points for understanding violence in South Africa and beyond. It addresses how and why violence was first identified for study and intervention by the social and health sciences, describes the promises and limits of the current focus on risk, and reviews recent approaches to studying violence in situ, that is, as it unfolds rather than how it is reported for counting or meaning making.

The lecture concluded by providing several suggestions for strategically fusing these focal points to produce the enhanced picture of violence required to take violence scholarship and intervention programming forward.